FEATURE ARCHIVE

By Justin Kovalsky

A lot of anime has washed up on American soil in the past 13 years. But while it's long been the preference of distribution labels to take the quick money route and produce feature films or short-running video series for a small domestic market, many companies have realized that the American fan base is large enough now that it can and will support more of the long-running Japanese TV series. Shows such as Ranma 1/2 set the precedent for series exceeding 26 episodes on video, and the popularity of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Tenchi Muyo!, and yes, Digimon and Pokémon on TV has opened the way for previously overlooked TV series to reach the American otaku (fan) public. Fortunately for anime fans, one such series soon to arrive is Yoshiro Togashi's immensely popular supernatural martial arts anime, Yû Yû Hakusho (loosely translated, "The Poltergeist Report," sometimes known under the name "Ghost Fighter").

Yû Yû Hakusho is the tale of a juvenile delinquent with a heart and a destiny linked directly to the world of the supernatural. It was originally produced as a manga story for Shônen Jump magazine, the same magazine that originally serialized Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. And like Dragon Ball, Yû Yû's popularity led to animation--a 112-episode television series, an original video (OAV), and two theatrical movies. (The films were both released in the U.S. in 1998--one by Anime Works and the other by U.S. Manga Corps.) The manga--19 volumes in total--has yet to be licensed for translation in English, but the animation is now on its way.

FUNimation, the same company that brought you Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, will release the original TV episodes this fall. Gen Fukunaga, president of FUNimation, says that the show "epitomizes the best of Japanese anime," and this seems fair enough considering its fluid blend of supernatural martial arts, comedy, romance, and the kind of rich character development that fans have come to expect from quality anime. This show is best described in terms of its diverse and often unique characters discovering themselves through battle, all within the landscape of Togashi's interpretation of Buddhist mythology. Heavy as that may sound, lightheartedness pervades the series--YYH is downright funny at times.

Yû Yû Hakusho is often compared to Dragon Ball Z, as they are both driven by action. However, there is an engaging emotionalism present in YYH--that's not to say that DBZ doesn't possess emotional content, but that, arguably, Togashi's work places it more in the foreground.

IT'S A FINE DAY TO DIE!
Yusuke Urameshi is a bad character. Ever hear the folk song "Bad Leroy Brown," by Jim Croce? Well, Yusuke is like old Leroy, but 14 and Japanese. He fights all the time, has an invariably low I.Q., and nobody is inviting him out for arcade games and coffee after school. People fear him, and this is smart because the kid has never lost a fight to the hundreds of wannabe tough guys that challenge him regularly. His mom is at the crest of drunken laziness when we are introduced to her as she tells Yusuke unfeelingly to get out of her house. But things change for the young spitfire when he finds himself suddenly, well...dead, after saving the life of a small child who kicked a soccer ball into traffic. The child walked right into the path of an oncoming vehicle to get said ball. Yusuke, standing by, leapt in front of a compact car to save the innocent's life. When he comes to, now ephemerally floating above the scene of the accident, he witnesses his body being taken away in an ambulance. He's dead!

Things take off from here when our hot-blooded antihero is startled by Togashi's bizarre, only-in-anime interpretation of the ferryman from the River Styx who soars in from the heavens on an oar. This ferry "man" is a cute, blue-haired girl who's pretty chipper for someone who carts dead folks around on an oar. (But she is cute, and if one were to die in traffic, it would be nice to be met by such a person.) She introduces herself as Botan and explains to the fallen Yusuke that his death was a cosmic accident, unanticipated by even the Buddha himself. Yusuke up to this point in life has been an all-around jerk, doing no one any good, but as it turns out, the little kid should have taken the hit. Botan, bubbling over with what seems to be an unrelenting coffee high, tells Yusuke that the child would have survived without a scratch. Irony, luck, or strange fate? All three, it seems.

Yusuke is given the option, after agreeing to meet the son of Enma, king of Hell, Koenma (the added "ko" makes the name mean, essentially, "Enma, Jr."), for a trial of resurrection. Slightly disenchanted with life on Earth, Yusuke mulls it over but accepts the conditions of Koenma's trial. He is given a sort of karmic egg that is linked directly to his deeds during the period of trial. If he does evil, the egg will hatch a beast that will devour him. If he can do the right thing and jump through certain hoops as determined by Koenma, he'll come back to life. Guess what? He succeeds in the trial and returns to Earth with his destiny forever changed. He is asked by Koenma to maintain contact with the spirit world and to become a "spiritual detective," investigating and infiltrating escaped evil spirits from hell. With some reluctance, he accepts this role with a new lease on life.

The ultimate cool of Yusuke's excursion as a dead man is that he comes back with some serious powers. A young martial artist's fantasy, he is now blessed with the ability to focus his spiritual energy through one finger in a move cleverly named "Rei Gun" (rei being the Japanese word for "spirit," pronounced "Ray Gun"). This, a host of other spiritual gadgetry, and an unforgiving right hook are his armaments of destruction.

SUPERNATURAL SUPPORT
So we've got a main character with a bad attitude and a good heart, some high-octane martial arts--just the right set-up for a good fighting anime. But what kind of series would this be without a slew of fantastic supporting characters? A close-knit crew forms around Yusuke, always under the watchful eye of the King of Hell, Jr., Koenma. Yusuke's school-rival-turned-compadre Kuwabara; the seemingly malevolent fire demon Hiei; his close friend Kurama the Fox Spirit; the ever jovial nonchalance of Botan; the hysterically funny Koenma (who appears as a small child with a pacifier!)--YYH has cool characters in droves, accounting for a large portion of the show's popularity. Yusuke, by strange fate and an inexplicable charisma, is just the type of person to rally an entourage of spirits and superpowered humans. As in Dragon Ball Z, many of Yusuke's friends he meets first as enemies--after he bests them one-on-one, many choose to aid Yusuke in his spiritual quest.

In the vein of shows such as Flame of Recca, Rurouni Kenshin, and Phantom Quest Corp, Yû Yû Hakusho successfully melds several ideas--from fighting to character dynamics to supernatural mythology--into one cohesive unit. There is plenty of brutality and chi blasts galore, but these nearly always give rise to an important character development. Human relationships are the center of the story, lending a sense of urgency to the action, and providing potency to the contrasting comedy. There is romantic tension and there is comedy. Above all else, YYH is character-driven anime.

For the full article see Animerica Vol. 9, No. 10/11.

FEATURE ARCHIVE