FAQ's

Faq's Q: Who is the creator of Yu Yu Hakusho? A: YYH is created by Yoshihiro Togashi in 1990. The original story was published as manga, later it was also to be seen as anime, which turned out to be a very successful anime show. The broadcast in the States started in February 2002.



Q: What does Yu Yu Hakusho mean? A: The best translation should be "Poltergeist Report", a name that is also commonly used for this series. We also saw something as "Ghost Story" which gives the (wrong) feeling of some story about ghosts and spirits. This is NOT a story such as Casper the friendly ghost!


Q: How many books of manga are there? A: There are 19 books of manga first published in 1990 by Shueisha Inc., Tokyo.


Q: How many episodes of anime are there? A: There are 112 episodes of anime.

Q: What do you think about the Official US YYH site? A: We think it sucks... Seriously, we think official sites are often not as good as fansites, simply because official sites always have to stay in the middle and never give personal opinions. Fansites are more dedicated and contain more than general information. The official YYH site is for other reasons not too popular with us: it says "Ghost Files" which doesn't make any sense and it also says "Heroes" while the characters are all anti-heroes. But just as we say, official sites don't pay attention to deeper themes and other things that aren't as obvious as the gender of the characters...

Q: How about the US version of YYH? A: We can't really tell. We haven't seen it yet. But we have never been happy with the FUNimation productions, we think DBZ was totally screwed up. Fortunately, DBZ's style and own attractiviness was good enough to get popular. Acutally, we have nothing against dubbed versions of anime, because we also watch a lot dubbed, but somehow the US voices just don't fit the characters too much: they often sound too old for the young characters, and we can't stand the endless editing. We can understand the cuts of obscure scenes, but the changes in the character's lines are often really really bad. It changes the character's personality too much and therefore not good. A very stupid mistake in the Phillipine version for example: Genkai is an old man(!) in that version, we wonder how they explain how Genkai turned back to a beautiful young girl during the Tournament...



Q: Are there any differences between the original story and the anime? A: Yes there are. We have the feeling that the author didn't know very well what direction his story was heading. The first parts of the manga consist of the things that happened while Yusuke was dead and roaming around as a spirit, doing good deeds. That is actually also the only part that comes close to the title of the show. Soon the story takes more the role of a martial arts manga. In part 7 of the manga, there is also a short side story added, which tells us how Kurama and Hiei met each other. A lot of the first parts of the manga were not in the anime, but the anime also includes a lot of scenes that were not in the manga. During the Dark Martial Art Tournament we can see a lot of funny breaks by Koenma and George while watching the Tournament in a VIP room. And the most important thing is the ending of the story: the directors of the anime created about 5 complete new episodes, including the matches of Kurama, Hiei, Touya, Jin etc in the Makai Tournament. The anime has a really feel-good ending, while the manga ended very abruptly.



Q: Why did the manga end so sudden? A: Rumours say that the cause of the sudden ending is the conflict between the author and the sponsors (or other commercial involvers). Some also say it's because of a disagreement between the author and the publisher. We think that the directors were disturbed by the quite unsatisfying ending, just like many fans, so they created some own episodes. And according to us, those episodes gave the series a very good ending and they fit the series with no doubt. They also made it possible to give the characters Kurama and Hiei a new step in their lives, while closing the dark chapters of their pasts.



Q: How did the manga end? A: The last part of the manga was really weird, it was a misc. of thoughts and happenings. Yusuke and Keiko run their own restaurant, Kuwabara went to college (which is also said in the anime), Kurama didn't go to college, he joined his stepfather's company and Hiei stayed in Makai with Mukuro (also in the anime). But they still help Rei kai when things go really wrong. The most remarkable thing in the manga is the fact that Koenma revealed his father's secret: Enma is a corrupt man, who set up trouble in Ningenkai (that is sending youkai to Ningenkai) on purpose to play the role of the ruler and solver. Koenma discovered this and put his father to justice. We think that Kurama should have gone to college, he would be such an outstanding student... Anyway, it's pretty clear that the author didn't mean to stop writing YYH at all, we think the last part of the manga showed the ideas he actually wanted to include.



Q: Is Kurama a girl? A: No, definitely not! Shuichi Minamino is a handsome young guy with big green eyes and long red hair, and therefore often mistaken for a girl. We heard that the Philippine version of YYH somehow managed to make Shuichi a girl in the first few episodes!! Which is absolutely wrong, so after some episodes they changed him back to a guy. They explained it by saying that Kurama disguised himself as a girl. Besides his looks Kurama's elegance, not very muscular body shape and fighting style are also often a reason for some people to call him 'girlish'. But that is so weird... That kinda reminds me of someone who called Legolas from The Lord of the Rings girlish, that's weird as well... But never mind, that's a completely different story.



Q: But Kurama had a voice actress...? A: Yes that is true, in the original Japanese version Megumi Ogata (a woman) did Shuichi's voice. The supervisor found it a good choice to make Kurama even more in the middle of the genders.We have to say that a soft but cool man's voice like in the dubbed version we saw fits him very very well. Youko Kurama had a male voice actor though.



Q: Is Raizen Yusuke's father? A: No, he's not. He's Yusuke's ancestor, but not his father.



Q: What's up with those eyes on Hiei's body? A: Hiei has 20 evil eyes on his body (including the one on the forehead), when he opens those eyes his youki is supposed to increase a few times. But actually those eyes don't have any important function, at least Hiei has not used the other eyes on his body after the first encounter with Yusuke (except that one time later in the second YYH movie), so we assume it hasn't a very important effect. We think it just looks very impressive (and ugly), but the only extra eye that obviously proviedes powers is the eye on Hiei's forehead. He underwent surgery and lost all his powers to get this eye to find the Ice Country and his Ice Tear Gem.



Q: Why didn't Yusuke turn into a youkai when he died the first time? A: According to Reikai the youkai in Yusuke wasn't woken up yet, his youkai blood was not strong enough yet. While the youkai in him was still asleep, Yusuke died in the car accident. When he got killed by Sensui he was somehow called back by the youkai in him. It's difficult to explain how and why it exactly happened. A reason other than mentioned above could be the place where Yusuke died when he died for the second time: that place was a few steps away from Makai.



Q: Who's stronger: Yusuke or Hiei? A: That's hard to say. They fought each other two times, Yusuke won the first match up with a lot of luck, the second one wasn't a serious fight. Hiei was trying to calm the furious Yusuke down and let him fight his frustration off. That fight ended in a tie. Hiei has never used his strongest technique the Black Dragon Wave against Yusuke, and Yusuke also hasn't used his Rei Gun against his ally later in the series, so it's hard to say who's stronger in a match up. However, if we look at the Makai Tournament we can see that Hiei lost quite easily to Mukuro, while Yusuke almost had a tied match against Yomi after a struggling fight in which he got stronger and developed a ki that is a combination of rei ki and youki. Mukuro and Yomi were considered about even. So we can say that Yusuke is probably a bit stronger than Hiei.



Q: Why didn't Yusuke also got long hair when he fought Yomi (and got those prints on his body)? A: When Yusuke fought Sensui in Makai, he wasn't very used to his new powers, so Raizen gave him a hand. Somehow he took over Yusuke's mind and controled his body to defeat Sensui. At that time Yusuke got the same long hair like Raizen's and got mysterious prints on his body. But when he later used his powers by himself he only got the prints (during the Makai Tournament, vs Yomi). Probably that had to do with the fact that this time he wasn't controled, the hair could be a sign that Raizen had taken over his mind. But then you could issue that he still had the same long hair when he woke up from Raizen's controling power. We like to think that maybe Yusuke hasn't found his true ability yet. Perhaps he still has a deeper power in him which he has no control of yet, and the hair might be a thing that comes along with that great power.



Q: Are there any yaoi relationships in this anime? A: No, officially there are none in YYH. However, yaoi fans manage to see love relationships in any anime... (they can even make a couple out of Vegeta and Goku!) The most common relationship seen by yaoi fans is the one between Kurama and Hiei. But we've also seen pics with Kurama and Yusuke very close... According to us there is no sign for these relationships or any other yaoi in the series. Well, we have to say though that it's pretty obvious that Karasu had very special feelings towards Kurama, but we don't think that can be considered as a relationship: first of all, Kurama hated the guy, and secondly Kurama killed him.



Q: Yusuke and Kuwabara are form the same school right? But why are their school uniforms different? A: This is not clear, but it was said that Yusuke (or Kuwabara) is wearing the 'summer' edition, and the other the 'winter' one. We are pretty sure Yusuke is the one with the wrong outfit.



Q: Hiei and Yukina are brother and sister, how come they look so different? A: Brothers and sisters don't necessarily have to look the same right? But ok, they indeed look very different. Their mother is a so called Ice Maiden who are supposed to bare only girls, but probably she had a relationship with a man so that she got pregnant and bared Hiei. Hiei was considered an evil child that would bring misery. When Hiei was born he was surrounded by fire and already had an incredible youki. So Hiei and Yukina may have the same mother, but their race could be totally different.



Q: Who's the most popular character? A: We think that should be Hiei or Kurama. When you look around on the net, you'll see that most YYH sites are dedicated to one of these two very cool and attractive youkai. The book "The Yu Yu Hakusho Complete Files No.1" says it's Hiei, but we can't be sure, because many polls and Japanese magazines say that Kurama is the most popular YYH character. We believe it should be Kurama, regarding the number of sources that say the elegant youkai has the most fans.



Q: What's the most common mistake made by people concerning YYH? A: That's a good one, well, a lot of people think that Raizen is Yusuke's father, which is not true. Raizen is just his ancestor who fell in love with a human, which was many many years ago. Soon the woman left and Raizen decided to not eat any human flesh anymore, that's why he starved in the end. Hmm, further we read some really funny things on some other websites, like: Kurama's rose whip is made of a fragment of his hair... Well, I guess Kurama might get bald soon if he keeps on fighting like that...



Q: Are Mukuro and Hiei a couple? A: Although it's never said we do believe that they are a couple. They have a lot in common concerning their painful pasts and their personalities, they really understand each other, that's why Mukuro could finally break free from her hand cuffs after her fight against Hiei. At the end Hiei chooses to stay in Makai and live with Mukuro and her servants. He walks right into her room, so that could be a hint.



Q: Are Kuwabara and Yukina a couple? A: That's not very clear. It's pretty obvious that Kuwabara has a major crush on Yukina, but she seems not to notice at all. (how naive can a person be?) We personally think that Yukina is not in love with Kuwabara, he's more like a brother to her. These feelings might change of course, I mean, Yukina is not a rock, she might be touched by Kuwabara's love and care some day. Because we really have to admit that Kuwabara's love towards her is very true.



Q: Why did Sensui want to open a gate to Makai while he already has the power to destroy Ningenkai himself? A: Sensui felt very guilty for the killings during the period that he worked as Rei kai's detective. He couldn't stop blaming himself, he really wants to make up with the dead youkai that he killed for the only simple reason that he had in mind: all youkai are evil. He found out that humans could be even more cruel. And although that were just a few people, his love for humans and his sense of honor were totally crushed. He did have the power to destroy Ningenkai, but he chose to open the gate to Makai, so youkai could enter the human world freely. He wanted to give the youkai Ningenkai in return for everything that happened in the past. And most importantly: he wanted to see Makai very badly. He wanted to die in Makai. We think he was really glad that he was killed by Yusuke, a youaki.


Q: Why doesn't Hiei tell Yukina he's her brother? A: We think there are several reasons for that. First of all: when Hiei underwent surgery to get his third eye Jagan, the surgeon Shigure only wanted to do it on one condition: Hiei may not tell Yukina about his identity. So I think Hiei kept that promise. Secondly: Hiei knows he has a lot of enemies, youkai and other folks that don't like him very much, we don't think he wants to endanger her life at any possibility. And perhaps Hiei thinks he isn't worth being her brother. Yukina is an innocent, lovely and sweet girl and Hiei might just see himself as a killing monster. Maybe he's afraid to ruin Yukina's vision of her brother.