☆ Rereading Yu Yu Hakusho - Dark Tournament Saga - Part 1 ☆

10/2/2024

The Dark Tournament Begins!

I'll admit, this was the part of the retrospective I was most worried about writing. It's a compliment to the manga, though. The Dark Tournament is laser focused on fighting and ensuing drama for about 80% of it. So unbelievably clear is its appeal and thrilling adventure that it really does not need any particular explaining. I still have my comments, though.

This arc is often listed up with some other classics as one of the greatest tournament arcs of all time. It was already a staple of the genre in Yu Yu Hakusho's time, after being innovated by the likes of Kinnikuman and thrown into explosive popularity by Dragon Ball. I would love to pit Chuunin Exams (Naruto) believers on one side against everyone else on the other to see who wins. For my money, Yu-Gi-Oh's Duelist Kingdom could also be in that conversation, but we can save that for another day.

Right away, Togashi plays some nice cards to keep things from getting dull. Yusuke spends the first few chapters completely asleep, meanwhile Team Urameshi is the favorite to lose it all. The demon crowd being a bunch of Twitch chat level heckling losers is fun. Yusuke's snoozing gives a chance for everyone else to get some early spotlight. You don't send in your best guys first in a team battle, right? Although, to me, Kuwabara is the best. Speaking of spotlight, all the major female characters get to come along too. I wish they had more spotlight, because whenever we check in on them, it's pretty funny! Sadly, they do mostly just hang out on the sidelines. If this arc had any big missed opportunity, it was this. You could say that about the whole series, just about.

Considering YYH was a weekly manga, it's pretty outstanding how much things have improved from the days of Rando and Suzaku. While the opening bouts against Jolly Devil Six, the humanizing of them is much better than before. Even though the battles go by fast, you feel like these guys are a little more like actual people rooted in the world, with some actual personalities. The visit at the hotel room and a little follow up later aren't long scenes, but they work. Chu, in particular, has a humorous bend that's not too far off from Yusuke's.

One funny thing is at this time we get the first character popularity poll, something we still get in manga today! Hiei is the runaway favorite. I'm not sure when exactly the poll was done, but Suzaku and the Toguros both made it. It's pretty funny that they count as one character here, they certainly wouldn't be later into the series! Hiei's going to earn his spot for me in this arc. We see him chill out quite a bit, and he even gets a bit moe. I don't know what other word could describe this, but it's one of my favorite Hiei moments in the entire series.

I also love this funny little Yu-Gi-Oh-esque monster. It made it into the opening of the anime, where it always stuck out to me as looking particularly cool. This encounter, and the battle with the enslaved martial artists, are when things start to heat up a bit more. Genkai's presence and ability to solve the situation feels like a bit of a cheat, but it's good to see a total monster like Ichigaki completely and thoroughly lose. It's not too much longer where we see that a full power Genkai appears to temporarily regain her youth. She looks really cool, and it's totally believable that Genkai is still far above the other heroes to the point of having more unusual abilities. On the other hand, seeing her fight at her current age is one of the coolest things, and still feels refreshingly different. You can't help but wonder if the Younger Genkai thing was to help increase her appeal, or an aide to help get audiences in the frame of mind to believe her history with Toguro, something that gets revealed quite a bit later. I suppose it all works out.

Sakyo and Toguro get a great scene with more shocking violence. It seems like Sakyo does have some modicrum of honor in him, or at the very least is on board with things playing out in Younger Toguro's style.

Outside of the Ring

After an absolutely hilarious death fake-out for Kuwabara, things reach a break before the semi-finals. I'm going to speak for everyone here and say that a lot of the material between the bracket is a huge part of what makes it so good. Keiko and Yusuke have one of their best scenes together. Or maybe one of their worst, if Yusuke's butt-pinch bugs you. It's not my favorite thing that he does, but the overall spirit of the scene is good. Who could ever forget this?

This is also when Yusuke's egg hatches. The egg is something I neglected to mention explicitly in my Spirit Detective Saga review. It's something that's easy to gloss over, because its offscreen presence in most of the series makes it feel like a forgotten element. Yusuke received the egg in Chapter 2, and was told that whatever it would hatch into would determine his fate, as it fed off of his soul energy. As I did mention though, the rules for revival changed a few times in rapid succession, so this egg doesn't get much mention again until now, in Chapter 75. Believe it or not, more development with the critter that hatches from it, named Pu, will come again in the next arc.

Pu has his moments in this arc. I think pretty much everything is not worse off for having a little creature or mascot type character. I wonder if fans at the time were speculating about the egg, because it's gone until now, but it was also one of the very first things that happened in the series. Whether or not Togashi simply forgot, was uninterested at this point, or was playing the giga-brain long game with it isn't clear to me. That's probably how it should be! I've occasionally praised JoJo's author Hirohiko Araki for being willing to just drop a plot point or idea if it's not actually that interesting, so I don't think I'd be throwing much shade if this egg actually was forgotten about. It's pretty clear Yusuke is a decent enough person by now, so why mess around with the demon hatching? In that context, Pu being a weird little penguin-rabbit thing is a funny subversion. We'll revisit this topic in the Chapter Black arc.

Should I have called this the Kuwabara retrospective? His realization that he actually did fight Toguro is great. His aspirations for Yukina come off as a lot more wholesome and sweet than Yusuke and Keiko, but that only highlights what's different about the two. The little drama of Yukina's relation to Hiei continues to amuse.

I also love the first clues that Toguro and Genkai have some history. No dialogue, just a seemingly random panel of Toguro in the middle of Genkai's speech about the next generation. It's kind of brilliant, looking back on the arc as a whole, though I have some words for that part of the story.

Yusuke's next big power-up is gonna come in the form of Genkai inserting an ouchy Spirit Orb into him. I've always found this bland, but I don't think it's terrible or anything. It's not done without some style, but It hasn't really been that long since Yusuke was offscreen for a minute to get a big power up. Pu comes to save the day, so I can't totally say I dislike it.

Keiko and Yusuke get another sweet moment, and some previous opponents stop by to prevent the two from getting attacked. Meanwhile, Genaki fights an actual clown.

The Fifty Year Reunion

After some chilling demonstrations of Team Toguro's power, and more great teasing, everything reaches a head. Toguro and Genkai, fighting outside of the tournament, and history is revealed. Toguro and Genkai were partners! Toguro can't stand the sight of an old, weakened Genkai. Toguro became a demon to keep his power and youth, while Genkai let time move on. I find this to be a pretty interesting motivation to act against her, and add another element to his rivalry with Yusuke. This and the following pre-tourney bout between them make up one of the best battles in the arc, easily. The tension is palpable, and it stops at just the right moment to prevent it from feeling premature.

This is where Genkai dies. We'll get to it in part two, but she probably should have stayed dead. Everything is set up for her story to conclude (although, more details about her history with Toguro are coming), and she even gets this amazing send off from Yusuke. It's a touching moment that's fitting of his character, and teases us with his new power gained from Genkai's final trial.

Toguro's habit of measuring his power in percentages is standard fare for the time period. One thinks of Freeza going on and on about it during Dragon Ball's epic Namek Saga. It comes off a little more serious on Toguro than Freeza's comedic levels of forms and stipulations for his power.

Togashi continues to cook when we finally learn more about Sakyo's plans to open a larger pathway between the demon and human worlds. I never get sick of the panel where he describes this to the other tournament financiers. Toguro also orders Orange Juice.

Sakyo is fascinating because he is so infrequently seen, especially by our heroes! I love it so much, though. Of course the guy pulling a lot of the strings here is well hidden and difficult to confront. Hardly anyone in the cast seems to even be aware of his existence for most of the story. It's not at the expense of anything either, Toguro is very well developed as a villain. Sakyo, the human criminals that run this twisted tournament, and the nature of demon-afterlife-human world relations are all things that sneak into the background. It feels realistic, to me at least, and Chapter Black will expand a lot on the undercurrents the series is weaving into the narrative.

Next time, the finals are underway...and all this set up pays off!

Phew, this one was challenging to write! It wouldn't surprise me to find that tournament arcs in general are. If you saw me write about Duelist Kingdom, it would be me saying, "This part is fucking sick" about 300 times. I hope this one didn't come off as dry, though. If I didn't have something particular to say, I tried to let it go. This means fight recaps weren't super important. None of them totally suck, though.

I have no particular comments about Kurama's fox demon form. It's funny in a good way. Oh no, he's even more beautiful. I apologize for sort of neglecting him in this part. Kurama is good in this arc just like everyone is, but I think the other three get the best scenes. Kurama's fight with the painter demon guy was one of my favorites when I saw it on TV at the time. You just sometimes wonder why he didn't use X Insanely Deadly Evil Plant before.

I also really like the special backstory chapter with Hiei and Kurama. I had trouble weaving it naturally in the retrospective, but it nicely expands on their particular dynamic without feeling like retroactive continuity (it only technically is such). It's well done to the point where I don't have a lot of comments, other than it has that Spirit Detective style of storytelling with a mystical feel and more human world stuff.

...how many images does any one user click on?

See you next time!

- James