Reflections on Yu Yu Hakusho
Foreword
The following is not meant to be a review of the YYH Collab at all, more the ramblings of a fanboy who enjoys both the anime and Puzzle and Dragons; a review by Chu2 can be found here. Instead, what you will find are my thoughts and critiques of the design choices GungHo made with the Cards and Dungeon for the YYH collab. I should note that the thoughts and predictions found herein are my own, and only my own. They do not represent what GungHo ultimately decided for the collab or has planned for the future. This post is merely meant to incite conversation. I will cover pieces of the anime in the post that are 100% spoiler material, however I will cover everything with a spoiler tag. That said, Yu Yu Hakusho ended 24 years ago, if you haven’t seen it you’re doing yourself a disservice by not watching it.
Introduction
Omitting shows like Pokémon or Dragonball Z, I still grew up with a lot of anime and Japanese culture influencing my life; most of it stemming from my brother who’s ten years older subjecting me to it. It wasn’t until YYH, that my taste for anime fully came into being; so I attribute the anime into making me into the weeaboo I am today. I was twelve when it came to Adult Swim in 2002, and having the charm of a shounen like Dragonball Z but tackling much darker or mature themes, the cast of diverse characters, and the engaging series arcs; the anime quickly became my favorite even at a young age.
The anime’s premise was simple: Boy dies, boy get’s second chance at life, boy gets conned into becoming protector of the world; known as a Spirit Detective. As a Spirit Detective, Yusuke takes orders from Koenma, Prince of the Spirit World, and does his best to try and save the rest of Human World from becoming demon chow. During his various “cases”, he meets and befriends other spiritually aware humans, psychics, and even other demons in his efforts to preserve the balance of peace between the three worlds of existence; Spirit, Human, and Demon world.
The YYH Collab in PAD focuses more on the Dark Tournament Arc of the anime, where eight teams of fighters gather to fight each other in the hopes of earning one wish that the Human benefactors (known as the “Black Black Club”) of the event will grant. The eight teams consist of seven teams of demons, and one team of the Black Black Clubs choosing, attendance for the invited team is mandatory.
Thoughts About the Collab
Most of the collab was based off the “Dark Tournament” Arc of the anime, featuring characters primarily from that arc. The only exemptions being Sensui, Hagiri, and Raizen; every other collectible card from either the dungeons or the Collab REM have a pivotal role to play in that arc; Chu and Jin helping Yusuke dig deeper into his latent Spiritual power through their fights with each other, Genkai training Yusuke to take on Younger Toguro, and even Puu’s appearance in the middle of the arc.
Which is why I felt their inclusion with the collab was seriously out of place. Sensui was the major villain of the arc directly following the Dark Tournament, Hagiri was one of his subordinates, and Raizen wouldn’t even come into play until the end of that arc. GungHo’s inclusions of pivotal characters from the Dark Tournament, but omitting others for characters from completely different arcs seems odd. Out of the thirteen possible pulls from that machine, those three could have been omitted.
Missed Opportunities
But let’s say for a moment GungHo WANTED thirteen cards to pull from the machine. Instead of Sensui, Hagiri, and Raizen, here are some other characters they could have pulled concepts from. I will note, that the explanation for my thoughts will contain spoilers, simply click on the “+” icon to read them, or just skip them.
Suzuki – 5* potential.
Leader of Team Uraotogi, Suzuki originally enters the Dark Tournament in an attempt to kill Toguro. Honestly, I really feel he should have been given a 5* egg over Hagiri because…
Sakyo – 5* potential
A member of the Black Black Club and manager of Team Toguro, Sakyo was eccentric, but also cunning with a superior intellect. I felt it was worth including Sakyo on the list as other non-combatants such as Botan and Koenma were available as cards, and…
Bui – 6* potential
One of the Toguro Brothers disciples, and a pretty scary guy if I’m honest. Bui carries around armor that shatters the ground it falls on. Also, in addition…
The Dragon of the Darkness Flame is a creature that is summoned from the depths of Demon World to do one thing, devour whatever is in front of it. It’s widely feared across both Spirit and Demon world, and it made the last person Hiei used it on look like this… When Hiei used the dragon on Bui not only did he not get turned to ash, but he lived from the attack all together. In fact, he was the only member of Team Toguro to come out of their fight alive or in one piece.
Elder Toguro – 6* potential
He honestly looks like the younger Toguro brother, but his lithe appearance is deceiving. He’s a capable fighter on his own, even though he doesn’t sport his brothers signature muscles.
I really don’t have any points to share on my suggestion for him that require spoilers, but I feel he would have been a better addition than Sensui or Raizen purely for the Dark Tournament aesthetic.
All these aside, the only card I really have a complaint about would be Hagiri… the guy was already dull in his own arc, and from Sensui’s other subordinates, there were others that I feel were more worthy of being chosen if GH really wanted to pick something from all three major arcs of YYH.
About What We Got
Honestly… there weren’t really many things that bug me with what we got in the collab, everything else was done well I feel, and trust me, I will give credit in a moment; my complaining comes first! Below are my little gripes…
The Bad
Hiei, the Jagan Master
Two things here. First, why call him the “Jagan Master” and not the “Master of the Darkness Flame”? Honestly, the coolest thing about Hiei was his mastery of the Darkness Flame Technique… and they opt use his Jagan Eye as his main strength? Yes, it was a powerful tool he had at his disposal, but it’s failed him on more than one occasion.
The second is his Skill Charge Awakening. The main thing that the Dragon of the Darkness flame did, and even the Sword of the Darkness Flame, was cut through enemies defense… not hasten Hiei… Honestly they should have given him Guard Break.
Puu
Puu being a blue card makes sense visually… however…
Resshuken Master, Minoru Sensui
This… this hit home for me as Sensui is my favorite villain of the series. The “Resshuken” is a style of martial arts that requires mastery of every other style of martial arts to even gain the ability to use. This alone is cool beyond belief… however… Sensui had another, much cooler ability that GungHo ignored…
Sensui, a 26 year old villain, managed to attain this power in a mere six years… all the while holding into the firm belief that his intentions were for the better and maintain a pure soul. Sensui accomplished this due to the fact that the dude had multiple personality disorder, having six other personalities that could do his dirty work and split the forty year training between themselves, while Sensui himself remained pure and held onto his convictions. It was because Sensui had a serious and legitimate mental problem that allowed him to become the strongest human alive… and GungHo completely ignored this. What’s more, is his Sacred Energy allowed him to manifest one of two different suits of armor, which would have made for interesting split Ults! It’s also thanks to this that I disagree with his Dark Attribute… the guy was literally a saint and is also a Dark card…
The Good
A lot of the cards were well designed, as it’s honestly hard to design cards based off manga and anime. Since this is the “What GungHo did well” section, I really don’t have much to rant about, so I’ll just make some quick observations!
Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi
Yusuke was the saviour of earth, so the light typing was obvious. His whole shtick, especially when he was fighting Toguro, was to fire the biggest blast he could and hope it’d kill his enemy, so it only made sense he’d get a VDP awakening.
Kurama
The fact they included his Demon Fox form as an Ult Evolution pleased me, as it was one of the coolest character arcs for Kurama in the series. Also his green typing made sense due to his mastery of controlling plants with his Demon Energy.
Toshin Raizen
Light attribute and his suicide active skill makes sense given his name literally means “Lightning Buddhism”. I won’t make a spoiler for this one, watch the anime if you’re still confused.
Jin
Jin was the Ninja master of the winds who could punch with tornado fists… so giving him a Cloud resist awakening and an active that creates two rows of wood orbs was a neat way to play off that.
Karasu
Karasu’s active honestly should have made bombs… but who wants that? Jammers was a smart substitute for bombs.
Younger Toguro
Mostly his encounter in the dungeon. Toguro was the epitome of “This isn’t even my final form” in anime, as the dude can flex his muscles more, and more… slowly transitioning from his humanoid appearance into this demon form throughout the series. It was nice to see the dungeon play off that by giving him three forms.
Honestly, I can point out other little things that made me smile when seeing the collab, but I feel these stood out the most.
The Future of Yu Yu Hakusho x Puzzle and Dragons
The last thing I want to touch on, is if we’ll see YYH return. Honestly, when I started writing, I felt like it was certainly possible. Now though… I’m not sure. The YYH manga ended 24 years ago… the fact that we actually got a collab for it is still a miracle, though I don’t know how it even came into being… perhaps it was because of a Blu-ray box set that was being released for the 25th anniversary of the Anime… or maybe because it was the 25th anniversary of the Anime.
From what I’ve gathered over my time playing PAD, collabs coincide with major events for the IP that the collab is with… we got FMA with the release of the Live Action FMA movie, DC collab came with the Justice League movie, we even got Monster Hunter twice (three times in Japan) over the last year due to the release of different games for the series.
Another thing that concerns me is the fact that GungHo incorporated characters from various arcs. This argument can go two ways; They added Sensui, Hagiri, and Raizen to tease that they might add more characters from those arcs with future collab returns, or they did it simply because they felt this will be a one time thing, and wanted to have those characters in the game now. I was on the side of “teasing a future return”, until I typed this all out…
That’s not to say, it won’t happen! GungHo has definately set themselves up for adding new characters and buffing what we have now should the collab return! So, hope is still there. Personally, though, I don’t think we’ll see Yu Yu Hakusho again, as sad as it is I admit that… but what do I know? :3
Forever Fornever
That’s all I really have to say. Purely from a fanboys perspective, I felt GungHo did an amazing job with the YYH collab, and I feel that they captured the spirit of the series! I feel lucky I was able to enjoy it when we got it, and I sincerely hope that I’m incorrect in my assessment that it won’t return!
Hey, I started watching YYH after reading this post and I’m really enjoying the show! This post also makes me regret trading Hiei because he was such a badass in the dark tournament (and I realized I could have paired him with the one true husbando Okuni).
I started watching this show since I was 12 as well and can’t wait for them to finally be given the justice they deserve!! YYH has been the best series and definitely FOREVER FORNEVER!! They gotta chance to come back I pray its not wasted