8.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Anime | 100% |
Foreign | 96% |
Action | 38% |
Comic book | 33% |
Comedy | 21% |
Martial arts | 18% |
Supernatural | 12% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Virtually any anime series that lasts as long as Yu Yu Hakusho did is going to fall prey to the “same old, same
old” syndrome, and that seemed particularly true of Yu Yu Hakusho’s middle two years, Seasons Two and Three,
after the intriguing set up of the first season had been established and the show drifted into what might be termed
“battle mode.” If you’re not overly familiar with this series or simply want to get back up to speed, you can read our
coverage of the previous three seasons here:
Yu Yu Hakusho:
Season One Blu-ray review
Yu Yu Hakusho:
Season Two Blu-ray review
Yu Yu Hakusho:
Season Three Blu-ray review
As I’ve mentioned in my reviews of the previous seasons of Yu Yu Hakusho, the series suffered from presenting
such an intriguing premise—a ne’er-do-well kid comes back from the dead to become a sort of Spirit Fighter—and then
hewing to a very standard operating procedure where episode after episode (and it could be argued Season Two as a
whole) was nothing but one tournament battle after another. It robbed Yu Yu Hakusho of the very element that
made it so interesting to begin with, and relegated the show into a standard shōnen format that eschewed the
distinctive spirit element (for the most part, anyway) and instead just literally plopped our hero Yusuke down in an
arena and let him fight it out alongside his buddies with various nefarious elements. The good news is that starting
with the third season of the show, Yu Yu Hakusho at least fitfully got back to some of the supernatural elements
which initially provided it such a compelling premise, and by the end of the third season, the series seemed to have
escaped—for the moment anyway—the really tired battle syndrome. The even better news is that the fourth season
capitalizes on that development and finally provides viewers with something at least a little unusual in the annals of
shōnen animes, as the portal between our world and the Demon World is fully opened, Yusuke more or less dies and
rises again, and Yusuke sets out on a heroic quest to quell a demon uprising enabling him to finally rest in peace.
As with the previous three seasons of the series, Yu Yu Hakusho's fourth season arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is one of the better looking seasons all around, with robust and beautifully saturated color and some very good line detail. Overall clarity and sharpness is certainly well above average almost all of the time, but occasionally some relative softness creeps into various scenes. This particular season seems to have fewer of the frame misalignments that previous seasons suffered from, so the image doesn't "lurch" so much. The series, as I've noted repeatedly, is most definitely old school in approach, with a less stylized technique that makes it very much a product of its time, but this high definition presentation certainly makes it pop much more expressively than it ever did in standard definition and that pop is probably more on display in this fourth season than it was in the previous three.
Yu Yu Hakusho once again offers the listener two lossless audio options, the original Japanese language track in Dolby TrueHD 2.0 and a largely rerecorded English dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. Anyone wanting to get into the nuts and bolts of how seriously the FUNimation team has taken the various releases of this franchise should listen to the really interesting commentary (listed below) which addresses the remix in particular and gets into some of the technical details as to why certain characters were rerecorded and how the mixing team addressed the challenges of attempting a quasi-surround sound mix when the music and effects were all on one track. With that background knowledge in hand, it becomes somewhat easier to understand why Yu Yu Hakusho's real immersion on the English dub is more a case of multiple channels being employed simultaneously with some of the same content rather than discrete channelization, but still the illusion of a surround mix is fairly consistent throughout this season. This is one season where even those who can't stand reading subtitles may want to at least sample the Japanese track, as the more somber, less hyperbolic, line readings of the Japanese cast seem to be perhaps more in tune with this final season's more serious tenor. Both of these tracks sport excellent fidelity and reasonable dynamic range within the context of Yu Yu Hakusho's frequently over the top sound design.
Note: Some of the commentaries feature people who are not credited in the episode and I have done my best to
decipher their names and the spellings of those names, but there may be some errors.
The good news is that the fourth season of Yu Yu Hakusho is arguably the strongest and most compelling of the entire series. The bad news is patient viewers have to slog through the largely interminable second season and only fitfully interesting third season to get there (not to mention the first season, which starts out very strongly and then retreats into a standard shōnen approach). If you don't mind some slow going, though, Yu Yu Hakusho is overall a very well done series that offers some fun characters and an interesting—if not completely realized—premise that helps to separate it from the pack. FUNimation has done a very nice job upgrading this series for high definition, and the fourth season of Yu Yu Hakusho comes Recommended.
幽☆遊☆白書 / Yū Yū Hakusho / Anime Classics
1992-1993
1992-1993
Anime Classics
1993
Anime Classics
1993-1994
1993
1993-1994
1994-1995
2018
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST
2009
ソウルイーター
2008-2009
Anime Classics / フルメタル·パニック!
2002
1993
2010
2005
1989-1996
2009
Episodes 168-195
2008
1994
2003-2004
2009-2010
Classics
2003
1992
Classics / フリクリ
2000-2001
2010
2010
1995
Anime Classics
2002