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The Yu Yu Hakusho live-action adaptation was released on Netflix recently. While fans are still watching it and newcomers are getting introduced to Yusuke Urameshi's journey across the Human, Spirit, and Demon World, it is important to highlight that this project is five episodes long. This means that the people in charge had to cut a lot of Yoshihiro Togashi's manga, even if the project was only focusing on the content before the Dark Tournament.
Therefore, the Yu Yu Hakusho live-action had to work around adapting several different plot points and arcs in order to make it flow naturally in just five episodes, which was something that could either go well or wrong, depending on the fans' reactions.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the Yu Yu Hakusho live-action.
Yu Yu Hakusho live-action covers the first 51 episodes of the manga
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The Yu Yu Hakusho live-action series came out this Thursday and is five episodes long, starting with Yusuke Urameshi's death after saving a kid from a car. The earlier moments of the original manga stay pretty much the same, even going as far as adding the scene of Yusuke smoking at school, which was shown in Studio Pierrot's anime adaptation from the 1990s.
However, it is after Yusuke's arrival to Spirit World, where he meets Koenma for the first time, that the plot begins to move in a different direction to suit the short amount of episodes. For people who want this information, this adaptation covers the first 51 episodes of the manga while cutting a lot of material in the process.
Therefore, this series covers very little of Yusuke's adventures as a spirit (which the original anime didn't adapt, either), and meshes the arcs of Hiei and Kurama, the Saint Beasts, and Yukina's rescue all into one. The live-action only runs along with a general storyline while picking major plot points from the manga and anime.
Some plot points remain the same, such as Kurama, Hei, and Kuwabara joining Yusuke's party, and Younger Toguro being the final boss during this portion of the series.
The validity of this project
The Yu Yu Hakusho live-action project was always going to face an uphill battle for a number of reasons. One of the first major reasons was Netflix's track record with anime adaptations, even if the One Piece one helped them to some degree, and the other was taking a very beloved property that didn't enjoy a proper adaptation since the 90s.
However, the general result of this series has been quite positive for a number of reasons, ranging from the acting, the visuals, how it stayed loyal to the source material (to a certain degree), and because the battle choreographies were extremely well done.
Furthermore, the adaptation captures the series' ability to jump from one genre to another, which is often defined by Yusuke's character and how he can display several different emotions.
This Yu Yu Hakusho live-action adaptation is not going to be for everybody, especially considering how so many arcs were reduced to a couple of episodes. However, it does justice to the characters and the world surrounding them.
Final thoughts
The Yu Yu Hakusho live-action series covers the first 51 chapters of the manga, which are centered around the ones that took place before the iconic Dark Tournament saga. However, since this adaptation only has five episodes, it made massive cuts to a lot of these arcs.
