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alchemicinkIt's been a while since I wrote a full, proper review for anything, but I had lots of thoughts about the new Yu Yu Hakusho live action series on Netflix. This review will basically be two sections: firstly, a review of the series itself, and then, a comparison to the source material.
The whole thing will be FULL of spoilers! Read at your own risk if you haven't watched yet~
Let's just jump right to the biggest flaw of this series: it's only five episodes!
Plenty of stories can be told in five episodes (these were all under an hour long), but the problem with this show is that they tried to cram too much into the limited amount of time. It gets to a point where the plot is just chugging along so fast that it never gives the audience a moment to breathe. By the time they wrap up training at Genkai's (in episode three) the plot shifts into high gear and just doesn't really stop until the end credits of episode five.
As such, relevant exposition and earlier plot points get lost along the way. Remember when Yusuke was supposed to be doing Spirit Detective work and retrieving the three dangerous stolen items? Hiei and his fancy knife are all but forgotten once Keiko gets kidnapped and they set off for the Island of Degenerate Gamblers* (*not the island's actual name, but I like it.) And even before that, there's barely any explanation about the items and what they do. I'm all for skipping unnecessary exposition, but the audience can't really understand the stakes if they aren't shown it.
Hiei could have kept that little blade for all I care! He'd already used it anyway...
The other problem with the rushed plot is that we miss out on the main team (Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei) getting any space for connecting with each other. Yusuke and Kuwabara get the most moments, but they're largely just in the first two episodes.
I think Hiei is really the one who gets the short end of the stick here. Most of his interactions are with Kurama. He briefly fights Yusuke twice. He barely shares any screen time with Kuwabara at all. He runs off immediately when they get to the island (which, to be fair, is incredibly in-character). Other than the final fight together, he feels almost completely separated from the rest of the team. So when they're all heading back home in the end as friends, it feels unearned. They're a team because the show says they're supposed to be, and that's that.
If we'd been given just a few more episodes, they probably could have added more moments to build the relationships amongst all four of them.
With all that being said, I actually truly enjoyed the series itself. Even if the plot was moving at breakneck speed, it was entertaining to me the entire time. The fight scenes, in particular, were extremely fun to watch. Many of them made good use of the surrounding environment, so it's not just watching two people throw a few punches and kicks through a shaky camera lens.
Yusuke verses Gouki in episode two was the best, in my opinion, because the junkyard of cars made for some innovative moves. The Netflix Japan Twitter account shared a bit of that fight here. The fight keeps you engaged because they keep moving from car to car, and no move is the same as the one before it. (Also, the wrestling moves were a nice touch. Feels perfect for a fight between two brawlers.)
I also enjoyed the acting from a good deal of the cast. Kitamura Takumi brought Yusuke to life, albeit a bit more muted than I'm used to from the character. (He was very nicely consistent with his performance though, I thought.) Uesugi Shuhei as Kuwabara was one of my personal favorites, because he embodied Kuwabara's sincerity and determination well.
(I loved Shison Jun as Kurama, but as he's my absolute favorite character, I'm too biased to judge his performance. I loved it but I have no idea if it was good or not. And I think the writing for Hiei didn't really give Hongo Kanata a chance to shine, unfortunately.)
Other standouts to me were Shiraishi Sei as Keiko (throwing a good punch on occasion), Furukawa Kotone as Botan (bringing some much needed brightness to the story), and Takito Kenichi as Elder Toguro (clearly having a great time as a villain).
Without considering the source material, I still think it's an entertaining series, though I wonder if it's incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't seen/read the original and couldn't fill in all the blanks?
This brings me to the second half of my review: when compared to the original, it's clear that the story is too condensed. We lose out on a lot of things that made the original a well-loved classic.
I should note that I don't mind condensing plot points. In fact, I really enjoyed the way the first two episodes handled things. I don't want an adaptation that's exactly the same as the original, so I liked some of the changes. Adding the makai insects in episode one was a nice way to start introducing the audience to the concept of the other world filled with demons and why they're kept separate. And I liked the fight with the random possessed classmate, Kirino. To me, that was a better way to start the fire that threatens Yusuke's body than the random passing arsonist in the original.
Other changes fell a bit flat. I enjoyed the decision to have Yusuke and Kuwabara both train with Genkai. But Genkai simply passing on her power to Yusuke was incredibly anticlimactic, especially if you remember that it was an excruciating ordeal in the original. It feels less earned here without the suffering somehow.
This version also lacks the charm of watching Yusuke stumble around in the beginning and win some things through sheer luck (like beating Hiei the first time by bouncing his spirit gun off the mirror, for example, or winning against Rando because he had moss in his ears). It makes his character very endearing in the original because he's just a teenage punk who got swept up in all this spirit stuff, and he's figuring things out along the way. All of those moments were omitted from live action unfortunately.
But the most egregious change was the decision to combine and condense the Rescue Yukina arc and Dark Tournament arc - which spans several dozen episodes of the anime - into a mere two episodes to wrap up this series. They tried real hard to include the best highlights, but it was a bit disappointing to not get something more fleshed out. I always liked the tournament arc as it really solidified them as a team. But as I mentioned earlier, this version doesn't accomplish that.
Overall, this series felt like a fun (but rushed) canon divergent fanfic that I'd watch again if given the chance. They definitely tried to capture the spirit of the show, but whoever decided they should cram so much into only five episodes should be fired!
On the bright side, I feel inspired to do another rewatch of the anime now 😊
Bonus Notes
☆ There was a silly little running gag where Yusuke couldn't get his cigarette lit, and it cracked me up every time
☆ The show was a lot bloodier than I expected. I always enjoyed the mild body horror aspect of parts of the anime, so I'm glad this version had that too.
☆ Keiko throwing the fire extinguisher was hilarious 😁 I was pleased she actually got to be a little more involved here (despite being kidnapped as a plot point)
☆ my brother's review was less charitable than my own: he gave it 4 out of 10 stars, and complained a lot about the CGI (which... fair). But he also said Tarukane looked the most like his anime counterpart
☆ I wish we'd gotten more about Hiei and Yukina's backstory. Nothing about that plot resonated in this version at all.
☆ My favorite minor characters were Kuwabara's friends. I loved them in the anime, and it was nice to see them pop up here too. They're good dudes, and they work well to add more depth to Kuwabara's character.
☆ Why's Kuwabara's spirit sword sound like a bug zapper?? 😂
So what did everyone else think? I'd love to hear people's thoughts
The whole thing will be FULL of spoilers! Read at your own risk if you haven't watched yet~
Let's just jump right to the biggest flaw of this series: it's only five episodes!
Plenty of stories can be told in five episodes (these were all under an hour long), but the problem with this show is that they tried to cram too much into the limited amount of time. It gets to a point where the plot is just chugging along so fast that it never gives the audience a moment to breathe. By the time they wrap up training at Genkai's (in episode three) the plot shifts into high gear and just doesn't really stop until the end credits of episode five.
As such, relevant exposition and earlier plot points get lost along the way. Remember when Yusuke was supposed to be doing Spirit Detective work and retrieving the three dangerous stolen items? Hiei and his fancy knife are all but forgotten once Keiko gets kidnapped and they set off for the Island of Degenerate Gamblers* (*not the island's actual name, but I like it.) And even before that, there's barely any explanation about the items and what they do. I'm all for skipping unnecessary exposition, but the audience can't really understand the stakes if they aren't shown it.
Hiei could have kept that little blade for all I care! He'd already used it anyway...
The other problem with the rushed plot is that we miss out on the main team (Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei) getting any space for connecting with each other. Yusuke and Kuwabara get the most moments, but they're largely just in the first two episodes.
I think Hiei is really the one who gets the short end of the stick here. Most of his interactions are with Kurama. He briefly fights Yusuke twice. He barely shares any screen time with Kuwabara at all. He runs off immediately when they get to the island (which, to be fair, is incredibly in-character). Other than the final fight together, he feels almost completely separated from the rest of the team. So when they're all heading back home in the end as friends, it feels unearned. They're a team because the show says they're supposed to be, and that's that.
If we'd been given just a few more episodes, they probably could have added more moments to build the relationships amongst all four of them.
With all that being said, I actually truly enjoyed the series itself. Even if the plot was moving at breakneck speed, it was entertaining to me the entire time. The fight scenes, in particular, were extremely fun to watch. Many of them made good use of the surrounding environment, so it's not just watching two people throw a few punches and kicks through a shaky camera lens.
Yusuke verses Gouki in episode two was the best, in my opinion, because the junkyard of cars made for some innovative moves. The Netflix Japan Twitter account shared a bit of that fight here. The fight keeps you engaged because they keep moving from car to car, and no move is the same as the one before it. (Also, the wrestling moves were a nice touch. Feels perfect for a fight between two brawlers.)
I also enjoyed the acting from a good deal of the cast. Kitamura Takumi brought Yusuke to life, albeit a bit more muted than I'm used to from the character. (He was very nicely consistent with his performance though, I thought.) Uesugi Shuhei as Kuwabara was one of my personal favorites, because he embodied Kuwabara's sincerity and determination well.
(I loved Shison Jun as Kurama, but as he's my absolute favorite character, I'm too biased to judge his performance. I loved it but I have no idea if it was good or not. And I think the writing for Hiei didn't really give Hongo Kanata a chance to shine, unfortunately.)
Other standouts to me were Shiraishi Sei as Keiko (throwing a good punch on occasion), Furukawa Kotone as Botan (bringing some much needed brightness to the story), and Takito Kenichi as Elder Toguro (clearly having a great time as a villain).
Without considering the source material, I still think it's an entertaining series, though I wonder if it's incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't seen/read the original and couldn't fill in all the blanks?
This brings me to the second half of my review: when compared to the original, it's clear that the story is too condensed. We lose out on a lot of things that made the original a well-loved classic.
I should note that I don't mind condensing plot points. In fact, I really enjoyed the way the first two episodes handled things. I don't want an adaptation that's exactly the same as the original, so I liked some of the changes. Adding the makai insects in episode one was a nice way to start introducing the audience to the concept of the other world filled with demons and why they're kept separate. And I liked the fight with the random possessed classmate, Kirino. To me, that was a better way to start the fire that threatens Yusuke's body than the random passing arsonist in the original.
Other changes fell a bit flat. I enjoyed the decision to have Yusuke and Kuwabara both train with Genkai. But Genkai simply passing on her power to Yusuke was incredibly anticlimactic, especially if you remember that it was an excruciating ordeal in the original. It feels less earned here without the suffering somehow.
This version also lacks the charm of watching Yusuke stumble around in the beginning and win some things through sheer luck (like beating Hiei the first time by bouncing his spirit gun off the mirror, for example, or winning against Rando because he had moss in his ears). It makes his character very endearing in the original because he's just a teenage punk who got swept up in all this spirit stuff, and he's figuring things out along the way. All of those moments were omitted from live action unfortunately.
But the most egregious change was the decision to combine and condense the Rescue Yukina arc and Dark Tournament arc - which spans several dozen episodes of the anime - into a mere two episodes to wrap up this series. They tried real hard to include the best highlights, but it was a bit disappointing to not get something more fleshed out. I always liked the tournament arc as it really solidified them as a team. But as I mentioned earlier, this version doesn't accomplish that.
Overall, this series felt like a fun (but rushed) canon divergent fanfic that I'd watch again if given the chance. They definitely tried to capture the spirit of the show, but whoever decided they should cram so much into only five episodes should be fired!
On the bright side, I feel inspired to do another rewatch of the anime now 😊
Bonus Notes
☆ There was a silly little running gag where Yusuke couldn't get his cigarette lit, and it cracked me up every time
☆ The show was a lot bloodier than I expected. I always enjoyed the mild body horror aspect of parts of the anime, so I'm glad this version had that too.
☆ Keiko throwing the fire extinguisher was hilarious 😁 I was pleased she actually got to be a little more involved here (despite being kidnapped as a plot point)
☆ my brother's review was less charitable than my own: he gave it 4 out of 10 stars, and complained a lot about the CGI (which... fair). But he also said Tarukane looked the most like his anime counterpart
☆ I wish we'd gotten more about Hiei and Yukina's backstory. Nothing about that plot resonated in this version at all.
☆ My favorite minor characters were Kuwabara's friends. I loved them in the anime, and it was nice to see them pop up here too. They're good dudes, and they work well to add more depth to Kuwabara's character.
☆ Why's Kuwabara's spirit sword sound like a bug zapper?? 😂
So what did everyone else think? I'd love to hear people's thoughts
