Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho: Meikai Shitou-hen - Honoo no Kizuna

It's been at least three years since I finished watching Yu Yu Hakusho and I was more than happy to once again pick up a title from one of my most beloved series.

Story: When transferring a television series into a movie one expects series with a very short run time (ATHF for example) to be especially problematic in this area as the writers/characters are not used to a prolonged storyline. Ironically, this can also be the case with series that deal with huge story arcs trying to condense what would at least be a 20-some episode arc into about ninety minutes. The story wasn't ... lacking in this movie, rather it felt extremely rushed. If prolonged throughout a season of the series then it would have done rather well.

Art: Never lacking in Yu Yu Hakusho, old-school anime style with it's own sense of personality about it. It's animation style is very versatile, able to transfer between lighter and more melancholy scenes with ease.

Sound: Because it's been a few years since I've watched the television series I didn't realize that the voice actors weren't the same until I looked it up just now. The dub for this movie, with the exception of Yusuke, was just poorly done. Hardly any emotion put into the acting and I considered a few times switching over to the Japanese track. I was wondering what was off about the voices because I didn't remember the series being this badly dubbed, but now it all makes sense. Why they chose a different cast for the movie escapes me, but it was the wrong decision.

Character: Another unfortunate aspect of this script being turned into a movie rather than a series arc is that there were many chances at character development, and even movie-exclusive characters weren't fully exploited or handled briefly before being thrown to the wayside. I would have liked to see and know more about the antagonists in this movie as they could have made for some interesting characters, but nearly all of them were given five minutes of screen time before sudden, unbelievable defeat.

This was where the movie failed, while these were the characters I know and love it was utterly unbelievable that they were able to emerge from this scenario alive. Yusuke went from being nearly helpless against the King of the Netherworld to suddenly being powerful enough to change the energy-format of the Power Sphere, something King Enma couldn't do. If he really had that much energy, I would expect that we would have seen it before the critical moment. Godlike characters bug me as they are completely unbelievable, one of the reasons I never got into series such as Dragonball is because of this. In the series Yusuke develops at a reasonable, believable pace after much training, blood, sweat, and tears. In the movie the leap was sudden and inexplicable, a plot "device" that can ruin any good movie for me.

Enjoyment: Despite the previous statement this was a joy to watch, mostly because I was happy enough simply seeing one of my favorite cast of characters again. I've decided that I need to watch the series again, it's been too long my friends...

Overview:

Shonen action movies have never really changed since the Dragonball Z movies of the early 1990s and late 1980s. The formula is that a new villain shows up out of nowhere, the heroes beat him, and this is NEVER mentioned again. These stories are almost always non-canon to the actual story. American comics have a phrase to describe these kinds of stories: "elseworlds". What is important is that the action is good and we the audience are entertained. Yu Yu Hakusho the movie delivers some decent action scenes, but also has an unfortunate amount of shoddy exposition on a story that we don't care about.

Action: ... 6/10

The action scenes in this movie when they FINALLY happen are pretty good. Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke have predictably awesome fights, while even Kuwabara has a pretty amusing fight. However, this movie could have had a lot more action and less talking. Dialogue is great when the series is well written, but when you have a poorly written piece of crap like this movie that doesn't even make sense in the context of its own world, then you really don't want to have tons of dialogue. All it does is make the plot holes even more obvious and bore the viewer to death.

Art: 5/10

The art is decent. It seems the animators went with slightly darker colors than the main series, but you get used to it. I have no major complaints in this department, but it surely isn't a visual masterpiece either.

Fun: 4/10 if you are watching the sub. 7/10 if you are watching the English Dub!

This is one anime where everyone should watch the English Dub. It is absolutely hilarious how bad it is. I know I'm being un-original since almost every review of this movie mentions this fact, but a lot of the voice actors in this film were also in Garzey's Wing. Older otaku consider Garzey's Wing to be the single worst English dub in the history of anime, and THESE are the voice actors they chose for this movie! This only makes sense because this movie was dubbed in English years before YuYu Hakusho was brought over to the US by Funimation. When this film was dubbed, no one in America had any clue what Yu Yu Hakusho even was, so not many people rented this film at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

Overall: 5/10

If you are a big fan of Yuyu Hakusho or a big fan of HORRIBLE voice acting, this movie won't disappoint. It isn't a good film by any stretch, but it will give you some amusement at least.

Started strong but ended horribly. Horrible pacing and writing. The weakest villains of the franchise. Huge fan of the main series, but this movie was just awful. Took place around or after season 2 but non-canon.

The animation and audio quality were amazing. Great scores and original song but the mood setup was horrible. Love the voice casts as always. This movie ended abruptly without showing the aftermath of the battle. Meanwhile, the action or battle scenes were mediocre. The main series was way better. Horrible power sets and designs on the villains.

The new character was indeed useless and not required for the plot. ... Wish I could see more of Botan. Skippable and had no revisit value, just watch the main series instead.