Between 2017’s Death Note and this year’s critically acclaimed One Piece, it’s been a hit or miss for Netflix when it comes to live action anime adaptations. The latest one is YuYu Hakusho, whose supernatural scrimmages influenced 90s action manga. Yusuke Urameshi maintains that classic 90s delinquent with a heart of gold in the modern era now, and it’s easy to root for him because he shares the same intentions as anyone else would. The fights are fantastic, with Robot Communications at the helm, and the spirit world looks and feels so intriguing, even for viewers unfamiliar with the original story. However, with only five episodes, amounting to only five hours, it’s too short of a time to flesh out so many of the manga’s full ensemble. YuYu Hakusho might have the visuals, but fans of the original might be let down by the live action time spent with their favorite side characters.
After a selfless act costs him his life, teen delinquent Yusuke Urameshi is chosen as a Spirit Detective to investigate cases involving rogue yokai.
After dying too early from a car accident, delinquent teenager Yusuke Urameshi gets resurrected and becomes a detective who deals with the supernatural.
After the iconic 90s manga and anime, there was a possibility for the live action YuYu Hakusho to falter. The pressure was on for Robot Communications to bring Yoshihiro Togashi’s story to life, and they had to be able to visualize the action, namely, the death defying duels between various yokai and Yusuke Urameshi. Admittedly, the series had to rely on obvious CGI – being, of course, a show centered on fights with fantastic creatures – but Robot Communications is able to balance the fantastical and the realistic the same way it did in Alice in Borderland and the recent Godzilla Minus One. The show uses CGI, but doesn’t overly depend on it– CGI aided in certain monsters and the breathtaking spirit world, but the rest remained fairly grounded, as the more human-like actors clearly worked with their costumes, and the fight choreography still depended on Wuxia-like stunts and flying cables. While the runtime cuts short the manga’s more still, emotional moments, there’s no denying YuYu Hakusho’s excellent fight scenes make the show fun to watch.
The show looks good enough to make me, a new viewer, feel curious about the original, at least. But it feels like there could have been so much more than five episodes.
