New ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ OVA Animates Stories Not Seen In Original Anime

Yu Yu Hakusho‘s celebrating its recent 25th Anniversary by bringing the series back to animation with a new OVA special bundled with its upcoming home video re-release in Japan, and fans are ecstatic.

Though fans were excited just to have the series back in some form, little did they know there is even more to be excited about as the new OVA special will adapt two stories never seen during the anime’s original run.

The new OVA special will cover two stories. The first, which was revealed with a brand new key visual, is “Two Shots,” which is a side-manga story that reveals how Kurama and Hiei first met, and the second is “Sink or Swim” which will adapt the second-to-last chapter of Yoshihiro Togashi’s original manga.

Neither of these stories have ever been adapted into animation before, so this is a big deal for Yu Yu Hakusho fans. The second inclusion is the more peculiar as the second to last chapter of the manga involves a terrorist group that is threatening the Spirit World with a giant laser.

The fun in the story comes from Yusuke reuniting with Hiei, Kurama, and Kuwabara for one last fight against the terrorists which eventually leads to the titular “sink or swim” decision from Yusuke. The original anime series came to its own conclusion different from the manga, so this is will be a new experience for fans who have never looked up the original source.

Yu Yu Hakusho was as known for its fashion sense as it was for its story and well animated fights. It is also one of the few anime series where the fandom is often evenly split between the original Japanese language release and the English dub. The fact it’s returning in some form will definitely be a huge get for fans who have been fondly looking back on the series for years now.

For those unfamiliar with Yu Yu Hakusho, the series was originally created by Yoshihiro Togashiand follows the story of Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who loses his life when he is hit by a car trying to save a child’s life. After passing a series of tests, Yusuke is allowed to return to the living world but with a few caveats. With the gained ability to see spirits and demons, Yusuke is given the title of “Underworld Detective” and must solve various cases of spirits running amok in the living world.

The series ran in Shuiesha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from December 1990 to July 1994. It has been collected into 19 volumes, and was licensed for an English language release by Viz Media from 2003 to 2010. It was adapted into an anime series by Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot and aired from October 1992 to December 1994 for 112 episodes.

It was licensed in North America by Funimation in 2001 where it first aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, but later transferred to Toonami under the name Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files. The manga has sold over 50 million copies in Japan and was praised by both critics and fans for its writing. Unfortunately, production faced its own share of issues as Togashi was public about his stresses and health issues when drawing the manga and had ended the series on his own terms.

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