Yu Yu Hakusho Forum

BLAMMO!

Did you read that above?

CAN’T.
GET.
ENOUGH.

Seriously, this one had a fight where the whole split-second-attack-followed-by-a-delayed-reaction-to-injury gag so typical to anime actually involved the hero feeling his enemy up in mid-air and then deciding what he found made it OK to kick that enemy into a wall because the “she” he thought was fighting was actually a “he.” It ain’t PC, nor that sophisticated, but damn if I wasn’t rewinding this after every single gag because it was making me cackle so hard.

The dub team’s obviously been having some fun injecting humor into the dialog, but they seriously let it rip with this one. I felt like watching some “lip read” of an anime on YouTube that was actually made by, you know, talented professionals. Like, I bet the whole escalation of bets amongst the mob bosses capped off at a more conservative figure in the Japanese, but they knew they just had to push the gag far enough to make it this amount so absurd it actually dwarfs real national GDP’s. And there all the banter about Kuwabara being such a bleeding heart gentlemen that he was actually creeping Hiei’s sister out with his very grandmotherly ESP power.

What’s funny is that, again, the action here is more kickass than any number of humorless, self-serious shonen shows precisely because it isn’t afraid to go over the top and have a good a laugh while doing so. Even after Yusuke gives the one Triad a squeeze 'n rub, the “fight design” with her hanging him from the rafters was some seriously frenetic and inventive brawling.

I’ll wait until I get to episode 25 to decide whether it’s a good idea to take the plunge and continue following this into “the Dark Tournament,” but I certainly want to, right now.

Look up this episode, "The Deadly Triad" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk

you got to dude, dark tournament is the reason people love this series

Arcs like this aren't really done in modern Shonen anime anymore, where the protagonist absolutely stomps the shit out of his opponents (I suppose it happens in One Piece every so often). It's a really effective way to show how far his abilities have come over the span of the series thus far.

@Top8cat said:

@AgentJ said:

Arcs like this aren't really done in modern Shonen anime anymore, where the protagonist absolutely stomps the shit out of his opponents (I suppose it happens in One Piece every so often). It's a really effective way to show how far his abilities have come over the span of the series thus far.

One of the reasons why I stopped watching Dragon Ball Z halfway through the cell sage, it really irritated me when I was younger. They're Super Saiyans/Namekian who just defeated the supposedly strongest thing in the Universe, and now you're telling me these androids made by a scientist on earth can best them.

One of the nice things about the series is that they never made crazy statements about how powerful the opponents were, until the final arc. And after that, Togashi had the good sense to end it all, because there would not likely have been a reasonable villain powerful enough yet making sense in the Yu Yu world.

not for me but glad you are enjoying it. Give me diaoh or such for comedy anyday

Spoilers ahead, so DON'T READ THIS TOM. (The spoiler tag never seems to work properly for me)

@Afroman269: I felt like it made sense though. I mean, what reason would the kings of the demon realm have to participate in some tournament? (Besides, they couldn't get to the human realm anyway thanks to the barrier). Additionally, why wouldn't a former Spirit Detective that had been tested for 20+ years not be as strong or stronger than Yusuke? Toguro was strong, but in the end he was doing odd jobs as a mercenary. It would be stupid for him to be the strongest being alive. He didn't have some grand scheme. He was pretty much in it for the money.

@Afroman269 said:

@AgentJ I'm not saying that it didn't make any sense, it's just off putting. You can definitely provide story context to justify the higher power level but it feels like they just squandered the long build up of how powerful Toguro was, you know, the whole 80-90% of his power. There really isn't any other character that had such a build up like with Toguro and I was supremely disappointed to see his power being downplayed like it was a child or something.

Fair enough. I guess they didn't have to ramp it up as far as they did afterwards.