Yu Yu Hakusho

The story is about a 14 year old boy named Yusuke Urameshi. He dies in a car accident after trying to save a little boy. He ends up being a Spirit Detective (someone who hunts down demons in the human world and solves cases). So we get to see him solve some cases and kick some ass. The story gets more interesting in the Dark Tournament Arc where you see some of the nicest moves the show has to offer (Dragon of the Darkness Flame anyone?). The third arc is Chapter Black Arc, which talks about some psycho trying torid of humanity, but of course he gets his ass kicked too. Unfortunately, the author fell sick sometime during the third arc so the quality of the artwork was reduced (so I had to give it an 8 :/) However it was still excellently drawn. The Three Kings Arc is the most intense and you'll have to see for yourself how awesome it is. If you have watched the anime then you should read this!

Overview: Today we look at a comic with some serious flaws, but I love it anyways. Many people remember seeing Yu Yu Hakusho on Cartoon Network both on Adult Swim and a butchered kid friendly edit for Toonami. It never gained the popularity of DBZ, but older Otaku still remember the series fondly. That is why it is interesting that so few people outside Japan have read the original manga. Of course when you open the manga and look at it, you will figure out why that is. This brings me to the first flaw in Hakusho. The first minor blemish on this otherwise good titleis that the art in this manga is quite bad and I mean BAD! The anime looks so much more polished that it is almost difficult to read the manga after seeing the anime. art: 4/10 Another thing that might put off readers is that Hakusho starts surprisingly slow for a shonen comic. Usually the anime is the adaptation with all the painful filler, but in Hakusho it is the manga if anything that has more padding. As a ghost, Yusuke already saves Kuwabara's cat in both versions. Did we really need that chapter with the little kid and ghost dog? It WAS heart warming, but an unusual choice for starting out an action series. However, I don't really mind this slow start because of the next Hakusho flaw that I will discuss. As the manga goes on it relies more and more on fighting tournaments and becomes a complete dragonball ripoff. It ran in the early 90s at the same time as Dragonball and clearly wanted to copy Toriyama to boost its sales. I find myself wishing towards the end to go back to stuff like the ghost dog chapter in volume 1! At least it wasn't shamelessly stealing from DBZ back when it first started! Finally, after the 3 Kings arc it ends really awkwardly with an unfinished arc in which the Spirit World are the bad guys. This was a cool concept, but it really wasn't drawn out and lasted literally about 5 chapters before just stopping. It really looked like Togashi planned on a grand, final arc that was never made either due to low sales or Togashi himself just got tired of drawing Hakusho. Despite having the aforementioned flaws, it still has badass characters like Hiei and Kurama, as well as some of the best comic book fights of the 90s decade. Hakusho does an excellent job creating its own world and mythos. Besides having memorable and often complex characters, Hakusho was more ambitious than its early 90s shonen peers in trying to show moral ambiguity and complexity. If Dragonball was Harry Potter, Hakusho would be more like Golden Compass in that regard. Story and characters: 9/10 Overall: 8/10 Hakusho is easily one of the better shonen action comics of the 1990s and is well worth your time. If you are a younger fan and love the new Hunter X Hunter, this is the same author. Hakusho was Togashi's breakout work and many would say his magnum opus. If you are an older fan who simply missed Hakusho, I would go back and give it a try. There are plenty of sites where it is free to read, so it won't cost you anything. I would recommend this series to everyone that loves action, great fights, and conflict that isn't just black and white/ good vs. evil.

Yu-Yu Hakusho. The once great, but forgoten series. STORY: 7/10 The story isn't anything ground breaking. The main character, Yusuke, dies, comes back to life, and becomes a spirit detective with special powers. With these special powers Yusuke fights demons, monsters, and other guys with special powers. I only have beef with one of the special powers used, and thats Yusuke's. He shoots a ball of blue energy out of his finger which looks exactly like a mini kamehameha from DBZ. It kind of pissed me off, but most of the other powers are pretty cool. So the story was broken down into three arcs. The first arcis defenitly the best. It's a tournament, and all the characters fight the bad guys one on one each showing off their own unique powers. The third arc had so much potential, and looked like it was going to be the best, but then the mangaka was forced to end the manga right when it was getting freaking awesome so there were around 5 chapters of absolute CRAP to end the series. Yu-Yu Hakusho has got to have one of the worst endings in manga history. That brings the 'story' score down a lot. ART: 6/10 Theres not much to say about the art. It started off pretty good. It didn't make your jaw drop, but it was decent. It got the job done. Then, near the end, it just got worse and worse. The last few chapters of CRAP had maybe the worst art i've ever seen in a manga. I would have given a 7 or 8 if it wasn't for the ending of the series...seriously its really, really bad. CHARACTER: 4/10 Not really unique. You had the tough guy main character who never gave up, the goofy friend, the super strong sensei, the emo guy, the girl who loves the main character, etc. If you're a shounen nut who loves everything shounen, then these characters will be your best friends. ENJOYMENT: 8/10 I didn't enjoy the characters when they were just standing around talking to each other. But most of the time they were fighting demons, and shooting energy balls at stuff. Watching the characters fight was very enjoyable. I just straight up had fun reading through the fight scenes. It's too bad the ending is like watching your cat die. OVERALL: 6/10 It would be wrong to say this manga did a lot of things right, but it also didn't do a lot of things wrong (except for the ending. That was very, very wrong). I'm sort of torn on this. The one good thing it did was the fighting. The two bad things it did were the characters and the ending. The art started good, but then went bad. This manga screams AVERAGE. So it gets a 6. I know you're thinking "wait! That's one better then average!". Good observation you genious review reader. That's because all the manga that i read who have anime counterparts that I watched when i was a kid get 1 extra bonus piont. The 6 still stands.

I love Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho. Growing up surrounded by Shonen anime akin to the likes of One piece and Hunter x Hunter 1999, Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho alongside these famous series became a fan favourite amongst my friend group and family. I like to think that I don't review anime with rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, but with Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho I find it hard to critically review the Manga as its become such a cult classic/childhood classic to me. Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho Is the predecessor to Yoshihiro Togashi's other notable shonen Manga of the decade being Hunter x Hunter. The Manga was serialised in Shonen Jump from December of 1990 to July of1994. ~Story~ Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho follows a very simple and basic shonen formula. It followed a trend very similar to its contemporaries starting off as your classic monster of the week story before progressing into an Arc based story narrative with and over arching narrative to back it up. Its obvoius that many of its successors take heavy inspiration from its story formula and arch structure including Hunter x Hunter. The story is not the most interesting part nor the worst aspect of the series. Like many shonen series the story is a tool for the characters to grow and develop in the story. Sufficeth to say the story is serviceable but is mainly as a lens to look at the characters with. ~Art~ Togashi has always had some rough artwork... This isn't me trying to say that Togashi has bad Artwork per say but Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho certainly highlights Togashi's weak point as a Mangaka. Unlike both his contemporaries and successors Togashi's drawing skills simply lack what series like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Fist of the North Star had with their iconic Art styles. Some panels make me cringe more than others but when Togashi wants to he can draw some real good stuff. ~Characters~ I have always been a huge fan of the way Togashi writes and develops characters through his stories and interactions. The main cast of characters remain fun in a classical shonen way, Hie, Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara bounce off so well with each other you can really see the inspiration that came in with Leorio, Kurapika, Killua and Gon. Yusuke goes through what is probably the most solidly well written character arch's I've seen in shonen and hit me with incredibly emotionally poignant moments that really illustrate the strengths of Togashi as a Mangaka. Every emotional beat in Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho hits and when it hits it hits goddamn hard. ~Enjoyment and Overall Score~ I love Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho, without realising it Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho became sort of a familiar background noise in my daily life, it was something that me and my friends could talk about, something me and my family could reminisce about. Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho will forever be ingrained in my life as a favourite and classic.