#angelina watches YYH

[sarazanmai]

They look like they’re gonna drop the hottest album of 1996.

[sarazanmai]

Oh my God.

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode twenty five.

aka the one where Hiei has an emotion while Kuwabara and Yusuke battle Beef Man

so the narrator called Yukina an ice apparition, what are we afraid to admit they’re demons?

and they’re saying Toguro wrong...

younger Toguro is voiced by Dameon Clarke who was Cell in DBZ, Handsome Jack in Borderlands, and Scar in the 2003 version of FMA

as expected Jorge is voiced by Kent Williams and I appreciate that he sounds different than he does when he narrates

Kuwabara they’re not weak...it takes like eighty episodes for these fuckers to die and even then one of them technically won’t die

YEAAAA!

so elder Toguro is barely speaking or making any sound outside of that YEAAAA! but he’s voiced by an actor named Bill Townsley

I feel like elder Toguro was Togashi’s way of playing with body horror

also there’s this woman who comes into my work that looks like him

“I bet he’s really popular at parties”

I’m gonna beat you motherfuckers with another motherfucker

ELONGATED VOWELS

I mean he was in DBZ so he’s used to this

gasp! he ruined their outfits!

anyone else think the sound effect for Kuwabara’s sword is the same one used for lightsabers?

“son of a bitch”

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“don’t worry I hear headless is in this year” Yusuke is on fire this episode

I forgot Kurama was watching this with Koenma and Jorge

“I don’t belong here, voyeurism has never been my strength” OOOOOH

yes Hiei is so uncaring about others, watch as he storms a mansion to save his sister that he hasn’t even properly met before. uncaring people do that kind of thing.

Yukina hasn’t spoken in this episode yet, but from what I can gather her actress didn’t do the high pitched thing which I like

I mean that worked for her in Japanese, but typically when American actresses try to replicate that it feels phony

Yukina is voiced by Jessica Dismuke and given her name I can assume she’s related to Aaron Dismuke which also makes her related to Justin Cook (maybe she’s Aaron’s sister?)

I still wish Yukina found out on her own that Hiei’s her brother, she doesn’t even need to confront him on it I just would have liked her to know

I’m waiting for Sakyo’s dumbass to talk already, I gotta hear his voice

okay he spoke and is played by Eric Vale, you know Trunks and Sanji and Yuki from Fruits Basket 

evil twin to the rescue!

Hiei is just so short

he has Koichi syndrome, he’s drawn shorter than he probably is

“he’ll be punished severely” and I will not say how he’ll be punished

“they’re just afraid of justice” totally the words of someone with no regard for other people

this is why I said he lies to himself all the time, he always says he doesn’t look out for others but everything he’s doing here is for Yukina and not himself

“you seem familiar” uh...that’s not what she said in Japanese, pretty sure there she just asked who he is but...okay I guess?

when I first watched this episode I initially thought this means she lost her memories of her family, but then I remembered in all the flashbacks these episodes gave us of them Hiei didn’t interact with her he just observed her

so after I unpaused the video Yukina said “but I’m not sure why, who are you” so okay Funimation’s off the hook

in this brief moment I do wonder if Hiei was considering telling her, a lot of emphasis was placed on his reaction after all

“she deserves to be happy” aaaawww

Hiei’s even attempting a smile here

this scene would be a hell of a lot sweeter if Kuwabara didn’t talk like this, why couldn’t Sabat have used his Piccolo/Zoro/normal voice? even his Yamcha voice would have worked

after all this Toguro shows up in the next episode, this fucker

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode eight.

aka the one where Yusuke fights an evil pickle

I like how Hiei lies to himself all the fucking time

he says they wouldn’t have used the weapons as intended, but I dunnow it seemed like Kurama was using his properly

I liked that Keiko was told what was going on and we didn’t have to wait until the last minute or anything

“how’d you like to...do my homework?”

sorry but considering Hiei's height its hard to find him intimidating

at least they resisted any urge they could have felt to make him sound like Vegeta

okay I know Keiko is in deep thought, but how do you not see him standing right there? guess he’s to short for that

I will give them credit for saying Jagan properly

“that’s some pimple!” shush

I feel like the animators needed a while to figure out how to draw Hiei because in this episode his face kinda looks off

also did he always have fangs? I feel like he never opened his mouth wide enough to tell

“you know that cocky laugh is really starting to piss me off!” but he wasn’t laughing...going “heh” isn’t laughing

I think Hiei’s face feels off for two reasons: we don’t see him without his third eye bandaged very often so its weird seeing it this exposed, and we don’t see him smirk this much typically

I mean he’s been smirking pretty much the entire episode when usually his face is more like -.-

*insert Tool lyrics here*

I like that Hiei understands the concept of a girlfriend I guess

so I read once that Sasuke was inspired by Hiei and I just don’t see it? the whole point to Hiei in my opinion was that he puts up the front of being selfish and uncaring when fundamentally that isn’t true while Sasuke was a cunt

“this isn’t a game Dirt Face! Keiko is my friend!”

if YYH ever gets remade I think these scenes of Hiei demonstrating his speed would benefit from modern animation techniques and a good budget greatly

“see Hiei? that’s what I’m talking about! yap yap yap like your some crappy pro wrestler! and then what happens? you have to eat up all your words, its pretty dumb”

BEHOLD! Hiei is about to transform into a gremlin!

and he never does it again

they resisted the temptation to use some early 2000s vocal distortion, good on you

stab wounds are meaningless in a Togashi story

as are arm injuries

“I’m fine, only a minor hole in my stomach” tis but a flesh wound

lucky for Yusuke he outsmarted his outsmarting

I don’t know why, but now feels like a good time to remind people that Hiei’s Japanese voice actor Nobuyuki Hiyama was adult Link in Ocarina of Time

it shows in scenes that involve Hiei letting out a pained scream

so when they aired this on TV did they censor the dude with the manji on his forehead?

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode seven.

aka the one about two mama’s boys and the magic mirror

I wanna give the dub credit for not creating a new intro with mish mashed footage like the Sailor Moon intros were

it is however a little weird that when the episode title card comes up its just dead noise, nobody says the episode title

thank God Gouki’s pants stayed on after his transformation

it just hit me that with Chuck Huber, Cynthia Cranz, and Laura Bailey in this dub we basically have the Nohara family from Shin-Chan, all that’s missing is Colleen Clinkenbeard

like its gonna be hard to hear Hiei without wanting him to say “he saw my wife beat me!”

so Yusuke is calling Atsuko mother which I assume was them trying to match the mouth movements for okaasan but it sounds too proper for someone like him

Botan’s outfit here is really cute

so I like how Yusuke doesn’t have a dad and no one gives a shit

“you see children, its not so bad. you can all play with each other in my stomach”

“yeah of coarse I heard you, I’m just stupid”

why did he think a punch would work?

“okay, what if I shoot him in the eye? then he’ll be blind right? wait he’s got two eyes, damn”

so Gouki’s an idiot because nothing was stopping him from just removing the log from his mouth

I feel like Yusuke’s exhaustion here is foreshadowing to when he slept for like ten fucking episodes straight

its gonna be a little weird knowing Kurama’s actor was Shigure in Fruits Basket because I watched the fuck out of that dub (to the point where I can still recite dialogue verbatim) and just kinda want him to sing “high school girls, high school girls, all for me, high school girls!”

also when I showed Fruits Basket to a friend in middle school I remember her saying she thought Hatsuharu sounded like Hiei and...he doesn’t

...also what the fuck Justin Cook was Hatsuharu? AND I DIDN’T NOTICE!?

I had a low key crush on that character

anyway

nice to know Togashi’s writing here was just as wordy as it was in HXH

like there were five minute monologues about how Nen works, same thing happens here

I think watching Kurama tend to his sick mother is the most awkward moment of Yusuke’s life so far

he doesn’t understand what its like to have a good mom that doesn’t drink Everclear directly from the bottle

I still wanna know if Kishimoto named the Kyuubi Kurama as a YYH reference, like from what I have gathered its not some name connected to folklore about foxes

I literally stopped the video to look that up and I guess I’m right

baby Kurama was so cute

regular Kurama is cute, this whole main cast is cute

“did you know in some species a child eats its mother?” yes

dat sound effect when the nurse interrupts their conversation

at first I was nervous about Kurama having a man’s voice, but his delivery and tone is pretty much like Ogata’s so I can’t complain

the Forlorn Hope has a weird voice, reminds me of Shenron

anyway, mama lives hooray!

“such children” very fool

I haven’t spoken on the closing yet, I always liked this song but its not my favorite of the closings (that would be The Sun Will Shine Again) but I love that “sonofa guuuuuuun” is just as over the top here as in the original

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode one.

a little while back I watched YYH for the first time and loved it. but on Hulu they only had Japanese as an option. which is fine as this anime had some of my favorite voice actors like Shigeru Chiba, Mayumi Tanaka, Megumi Ogata (who I swear has never played a straight person in her entire career), and Kappei Yamaguchi. when I first mentioned that I was watching the show I said that the English dub was probably not good so I wasn’t upset about Hulu not having it and boy did people tell me otherwise. I had three different people hyping this dub up as an all time great so here we are!

I will not cover ever episode though, that would kill me. I figured what I will do is cover the episodes where we got introduced to our major players and from there just pick and choose any particular episodes I want to talk about. shall we begin?

so they redid the opening song in English. I’m not shocked, that was common years ago with dubs and at least the lyrics mean the same thing. though I don’t like this singer’s voice.

I love how protagonists get introduced. I mean Sailor Moon, your protagonist is late for school. My Hero Academia, your protagonist is standing up to bullies. One Piece, your protagonist is slicing open his face and also like seven. Yu Yu Hakusho, YOUR PROTAGONIST IS DEAD.

did anything ever happen to the man driving the car anyway? he killed a fourteen year old

Kent Williams is our narrator, he was Father in FMAB and also the narrator of that anime too

and I could tell it was him right away because I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen that anime

Yusuke is voiced by Justin Cook who is Kirishima in BNHA and fun fact he’s the cousin of Aaron Dismuke and helped him get into voice acting so thank him for that

“okay this is weird, stupid weird” just wait until you’re a half demon and the explanation for it is convoluted as balls

“today did start out different, I went to school” yes that is weird

you know of all the cute pompadour babies in anime, Yusuke is probably the one who comes closest to being a legit delinquent

Keiko!

“hey nice skirt” you’ve seen her in it before?

so Keiko is being voiced by Laura Bailey who was kid Trunks in DBZ, Shin Chan, Lust in FMA, and Tohru in Fruits Basket. she’s kinda hit or miss with me, I like how she played all the characters I mentioned, but in the case of say Maka in Soul Eater I found her annoying to listen to.

fortunately she voiced Keiko in what’s essentially her natural voice and not her Tohru voice (which she recycles often) so this is fine

“nice uniform, its lacy” in Japanese he comments on her underwear being white, either way don’t do that dude

gotta love how Togashi wrote a romance compared to his wife Naoko’s take on it. Togashi wrote a bad boy/nice girl couple where the boy proposes to her in a manner that just has her all “yeah whatever” and Naoko was all ROSES and GLITTER and BALLROOM DANCING and RULING THE FUCKING PLANET

yes Yusuke is so scary with his bitty pompadour and green pants

“he’s super tough and he kills for fun” lawl

I’m kinda annoyed with how they say Urameshi, its a pet peeve

“you shouldn’t talk, it makes you sound stupid” BURN

Atsuko was a human disaster, no wonder her son is like this

she is voiced by Meredith McCoy who was Android 18 in DBZ

you kick that can Yusuke!

oh God

so I knew Kuwabara was being voiced by Christopher Sabat, but you should have warned me he’s using his Yajirobe voice! who thought that was a good idea?

the kid Yusuke saves sounds too old

*Rose Tyler voice* this is the story of how I died

....why is Botan British?

she’s voiced by Cynthia Cranz who was Chi-Chi in DB and DBZ

why is she British? that’s so random

love this eye catcher

is everyone in the Spirit Realm British? should I expect Koenma to be British too?

“in other words your death was a complete and utter waste!”

its pretty disturbing Yusuke really thought his death would be seen as a blessing

“they probably came over here just because they’re getting extra credit!” do Japanese schools give out extra credit for attending wakes now?

well I shouldn’t be surprised Yusuke had such shitty time at school, his teacher is King Bradley

I had forgotten the child didn’t know or understand Yusuke was dead...

second star to the right and straight on till morning!

not gonna lie I expected myself to ship Yusuke and Botan, but I’m happy they never had romantic subtext all things considered

I keep forgetting this anime showed the previews before the closing, its weird

[sarazanmai]

I see no difference.

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode six.

aka the one where we meet our resident gay couple and some guy

I feel like Kent Williams should narrate every anime

so Kurama is voiced by a man and I’m not surprised

after all plenty of male anime characters that were originally voiced by women (Goku, Gohan, Shinji, Yuki from Fruits Basket) were dubbed by men

the reason it was a bad idea with Koenma is he’s supposed to sound like a kid and he doesn’t

Kurama is being dubbed by John Burgmeier who is Tien in DB and DBZ and was Shigure in Fruits Basket

Hiei is voiced by Chuck Huber who was Shou Tucker in FMA, Android 17 in DBZ, Pilaf in DB and DBZ, and Stein in Soul Eater (one of literally two voices in that dub I could tolerate, the other being Soul’s)

“yeah my uncle gave it to me in his will” whoever voiced this random student gets a gold star on this line delivery

“they act like I’ve been dead or something” ......anyway

that moment when you remember you’re only back to life in the first place because the girl you liked kissed you

also what do you wanna bet that was his first kiss?

the fact that Kuwabara loves cats gives me life

yup that teacher is definitely voiced by King Bradley

so I unironically love Yusuke’s green jacket with flannel and sweater mom jeans outfit

truly the male fashion icon of the 90s

why would anyone steal a key ring?

gasp! he skipped gym! next he’ll have an overdue library book!

look its great that Yusuke loves his mom, but she’s a disaster

baby’s first Rei Gun

which I still misread as Reigen, MP100 will do that to you

he’s lucky that didn’t kill him

“its your Spirit Gun” ....why?

“all these rich kids...all shopping” I relate to this

the adventure of Yusuke, patron saint of children throughout Japan!

this photo of Kurama just looks like he wants to go home

so how exactly did everything from Hiei’s past slip under their radar? he wasn’t that discreet

Gouki dies and never comes back, so who cares

who exactly did King Yama have sex with to make Koenma?

Gouki is voiced by Jeremy Inman who was Android 16 in DBZ

that moment when bae breaks up with you just when things were going well

hello friends, would you like some girl scout cookies?

“stop Kurama, you can’t just walk out on our plan!” I think he just did

the orb thing reminds me of the Zygarde hunting in Sun and Moon

“ha! and that’s a knockout!”

for a moment I forgot this narrator had to explain a lot to us about attacks and junk

so Koenma knew Yusuke had to do this mission yeah? and he knew he could only use the Rei Gun once a day, so he let him waste his one shot on petty revenge on a teacher

[sarazanmai]

I won’t even ask.

[sarazanmai]

Holy shit I’m finally down to the single digits!

[sarazanmai]

So far what I can gather in my YYH viewing is that everyone in this main cast is adorable.

[sarazanmai]

Okay. What is it with Yoshihiro Togashi and clowns?

[sarazanmai]

So now with YYH I am up to episode 35 and I can see why everyone loves Hiei so much. He’s three ounces of whoop ass. Also we have another YYH/HXH carryover, this time its child who fights with yo-yos.

[sarazanmai]

So paying closer attention to the YYH intro I’ve noticed Hiei is very short. Please...please don’t be another Vegeta. I know Hiei is really popular and I want to like him, I just really don’t want another Vegeta.

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Yu Yu Hakusho” English dub. Episode two.

aka the one where a baby gives Yusuke an egg

something interesting about my first viewing of the series is on Hulu its all in Japanese, but when you click the thumbnail to select your episode they use the episode titles from the dub some of which aren’t even the same as the Japanese ones. like the episode where Genkai dies is titled “Genkai Falls! Settled After 50 years” in Japanese but when I clicked the thumbnail it said “The Death of Genkai”. like gee spoilers guys!

can we discuss that the Spirit Realm in this anime looks just like the Other World from DBZ?

I always liked how chill Botan is when it comes to her job, like lady you’re guiding the dead

I relate to the guys working in the Spirit Realm

.....okay what the fuck

they hired a man to voice Koenma. on paper that sounds like no big deal I guess, but Koenma shouldn’t sound like an adult. Mayumi Tanaka still made him sound like a child, a male voice doesn’t pull this off. I guess I’m gonna be biased considering I adore Tanaka and her work (voicing my favorite male anime character ever will do that), but I don’t like this.

his actor is Sean Michael Teague who was Katsushiro in Samurai 7, an anime more people should watch with a solid dub from what I remember (Sabat voiced my favorite character)

“why would the Spirit World be run by a toddler!” why would the fate of the Demon Realm be left up to a battle tournament boyo?

Koenma sounds like Mickey Mouse’s grandpa...and he shows up very often so I’m screwed

that’s two characters I really like that got bad voices by the way, at least Yusuke sounds good and Botan’s weird accent will likely grow on me

also seeing as how Koenma doesn’t have a British accent this makes giving Botan one even weirder, she just has an accent and no one else does

you know I was kinda expecting Puu-chan to be more relevant in the long run, maybe in the manga he did more? I know Mukuro had a far more fleshed out backstory in the manga and Yusuke’s mom was more of a recurring character there while she just vanishes from the plot here so who knows?

random fact about my first viewing, I watched the first six episodes on Easter Sunday. its like a pun.

that moment when you honestly have one of the worst anime moms ever

like no she’s not abusive, but she has no business raising a son with a drinking problem like that

“the only thing sad now is that she’s got one more excuse to act that way” DRAG HER

Yusuke talking to Keiko in her dream looks so fucking shojo out of context

At-suko

again I know its a pet peeve, but they aren’t pronouncing his name as Yu-soo-kee so I expect them to get the other pronunciations right

stuff like this is why I hated the original English dub for Akira, so its not me picking on this dub or anything

“I’m feeling a chill“ maybe that’s why you sound like you have a chronic head cold

friendly reminder Kuwabara was literally just roped into the mess of things

I’ll give the dub huge points for still having Kuwabara keep his voice when Yusuke possesses him instead of making Justin’s voice come out

“Yusuke was never ugly like you” biiiiiitch

“okay now I’m pissed” I appreciate the mildly course language

“unbelievable, does Kuwabara pick a fight with everyone he meets!?” you’re not one to judge

people keep calling Kuwabara ugly, but he got with fucking Yukina so who’s laughing there?

bad touch

“there’s ways you move and speak that in a hundred years I wouldn’t forget” “woah now” that moment when your girl starts getting a little too romantic and you’re still stuck at subtext because you’re kinda dumb like that

again I really liked their relationship, especially because I expected it to remain subtext and was happy we even see them kiss (a rarity in shonen anime for reasons I never understand, its not like having your male protag kiss his female love interest once suddenly makes this a shojo or anything) its just kinda amusing how Yusuke didn’t know what the hell he was doing and it worked out anyway

I mean it is another romance that comes at you with bickering serving as sexual tension, but they still have a chemistry that’s there and the sweet moments are very sweet plus they kissed with a wave crashing over them, that’s the romance shit I live for

“nah its okay I probably deserved it”

this moment of Atsuko and Keiko embracing over Yusuke’s body coming back around is nice, and then I’m reminded the drunken slob neglected his body and it almost caught fire

why does Togashi give his protagonists in green such shitty parents?

[sarazanmai]

Last night I finished watching “Yu Yu Hakusho”. I really loved this anime. I had a feeling I would, but its still great that it met expectations while also doing things I did not expect. Despite this being such an iconic anime I really did not know much of anything about it going in and I think that was for the best. Especially because some anime get so much hype that I’m left feeling like I know too much about it and can’t go in with a properly unbiased opinion. I think the main set of characters for this one were all solid and in the case of characters like Shizuru and Botan that I didn’t expect to stick around I’m really happy they did. I think Yusuke was a great protagonist for a series like this. In many ways I do think he’s a better protagonist than Gon from HXH. I think because he was set up from the get go as an amoral character that made it easier to criticize him when he does make mistakes. However he is not without redeeming qualities as he is very loyal, funny, and overall a lot of fun to follow. I really loved Kuwabara and Kurama, I had a feeling I would. It got a little frustrating that Kuwabara seemed to keep losing his battles, but then he had his fight with Elder Toguro and that gave me a sense of relief as I was nervous Togashi was just reducing him to comic relief. Kurama I just think is very interesting and brought a unique flavor to the main four. Hiei is a character I do like, but I think I like him for reasons that differ from everyone else. Truth is brooding silent types over saturate anime and bore me unless something is done to twist that trope. In Jotaro Kujo’s case it was how comically serious he could be. In Roronoa Zoro’s case it was that he actually does emote a lot as well as being very funny. With Hiei I like his connection to Yukina. I think its annoying that she did not know in the end, I would have liked it if she figured it out for herself even if she chose not to confront him on it. But I think this was something that gave him a level of depth that he desperately needed.

Now YYH certainly has things to it that either date it, did not work, or were simply better handled in HXH. Togashi absolutely handled writing a trans character better with Alluka in that series. I also think in terms of how varied the arcs were he was being more off the cuff with HXH, more daring. That being said HXH’s biggest strength, how emotionally complex it is, manages to be one of its biggest weakness. I loved HXH, but I do not feel that its likely I will rewatch it because I don’t want to experience something that emotionally taxing again. YYH never got to that place and it does give it a lot of rewatch value. Not to mention our main four in this one were never separated for as long of a period of time as the one in HXH, it really did start to feel like that was the Gon and Killua series with Leorio and Kurapika as side characters. With YYH a lot of emphasis was placed on fighting so if that isn’t your type of anime then this might not be your thing. I generally don’t care too much about fighting anime, but the fights in this series worked for me because it was about more than fists being thrown and is more about the state our characters find themselves in. But still if you don’t find tournament style fights that engaging then this could be a point against it. Especially when the Dark Tournament ran for as long as it did, it felt like it was overly long. I also think having Genkai come back after dying was kind of cheap because I think you should fully commit to a choice like that. I think she was a great take on the wise master trope, I just think when you kill a character that should not be taken back. I also get the feeling with Sensui and Itsuki he was implying a romantic relationship, but due to either the nature of either the shonen genre (Togashi did once mention a series he wrote that got rejected that contained gay characters and said he probably alienated readers by mentioning it) or things in place during the 90s he could not be explicit with it. 

Overall I am really happy with this anime. I think its a shame nothing is being done for its twenty fifth anniversary in terms of new content. Personally I think remaking it could be cool, though I’d want the same voice cast as everybody played their roles so well. I don’t know how much the anime differs from the manga, but I think it would be nice to see some kind of new material to celebrate such an iconic series turning twenty five. Regardless I’m happy I finally watched it and I’m happy this is something Togashi was able to complete. As far as what comes next for me, I’m really not sure.