I Watched Yu Yu Hakusho for the First Time - Spirit Detective Saga

Written by Rei Caldombra 4/29/2024 Video Version: https://youtu.be/SlLjnV1BGr4

I recently watched the Spirit Detective Saga of Yu Yu Hakusho, which is the first 25 episodes. I’ll be giving my thoughts on it, including spoilers. I’ll also touch on a few other shounen action series as a comparison for some points, which will not include direct spoilers for those. I am a fan of this show, I liked it more than I expected to. Not that I expected to dislike it, I’m just not super into action shows right now and have reoccurring issues with conventional shounen action anime. They have to have standout elements other than the spectacle of it all that captures me. And I think this show has done well so far at making me interested in what surrounds the pretty cool fights. Though it does fall into some issues of aging, common shounen tropes and worldbuilding issues that I am not a huge fan of. But they do not eclipse its many strengths.

I heard about how most people think the English dub is better than the sub, so I wanted to give it a try. I prefer subs in most cases so I started with that as I would have if I hadn’t known about the common opinion.  I watched the first 8 episodes in English sub then switched to the English dub after that. And I do agree that the eng dub is better, I stuck with it from then on. The English dub is much funnier, having more jokes and quips thrown in. The Japanese version did feel pretty dry as I saw people say.

The first 5 episodes, aka the Yusuke’s Ordeal Arc, did a great job establishing the characters. This is my favorite part of the show. Characters are where I get more invested rather than action, so this was a perfect way to start for me. Before it goes into proper shounen action mode, we get a lot of great world building and characterization for our main characters that really pulled me into the story. Seeing Yusuke grow and work hard to get his life back while protecting the people he cares about did a lot to establish him as a great protagonist from the get-go. Yusuke reacting to what he has to do really endeared me to his character and gave him opportunities to show off how he thinks and acts. This is the kind of thing action shows need to do right away to make me care about why the fights are happening. My Hero is an example of an anime that does this well with its fantastic first episode. Episode 3 is the clear standout episode for me of the whole show so far. There was so much heart in this episode. This provided rich and emotional characterization for Kurobara while simultaneously critiquing how difficult it is for delinquents to improve and be accepted. It also solidified the bond between Kurobara and Yusuke in the novel fashion of it being done through spirit contact rather than physical. I absolutely loved this episode and it put me on the path to Kurobara being my favorite character. He is such a lovable oaf with a good heart and more to him than just wanting to be the best. Yusuke is also a really good character, but I just love Kurobara. To keep going on the characters, I like everyone else, but they do not stand out as much. They are all solid, but Yusuke and Kurobara are the serious hits as memorable and engaging characters. And they do a solid job with making each member of the 4 feel unique. One scene I really like that does this well is after the ice dragon is defeated, where everyone except for Hiei says how many slices they could see of Hiei’s attack. This feels like a casual conversation they would have while also showing the audience that they have differences in spiritual awareness and vision. Moments like that really make me like them as a unit, and an example of effective writing. When it comes to the Beasts of the Maz Castle Arc, It has one very strong aspect. I'm glad Botan and Keiko had something to do during this arc that was genuinely helpful and important. Both of the girls did not just feel like damsels in distress in this arc. Them being in danger did matter, but they got stuff to do and had their own capabilities respected. Definitely the 2nd best arc and helped solidify Botan and Keiko as good characters alongside the main group of guys. 

Onto general presentations aspects, I really like the music. The opening, Battle Time, and Struggle of Sadness are my favorites. Honestly, I don’t have the musical vocabulary to properly describe what makes it sound so great. It just sounds really good. It has that older sound to it that really hits different from modern music. The opening has that older appeal I get from songs like Makafushigi Adventure from Dragon Ball. Both of these openings have that fun action-packed adventure feel to them. Along with beautiful singing. 

The art style is also great, this is the awesome 90s look people praise. Especially when the animation and art started to improve in the Beasts of the Maz Castle Arc. The visuals hold up very well. One visual detail I really liked that showed up more later on was a character getting thicker line art for emphasis (Sorry I don’t have many screenshots, I watched it on Netflix). There is a bit of emphasis on stills and moments of reused animation that are noticeable, but that’s really not a problem. When it looks this good, and the fights are well structured and engaging I don’t mind so much. There is an appeal to this as well, with the great stills really emphasizing the impact of moves and actions. More fluid animation is not necessarily always better. And the tools and techniques of the time is relevant for this point. I really like how the show looks.

Let’s talk about the fights as a whole. Overall, I think they're pretty great. Most of the fights in these episodes are very focused on the close quarters hand to hand combat, which I am a huge fan of. There is more of the smart strategy to the fights than just raw power as well. There’s some solid choreography and movement in the fights too. The fights so far have avoided a pet peeve of mine when it comes to power systems in action shows. I prefer when energy-based powers, like Ki in Dragon Ball and Hamon in Jojo, are more of a tool to use at the right time rather than the main weapon. Overuse of the powers makes them feel less special and impactful, as well as puts less emphasis on martial arts and personal skill. One reason I like the original Dragon Ball anime more than the subsequent parts is because of this. Hopefully Yu Yu Hakusho does not go in the direction shounen anime often does of overusing the power and having ridiculous power scaling that makes everything other than raw power trivial (cough cough a lot of DBZ and Super). There are a lot of fights and a lot of time spent on them in these 25 episodes, most of which are enjoyable fights but felt drawn out at times. By the end of the 25th episode I was feeling the action fatigue. I’m glad the arc ended there so I could take a break at a good time.

One thing to note on the general topic of digesting older media. This is an older show that came out in a different time. I do keep that in mind, and you should too. But I was not watching it when it came out, I am watching it now. I have the perspective of someone who is watching it in 2024. I’m not always going to give it bonus points or passes for being old when it comes to tropes and stuff like that. Some of the material has aged and just because it was not necessarily something negative, overused etc. back then does not mean I need to conform to that. I can’t put my headspace back in time. I just wanted to mention this because I generally don’t like this idea as a defense for older media.

Most of my recurring minor gripes are shared with most shounen action shows, especially of this time period. We really do see the classics here, some of which are still cool. Hiei does the anime swordsman attack where you cut someone a bunch of times in an instant, but it doesn’t actually have an effect until the swordsman wants it to. Characters dramatically call out the name of their technique when they use them. I’m sure lots of people who watched this when they were younger had fun and got weird looks mimicking those attacks. I remember doing that with the shows I watched as a kid, like doing Pokémon trainer poke ball throws. We have groups of demons with titles to try to make them sound cool when they really aren’t. We have attempts to quantify powers that feel pointless and silly that quickly get thrown away, just like power levels in Dragon Ball. One classic trope that did get tiring is the back seating. For example, in the fight against Byakko I swear Yusuke must have said Kurobara’s name 20 times. The cutbacks to Koenma for his commentary rarely if ever add anything in my opinion. Sometimes they’re a little funny but when they’re not it does just feel like wasted time. There were a few times I had to stop the urge to hit the key to skip forward a few seconds as we got further in. I almost never skip ahead or speed up episodes. But a lot of times when Koena came on screen just to say obvious things that don’t really provide us with any notable info, I really wanted to. The back seating was mildly annoying but comes with the territory.

For my general feelings on longer running action series, I struggle to watch them long term if all they have going for them is the action. If the characters and story are not appealing enough to me on a consistent basis then they will lose my interest. This is one reason why I really didn’t care for Kung Fu Panda 4, the characters and story were very mediocre even if the action itself was fine. I need to care about the who and why surrounding the fighting to enjoy an action show. Demon Slayer is the most recent victim of this, I really did not care enough for anything that happened in the last season. Nothing really resonated with me. And that is not entirely because of just that arc, it's because I’ve watched more than 50 episodes of the show. After all that time I did not have new elements that worked for me. My Hero Academy is an example of an anime not failing at this. I like MHA much more for the characters and the emotions surrounding them rather than the fights themselves. It consistently throws great characters at us and many great dramatic aspects that keep me engaged. There are also quite a few “characters who are completely losing than instantly win after getting emotional” fights that I especially don’t like (I can think of 3 off the top of my head). I don’t like that fights swap sides from 0 to 100 just at the end, but I generally do care about the emotions that are behind that swing. So I don’t hate it as much. 

Let’s compare these things I brought up to Yu Yu Hakusho. The anime successfully gives me characters and emotions that I have latched onto. Especially thanks to the fantastic first arc that really worked wonders on appealing to my tastes. I can’t say how I will feel after another 25 episodes, but at least now the novelty has not worn off. I care about the characters and the people they are protecting. 

Yusuke does get an emotion based power up in his fight with Suzaku, but it did not instantly win him the fight. It was a pendulum swing that kept the fight engaging and did not completely invalidate the villain. There was a solid emotional basis behind it as well. I especially liked the source of this because I really wanted to see more of the training with Genkai. Yusuke needed to think back to his training that meant to teach him to truly put his all into what he does in life. He did get taught that lesson during the training, but after he successfully got through the training, he became complacent and full of himself again and didn’t internalize it. This fits perfectly with Yusuke as a character, as he was able to be the top fighter effortlessly and avoided the things he would need to put serious effort into. This fight put him in his place and with Genkai’s instruction again he properly understands it. And after that moment, the fight still continued on. This was good. 

One bit of poor aging is the pervert humor, like Yusuke lifting Keiko’s skirt and groping that one member of the Triad. 

Can you just not?

The latter also includes saying you should be one way or the other when it comes to being biologically male or female. This has not aged very well to many modern sensibilities that I generally share. I’m not going to go on a lecture about it or say the show is attacking people, there are people that are more qualified to make that kind of argument. I’m just noting that these are older ways of thinking and doing comedy that I would not want to see done nowadays. I just do not care for perverted humor like this at all anymore. It didn’t ruin my viewing experience, but it does take me out of my immersion to see skirt flipping and groping as jokes and reminds me that this is more than 20 years old. It just makes me roll my eyes and get brought out of the show a bit, not get pissed off. Appreciating media showcasing an older time can be great when it's not doing stuff like this. At least these were very few and far between. But to me it’s worth noting and I’d prefer that there isn’t much more going forward. 

I have 1 single thing that I would call a genuine annoyance, which is some aspects of the worldbuilding with the Spirit World. They really made me think they were not going to hide things from Keiko, showing respect to her while also showing Yusuke’s growth as a character, just to double down on them hiding it. And I think this is super frustrating, this is very dumb to me. Is it just for miscommunication humor and melodrama? I don’t really want either of those things, so I really see this as poor writing. She has already had her life at risk and seen glimpses of the spirit world stuff from the very beginning. Her not knowing for sure what's going on does not keep her safe in any way. She has been attacked multiple times while not knowing the full truth. Genkai’s tournament shows there are at least a handful of normal people who know about Reiki. And it seems that throughout history demons and spirits have been present on earth, with psychics and the like interacting with them (That’s where that final demon in the arc got all his techniques from right?). There’s supposed to be no proof of the spirit world among humans, so they don’t want Keiko to get in trouble with the spirit world for knowing. But Kurobara is an exception with no explanation? He doesn’t have the title of Spirit Detective or anything, he’s just a normal guy who can use Reiki like those people who showed up at Genkai’s tournament. Why is it completely fine for Kurobara to know but not her? They aren’t even trying to keep Kurobara’s knowledge or involvement at a minimum, he gets to watch Koenma’s tape without any acknowledgement of that being problematic. Is Kurobara an exception just because he’s strong, and they are desperate for help? But if that’s the case, why did they not prompt him to participate in the case or better yet also give him the title of spirit detective? This gets into a general issue I have which is how the Spirit world has absolutely no forces to do the things they send Yusuke to do. How did things function before with demons being problematic? Maybe there will be more in the future that explains this, or its simply that they wanted to put emphasis on how important the main 4 and Botan are, but this is another reason why the worldbuilding feels a bit messy.

Then Kurobara’s sister sees the tape (spirit awareness runs in the family) and they don’t care. She’s totally fine seeing Koenma and having some random spirit world knowledge? In Koenma’s tape we see that human criminals captured a spirit apparition. If she is a spirit creature in nature, would her magically making stones from her tears not be considered proof of the spirit world’s existence? That’s at least way worse than Keiko just knowing what’s going on with Yusuke. Plenty of humans involved in the black market know about demons and spirit energy it seems. The humans involved also seemingly saw Botan flying around. Another point is that they specifically don’t want Hiei to go in and kill all the humans. Which is obvious from a killing is bad standpoint, that’s fine in itself. But do I have to assume they have some kind of amnesia thing they can do to make them forget, since people knowing about spirit stuff apparently matters? Or do they just let them go to be dealt with normally in the human world, leaving them with all that knowledge that to me seems like it’d be problematic?

I’ll stop ranting about this now. These rules about sprit awareness feels very poorly presented. Keiko being in the dark feels incredibly forced and this aspect of worldbuilding comes across very messy. If knowledge of the spirit world stuff isn’t a big deal, then don’t bring attention to it and act like there’s some rules. If there are rules that are important then have them be consistently followed, not randomly ignored with no explanation that I’m aware of as of now. This is the only thing the show has done that genuinely annoyed me, so hopefully this gets done better. But even if it does that doesn’t change that it makes no sense here and I have to think about it before it gets fixed.

So now for the big question- will I continue watching? The answer is that I do plan to, as this show has a lot appealing to me outside of just the fights. The visuals, fights, soundtrack and characters are pretty great. There are issues, but most of them are minor and do not ruin my enjoyment of the good aspects. But I will likely spread it out over awhile with breaks in between major parts in order to pace it better. If I end up having more to say, I may talk about it again. Let me know if you’d like to see more about Yu Yu Hakusho. Thanks for reading!

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