Yu Yu Hakusho
Rating: Average 8.18 / 10
Alternative: Yuu Yuu Hakusho, YuYu Hakusho, Two Shots (幽☆遊☆白書)
Author(s): Yoshihiro Togashi
Artist(s): Yoshihiro Togashi
Genre(s): Action, Award Winning, Comedy, Drama, Supernatural
Type: Manga
Release: Nov 20, 1990
Status: Finished
Plot Summary:
Fourteen-year-old thug Yuusuke Urameshi spends his days skipping school and causing trouble for the adults in his life. Yuusuke regularly engages in street brawls against rival Kazuma Kuwabara and ridicules his childhood friend Keiko Yukimura. Filled with self-loathing and the burden of an alcoholic mother, Yuusuke sacrifices it all in a split-second decision—he tackles a small child out of the way of an oncoming car, losing his life in the process. Spirit guide Botan intervenes, allowing Yuusuke to see how the people in his life react to his death; he is moved by the emotional ruin his loss causes his mother, Keiko, and even Kuwabara. Additionally, due to his death's heroic nature, he receives an opportunity to return to life from the Spirit World ruler's son, Koenma. Koenma hires Yuusuke as a "Spirit Detective" and tasks him with solving a series of increasingly challenging paranormal mysteries. Battling and befriending demons such as the beautiful Kurama and hostile Hiei, Yuusuke further develops and utilizes his skills as a fighter. But as dark forces move in the Underworld, Yuusuke struggles alongside his companions to defend everything he took for granted.
Reviews
Rating: ★★★★☆
"Urameshi Yusuke and his friends "Yu Yu Hakusho" marked a generation with action packed adventures, very charismatic characters and a much more compelling story that many knights in armor of the period. The first volume of "Yu Yu Hakusho" too little account of what you should expect from the series. Yusuke Urameshi is a troublemaker who avoids the death of a child, but ends up himself to the land of standing by. As his death was unexpected, they give you the alternative to make the resurrection of the test, and now he needs to show that it is a good person. The first volume is basically it, with Yusuke knowing several supernatural cases of spiritual guide Botan company and interacting distance of his schoolmates, the prissy Keiko and Kuwabara rival. Although the manga seems a simple comedy, will be starting next volume that things will change figure: Yusuke will rise(spoiler king). And will work as a supernatural detective, caring for cases involving a lot of punches. Like any classic shonen obviously the clichés of training and fighting tournament are included. But the grace of "Yu Yu Hakusho" is that the manga is less no-brainer that his countrymen's Shonen Jump magazine, as "Knights of the Zodiac" or "Dragon Ball". RPGs fan, Togashi always creates interesting powers for their characters and limitations that make each battle pretty much a game of chess for the fighters involved, without this be boring for the reader. The author might use this side of creation stories in a series published later in Japan, excellent "Hunter x Hunter". In short; this is one of (if not the) best manga from the earth! "
Rating: ★★★★☆
"Togashi at his best. I could say he evolved as a story writter, and world building in HunterxHunter, but he was already a master at everything else by YYK. This story man, it's just so simple, but so well told. It's the DB effect imo, something that seems obvious now, with so many shows and series doing it similar, but this was what influenced them all. A must read if you're a fan of action and the supernatural. While obviouslly flawed, it does with so much charisma is hard to hold it against it. I trully can't forget the amazing Dark Tournament, that together with the Tenkaichi Budoukai, solidified what a tournament arc must be like. The Sensui arc launched the series in some really serious subject matter and tone, and this are just two of it's major arcs. "