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crack_van2006-12-02 05:00 am
nightwalker.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2006-12-02 05:00 am
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Yu Yu Hakusho fandom overview
Welcome to my anti-drug.
Yu Yu Hakusho has been translated to mean "Ghost Files" or "Poltergeist Reports" and that's slightly misleading. For starters, there are almost no ghosts to speak of unless one counts the main character. Secondly, the only files or reports that appear are the ones Koenma has stacked in a haphazard pile on the edge of his desk.
What this show does have are demons and demon-hunters, cataclysms, tournaments, diabolical madmen, best friends and bitter rivals (at the same time even) genocidal psychopaths, soul-devouring monsters, and zombie-making bugs. Yes, that's right. Zombie-making bugs.
It all starts when a juvenile delinquent named Urameshi Yuusuke dies saving a small child's life. The afterlife finds itself in a bit of a quandary: they never expected him to do anything good with his life and now they don't know where to put him. The solution is, well, not simple exactly, but certainly creative: The prince of the dead offers Yuusuke a chance to prove himself. If he succeeds, he can return to life. If he fails, he's sentenced to hell. And that's just the first episode.
Yuusuke's return to life comes with one string attached: He's now bound in service to Koenma. His new position as Reikai Tantei basically translates into "Spirit World Detective" and again, that's kind of misleading. He doesn't do much detecting. Yuusuke's style is more of the "wander around hitting things until one of them confesses and then destroy it" variety. Fortunately he eventually acquires a team and they handle most of the strategy.
Continuities:
Unlike American comics, most Japanese manga is written by the same artists and/or team of artists from beginning to end. While this means that few series reach the status of cultural icon, a la Superman and Batman, it also means that continuity is a hell of a lot easier to understand. Yu Yu Hakusho started as a 19 volume manga, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi and was adapted to a 112-episode anime with one half-hour special and a feature-length movie. There were some changes made (the very first story arc, for example, is much shorter in the anime than in the manga) but mostly superficial. Thus, if you know one, you can read fanfic for both fairly comfortably.
The anime has been released in its entirety. The DVDs can be found at Best Buy, Barnes & Noble and probably anywhere else. The manga is currently being released in English and the 11th volume has just arrived in bookstores.
Terms:
Dealing with anime fandom means that if you dig around long enough you're going to encounter some Japanese words and phrases. The ones you'll see most often are:
Reikai: Spirit World
Makai: Demon World
Ningenkai: Human World
Tantei: Detective
Youkai: demon
Reiki: Spiritual Energy
Youki: Demonic energy
Reigan: Spirit Gun
Reiken: Spirit Sword
Kitsune: Fox. (Fanfic Hiei will call Kurama this until he's blue in the face.)
Characters:
(There are others, such as Kuwabara's gang, the other fighters from the Dark Tournament and misc. classmates and supporting characters. I tried to narrow it down to the ones you're most likely to encounter in fanfic)
Urameshi Yuusuke: The first thing you notice about Yuusuke is that he's dead. Things go uphill from there, really.
Yuusuke is tough, crude, irresponsible and kind of a jerk. Before he died he spent most of his time brawling and the rest goofing off. He was failing school, had the local street punks terrified of him (with the notable exception of Kuwabara, who just hated him) and was probably a shoplifter and pickpocket as well. And then one afternoon he died while saving a little boy's life. Cue mass confusion.
What everyone eventually figures out, including Yuusuke himself, is that he's actually a nice guy trapped in the body of a total asshole. He's insanely loyal, ridiculously protective and once you've earned his respect and trust, it's almost impossible to screw it up. He'll go to bat for anyone who needs defending, but if you mess with someone he actually cares about? You're dead.
Yuusuke'd just as soon play video games all afternoon and has little to no interest in school; perhaps because his mother, Atsuko, has little to no education either. He's not good at emotional things, especially where Keiko is concerned, and he's more likely to settle an argument physically than with words.
For a long time, Yuusuke placed a lot of weight on being the best; being stronger than his opponents and allies alike. But an encounter with a man named Toguro changed his way of thinking. Toguro turned his back on everyone he loved to become stronger, and when Yuusuke wasn't strong enough to stop him, Toguro murdered someone Yuusuke loved to provoke him to greater heights. Yuusuke was repulsed by the idea of becoming Toguro and decided that strength was meaningless if it wasn't used to protect his friends. That determination to protect is one of the strongest motivations Yuusuke has.
Yuusuke has a strong amount of spiritual energy (reiki) which he manifests in an attack he calls the spirit gun. The stronger he he gets, the more powerful and frequent his attacks become.
Kuwabara Kazuma: Kuwabara is a giant teddy bear. He's sweet to girls, kind to animals and stands up for his friends. He also has an inexhaustible sense of honor and he's occasionally disappointed when others prove themselves to be otherwise. For a long time Kuwabara was determined to prove himself against Yuusuke, challenging him to constant matches; he always lost.
When Yuusuke was killed, Kuwabara was affected more deeply than he had expected. Maybe it's because Yuusuke finally did something half decent with his life, or maybe Kuwabara had come to respect Yuusuke as an opponent. After Yuusuke came back, they ended up fighting as a team more often than they fought against each other and by the time of the Dark Tournament they were best friends. Which is not to say that they won't still pound on each other for the hell of it.
Kuwabara has powerful reiki, which manifests mostly as a sword, though his abilities are highly versatile. He's also a strong psychic. He mostly represses the ability, though it pops up from time to time when his life is in danger or something truly catastrophic is going to happen.
Kurama/Minamino Shuichi: Kurama is a demon, which seems to surprise everyone because he's so darn pretty. But he's really a reincarnated fox demon who is more than 1000 years old, has complete memory of his past life and is powerful enough that the very mention of his name terrifies others of his kind.
Kurama the demon thief was killed fifteen years before the series begins, badly wounded by a hunter. His soul latched onto a chance for survival: a nearby human woman was pregnant. Kurama's soul fled into the body of the unborn baby, and he was reborn as Minamino Shuichi, in human body. Originally he viewed humanity with scorn and planned to leave as soon as he was able to regain control of his demonic powers. But his view of humanity changed when his human mother, Shiori, was badly wounded while saving him from a bad fall. He ended up sticking around and is intensely devoted to his mother. That devotion is what brought him into contact with Yuusuke. Shiori was dying, and Kurama had stolen a powerful artifact of darkness from the Spirit World in the hopes of saving her. Instead of stopping him, Yuusuke helped save Shiori, sacrificing some of his own life energy for her. This single act earned Yuusuke Kurama's respect and loyalty; friendship came soon after.
In his human form, Kurama is an honor student and a local heartthrob, though he seems to have little to no interest in returning the affection of his fangirls.
Despite his attractive appearance, Kurama can be ruthless, vicious and cold-blooded. During the Sensui Arc, when a child called GameMaster stood between them and Sensui, Kurama killed the child rather than let the rest of humanity die.
Kurama's youki (demonic energy) is not as flashy as the others. He can control plants and, like Kurama himself, his power is far more dangerous than it looks. One of his most common tactics is to keep seeds in his hair and trigger them during fights, turning even something like a rose into a weapon.
While Kuwabara and Yuusuke will challenge anyone they think is disrespectiful, Kurama is more likely to warn someone off with a demonstration of power.
Hiei: Hiei is a Forbidden Child. Get used to that phrase: you'll hear it a lot in fanfic. Hiei's mother was an ice maiden, and they don't generally associate with males of any species. Giving birth to a son raised more than a few eyebrows and the other Ice Maidens bound Hiei behind wards and seals and threw him off the edge of the island. Hiei grew up in the wilds of the Demon World, living with mercenaries and hired killers (whether or not they raised him is up for debate). Hiei is a fire demon with numerous black magic attacks, including the incredibly powerful Black Dragon. He also has a Jagan, an artificial third eye which grants him limited psychic abilities. His favored weapon is his katana, however, relying on his swordsmanship to handle most opponents.
Appearing at first glance as nothing more than a mercenary and thief, Hiei is motivated by the desire to find his younger sister, Yukina. He underwent incredibly painful surgery to acquire the Jagan in the hope that it would let him find her. When he does ultimately locate her, he chooses not to reveal himself to her believing she deserves better than him for a brother.
Fanfic Hiei is a grumpy loner who rarely says more than "hn" and "baka kitsune" and spends all his time beating up Kuwabara. In reality, Hiei can be incredibly eloquent and insightful. While he and Kuwabara are often at odds, they also come to one another's aid and provide each other with backup and support. Hiei acts like he's a heartless killer; and to a degree he is; but when his teammates or sister are involved, Hiei often shows a sense of loyalty and concern that probably drives him crazy.
Koenma: Koenma is the son of Enma Daioh, the King of the Afterlife. Koenma's responsibilities seem to be largely managerial, including judging souls, overseeing the ferrygirls and other spiritual beings, and commanding the Reikai Tantei. He's also a toddler, but that's a long story. He turns into a teenager for special occasions and that's an even longer story.
Botan: Botan is a ferrygirl in the service of the Reikai. Her job is to collect the spirits of the dead and guide them to the Spirit World for judgment. She’s sweet, occasionally silly, and tougher than she looks.
Genkai: Genkai is a powerful master of spiritual energyand martial arts. She has undefined ties with the Spirt World and the Kuwabara family. When she decides to train her successor, martial artists from all over the world show up, hoping for the chance to gain her techniques. She's cranky, impatient and possibly the single strongest human being alive. Unlike Kurama, it's impossible to be tougher than Genkai looks.
Kuwabara Shizuru: Kuwabara Kazuma's older sister. Shizuru is also psychic and it's strongly implied that their entire family has some unknown connection to the Spirit World. Shizuru herself is a feisty, sarcastic woman who looks out for her brother and his idiot friends and isn't afraid to knock some sense into the big bad demon hunters. The siblings poke fun at each other but Shizuru almost always comes out ahead for a simple reason: Kuwabara, like most little brothers, is scared of his sister.
Yukimura Keiko: Yuusuke's girlfriend, not that either one of them would ever admit it. Keiko's at a bit of a disadvantage because she's a normal human with no special powers, but she is tough, smart and incredibly loyal. She gets bashed a lot, which is unfortunate because she's a strong female character, the type people always bitch about wanting to see more of. We're talking about a girl who knew nothing of ghosts or demons until the day her teachers turned into zombie-things and started trying to kill her and she still rallied enough to beat them off with janitorial equipment. She's also the only one who can keep Yuusuke in line most of the time.
Yukina: An ice demon whose tears crystallize into gems of immense value. Kuwabara's sweet on her, and she seems to return the affection though she mostly seems befuddled by all the strange humans she's keeping company with lately. She's also (shh! Don't tell anyone!) Hiei's younger sister.
Urameshi Atsuko: Yuusuke's mother, a spaced-out alcoholic could-be prostitute who may or may not be running the local Yakuza.
Toguro (elder): A shape-shifter who can manipulate his body into any form. He is seen mostly as a weapon his younger brother carries into battle. He's ridiculously hard to kill and completely insane.
Toguro (younger): A scary, scary abomination who eats souls and doesn't seem to have any problem with killing everyone and everything he sees. Toguro used to be human, but he traded his soul for strength, turning him into a monster worse than many of the true demons the boys have encountered.
Kuronue: Kuronue was created for the movie (Bonds of Fire, released in the US as The Poltergeist Reports) and does not appear in the manga or the main anime series. That doesn't stop him from popping up all over fanfic though. Kuronue was Kurama's old partner back in the Demon World, but he died rather horribly in the middle of a job. A bad guy impersonates him for a while to torture Kurama, but beyond that we don't know much about him.
Sensui: A former Reikai Tantei who saw too much and snapped under the pressure. Sensui spent years fighting demons in the defense of humanity, only to discover that there are humans as capable of evil as any demon. Sensui is ridiculously powerful, and completely devoted to his goal of exterminating mankind.
Itsuki: Sensui's partner, friend and lover. Itsuki is a demon who encountered Sensui on one of his cases. When Sensui turned on mankind, Itsuki went with him. Itsuki is a rare class of demon: he can create a dimensional pocket or void and trap people within it; a tactic he uses to prevent the Tantei from attacking Sensui.
The Seven: Sensui's band of ruthless killers – or whiny brats, depending on how you look at it. The Seven are all humans who, for whatever reasons, have decided that humanity cannot be allowed to survive. Most of the Seven are misguided or easily manipulated, a few reform and go back to live normal lives, but several of them are as ruthless as Sensui himself. The Seven are: Seaman, Gamemaster, Sniper, Doctor, Gateway, Gourmet and Sensui himself.
Karasu: A nasty demon who appears during the Dark Tournament. Apparently he and Kurama have some sort of history – or at least Karasu thinks they do. Kurama's pretty close-mouthed about his past (and everything else) so who can tell? Karasu is completely insane, fond of explosives, and obsessed with Kurama. Unsurprisingly, he shows up a lot in fanfic.
Mukuro: One of the three demon lords of the Makai (there are more than three, but these guys get most of the attention) and Ruler of the Second Kingdom. Mukuro takes a particular interest in Hiei and eventually takes him on as her apprentice and heir.
Yomi: Another demon lord of the Makai, and an old enemy of Kurama's. Ruler of the First Kingdom. The only person besides Genkai to successfully kick Yuusuke's ass.
Raizen: A powerful demon lord who is an ancestor of Yuusuke's. Ruler of the Third Kingdom. Fond of humans and not just as food!
Puu: The Physical manifestation of Yuusuke's soul. Sort of.
Eikichi: Kuwabara's kitten! Yuusuke helped Kuwabara rescue Eikichi from a band of thugs who were torturing him. It was technically the first time they ever fought as a team.
Storylines:
Spirit Detective: When Yuusuke dies saving a little boy, the Reikai has to figure out what to do with him. Koenma gives Yuusuke a test to pass: He has to carry around the egg of a spiritual beast, letting it feed off his energy. If Yuusuke's a good person, the beast will be good, if he's evil, the beast will be a monster.
While waiting for the beast to hatch, Yuusuke ends up following around the people in his life. He discovers that a lot more people miss him than he'd thought, including his biggest rival, Kuwabara and his childhood friend Keiko. This arc, which is much abbreviated in the anime, is the foundation for Kuwabara and Yuusuke's friendship.
Artifacts of Darkness: After coming back to life, Koenma drops his bombshell: Yuusuke's alive, but his ass belongs to the Reikai. Koenma needs a new Tantei, a new demon-hunter, and Yuusuke is it. His first mission? Face down the vile demonic criminals Hiei and Kurama.
The New Apprentice: Genkai is searching for a new apprentice and the demon Rando wants to steal her powers and techniques. Rando, who has murdered 99 other masters and stolen their abilities, is one of the hundred or so applicants Genkai is screening. Yuusuke is sent to stop Rando and protect Genkai (ha!). Kuwabara ends up joining the mission when he seeks out Genkai for help with his uncontrolled psychic abilities.
Beasts of Maze Castle: Now that he's finished months of training as Genkai's apprentice, Yuusuke's new mission seems like a cakewalk: Deal with the demons of Maze Castle who are infecting the human world with their zombie bug monsters. Kuwabara, whose psychic abilities let him see the bugs, comes along (to Yuusuke and Botan's chagrin). Hiei and Kurama join them in the demon world, sent by Koenma to back Yuusuke up (parole, sort of). We learn many things in this arc, not the least of which is that the four of them are really, really, bad at fighting as a team.
Rescue Yukina: Koenma sends them on a new mission: Rescue Yukina, a young ice maiden who is being held prisoner by several human gangsters. Ice maidens have a particular abilitiy: Their tears turn to gemstones of immense value. Yukina is being tortured to force her to produce tears for her captors. The mission gets complicated when Kuwabara falls in love with her at first sight - unknowing that she's actually Hiei's little sister.
The Dark Tournament: The Dark Tournament meets every so many years and is basically the biggest brawl ever. Teams of demons compete against one another - often to the death - for the championship. The tournament is conducted in the human world and funded mostly by billionaire humans who enjoy the thrill and danger of the event. The prize is one wish come true. Any wish. Keep that in mind; it'll be important later.
When Yuusuke and Co. are invited to compete as the guest team (it should be noted the guest team usually dies a horrible, messy death) it puts them in an interesting position: Kurama and Hiei are demons fighting for a human team, and Kuwabara and Yuusuke are just in way over their heads. This arc has a lot of matches and fighting and blah, blah, blah, but it's the scenes in between the matches that are gold; this is the first time the four of them really become a team.
This arc introduces Karasu, Kurama's creepy stalker, Hiei's Black Dragon, a ton of Genkai's backstory and several minor characters who come back later on.
Chapter Black Saga/The Sensui Arc: Rocks fall, everybody dies. Okay, not really, but close. Sensui, a former Reikai Tantei, has gotten ahold of the Black Tape, a record of every atrocity ever committed by humanity. The tape is enough to drive anyone mad, but Sensui was already there. Now he's using the tape to recruit followers into aiding his efforts to destroy humanity. His plan is to open a gate to the demon world and allow an army of demons to come through, running rampant over the human world and destroying everything in their path. There's exactly one thing stopping him: He doesn't have a means of breaching the dimensional barrier. But that's okay. He knows someone who does. Any number of things happen in this arc: Kuwabara gains control of the dimensional sword, Yuusuke dies (again) and comes back (again) as a demon, Koenma joins a fight for the first time and Enma Daioh calls out the big guns.
The Three Kings: It's been forever and a day since I watched these eps, so please forgive me if I skim over it a little. Yuusuke, Kurama and Hiei, still out of sorts after the mess with Sensui, return to the Demon World. Kuwabara, who has figured out that fighting demons is messy and gets people a) killed b) crazy c) both, stays behind and gets accepted to a prep school. He won't be back for a long while, sad to say. Meanwhile the three demons get pulled into another tournament, this one maent to decide the next ruler of the Demon World.
Bonds of Fire/The Poltergeist Report: The animated movie technically doesn't fit into canon and so a lot of fans ignore it. I quite like it, but there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. The Spirit World comes under attack by a mysterious outside force and Yuusuke and Co. discover that Yakumo, Lord of the Netherworld, has escaped from his prison and is trying to take over the human world. Nicely animated, cool fight scenes, Botan kicking ass, the guys being all worried about each other... what's not to like? Also, Hiei proves he can bluff like a pro.
Pairings
Three simple facts of YYH fanfic: Kuwabara and Keiko will be either bashed or ignored. Kurama will be tortured. OCs will flock around Hiei and he will never incinerate them in a direct violation of characterization.
Pairing wars are as bad in this fandom as in any other (except Harry Potter fandom, oh dear GOD), with the inevitable "Kurama's not GAY!" arguments and all the fun that goes with. One thing that's interesting about this fandom is you could make a reasonable argument for almost any pairing, especially within the four main characters.
Also, we have lots of femmeslash in our fandom. Cause we rock.
Yuusuke/Keiko: The only canon pairing, and one that the majority of the fandom seems determined to bash. Yuusuke and Keiko are childhood sweethearts (well, as much as any relationship Yuusuke's in could be called 'sweet') and by the end of the series they’re pretty much engaged. Yuusuke cares about her a hell of a lot, which pisses off a lot of fan-writers because they're too lazy to explain why Yuusuke's suddenly sleeping with Kurama or whoever.
Hiei/Kurama: It's not canon, but everyone pretends it is. When the YYH fandom was first getting big way back in the dark ages, Hiei/Kurama was the pairing. Even nowadays it's the dominant pairing. They really do work well together, whether you want to slash them or not, but at this point a lot of people avoid the pairing just because they're tired of it.
Sensui/Itsuki: Let's be honest, they’re pretty much canon. That doesn't make them any less screwed up, though. Itsuki is devoted to Sensui, but it's hard to tell if the reverse is true. How can you judge the intentions of a man who mostly seems to love you for your ability to help him decimate a species?
Koenma/Botan: He's technically her boss (god?) but that doesn't seem to make too much of an impression. He obviously cares about her and vice versa, though with his age and maturity being somewhat suspect, and the fact that their job could get in the way, they may never act on it. Do spiritual beings date, anyway?
Kurama/Yuusuke: The second most popular slash pairing and one that is a lot of fun to write. Kurama is mature, competent, intelligent and responsible. Yuusuke's so very not. Throw them together and watch them collide! The difference in their personalities means the relationship would be interesting and a hell of a lot of fun to write.
Yuusuke/Koenma: Yuusuke owes Koenma a lot, and he's never made any bones about owning up to it; without Koenma's help Yuusuke would never have been allowed to return to life and make something of himself. Additionally, Koenma cares about Yuusuke both as an employee and a friend; he faces down his father, the King of the Afterlife, at great personal risk, to protect Yuusuke. This relationship has it's problems, though. First of all: Koenma's the prince of the Spirit World and Yuusuke's a high lord of the demon world. Also, as Koenma's detective, Yuusuke's life is ultimately expendable. Koenma's sent him off to his near-death a couple of times and that's going to put stress on any relationship.
Kuwabara/Yukina: I wouldn't call them canon because Yukina seems largely confused by Kuwabara's attention at times, but they're close. Kuwabara fell in love with Yukina at first sight and risked his life to save her from a group of humans who were torturing her for her tear gems. Yukina regards him as her hero and a brave man who does a lot of good, and she certainly seems to be affectionate toward him, but if she has any grasp of what a romantic relationship is, she's not showing it. If these two ever get together, it'll be the cutest, sweetest thing ever.
Kuwabara/Yuusuke: Well, assuming they could manage to have sex without laughing their heads off, the biggest hurdle to this pairing (aside from Keiko and Yukina) is that Yuusuke and Kuwabara communicate by beating the hell out of each other. Sooner or later someone would call the cops. This doesn't mean they don't like each other but anyone who wants to slash these two needs to take into account that their friendship was built out of a rivalry that they never really got over. If nothing else, these two are going to be very athletic in bed and aren't going to be prone to a lot of lovey-dovey stuff. The only time they have anything nice to say about each other, at least one of them is dead.
Hiei/Mukuro: Mukuro and Hiei have a lot in common and once they team up, they play off each other very well. Their relationship is a lot of fun to write, especially since Mukuro is totally the one in charge.
Yuusuke/Hiei: The bad boy pairing of the fandom! Hiei will really only follow Yuusuke's orders as long as Yuusuke is stronger than he is (Hiei has a habit of randomly attacking Yuusuke just for the hell of it) and that makes for a very interesting sexual relationship.
Other popular pairings include:
Hiei/Botan, Kurama/Botan, Yuusuke/Botan (if you watch the movie you will swear they're madly in love), Shizuru/Atsuko (they'd hook up just to drive the boys crazy), Kurama/Shizuru, Karasu/Kurama, Kurama/Kuwabara (my favorite, I admit), Keiko/Botan, Shizuru/Yukina and etc.
Trivia
-Kuwabara likes Metallica, so much so that he once passed on a chance to save the world ecause he had tickets to a concert.
-Numerous references to Sailor Moon can be found throughout the manga and anime (Kurama introduces himself as "Tuxedo Mask" at one point) due to the fact that Togashi was dating the creator of Sailor Moon at the time. They later married.
-Togashi was just fond of putting in random references. His artwork also shows characters from Street Fighter, references to Studio Pierrot, Nintendo, and at one point a demon holds up a sign saying "Togashi, pay me back!"
-Kurama's step-brother is also named Shuichi.
-The kanji used in the series title is also a pun on Yuusuke's name.
-"Urameshi" is said to be the sound a ghost makes.
-"Kuwabara" is said to ward off evil spirits and ill luck. (heh)
-Kurama and Hiei are the names of two mountains in Japan, both sites of important holy places.
Websites:
-Funimation's Official Yu Yu Hakusho Site
-Yu Yu Hakusho on Wikipedia! This goes into a lot more detail and background then I did, so if I've succeeded in catching your interest, drop in and take a look.
-Yu Yu Hakusho on Anipike
-Yu Yu Hakusho on FF.net
-Smooth Yu Yu Hakusho - contains tons of general info.
-The Reikai Files - Character bios, scans, plot summaries, the works.
There are also several LJ communities devoted to YYH, including:
-![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yyhyaoi - a community devoted to YYH slash pairings and artwork.
-yyhyuri - a community for femmeslash
-![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yyh_fanfics - probably the most high-traffic YYH fanfic community
and several comms for individual characters such askuwabara_love.
Yu Yu Hakusho has been translated to mean "Ghost Files" or "Poltergeist Reports" and that's slightly misleading. For starters, there are almost no ghosts to speak of unless one counts the main character. Secondly, the only files or reports that appear are the ones Koenma has stacked in a haphazard pile on the edge of his desk.
What this show does have are demons and demon-hunters, cataclysms, tournaments, diabolical madmen, best friends and bitter rivals (at the same time even) genocidal psychopaths, soul-devouring monsters, and zombie-making bugs. Yes, that's right. Zombie-making bugs.
It all starts when a juvenile delinquent named Urameshi Yuusuke dies saving a small child's life. The afterlife finds itself in a bit of a quandary: they never expected him to do anything good with his life and now they don't know where to put him. The solution is, well, not simple exactly, but certainly creative: The prince of the dead offers Yuusuke a chance to prove himself. If he succeeds, he can return to life. If he fails, he's sentenced to hell. And that's just the first episode.
Yuusuke's return to life comes with one string attached: He's now bound in service to Koenma. His new position as Reikai Tantei basically translates into "Spirit World Detective" and again, that's kind of misleading. He doesn't do much detecting. Yuusuke's style is more of the "wander around hitting things until one of them confesses and then destroy it" variety. Fortunately he eventually acquires a team and they handle most of the strategy.
Unlike American comics, most Japanese manga is written by the same artists and/or team of artists from beginning to end. While this means that few series reach the status of cultural icon, a la Superman and Batman, it also means that continuity is a hell of a lot easier to understand. Yu Yu Hakusho started as a 19 volume manga, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi and was adapted to a 112-episode anime with one half-hour special and a feature-length movie. There were some changes made (the very first story arc, for example, is much shorter in the anime than in the manga) but mostly superficial. Thus, if you know one, you can read fanfic for both fairly comfortably.
The anime has been released in its entirety. The DVDs can be found at Best Buy, Barnes & Noble and probably anywhere else. The manga is currently being released in English and the 11th volume has just arrived in bookstores.
Dealing with anime fandom means that if you dig around long enough you're going to encounter some Japanese words and phrases. The ones you'll see most often are:
Reikai: Spirit World
Makai: Demon World
Ningenkai: Human World
Tantei: Detective
Youkai: demon
Reiki: Spiritual Energy
Youki: Demonic energy
Reigan: Spirit Gun
Reiken: Spirit Sword
Kitsune: Fox. (Fanfic Hiei will call Kurama this until he's blue in the face.)
(There are others, such as Kuwabara's gang, the other fighters from the Dark Tournament and misc. classmates and supporting characters. I tried to narrow it down to the ones you're most likely to encounter in fanfic)
Urameshi Yuusuke: The first thing you notice about Yuusuke is that he's dead. Things go uphill from there, really.Yuusuke is tough, crude, irresponsible and kind of a jerk. Before he died he spent most of his time brawling and the rest goofing off. He was failing school, had the local street punks terrified of him (with the notable exception of Kuwabara, who just hated him) and was probably a shoplifter and pickpocket as well. And then one afternoon he died while saving a little boy's life. Cue mass confusion.
What everyone eventually figures out, including Yuusuke himself, is that he's actually a nice guy trapped in the body of a total asshole. He's insanely loyal, ridiculously protective and once you've earned his respect and trust, it's almost impossible to screw it up. He'll go to bat for anyone who needs defending, but if you mess with someone he actually cares about? You're dead.
Yuusuke'd just as soon play video games all afternoon and has little to no interest in school; perhaps because his mother, Atsuko, has little to no education either. He's not good at emotional things, especially where Keiko is concerned, and he's more likely to settle an argument physically than with words.
For a long time, Yuusuke placed a lot of weight on being the best; being stronger than his opponents and allies alike. But an encounter with a man named Toguro changed his way of thinking. Toguro turned his back on everyone he loved to become stronger, and when Yuusuke wasn't strong enough to stop him, Toguro murdered someone Yuusuke loved to provoke him to greater heights. Yuusuke was repulsed by the idea of becoming Toguro and decided that strength was meaningless if it wasn't used to protect his friends. That determination to protect is one of the strongest motivations Yuusuke has.
Yuusuke has a strong amount of spiritual energy (reiki) which he manifests in an attack he calls the spirit gun. The stronger he he gets, the more powerful and frequent his attacks become.
Kuwabara Kazuma: Kuwabara is a giant teddy bear. He's sweet to girls, kind to animals and stands up for his friends. He also has an inexhaustible sense of honor and he's occasionally disappointed when others prove themselves to be otherwise. For a long time Kuwabara was determined to prove himself against Yuusuke, challenging him to constant matches; he always lost. When Yuusuke was killed, Kuwabara was affected more deeply than he had expected. Maybe it's because Yuusuke finally did something half decent with his life, or maybe Kuwabara had come to respect Yuusuke as an opponent. After Yuusuke came back, they ended up fighting as a team more often than they fought against each other and by the time of the Dark Tournament they were best friends. Which is not to say that they won't still pound on each other for the hell of it.
Kuwabara has powerful reiki, which manifests mostly as a sword, though his abilities are highly versatile. He's also a strong psychic. He mostly represses the ability, though it pops up from time to time when his life is in danger or something truly catastrophic is going to happen.
Kurama/Minamino Shuichi: Kurama is a demon, which seems to surprise everyone because he's so darn pretty. But he's really a reincarnated fox demon who is more than 1000 years old, has complete memory of his past life and is powerful enough that the very mention of his name terrifies others of his kind. Kurama the demon thief was killed fifteen years before the series begins, badly wounded by a hunter. His soul latched onto a chance for survival: a nearby human woman was pregnant. Kurama's soul fled into the body of the unborn baby, and he was reborn as Minamino Shuichi, in human body. Originally he viewed humanity with scorn and planned to leave as soon as he was able to regain control of his demonic powers. But his view of humanity changed when his human mother, Shiori, was badly wounded while saving him from a bad fall. He ended up sticking around and is intensely devoted to his mother. That devotion is what brought him into contact with Yuusuke. Shiori was dying, and Kurama had stolen a powerful artifact of darkness from the Spirit World in the hopes of saving her. Instead of stopping him, Yuusuke helped save Shiori, sacrificing some of his own life energy for her. This single act earned Yuusuke Kurama's respect and loyalty; friendship came soon after.
In his human form, Kurama is an honor student and a local heartthrob, though he seems to have little to no interest in returning the affection of his fangirls.
Despite his attractive appearance, Kurama can be ruthless, vicious and cold-blooded. During the Sensui Arc, when a child called GameMaster stood between them and Sensui, Kurama killed the child rather than let the rest of humanity die.
Kurama's youki (demonic energy) is not as flashy as the others. He can control plants and, like Kurama himself, his power is far more dangerous than it looks. One of his most common tactics is to keep seeds in his hair and trigger them during fights, turning even something like a rose into a weapon.
While Kuwabara and Yuusuke will challenge anyone they think is disrespectiful, Kurama is more likely to warn someone off with a demonstration of power.
Hiei: Hiei is a Forbidden Child. Get used to that phrase: you'll hear it a lot in fanfic. Hiei's mother was an ice maiden, and they don't generally associate with males of any species. Giving birth to a son raised more than a few eyebrows and the other Ice Maidens bound Hiei behind wards and seals and threw him off the edge of the island. Hiei grew up in the wilds of the Demon World, living with mercenaries and hired killers (whether or not they raised him is up for debate). Hiei is a fire demon with numerous black magic attacks, including the incredibly powerful Black Dragon. He also has a Jagan, an artificial third eye which grants him limited psychic abilities. His favored weapon is his katana, however, relying on his swordsmanship to handle most opponents.Appearing at first glance as nothing more than a mercenary and thief, Hiei is motivated by the desire to find his younger sister, Yukina. He underwent incredibly painful surgery to acquire the Jagan in the hope that it would let him find her. When he does ultimately locate her, he chooses not to reveal himself to her believing she deserves better than him for a brother.
Fanfic Hiei is a grumpy loner who rarely says more than "hn" and "baka kitsune" and spends all his time beating up Kuwabara. In reality, Hiei can be incredibly eloquent and insightful. While he and Kuwabara are often at odds, they also come to one another's aid and provide each other with backup and support. Hiei acts like he's a heartless killer; and to a degree he is; but when his teammates or sister are involved, Hiei often shows a sense of loyalty and concern that probably drives him crazy.
Koenma: Koenma is the son of Enma Daioh, the King of the Afterlife. Koenma's responsibilities seem to be largely managerial, including judging souls, overseeing the ferrygirls and other spiritual beings, and commanding the Reikai Tantei. He's also a toddler, but that's a long story. He turns into a teenager for special occasions and that's an even longer story.
Botan: Botan is a ferrygirl in the service of the Reikai. Her job is to collect the spirits of the dead and guide them to the Spirit World for judgment. She’s sweet, occasionally silly, and tougher than she looks.Genkai: Genkai is a powerful master of spiritual energyand martial arts. She has undefined ties with the Spirt World and the Kuwabara family. When she decides to train her successor, martial artists from all over the world show up, hoping for the chance to gain her techniques. She's cranky, impatient and possibly the single strongest human being alive. Unlike Kurama, it's impossible to be tougher than Genkai looks.
Kuwabara Shizuru: Kuwabara Kazuma's older sister. Shizuru is also psychic and it's strongly implied that their entire family has some unknown connection to the Spirit World. Shizuru herself is a feisty, sarcastic woman who looks out for her brother and his idiot friends and isn't afraid to knock some sense into the big bad demon hunters. The siblings poke fun at each other but Shizuru almost always comes out ahead for a simple reason: Kuwabara, like most little brothers, is scared of his sister.
Yukimura Keiko: Yuusuke's girlfriend, not that either one of them would ever admit it. Keiko's at a bit of a disadvantage because she's a normal human with no special powers, but she is tough, smart and incredibly loyal. She gets bashed a lot, which is unfortunate because she's a strong female character, the type people always bitch about wanting to see more of. We're talking about a girl who knew nothing of ghosts or demons until the day her teachers turned into zombie-things and started trying to kill her and she still rallied enough to beat them off with janitorial equipment. She's also the only one who can keep Yuusuke in line most of the time.Yukina: An ice demon whose tears crystallize into gems of immense value. Kuwabara's sweet on her, and she seems to return the affection though she mostly seems befuddled by all the strange humans she's keeping company with lately. She's also (shh! Don't tell anyone!) Hiei's younger sister.
Urameshi Atsuko: Yuusuke's mother, a spaced-out alcoholic could-be prostitute who may or may not be running the local Yakuza.
Toguro (elder): A shape-shifter who can manipulate his body into any form. He is seen mostly as a weapon his younger brother carries into battle. He's ridiculously hard to kill and completely insane.
Toguro (younger): A scary, scary abomination who eats souls and doesn't seem to have any problem with killing everyone and everything he sees. Toguro used to be human, but he traded his soul for strength, turning him into a monster worse than many of the true demons the boys have encountered.
Kuronue: Kuronue was created for the movie (Bonds of Fire, released in the US as The Poltergeist Reports) and does not appear in the manga or the main anime series. That doesn't stop him from popping up all over fanfic though. Kuronue was Kurama's old partner back in the Demon World, but he died rather horribly in the middle of a job. A bad guy impersonates him for a while to torture Kurama, but beyond that we don't know much about him.
Sensui: A former Reikai Tantei who saw too much and snapped under the pressure. Sensui spent years fighting demons in the defense of humanity, only to discover that there are humans as capable of evil as any demon. Sensui is ridiculously powerful, and completely devoted to his goal of exterminating mankind.
Itsuki: Sensui's partner, friend and lover. Itsuki is a demon who encountered Sensui on one of his cases. When Sensui turned on mankind, Itsuki went with him. Itsuki is a rare class of demon: he can create a dimensional pocket or void and trap people within it; a tactic he uses to prevent the Tantei from attacking Sensui.
The Seven: Sensui's band of ruthless killers – or whiny brats, depending on how you look at it. The Seven are all humans who, for whatever reasons, have decided that humanity cannot be allowed to survive. Most of the Seven are misguided or easily manipulated, a few reform and go back to live normal lives, but several of them are as ruthless as Sensui himself. The Seven are: Seaman, Gamemaster, Sniper, Doctor, Gateway, Gourmet and Sensui himself.
Karasu: A nasty demon who appears during the Dark Tournament. Apparently he and Kurama have some sort of history – or at least Karasu thinks they do. Kurama's pretty close-mouthed about his past (and everything else) so who can tell? Karasu is completely insane, fond of explosives, and obsessed with Kurama. Unsurprisingly, he shows up a lot in fanfic.
Mukuro: One of the three demon lords of the Makai (there are more than three, but these guys get most of the attention) and Ruler of the Second Kingdom. Mukuro takes a particular interest in Hiei and eventually takes him on as her apprentice and heir.
Yomi: Another demon lord of the Makai, and an old enemy of Kurama's. Ruler of the First Kingdom. The only person besides Genkai to successfully kick Yuusuke's ass.
Raizen: A powerful demon lord who is an ancestor of Yuusuke's. Ruler of the Third Kingdom. Fond of humans and not just as food!
Puu: The Physical manifestation of Yuusuke's soul. Sort of.
Eikichi: Kuwabara's kitten! Yuusuke helped Kuwabara rescue Eikichi from a band of thugs who were torturing him. It was technically the first time they ever fought as a team.
Spirit Detective: When Yuusuke dies saving a little boy, the Reikai has to figure out what to do with him. Koenma gives Yuusuke a test to pass: He has to carry around the egg of a spiritual beast, letting it feed off his energy. If Yuusuke's a good person, the beast will be good, if he's evil, the beast will be a monster.
While waiting for the beast to hatch, Yuusuke ends up following around the people in his life. He discovers that a lot more people miss him than he'd thought, including his biggest rival, Kuwabara and his childhood friend Keiko. This arc, which is much abbreviated in the anime, is the foundation for Kuwabara and Yuusuke's friendship.
Artifacts of Darkness: After coming back to life, Koenma drops his bombshell: Yuusuke's alive, but his ass belongs to the Reikai. Koenma needs a new Tantei, a new demon-hunter, and Yuusuke is it. His first mission? Face down the vile demonic criminals Hiei and Kurama.
The New Apprentice: Genkai is searching for a new apprentice and the demon Rando wants to steal her powers and techniques. Rando, who has murdered 99 other masters and stolen their abilities, is one of the hundred or so applicants Genkai is screening. Yuusuke is sent to stop Rando and protect Genkai (ha!). Kuwabara ends up joining the mission when he seeks out Genkai for help with his uncontrolled psychic abilities.
Beasts of Maze Castle: Now that he's finished months of training as Genkai's apprentice, Yuusuke's new mission seems like a cakewalk: Deal with the demons of Maze Castle who are infecting the human world with their zombie bug monsters. Kuwabara, whose psychic abilities let him see the bugs, comes along (to Yuusuke and Botan's chagrin). Hiei and Kurama join them in the demon world, sent by Koenma to back Yuusuke up (parole, sort of). We learn many things in this arc, not the least of which is that the four of them are really, really, bad at fighting as a team.
Rescue Yukina: Koenma sends them on a new mission: Rescue Yukina, a young ice maiden who is being held prisoner by several human gangsters. Ice maidens have a particular abilitiy: Their tears turn to gemstones of immense value. Yukina is being tortured to force her to produce tears for her captors. The mission gets complicated when Kuwabara falls in love with her at first sight - unknowing that she's actually Hiei's little sister.
The Dark Tournament: The Dark Tournament meets every so many years and is basically the biggest brawl ever. Teams of demons compete against one another - often to the death - for the championship. The tournament is conducted in the human world and funded mostly by billionaire humans who enjoy the thrill and danger of the event. The prize is one wish come true. Any wish. Keep that in mind; it'll be important later.
When Yuusuke and Co. are invited to compete as the guest team (it should be noted the guest team usually dies a horrible, messy death) it puts them in an interesting position: Kurama and Hiei are demons fighting for a human team, and Kuwabara and Yuusuke are just in way over their heads. This arc has a lot of matches and fighting and blah, blah, blah, but it's the scenes in between the matches that are gold; this is the first time the four of them really become a team.
This arc introduces Karasu, Kurama's creepy stalker, Hiei's Black Dragon, a ton of Genkai's backstory and several minor characters who come back later on.
Chapter Black Saga/The Sensui Arc: Rocks fall, everybody dies. Okay, not really, but close. Sensui, a former Reikai Tantei, has gotten ahold of the Black Tape, a record of every atrocity ever committed by humanity. The tape is enough to drive anyone mad, but Sensui was already there. Now he's using the tape to recruit followers into aiding his efforts to destroy humanity. His plan is to open a gate to the demon world and allow an army of demons to come through, running rampant over the human world and destroying everything in their path. There's exactly one thing stopping him: He doesn't have a means of breaching the dimensional barrier. But that's okay. He knows someone who does. Any number of things happen in this arc: Kuwabara gains control of the dimensional sword, Yuusuke dies (again) and comes back (again) as a demon, Koenma joins a fight for the first time and Enma Daioh calls out the big guns.
The Three Kings: It's been forever and a day since I watched these eps, so please forgive me if I skim over it a little. Yuusuke, Kurama and Hiei, still out of sorts after the mess with Sensui, return to the Demon World. Kuwabara, who has figured out that fighting demons is messy and gets people a) killed b) crazy c) both, stays behind and gets accepted to a prep school. He won't be back for a long while, sad to say. Meanwhile the three demons get pulled into another tournament, this one maent to decide the next ruler of the Demon World.
Bonds of Fire/The Poltergeist Report: The animated movie technically doesn't fit into canon and so a lot of fans ignore it. I quite like it, but there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. The Spirit World comes under attack by a mysterious outside force and Yuusuke and Co. discover that Yakumo, Lord of the Netherworld, has escaped from his prison and is trying to take over the human world. Nicely animated, cool fight scenes, Botan kicking ass, the guys being all worried about each other... what's not to like? Also, Hiei proves he can bluff like a pro.
Three simple facts of YYH fanfic: Kuwabara and Keiko will be either bashed or ignored. Kurama will be tortured. OCs will flock around Hiei and he will never incinerate them in a direct violation of characterization.
Pairing wars are as bad in this fandom as in any other (except Harry Potter fandom, oh dear GOD), with the inevitable "Kurama's not GAY!" arguments and all the fun that goes with. One thing that's interesting about this fandom is you could make a reasonable argument for almost any pairing, especially within the four main characters.
Also, we have lots of femmeslash in our fandom. Cause we rock.
Yuusuke/Keiko: The only canon pairing, and one that the majority of the fandom seems determined to bash. Yuusuke and Keiko are childhood sweethearts (well, as much as any relationship Yuusuke's in could be called 'sweet') and by the end of the series they’re pretty much engaged. Yuusuke cares about her a hell of a lot, which pisses off a lot of fan-writers because they're too lazy to explain why Yuusuke's suddenly sleeping with Kurama or whoever.Hiei/Kurama: It's not canon, but everyone pretends it is. When the YYH fandom was first getting big way back in the dark ages, Hiei/Kurama was the pairing. Even nowadays it's the dominant pairing. They really do work well together, whether you want to slash them or not, but at this point a lot of people avoid the pairing just because they're tired of it. Sensui/Itsuki: Let's be honest, they’re pretty much canon. That doesn't make them any less screwed up, though. Itsuki is devoted to Sensui, but it's hard to tell if the reverse is true. How can you judge the intentions of a man who mostly seems to love you for your ability to help him decimate a species?
Koenma/Botan: He's technically her boss (god?) but that doesn't seem to make too much of an impression. He obviously cares about her and vice versa, though with his age and maturity being somewhat suspect, and the fact that their job could get in the way, they may never act on it. Do spiritual beings date, anyway?
Kurama/Yuusuke: The second most popular slash pairing and one that is a lot of fun to write. Kurama is mature, competent, intelligent and responsible. Yuusuke's so very not. Throw them together and watch them collide! The difference in their personalities means the relationship would be interesting and a hell of a lot of fun to write.
Yuusuke/Koenma: Yuusuke owes Koenma a lot, and he's never made any bones about owning up to it; without Koenma's help Yuusuke would never have been allowed to return to life and make something of himself. Additionally, Koenma cares about Yuusuke both as an employee and a friend; he faces down his father, the King of the Afterlife, at great personal risk, to protect Yuusuke. This relationship has it's problems, though. First of all: Koenma's the prince of the Spirit World and Yuusuke's a high lord of the demon world. Also, as Koenma's detective, Yuusuke's life is ultimately expendable. Koenma's sent him off to his near-death a couple of times and that's going to put stress on any relationship.
Kuwabara/Yukina: I wouldn't call them canon because Yukina seems largely confused by Kuwabara's attention at times, but they're close. Kuwabara fell in love with Yukina at first sight and risked his life to save her from a group of humans who were torturing her for her tear gems. Yukina regards him as her hero and a brave man who does a lot of good, and she certainly seems to be affectionate toward him, but if she has any grasp of what a romantic relationship is, she's not showing it. If these two ever get together, it'll be the cutest, sweetest thing ever.
Kuwabara/Yuusuke: Well, assuming they could manage to have sex without laughing their heads off, the biggest hurdle to this pairing (aside from Keiko and Yukina) is that Yuusuke and Kuwabara communicate by beating the hell out of each other. Sooner or later someone would call the cops. This doesn't mean they don't like each other but anyone who wants to slash these two needs to take into account that their friendship was built out of a rivalry that they never really got over. If nothing else, these two are going to be very athletic in bed and aren't going to be prone to a lot of lovey-dovey stuff. The only time they have anything nice to say about each other, at least one of them is dead.
Hiei/Mukuro: Mukuro and Hiei have a lot in common and once they team up, they play off each other very well. Their relationship is a lot of fun to write, especially since Mukuro is totally the one in charge.
Yuusuke/Hiei: The bad boy pairing of the fandom! Hiei will really only follow Yuusuke's orders as long as Yuusuke is stronger than he is (Hiei has a habit of randomly attacking Yuusuke just for the hell of it) and that makes for a very interesting sexual relationship.
Other popular pairings include:
Hiei/Botan, Kurama/Botan, Yuusuke/Botan (if you watch the movie you will swear they're madly in love), Shizuru/Atsuko (they'd hook up just to drive the boys crazy), Kurama/Shizuru, Karasu/Kurama, Kurama/Kuwabara (my favorite, I admit), Keiko/Botan, Shizuru/Yukina and etc.
-Kuwabara likes Metallica, so much so that he once passed on a chance to save the world ecause he had tickets to a concert.
-Numerous references to Sailor Moon can be found throughout the manga and anime (Kurama introduces himself as "Tuxedo Mask" at one point) due to the fact that Togashi was dating the creator of Sailor Moon at the time. They later married.
-Togashi was just fond of putting in random references. His artwork also shows characters from Street Fighter, references to Studio Pierrot, Nintendo, and at one point a demon holds up a sign saying "Togashi, pay me back!"
-Kurama's step-brother is also named Shuichi.
-The kanji used in the series title is also a pun on Yuusuke's name.
-"Urameshi" is said to be the sound a ghost makes.
-"Kuwabara" is said to ward off evil spirits and ill luck. (heh)
-Kurama and Hiei are the names of two mountains in Japan, both sites of important holy places.
-Funimation's Official Yu Yu Hakusho Site
-Yu Yu Hakusho on Wikipedia! This goes into a lot more detail and background then I did, so if I've succeeded in catching your interest, drop in and take a look.
-Yu Yu Hakusho on Anipike
-Yu Yu Hakusho on FF.net
-Smooth Yu Yu Hakusho - contains tons of general info.
-The Reikai Files - Character bios, scans, plot summaries, the works.
There are also several LJ communities devoted to YYH, including:
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yyhyaoi - a community devoted to YYH slash pairings and artwork.-
yyhyuri - a community for femmeslash-
yyh_fanfics - probably the most high-traffic YYH fanfic communityand several comms for individual characters such as
kuwabara_love.
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Hahah couldn't have said it better myself. XD
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heh. it's also been called "Ghost Fighter" o_O
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^_^ Omg, when? I can't believe I missed that...
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Either way, Kuwabara has awesome taste in music. *nods*
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