is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 1990 to July 1994, with its 175 chapters collected into 19 volumes.
The series follows Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who is struck and killed by a car while saving a child's life. After several tests presented to him by Koenma, the son of the ruler of the afterlife, Yusuke is revived and appointed the title of "Underworld Detective". With this title, he must investigate various cases involving demons and apparitions in the Human World, with the manga gradually becoming more focused on martial arts battles and tournaments as it progresses. Togashi began conceptualizing YuYu Hakusho around November 1990, basing the series on his interests in the occult and horror films, along with Buddhist mythology.
In North America, the manga is licensed by Viz Media, which first serialized it in Shonen Jump from January 2003 to January 2010. An anime adaptation consisting of 112 television episodes, directed by Noriyuki Abe and co-produced by Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot, aired from October 1992 to January 1995. The YuYu Hakusho franchise has spawned two animated films, a series of original video animations (OVAs), a live-action television series, video games, and other merchandise.
YuYu Hakusho has been well received; the manga has over 50 million copies in circulation worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. It also won the 39th Shogakukan Manga Award for the category in 1993.
Plot
YuYu Hakusho follows Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year-old street-brawling delinquent who, in an uncharacteristic act of altruism, is hit by a car and killed in an attempt to save a young boy by pushing him out of the way. His ghost is greeted by Botan, a woman who introduces herself as the pilot of the Sanzu River, who ferries souls to the where they may be judged for the afterlife. Botan informs Yusuke that his act had caught even the Underworld by surprise and that there was not yet a place made for him in either heaven or hell. Thus, Koenma, son of the Underworld's ruler King Enma, offers Yusuke a chance to return to his body through a series of tests. Yusuke succeeds with the help of his friends Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwabara.
After returning to life, Koenma grants Yusuke the title of , charging him with investigating supernatural activity within the . Soon Yusuke is off on his first case, retrieving three treasures stolen from the Underworld by a gang of demons: Hiei, Kurama, and Goki. Yusuke collects the three treasures with the aid of his new technique, the Rei Gun, a shot of aura or fired mentally from his index finger. He then travels to the mountains in search of the aged, female martial arts master Genkai. Together with Kuwabara, Yusuke fights through a tournament organized by Genkai to find her successor. Yusuke uses the competition as a cover to search for Rando, a demon who steals the techniques of martial arts masters and kills them. Yusuke defeats Rando in the final round of the tournament and trains with Genkai for several months, gaining more mastery over his aura. Yusuke is then sent to Labyrinth Castle in the , a third world occupied solely by demons, where Kuwabara and the newly reformed Kurama and Hiei assist him in defeating the Four Beasts, a quartet of demons attempting to blackmail Koenma into removing the barrier keeping them out of the Human World.
Yusuke's next case sends him on a rescue mission, where he meets Toguro, a human turned into a demon. To test his strength, Toguro invites Yusuke to the , an event put on by corrupt, rich humans in which teams of demons, and occasionally humans, fight fierce battles for the chance to receive any wish they desire. Team Urameshi, consisting of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, and a disguised Genkai, traverses through the strenuous early rounds to face Team Toguro in the finals and win the tournament. They learn that Team Toguro's owner, Sakyo, was attempting to win to create a large hole from the Human World to the Demon Plane and allow countless demons through. With his loss, Sakyo destroys the tournament arena, killing himself in the process.
After the tournament, Yusuke returns home but has little time to rest as three teenagers possessing superhuman powers challenge him and take him hostage. Kuwabara and the others rescue Yusuke and learn that the scenario was a test from Genkai. It is disclosed that Shinobu Sensui, Yusuke's predecessor as Underworld Detective, has recruited six other powerful beings to help him take over where Sakyo left off, opening a hole to the Demon Plane to cause genocide of the human race. Yusuke and his friends challenge and defeat Sensui's associates, culminating in a final battle between the two detectives. Sensui kills Yusuke and then retreats into the newly opened portal to the Demon Plane. Yusuke is reborn as a partial demon, discovering that his ancestor passed down a recessive gene that would hide until an heir with sufficient power surfaced, when his demonic lineage would be revealed. Yusuke travels to the Demon Plane and defeats Sensui with the aid of his ancestor, who takes control of Yusuke's body to finish the fight.
As they return to the Human World, Yusuke is stripped of his detective title in fear that his demon blood could cause him to go on a rampage in the Human World. Yusuke, unsettled at having been controlled by his ancestor Raizen, accepts an offer by Raizen's followers to return to the Demon Plane. Raizen, desiring a successor to his territory, is on the brink of dying of starvation, a death that would topple the delicate political balance of the three ruling powers of the Demon Plane. The other two rulers Mukuro and Yomi summon Hiei and Kurama, respectively, to prepare for an inevitable war. The three protagonists train in the realm for one year, during which time Raizen dies, and Yusuke inherits his territory. Yusuke takes the initiative and proposes a fighting tournament to name the Demon Plane's true ruler; Mukuro and Yomi agree to Yusuke's terms. During the tournament, Yusuke and Yomi meet in the second elimination round, where Yusuke is defeated. Yusuke hopes a similar competition will be held every few years to determine the Demon Plane's ruler.
Two years later, Yusuke returns to the Human World while Hiei stays with Mukuro and protects humans who have accidentally wandered into the Demon Plane. After learning that King Enma was falsifying reports of demon activity against humans to justify keeping the two separated, Koenma takes over his father's position and allows access between the Demon Plane and the Human World. Genkai dies and leaves her estate to the main characters. The story ends with Yusuke and his friends reuniting at a beach.
Production Author Yoshihiro Togashi stated that he began working on YuYu Hakusho around November 1990, though he forgot the exact time. He had recently completed the serialization of his romantic comedy Ten de Shōwaru Cupid in Weekly Shōnen Jump. Having felt somewhat intimidated by some of his more popular fellow authors during this manga's run, Togashi realized he would need to create a fighting manga to both gain popularity and write something he enjoyed. As a fan of the occult and horror films, he desired to write and illustrate a new manga based on his interests. Togashi had previously published an occult detective fiction manga titled Occult Tanteidan, of which he referenced positive reception from readers as a reason for continuing to create manga. When first producing YuYu Hakusho, he did not have a clear idea of what he wanted to call it. He used the tentative title "How to be a Ghost" while presenting rough drafts to his editors. Once given the go-ahead to begin publication, Togashi proposed "YuYu-Ki" (Poltergeist Chronicles) for the title, as there would be battles with demons and it would be a play on the title SaiYu-Ki. However, a series with a similar name (Chin-Yu-Ki) had already begun publication, so Togashi quickly created an alternative: "YuYu Hakusho" (Poltergeist Report). He commented that he could have used "Den" (Legend) or "Monogatari" (Story), but "Hakusho" (Report) was the first thing that came to his mind. He consistently developed the names of the main characters by skimming through a dictionary and taking out kanji characters he found appealing. "Yusuke Urameshi" is a pun, "Kazuma Kuwabara" is a combination of two professional baseball players, and "Hiei" and "Kurama" are "just names that popped into [Togashi's] head." When he introduced the latter two characters in volume three, the author had early plans to make Kurama a main character, but was not certain about Hiei.
The manga's shift from occult detective fiction to the martial arts genre after Yusuke's death and revival in the early chapters was planned by Togashi from the beginning. He took this idea from the series Kinnikuman, which began largely as a comedy before concentrating more on action. Togashi intended to establish the main characters and familiarize the reader with them before placing them in tense, physical conflicts. His editor at the time was nervous about him beginning the manga this way and recommended he transition to a battle-focused plot after about 30 chapters. YuYu Hakusho borrows many elements from Asian folklore, particularly Buddhist beliefs in the afterlife. Togashi came up with the concept of the Ningenkai (Human World), Reikai (Underworld), and Makai (Demon Plane) as being parallel planes of existence in the manga's universe. He thought of them as places one could not easily travel between using modern technology, but rather as a spirit lacking a material body. However, the idea for the "territory" powers from the Sensui story arc was parodied from a separate, unnamed work by Yasutaka Tsutsui. For his drawing materials, Togashi used drafting ink and Kabura pens throughout the creation of the series. While his style of artwork began with screentone, he gradually developed into minimalism. As the series progressed, he would draw figures and faces very detailed or "cartoony, sketchy, and jumping with action" whenever he desired such effects.
During the years he worked on YuYu Hakusho, Togashi calculated the personal time he had based on a formula of four hours per page without scripting and five hours of sleep per night. He wrote in his own dōjinshi Yoshirin de Pon! that he stopped the production on YuYu Hakusho out of selfishness. The author had originally wanted to end the manga in December 1993, at the climax of the Sensui arc. Although there was not a great demand from the editorial staff, Togashi was under a great deal of personal stress at certain points of the series' run, particularly during its final six months of publication. He claimed that beginning with the Dark Tournament arc, inconsistent sleep due to overwork was causing him health problems. He noted he was very ill while working on the color pages for Yusuke's match with Chu. There were many instances where he would create nearly entire manuscripts by himself, such as Yusuke's meeting with Raizen and the battle between Kurama and Karasu. The publication's editors tried to make Togashi reconsider canceling Yu Yu Hakusho, though he justified his decision by stating that another popular series would replace it. Togashi was relieved at the conclusion of the manga. The author claimed he was not involved in the production of the YuYu Hakusho anime adaptation due to his work schedule. He stated that he was greatly impressed by Shigeru Chiba's voice depiction of Kuwabara, admitting that the actor understood the character better than Togashi himself.
Media Manga