50 Fun Facts About Yu Yu Hakusho

Which hit manga did Yoshihiro Togashi launch four years after ending YuYu Hakusho?

Hunter × Hunter. It began in 1998, and Togashi's poor health has since forced breaks in its run that lasted years.

Which song opens every episode of the 1990s YuYu Hakusho anime?

Smile Bomb, 'Hohoemi no Bakudan' in Japanese. Matsuko Mawatari's song opened all 112 episodes, and an English-language version was recorded for the dub.

How does Yusuke Urameshi die at the start of the story?

Being struck by a car. He had shoved a small boy out of its path, only to learn afterwards that the boy would have survived with barely a scratch anyway.

Which toys does the young demon Rinku fight with at the Dark Tournament?

Yo-yos, which he steers by sending demon energy down their strings. Togashi named him after a video game hero: Link, of The Legend of Zelda.

Which company dubbed YuYu Hakusho's TV anime for North America?

Funimation. It bought the rights in early 2001 and split the 112 episodes into four 'sagas', one for each story arc.

Which company animated YuYu Hakusho?

Studio Pierrot. Its director on the series, Noriyuki Abe, went on to lead the studio's Bleach anime a decade later.

Which guide to the afterlife greets Yusuke's ghost right after his death?

Botan, who swoops in riding an oar. She stays on as Yusuke's assistant, passing on his orders and teaching him to use the tools for his cases.

Koenma, the centuries-old boss who hands Yusuke his cases, usually appears in what form?

A toddler with a pacifier. The pacifier is no comfort toy: Koenma has spent centuries filling it with his own energy so that it can one day raise a protective barrier.

Yusuke fires his signature Spirit Gun, the manga's Rei Gun, from where?

His index finger. He points his hand like a pistol and pulls the trigger in his mind, and early on he can manage only one shot a day.

Kurama turns which flower into his signature whip?

A rose. Kurama can command any plant by feeding it his demon energy, and the whip he grows from it is sharp enough to cut through steel.

Which demon does Yusuke hunt at a tournament held to choose an old martial arts master's successor?

Rando, who steals the techniques of the masters he kills and hid among the entrants as a small monk. He lost when a stolen shrinking spell backfired on him.

Which lightning-wielding demon leads the Four Beasts of Labyrinth Castle?

Suzaku. His gang looses a swarm of parasitic insects on the Human World, and in the fight to stop him Yusuke finds that Suzaku can split into seven copies of himself.

Who invites Yusuke to the Dark Tournament to test his strength?

Toguro. Once a human martial artist, he had himself made a demon so that age would never sap his strength, and he wants an opponent worth using all of it on.

Who is the disguised fifth member of Team Urameshi at the Dark Tournament?

Genkai, fighting as the Masked Fighter. At full power her body briefly returns to its prime, so when the mask is torn off in one bout it shows a young woman's face and the secret holds.

Who owns the team Yusuke faces in the Dark Tournament final?

After losing his bet, Sakyo destroys the tournament arena and dies in the collapse.

Who held Yusuke's detective post before him?

Shinobu Sensui. On one case he walked in on rich humans torturing demons for fun, and the shock turned him against the human race he had sworn to protect.

Which ancestor takes control of Yusuke's body to finish a fight in the Demon Plane?

Raizen, a demon king who long ago fell in love with a human woman. He swore off eating humans for her sake, and by the time he meets his descendant he is starving to death.

Which two rulers share power in the Demon Plane with a dying third king?

Mukuro and Yomi. Each calls one of Yusuke's friends to their side for the war they expect, until Yusuke talks them into settling the matter in the ring instead.

Who eliminates Yusuke from the Demon Plane tournament?

Yomi, blinded long ago by an assassin his old partner Kurama had sent. The win cost him dearly: worn out by the long fight, he was beaten soon afterwards.

Where does YuYu Hakusho end, with Yusuke and his friends reuniting?

On a beach. By the manga's end Koenma has exposed his own father for manufacturing the demon threat, and has taken over the running of the Underworld himself.

Togashi's proposed title YuYu-Ki punned on which classic novel's Japanese name?

Journey to the West, known in Japan as Saiyūki. A manga called Chin-Yu-Ki had just started, so Togashi dropped the pun and took 'Hakusho', the first word that came to mind.

Kuwabara's name combines the names of two professionals from which sport?

Baseball. Togashi said he combined two pro players' names, thought to be Masumi Kuwata and Kazuhiro Kiyohara; 'kuwabara kuwabara' is also what the superstitious mutter when frightened.

Which Dark Tournament fighter grows stronger the drunker he gets?

Chu. With both of them out of energy, he and Yusuke finish their bout as a knife-edge death match, trading blows with their heels pinned against two blades in the floor.

Tough-guy delinquent Kuwabara has a well-known soft spot for which animals?

Kittens. The school's second-toughest brawler dotes on his own cat, Eikichi, and lives by a code of honour that rules out stealing or shaking anyone down.

Which company published the English manga in North America?

It debuted in the very first issue of the American Shonen Jump magazine in January 2003.

Which YuYu Hakusho character is Hiei's twin sister, although she has no idea they are related?

Yukina. She left her homeland to search for the brother she has never met, and asks his own teammates for help finding him while he stands by and says nothing.

What is the English title of the second YuYu Hakusho animated film, released in Japan in 1994?

Poltergeist Report, which is simply one way of translating 'Yū Yū Hakusho' itself. In the film, Yusuke's team defends the Human World against the king of a fourth realm, the Netherworld.

In the 1993 YuYu Hakusho film, what do Koenma's kidnappers demand as ransom?

The Golden Seal, the stamp that finalizes the sentence of every soul in the afterlife. In the wrong hands it could topple King Enma himself, so Yusuke and Kuwabara race to rescue Koenma.

Kurama first appears in YuYu Hakusho stealing a wish-granting mirror to save whom?

His human mother, who was gravely ill. The mirror takes the user's life as its price, so Yusuke offers up some of his own and both of them survive the wish.

Which publisher released the first YuYu Hakusho video games sold in North America?

Atari. It took the licence in 2003, once the dubbed anime had caught on with American viewers; until then almost every YuYu Hakusho game had been sold only in Japan.

In YuYu Hakusho, the gangster Tarukane holds a demon girl captive because her tears turn into what?

Priceless jewels. To stop making him rich she trains herself not to cry, even under torture, so he hires two demon enforcers to break her.

Which service streamed the 2023 live-action YuYu Hakusho series?

Netflix. The supernatural story needed so much visual-effects work that its five episodes took about five years to make, two of them spent in post-production alone.

To bring Yusuke back to life, someone who cares about him must give his body what?

A kiss, and within a day. He cannot get the message through to his mother or to Kuwabara, so it falls to his childhood friend, who reaches his body just in time.

Which masked bomber does Kurama fight in the final of the Dark Tournament?

Karasu, who shapes his own energy into explosives. The mask over his mouth is no disguise: it holds his power in check until the moment he takes it off.

A 2004 US complaint about the YuYu Hakusho manga mistook a Buddhist manji for what symbol?

A swastika. A Florida teacher complained after a fifth-grader bought the magazine at a Scholastic Book Fair, and about 18,000 of the 120,000 copies on offer were sent back.

What colour is Yusuke's trademark school uniform?

Green. The other boys at his school wear dark blue and his rival Kuwabara light blue, so the mismatched uniforms mark the pair out as the school's delinquents.

Which voice actor both directed the English dub of YuYu Hakusho and voiced Yusuke?

Justin Cook. He was hired only to direct, but the producers could not settle on a lead until one of them decided the director himself sounded right for the part.

On which US channel did the English dub of YuYu Hakusho air from 2002 to 2006?

Cartoon Network. The dub began in the late-night Adult Swim block and moved a year later to Toonami, with some of its violence and coarse language edited for broadcast.

What was YuYu Hakusho called in its Tagalog dub in the Philippines?

Ghost Fighter. The dub renamed Yusuke 'Eugene' and, mistaking Kurama for a girl, called him Denise; a later episode explained that Denise was really a boy named Dennis in disguise.

What is the name of Yusuke's junior high school?

Sarayashiki. The name comes from Banchō Sarayashiki, a famous ghost story about a wronged servant girl, and the rival school, Kasanegafuchi, shares its name with another well-known ghost tale.

Kuwabara forms which weapon out of his aura?

A sword. He first conjures it mid-bout against a swordsman at a martial arts tournament, and after training with Kurama he learns to wield one in each hand.

What is Kurama's human name?

Shuichi Minamino. Kurama is an ancient fox spirit who, badly wounded, slipped his soul into an unborn human child and grew up as an ordinary schoolboy.

Which actress, in her first voice role, voiced Kurama in Japanese?

Megumi Ogata, then a newcomer. The anime's makers cast a woman on purpose, wanting the androgynous Kurama to have the allure of a Takarazuka Revue star.

Hiei kidnaps which character and cuts her with the Conjuring Blade?

Keiko. The blade turns anyone it cuts into a demon, so Yusuke has to beat Hiei in time to stop her from changing for good.

What is implanted in Hiei's forehead?

The Evil Eye, the 'Jagan' of the English dub. The operation cost Hiei nearly all his strength, so he rebuilt himself as a swordsman under the surgeon who performed it.

What does YuYu Hakusho's English dub call the signature technique Hiei debuts against Zeru?

Dragon of the Darkness Flame. The first time he summons it the fire wrecks his own right arm, and he tames it only later by absorbing the flames into his own body.

Hiei was born to a race of what?

Ice Maidens. They bear only daughters, so a boy born with fire in his blood was treated as a curse and thrown from their homeland while still a baby.

Which flying 'Wind Master' does Yusuke face in the Dark Tournament?

Jin. Yusuke knocks him out of the ring and is declared the winner, but the tournament's crooked committee then overturns the result and rules the bout a draw.

What kind of creature hatches from Yusuke's Spirit Beast egg during the Dark Tournament?

A penguin-like animal, Pu, which flies by flapping its big floppy ears. A spirit beast takes its shape from its owner's heart, so the tough Yusuke is mortified to have hatched something so cute.

Yoshihiro Togashi married the creator of which hit 1990s manga?

Sailor Moon. Naoko Takeuchi met Togashi at a fellow artist's party in 1997, briefly helped with the shading on his next manga, and married him in 1999.