Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Yu Yu Hakusho: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

He's not quite dead yet.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 17, 2011

You’ve probably heard of Dead Man Walking, but what about Dead Man Talking? 1950 saw two of the most iconic films about stardom ever made appear to rapturous acclaim from both critics and audiences. All About Eve celebrated theater in all it “twitchy, bitchy and manic” (to borrow a lyric from Eve’s musical version, Applause) glory. The film about Hollywood, however, was decidedly darker and even deadly. Sunset Boulevard completely shattered whatever lingering façade of glamour was still clinging precariously to the inevitable demise of The Golden Era of Film. In a film rife with upended expectations and an almost willful disparagement of traditional film approaches, perhaps Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s greatest tour de force was having Sunset Boulevard narrated by a corpse, a dead guy we “meet” in the chilling opening scenes shot from the point of view of a body floating in a swimming pool. Yu Yu Hakusho may not exactly be quite at the level of Sunset Boulevard, but it takes that same idea of opening an “entertainment” with the death of its putative hero and then it, in its own small way, goes on to slightly skew a number of anime tropes as it develops the story of Yusuke, a well meaning if often too boisterous lad whose heroic attempt to keep a small child out of the way of a marauding car leads to his own demise. Yusuke's spirit soon realizes that life after death is not going to be a heavenly scene of sylvan fields and eternal relaxation.

One of the most interesting things about Yu Yu Hakusho, at least during its first season which bears the soubriquet Ghost Files, is that it spends the first several episodes detailing Yusuke’s efforts to return from the dead, including keeping his body from being cremated until his spirit can intermingle with his physical form once again. How many animes are there out there that have gotten into the nuts and bolts of a post-mortem condition like that? What also sets the series apart is its sort of crazy quilt humor, which erupts in unexpected ways, even in these opening episodes where we’re dealing more forthrightly with the upshot of Yusuke’s untimely death. A lot of this humor comes from Yusuke himself who in his typically brusque manner can’t quite get it through his spectral head that he’s really dead and has a new reality to contend with now.

But in other ways Yu Yu Hakusho is a decidedly melancholy affair, at least until Yusuke rejoins the living as a sort of specially equipped Mulder and Scully, ready to fight demons and spirits who have malevolent motives. That melancholy is especially notable in the first few episodes, when Yusuke is still dead, when his mother descends into an alcoholic haze and Keiko, his ostensible girlfriend, is also in the throes of deep grief. Even Yusuke himself is in shock (understandably), not quite getting everything that’s happening to him, even as he’s being shepherded by the comeliest Grim Reaper ever, a winsome woman known as Botan.

It actually takes a full five episodes for this post-mortem plotline to play out and for Yusuke’s spirit to get back in his body. Starting with the sixth episode, we finally are introduced to the central focus of Yu Yu Hakusho, namely that Yusuke has been granted a second chance at life in order to fulfill his role as a Spirit Detective. Botan had introduced Yusuke to Koenma, a comical figure in the guise of a toddler who is nonetheless the wizened son of the Ruler of the Spirit World right after Yusuke’s death. Koenma had initially given Yusuke the task of hatching a spirit egg which would determine Yusuke’s fate, but once again Yusuke performed a selfless act, leading to him believing he had automatically been granted a second life with no strings attached. The sixth episode makes it clear that Koenma has always had ulterior motives and there are strings aplenty.

It’s at this point that Yu Yu Hakusho loses a little bit of its originality and uniqueness, as we now get into a series of demonic battles that frankly often play like something out of Yu-Gi-Oh. Yusuke still makes for a very appealing hero, and the supporting cast of hangers on, both human and spectral, are an interesting assortment of characters, but the series falls into a certain predictable rut at this point. The best element of this first season is the multi-episode arc involving Yusuke attempting to fulfill Koenma’s dictum of reclaiming three artifacts which had been stolen from the Spirit World. Some of the other ghostly bad guys are fun from a character design standpoint, but they all fall into fairly stereotypical tropes and there's rarely much suspense about how any individual battle is ultimately going to be decided.

Yu Yu Hakusho is like a slightly more manic, animated version of X Files at times, albeit with a team of demon fighters, chief among them Yusuke. Some of the creatures that either erupt from astral planes or are simply nefarious humans to begin with are bristling with evil and make this a fun, if often hyperbolic, battle between good and evil. And in fact, that’s ultimately what Yu Yu Hakusho settles down to being about, after its really fascinating opening five episode gambit. Yusuke’s a good guy out to vanquish the bad guys, and he’ll use all the supersecret Spirit Detective powers he’s been granted in order to achieve that aim. Like a lot of series, animated or live action, that start with a really intriguing premise and then settle for something basic like good versus evil, Yu Yu Hakusho may have sold at least a little of its soul to the Devil, or whatever underworld meanie anime writers serve.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Despite coming from the Dark Ages of 1990's television, full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratio and all, Yu Yu Hakusho's AVC 1080p transfer on this latest Blu-ray release looks really stupendous much of the time. This is a series which has some sterling character design, and the hand drawn elements sparkle here with brilliant color and excellent line detail. Yu Yu Hakusho's animation style can best be described as a sort of melding of classic Marvel Comics with a touch of Speed Racer and another Yu, namely Yu-Gi-Oh. While backgrounds are sometimes rendered in a sort of quasi-impressionistic, soft focus style, the character designs are where Yu Yu Hakusho really becomes distinctive, and with those elements this Blu-ray is able to really present a nicely detailed, crisp and very appealing image.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with most of the original Japanese language animes brought stateside by FUNimation, we have a really well above average English dub on Yu Yu Hakusho, offered via a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. The original Japanese track is also available courtesy of a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mix. Both of these tracks are excellent, and though my usual practice is to stick with the original language track, I actually spent more time on the English 5.1 track in order to enjoy the many fun immersive sound effects which are used with a surprising amount of regularity. Voice work on both tracks is excellent, with top notch fidelity. Yusuke is more of a petulant teen in the English language version, but both languages offer their own individual pleasures. The pop inflected score also sounds great, especially on the English 5.1 mix.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Textless Opening Song "Smile Bomb" (HD; 1:29)
• Textless Closing Song "The Homework Doesn't End" (HD; 1:27)

Yu Yu Hakusho: Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I caught a few individual episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho during one of its broadcast runs here in the United States, but I was frankly never a rabid fan. It's fun therefore to rediscover this series from its first season, with subsequent season set to be released on Blu-ray by FUNimation. The first season gets off to a really intriguing and unusually compelling start with the death of Yusuke, and the first five episodes are a fascinating attempt for our hero to not just deal with his demise but try to get back "into" his body. Once he's achieved that goal, the series settles into a somewhat more predictable formula that certainly has its pleasures but which doesn't quite rise to the promise of the opening episodes. Further seasons will tell the tale of whether Yusuke is a Spirit Detective worth following or just another anime flash in the pan, but with its nicely drawn characters and excellent audio options, despite some missteps along the way, this first season is Recommended.