Our less than prepossessing hero, Urameshi Yuusuke (Sasaki Nozomu), is a 14 year old juvenile delinquent with a penchant for fighting and a fist to be feared. Even though his long-time opponent, Kuwabara Kazuma, calls himself the strongest of the students, we all know it's really Yuusuke-kun. Of course, Yuusuke has some real anger management problems. Probably because his mother, who's only 29 (you can do the math here, people) is a drunk who's constantly leaving him to go get smashed. Yuusuke does one good deed in all of his short life...and it kills him. To save a boy from being hit by a car, Yuusuke jumps in, and is killed. D'oh! However, he wasn't really supposed to die at that point, so Koenma-sama, the infantile lord of the dead (no really! He is infantile! He has a pacifier!) gives him an opportunity to bring himself back to life. Yuusuke's got a big mouth and an attitude to match, but he doesn't want to be dead...
Yuusuke goes through a lot of shit to get back into his body. Even trying to convince Kuwabara, who's sensitive to rei-ki or psychic energy, to kiss him O_o He and the shinigami Botan (Sanae Miyuki) do get him into his body, thanks to Yukimura Keiko (Amano Yuri), Yuusuke's not-girlfriend. You know how it is when you're 14. ^_^ Eventually, Yuusuke becomes a "spirit detective," and basically is used by Koenma in ningenkai (human world) to find demons escaping makai and reikai (underworld and spirit world, respectively) and bing them to justice. Yuusuke picks up a couple demons to assist him: Minamino Shuichi (Ogata Megumi), aka Youko Kurama (Nakahara Shigure), and Jaganshi Hiei (Hiyama Nobuyuki).
Kurama is the human body of a kitsune youkai (fox demon) and Hiei is the Forbidden Child of the Koorime (ice demons), who are supposed to be all-female and self-reproducing. However, Hiei's mom Hina had an affair with a fire demon, inroncally, and produced Hiei and his sister Yukina (Shiratori Yuri), who is a pure Koorime. Hiei was thrown out of the floating ice realm as an infant and picked up by some thieves, who eventually became scared of him because of his exceptional skill and speed. Hiei's also looking for Yukina, which is why he got the Jagan, that third eye. Hiei's such an adorable little prick. He's stand-offish, insensitive, smart-mouthed, faster than all hell, an incredibly selfish. He was an assassin so good he scared his comrades. Not to mention only five feet tall...but I love him anyway. He's so cute! I love when he fights Seiryuu in the Saint Beasts arc. Seiryuu tries to freeze Hiei (geez, he's a fire demon! Doncha know you can't freeze someone with an internal body temperature above the boiling point of water? Whoo, I had a weird dream about that, let me tell you...actually, I'd rather not tell...it was definitely...weird)...and then Hiei kills him.
Kurama: How many times did you hit him?
Hiei(arrogantly): Only sixteen.
Yuusuke: Sixteen? After the first eight all I could see were flashes of light!
Kurama: You did better than I did. I could only see the flashes to begin with.
Kuwabara: I didn't even see the flashes!
YYH follows the four-guys-saving-the-world/fighting-the-badguy formula (think WK, Saiyuki, etc). There's a coupe variations. Here we've got the hero (Yuusuke), the big dumb rival (Kuwabara), the smart bishie (Kurama), and the short one/the prick (Hiei). This isn't quite as similar as WK and Saiyuki, though... there we have the cold leader (Aya, Sanzo), the slut(Yohji, Gojyo), the normal guy (Ken, Hakkai) and the young one (Omi, Goku). Schwartz doesn't quite fit the same way...altho there's the cold leader (Crawford), the slut...I mean, the playboy (Schuldig), and the kid (Nagi), I don't think we could call Farfarello the "normal one." And Kougaiji-tachi doesn't quite do it either, altho we have the emotionally repressed leader (Kougaiji), the big strong guy (Dokugakuji), the calm one (Yaone) and the kdi (Lirin). Seriously tho, there's always got to be someone in the group under 5'2"...
Before I digress any further...EVERYBODY at least shows up in this series...including Yamaguchi Kappei (Kazetsukai Jin), Genda Tessho (Toguro-otooto), Morikawa Toshiyuki (Toguro-ani), Orikasa Ai (Kuwabara Shizuru), Takayama Minami (Mukuro), Koyasu Takehito (Kido), Wakamoto Norio (Gouki), to name just a few....
Some of these images were found at Ladyshock's page, and some at Dragid.
Yuusuke and Hiei. Hiei always looks kinda weird to me -- being the little guy, he's got the huge eyes, but being such a prick, he's got little irises. so he has a LOT of white showing...
Minamino Shuichi and his Youko Kurama form.
Hiei looking grumpy and short as usual (that's Kuwabara on the left of him, and Kurama on the right). And in a tree. Nice tree. Good tree.
Hiei from the side, and dressed in "normal" clothes. I don't know what the heck he lettered in. Maybe in Japan you can get a letter jacket for kendo...
I love a man with no shirt on holding a sword (yep, Dokugakuji too...).
Kurama's two forms, and Yuusuke with no shirt on. My first reaction was "Damn boy!" and my second was "No 14-year-old is ripped like that" but then I remembered I know someone who WAS thaht built at that age. Of course, he was a wrestler, but still...
While we're on the no-shirt thing, here's Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara in addition to Yuusuke.
Koenma, Botan, Keiko, Yukina, and Kuwabara. And the guys again...and where did Yuusuke get those abs, I want to know?
I like Koenma much better in his teenager body. But he still has the pacifier. Luckily, it does serve a purpose...
Yuusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei (wtf is his shirt doing? Besides falling off, obviously), Kurama (why, why WHY do redheads ALWAYS wear pink?); in the back, Atsuro (Yuusuke's alcoholic mom), Shizuru (Kuwabara's sister) and Koenma; in front of them, Botan and Keiko; and that's Puu in the front--Puu's kind of like, Yuusuke's spirit animal.
