Review Yu Yu Hakusho the movie

It is a dark and stormy night in the spirit world. A little too stormy. In fact it is a flood that is drowning the entire spirit world. Something is up and Koenma entrusts Botan with something and tells her to contact Yusuke. Botan just barely reaches Yusuke before collapsing With a message to meet Hinageshi. From Hinageshi we learn that the whole mess is caused by demons from the netherworld. So begins the fighting…

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Yu Yu Hauksho the story goes like this. Yusuke was a relatvely normal juvenile delinquent until his untimely death. Then through some trials he was resurrected and in the process gained spirit powers, most prominently the spirit gun, a beam of energy that comes from his pointer finger. He teams up with his semi buffonish rival Kuwabara and two demons, Kurama and Hiei. Together the four of them save the world every few episodes by fighting some big monster. Actually it is more complicated than this but that is the jist of it.

Many times with a popular anime series there will be a stand alone movie added for extra profit and viewing pleasure of the fans. The biggest problem with these movies is that they take place sometime in the middle or end of the storyline of the series and contain a lot of references that someone who hasn’t seen series won’t pick up on. This is the Yu Yu Hakusho movie’s greatest weakness.

While it would be unfair to say that the Yu Yu hakusho movie lacks a plot, it is not a strong one. Basically it is a vehicle for fight scenes. Again if you watch the show at all you probably would expect this.

One problem with watching the movie dubbed is that there is a different cast than that in the TV show. It also annoyed me that they mispronounced Kuwabara’s name.

The animation quality of the movie is good taking the base character designs of the tv show and spending more time animating them. Although it is not an animation masterpiece it is good enough not to turn off any viewers.

In conclusion the Yu Yu Hakusho movie is not a great movie, but it never has any pretensions of being one. In the end if you like the television show at all this movie is a good watch. If you don’t or haven’t seen it I would not recommend it. I give the Yu Yu Hakusho movie a rating of good.
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