#yes my friend named himself after the yyh character

[serenova]

okay so i'm on a yuyu hakusho kick after kinda going dormant in the fandom for a while (i tend to cycle through fandoms tbh)

have a friend who literally changed their name to Hiei... It's on his legal ID kinda changed his name

this makes reading fanfic..... interesting to say the least XD

[itsclydebitches]

So I'm curious what are some character designs you love? Not from RWBY, but just i general. I'm the same anon who got you to check out Berserk and I'd say essentially all of the designs are done damn well. Fit the character. Changes that makes sense for growth. Also make sense given the setting. Even women in armor that doesn't have those massive boob plates. Good designs impact so much subconsciously to have much we enjoy other aspects of a story.

Congratulations! You’ve unlocked my never-ending need to praise Yu Yu Hakusho! :D 

This long, picture-laden post needs two disclaimers going forward: 

I’m not an artist. In the sense that I’m not a visual artist who knows anything about what makes character design good from a technical/community approved standpoint. This is purely based on my own, personal reaction to a beloved series. 

Connected to that, I’m going into this under the assumption that people might really disagree with me (?). Based on the cartoons and anime that I see praised for character design, I don’t think YYH fits whatever list more knowledgeable viewers are pulling from. But I’m gonna lay out my thinking anyway! 

Major spoilers for Yu Yu Hakusho below. 

Alright let’s do this. 

First off, when people start talking character design they often reference how cool a character is. Which makes sense. You want a character to be visually engaging and distinct. Something that makes you go “Wow!” whenever you look at them. However, one of the things I love about the YYH cast is how normal they are. Because they’re supposed to be normal. The trope of the main character having a crazy hair color has become so prominent that we’ve got memes about it now and that works for a lot of stories. You know who is important because, despite the assumption that they’re average people not dying their hair, they stick out like a sore thumb among the rest of the cast. 

However, normalcy is a really important part of YYH. The entire point at the start is that Yusuke is not special. He’s not unique. He’s a delinquent kid who most assume isn’t going anywhere in life. When he dies this doesn’t unlock some Super Special Backstory - you were innately amazing all along! - he just gets caught up in the plot because of a paperwork issue. The afterlife doesn’t know what to do with an asshole kid who unexpectedly saved another kid’s life so they just kind of... shuffle him around until he’s given another chance to live. Then he gets to pay back that second chance by becoming a Spirit Detective. Yeah, Yusuke is talented when it comes to fighting and spirit energy, but at the start that’s rarely emphasized outside of “He’s the best street fighter among no-name street fighters so really, it’s not impressive once you take Yusuke out of his tiny world of school parking lots and the occasional alleyway.” The takeaway is that he’s a dime-a-dozen troubled teen who got involved in the spirit world due to an impulsive act and a bunch of bureaucracy. Indeed, it’s a HUGE moment of emotional growth for Yusuke to realize that people do love him despite his supposedly average, unremarkable, and otherwise negative personality. His normal-ness - and others’ expectation that he could someday make himself great if he learns to work at it - is crucial to where Yusuke starts out. Making him visually distinct in terms of Anime Protagonist Looks would undermine a lot of that. This isn’t supposed to be a Super Special Kid Destined For Greatness. He’s just... a kid. A normal kid. A kid who has to work and learn and grow if he wants to make something of himself. So he gets black hair, brown yes, and a green school uniform. He’s pretty damn average looking. 

Same with Kuwabara. Same with Keiko. Same with Atsuko. They’re just normal people going about their lives and I always appreciated that they looked the part. You can still easily tell them apart thanks to different hair colors, texture, jaw lines, and outfits, but none of them seem out of place in the average world they start out in. Which, as said, is crucial to a lot of YYH’s themes. The ones who look more visually distinct - Hiei and Botan - aren’t human. It makes sense that they wouldn’t obey these same average laws of the rest of the cast and they are our first taste of a world that, in terms of character design, will eventually get pretty wonderfully weird. They function as stepping stones. 

This eventually becomes a story about the demon world and those demons wouldn’t come across as particularly scary/other if you begin the story with equally strange looking humans. Or even just “I don’t see people who look like that walking down the street” humans. Alongside many themes, there’s a contrast at work here. Yusuke stepping out into a stadium full of demons who despise him because of his species hits home when he is so clearly distinct from them. Suddenly, his normal is abnormal. 

Once the ball gets rolling, Yusuke’s looks are constantly in contrast with both his environment and his inner self. He looks like a scary thug but then unexpectedly saves a life. He looks like an average human but is actually the strongest among a group of scary-looking demons. He looks like this badass spirit detective who everyone assumes with have an equally badass spirit beast but, uh... 

Oh my god that’s a precious baby. By the time our cast is family and everyone accepts that Yusuke looks scarier than he actually is or ever was - once the core group is made up of not just humans but demon loving humans who are equally soft - we turn it all on its head again and reveal that Yusuke has demon blood. For the first time he looks as strange and powerful as he is. Yusuke’s normality is done away with the second he’s fully accepted his place in these worlds, throwing everything back into chaos. 

Yusuke’s demon form becomes even more foreign looking  when he’s being controlled by his ancestral father. The above is a Yusuke who is still Yusuke and in many respects the design reflects that: natural hair color, human body, tattoos easily covered up with a shirt. When he’s gone full Mazoku though, something dangerous, the white, wilder hair and change to his expressions ensure we read him as something feral. For the first time in the series Yusuke is truly the dangerous creature he’s pretended to be since his principal was running after him at school. 

As a side-note about character costumes, we see this emphasis on normality in their outfits as well. Obviously a story like RWBY is limited by how much time/money they have for animation, but it nevertheless has an impact to see the group almost constantly in their battle gear. They’re never not the main characters of an action-fantasy show, not even while just out around town with no expectation of entering a fight.  

In contrast, Yusuke and Kuwabara are often animated in everyday clothing that remind us that they’re really just teens trying to live their lives outside of this crazy nonsense. Kuwabara wasn’t even formally hired for all this! The cast wears sweaters and jackets while out and about. More formal clothes for special occasions. Jeans and t-shirts when they’re unexpectedly caught up in a fight because, you know, they’re not ready for battle every second of every day. They’re drawn like normal folks because, outside of the ring, they are. 

(We’ve also got a lot of parallels between Yusuke and Kuwabara’s civilian clothing, visually reminding us that they’re far more alike than they might be willing to admit.)

Despite often changing outfits, the group maintains a basic color pallet that makes them recognizable, yet it’s also not so limited that they appear strange for sticking to one (1) color for the entire time we know them. Yusuke, like most people, is drawn to particular colors, mostly greens, yellows, and blues, so each time we see him he’s familiar while also being distinct from the last time he changed. 

Hiei, as someone who initially wants nothing to do with anyone else and relies on assassin-like speed to take out his enemies, is dressed almost entirely in black. Without that bit of white in his scarf/hair you’d lose him in the shadows... which is the point. 

When he opens up and actually becomes friends with the team, his color pallet starts opening up a great deal too.  

And we’re shown all the little changes he starts incorporating that speak to his growth: his Jagan eye, a bandaged arm hiding his Dragon of the Darkness Flame, the necklace connecting him to Yukina. 

I’ve blathered on about the outfits enough but as a quick final note: EVERYONE WEARS APPROPRIATE FIGHTING CLOTHES. 

No one (even the women to my recollection) wear heels. Everything is loose-fitted and looks easy to move in. They’ve got sensible belts, bandages if they need them, and... that’s it. No unnecessary bells and whistles that distract from what’s supposed to be the story’s real draw: good fights and good characterization. Even the more elaborately styled characters (usually) look like they chose their outfits practically first and for the aesthetic after. At no point do I recall watching this show and going, “WHY would you wear that to a fight??” 

Anyway, back to the designs. 

The exceptions to either side of these extremes - from human normal to demon monstrous - are Genkai and Kurama, both of whom straddle the line. Genkai is someone who has pushed her spirit and body far past the norm. She’s the first human we meet who truly goes beyond that normality, even if you don’t immediately realize it. Her pink hair (such a soft color in her old age it’s not at all distracting) is a slight hint that something isn’t quite right with her. She’s obviously human... but not a normal human. Not anymore. 

Those unnatural looks are emphasized in her youth when she was at the height of her power. 

Genkai as a young woman has vibrantly pink hair (a bright pastel like Botan’s), a softer face, and far more emotive eyes. She looks ethereal, which fits not just her own journey to power but Togoru’s as well. Her story is intimately tied up in what that power does to the human body/soul. So Toguro starts out like this 

a pretty normal looking guy who is on the far end of what the human body is naturally capable of. He’s buff as hell, but not so much that it looks unreasonable. I’ve seen body builders bigger than him. He’s the average (dehydrated...) MCU superhero. However, he ends up like this

In Togoru’s case his abnormality is explicitly presented as grotesque. Rather than giving him a cool looking characteristic that’s clearly supernatural (blue hair, an extra eye, curly horns, etc.), we’ve taken a human characteristic (muscles) and expanded them to an unnatural degree. He’s got some uncanny valley shit going on. 

Paralleling Genkai, we likewise see Kurama subtly standing out among his human allies. 

He’s a demon in a human’s body. By in-world logic his appearance should be just as normal as anyone else’s, but a bit of his true nature shines through. His hair is long in a style not popular in YYH’s Japan. His red is far less of a natural shade than Kuwabara’s. He carries himself with the air of someone who is ancient, because he is. His human design deliberately reflects his true demon form so when that’s finally revealed we still recognize him as Kurama. 

(Same sort of work with Hiei’s demon form.) 

When we look at the cast together we have an immediate, visual impression as to who is normal and who is not - and those assumptions are embedded into the story. Yusuke is someone you’d overlook in the crowd, but he’s the most powerful. Kurama is clearly other in some way, but he’s desperate to live an average, human life. Kuwabara is designed to look and move like the fool and a lot of his development (his and others’ in relation to him, really. Like Hiei) is built around respecting him despite those looks. Hiei is tiny but will kick your ass. Genkai is tinier and will kick your ass worse. 

Her size combined with her age - combined with her status as Yusuke’s teacher - is a continuous reminder not to judge power by looks alone. Don’t underestimate your opponent and get overconfident (a major flaw of Yusuke’s). Know that you still have a LOT to learn about the world. That woman you assume is just a rude grandma? She’s going to break your expectations over and over and over again. 

Speaking of size, that’s a major aspect of Koenma’s design as well. When Yusuke learns he’s meeting the head of the underworld he starts picturing a massive, demonic beast who (sensing a theme here) looks the part of a supernatural ruler. Seeing Koenma for the first time - an adorable toddler-like being - is an absolute shock. 

It’s a gag for the audience, but it’s not just a gag. Due to his looks Yusuke is unable to take Koenma seriously, despite knowing the power he holds. 

Which, even more-so than arrogance, is Yusuke’s greatest flaw throughout the series. He doesn’t take school seriously. His death seriously. Ruler of the underworld seriously. His teacher seriously, etc. Yusuke constantly acts like he doesn’t care, throwing basic respect and effort in the face of whatever authority figure is desperately trying to keep him from self-destructing. He’s on the receiving end of multiple speeches throughout the series (mostly from Genkai) that boil down to, “Care about something, dammit. Take this seriously!” and when he does it’s GREAT. It’s a moment of growth we’ve really built to in a hundred different ways, including how he reacts to others’ looks. Koenma’s design feeds directly into the primary flaw Yusuke is working to overcome. How will he go from a delinquent laughing in the face of the most powerful being to someone multiple worlds can put their trust in? Design assists with that. 

When Yusuke does respect Koenma (even if he still insults/teases him because that’s just an ingrained part of Yusuke’s personality) Koenma’s appearance can change. It’s no longer serving its original function, so he evolves into a very good looking young man (with references to Tuxedo Mask to emphasize those good looks) that just... happens to still carry a pacifier. 

A pacifier that is revealed as an incredibly powerful weapon that will help save the world. Again: don’t judge anyone or anything solely on their looks. They’re never precisely what you’d assume they are based on your first glance - with the exception of minor villains whose looks serve only to convey their villainy: 

For everyone else, looks are complex. Two of the most different looking characters (color-wise anyway) are actually siblings, their contrasts reflecting both differing cultures and the emotional distance between them. 

The scariest looking monsters are just paper-pushers. It’s the handsome humans you should watch out for.  

And this is our hero, a man charged with protecting three worlds. 

I could say SO MUCH MORE but this is already disgustingly long so basically YYH (I think) does a great job of: 

Crafting characters that are distinct but not different for the sake of different. They always feel like they belong to their individual worlds and adhere to whatever “normal” is by those standards. 

Tying character looks really closely to the show’s themes and individual growth. Which, frankly, is something I think all good character design should do. 

It’s not nearly as flashy as other anime... but YYH knows what it wants to accomplish and went about it beautifully. Catch me still weeping over this show fifty years from now. 

Peace ✌️

[brella]

i feel like we always ask you about books so today i wanna ask you some anime recs :)

HOW INTERESTING THAT YOU SHOULD COME TO ME NOW, JUST AFTER I FINISHED ATTEMPTING TO BRIBE A TWITTER MUTUAL WITH A PHYSICAL CAKE SO THAT SHE WOULD WATCH AN ANIME I LOVE. i am always happy to share anime recs. 

ping pong: the animation (dir. masaaki yuasa): effusive yutaka “peco” hoshino and reserved makoto “smile” tsukimoto have been best friends since day one, and both of them love to play ping pong. peco, a child prodigy at the sport, loves it with all of his soul, and is so confident in his own talent that he’s become arrogant; while smile, in spite of his natural talent, does not take ping pong seriously, seeing it as nothing more than a way to pass the time. things are shaken up for the boys by the arrival of wenge “china” kong, a chinese player sent to redeem himself in japan after being kicked off the national team, who skunks peco in their first match, sending him spiraling into crisis; meanwhile, smile catches the interest of the school’s coach, a former star player, who is determined to make sure smile does not waste his talent. also joining the cast are manabu “akuma” sakuma, peco’s belligerent rival since childhood, and ryuichi “dragon” kazama, vanguard of the elite ping pong team at kaio academy. when all is said and done, will smile and peco’s friendship—and the love of ping pong that bonds them—remain? i urge everyone to watch this anime; it is perhaps the best i’ve ever seen. a work of art, of joy, of sadness and failure and triumph—a tribute to being alive, and to what it means to love something so much you feel like there’s no point in being alive if you can’t do it. and the animation, voice acting, and score are outstanding! 11 episodes.

the tatami galaxy (dir. masaaki yuasa): an unnamed college student is perpetually dissatisfied with his life, bemoaning the fact that he can never seem to grasp that “rose-colored campus life” he was certain he would have upon attending college in kyoto. just about the only thing he has in his corner is his mischievous frenemy, ozu, who drags him into scheme after scheme that only seem to make his situation worse; and a fellow student, akashi, who the protagonist has feelings for, but can never quite seem to spit it out. after a bad break-up sends him over the edge into total cynicism, he starts to wonder if his college years would have been spent differently (i.e., better) if he had chosen to join a different club on his first day. unbeknownst to him, the desire to go back and do it over again does send him back in time—each episode is an alternate timeline based on which club he joined. no matter how things change, though, he always seems to keep running into ozu, to just miss akashi, and to get involved with a man calling himself higuchi, who claims to be a god of matrimony; a bone-headed popular senior named jougasaki; and a beautiful but intense dental hygienist named hanuki. in the protagonist’s quest for the perfect college life, however, will he miss what’s right in front of him? i really love yuasa as you can probably tell and this, just like ping pong, is beautifully animated, great fun, and unexpectedly moving. a testament to the little things, to seeing the beauty and wonder in what we have. and the opening and ending are GOD TIER. 11 episodes.

gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun (dir. mitsue yamazaki): if you somehow haven’t watched this yet, please love yourself and do it. a romantic comedy series that follows 16-year-old chiyo sakura’s attempts to woo her crush, umetarou nozaki, gsnk, contrary to the shoujo form, actually begins with her confessing to him—but he misunderstands and gives her... his autograph?! yes, it turns out nozaki moonlights as a hugely successful shoujo romance mangaka, and he’s been needing an assistant, and sakura is in the art club... convenient! this show has it all—uproarious humor, masterful comedic timing, incredibly charming characters, and just the right dose of heartfelt romance to warm any heart. other cast members include mikoto mikoshiba, nozaki’s best friend, whose flirtatious antics constantly cause him to nearly die of embarrassment; yuzuki seo, chiyo’s best friend, a brash and oblivious jock with a beautiful singing voice; hirotaka wakamatsu, a mild-mannered basketball player constantly aggrieved by seo’s bullying; yuu kashima, star of the drama club and dashing prince of the school; and masayuki hori, drama club president and kashima’s ever-frustrated director. love is in the air not just for sakura, but for a few others, as well—it’s going to be an interesting year! 12 episodes.

kids on the slope (dir. shinchiro watanabe): kaoru nishimi is a shy and depressed honor student, classically trained to play the piano, who has spent his entire life moving from town to town due to the nature of his father’s job. at the beginning of the summer of 1966, he is sent to a small coastal town in kyushu to live with relatives, and is prepared for another year of loneliness until his world is turned on its axis when he meets delinquent sentaro kawabuchi. the two develop a strange and unlikely friendship, and kaoru soon discovers that sentaro, or sen, is an avid fan of jazz, then an emergent form of music in japan, and plays the drums in the basement of a record store owned by the family of his childhood friend, ritsuko mukae, with whom kaoru immediately falls in love. when ritsuko says that she would love to hear kaoru and sen play together, kaoru begins to acquaint himself with jazz, too, and finds that it holds more magic than he expected. part classic coming-of-age drama, part love letter to the jazz genre, this series was, fun fact, directed by the man behind cowboy bebop and samurai champloo—so, like, if that isn’t a testament to its quality, i don’t know what is. it will make you cry, though. just warning you. 

silver spoon (dir. tomohiko ito): desperate to escape the pressures of his home life, beleaguered honor student yuugo hachiken foresakes his chances of attending an elite tokyo high school and applies to ezonoo agricultural school in hokkaido. at first holding himself a rung above his peers, due to his perception of them as bumpkins who have never had to work hard academically due to their security as farmers, hachiken quickly learns that there’s a lot he doesn’t know, and he’ll have to work hard if he wants to keep up with his peers. though initially withdrawn, hachiken comes to make many new friends, and soon begins to take his studies seriously, earnestly trying to learn all he can about the world of agriculture and how it affects the lives of his friends. this series is easily something i’d call “the feel-good story of the decade,” but it also has many profound and emotional moments, and a hugely relatable protagonist in hachiken. it’s definitely a comedy, but at its heart, it’s one of those special series that kind of takes your hand and smiles at you and says, “yeah. i get it. i know how you feel. but it’s all right. life’s pretty fun, even if you don’t notice.”

hyouka (dir. yasehiro takemoto): to this day i’m still a bit stunned that kyoto animation managed to come out with something as good as hyouka, since it’s so different from their other works, but the truth is there. it’s simple, with a cast of only four characters and few recurring side ones; a subdued score using mostly public domain classical pieces, a quiet high school as the backdrop, a close and intimate portrait of the four kids it brings together. the PV actually does a fine job of introducing the characters—apathetic houtarou, inquisitive eru, cheerful satoshi, and caustic mayaka—so i won’t go into that too much. essentially, houtarou is urged by his sister to sign up for the classics club after no one else does, since it will be disbanded if it does not have at least one member. much to his surprise, someone else already has signed up by the time he does—a curious girl named eru with an insatiable appetite for mysteries. though houtarou lives by a philosophy of what he calls “energy conservation,” eru has a power over him (read: he has a big, beautiful crush on her) that compels him to go along with her antics, and his penetrating intellect doesn’t help much. satoshi, houtarou’s best friend, and mayaka, a childhood... acquaintance of houtarou’s, also join the club, and hyouka chronicles all of the things that happen to them over the course of their school year. when asked about the meaning behind the title (”hyouka” means “frozen dessert”), the author of the novels said, “the colour of youth is like ice cream. its many flavours are like the spectrum of a rainbow, but no matter how it tastes, what doesn’t change is its richness and flavour. another distinguishing feature of ice cream is the short time one has to eat it, and how we must take care to avoid polluting it. it’s just like how youth is full of numerous possibilities, but its fragile and limited energy is easily challenged by the outside world.” i think that probably speaks for itself in alluding to the bittersweet tone of the series. it really is one of my favorites.

and, because my fingers are getting tired: yu yu hakusho is my favorite shounen series by a mile and one of the few for which i highly recommend the dub—it’s long though, 100+ episodes, but worth every minute. i’ll be glad to go into why yyh specifically is the best in a separate post if anyone is interested bc hoo boy. uchouten kazoku season 1 is great and one of my favorites but season 2 was kind of eh to me. if you like action and tragic romance, kyoukai no kanata is my second-fave kyoani series after hyouka, though it does have some fanservicey bits and fetishy humor that kind of date it a little bit. and if you haven’t started boku no hero academia yet—PLEASE GET ON THAT; IT’S SO MUCH FUN! 

and, of course, the anime of my heart and soul: lovely complex, a romcom about a tall girl and a short boy, and their arduous, hilarious, heart-melting journey from vitriolic best buds to lovers. hits all the right notes. no other shoujo compares. it’s a series that anyone and everyone can AND WILL enjoy. 

i hope that’s enough to get you started! :’D pls let me know what you think if you watch any