Yu Yu Hakusho, Revisited

In the past 2 weeks I took the time to watch a favorite series of mines that I’m certain everyone by now knows about, Yu Yu Hakusho (I’ll be using the abbreviation YYH for the remainder of the post). I did a throwback Thursday feature of it that you can read here. No matter how many years since I first watched the series YYH will still find a way to make me shed some manly tears.

The first episode instantly had me reeled in because now that I’ve grown older it finally really hits you who your true friends and family are. At the scene of the mourning of Yusuke where everyone had their chance to throw in their two cents about Yusuke and what kind of life he lived it really hit me mentally how people who cared for him, people who fought him, and even his principal could have such kind words to say. The scene really got to me solely for the reason because these were the last words he would have never gotten to hear if he were never a ghost at the time. Even rewatching the scene down below still gets to me.

While watching the series I paid real close attention to how each character developed and matured as the series went on. To be truthfully honest, I couldn’t say which character is my favorite because they all are! Hieh and his negative attitude but willingness to help, Kurama and his kind hearted spirit that’s always seems to be the voice of reasoning, and then you have Kuwabara that’s the character who lightens up the mood.

This anime has everything you could really want all mashed into one. It isn’t too short, it isn’t too long (112 episodes). There’s a good amount of action in every episode that’s just enough to hold you over till the next episode. The comedy is downright hilarious. Ok, you get the point; I can go on and on about just how superb this anime is to me. But just watch one of the best fights series and I’ll let you decide if it’s worth watching again.

Another thing that I really admired about the series was the growth between teacher and student. Genkai and Yusuke seriously had this whacked out relationship that strangely just worked. From the beginning when Yusuke was enduring the training so everyone would just shut up he then began to train so he could beat the crap out of Genkai. I’ve gotta say I really wish they would’ve let us have seen some of his training that he went through rather than just a small glimpse, but I guess they didn’t wanted to be another DBZ and waste time with fillers, shots fired! It was admirable to see just how strong Yusuke had grown and surpassed Genkai in such a short amount of time that you almost felt he was a bit overpowered. He’s the main character though! He’s supposed to be! The series of videos below will be the growth throughout Yusuke’s training during his big fights. I’ve gotta say, Genkai really gives Shia Labeouf a run for his money when it comes to motivational speeches.

Needless to say, the development between the two was really quite beautiful. The arrogance that both of them possessed put an interesting perspective on how their relationship would turn out. Another thing that I would love to touch on is just how much of a troll Yusuke is. I’ll let the next set of videos speak for this paragraph.

As I close out this post I still wonder if there’s an anime out there that can match the same caliber as YYH, for me at least. Hell, the english dub of YYH is one of the very few animes that I prefer to watch over the japanese dub. I’m still hoping and praying for a reboot of it since series like DBZ, Gintama, and HxH got a reboot. But I don’t think that’s highly likely at all. 😦 So I guess I’ll just have to settle for the blu-ray set if I ever happen to come across it in real life. And I can’t leave this post without posting the ending!

It’s been awhile since I’ve been obsessed with an anime again upon rewatching it and it’s really damn refreshing. Which is your number 1 anime for you? Why’s it your number 1? Be sure to let me know in a comment!

-Aniplays

Throwback Thursday: Chrono Trigger OVA

I know I’m not alone when I say I wish Chrono Trigger would have its own anime adaptation. The artwork is beautiful and the character designs are so unique to one another, nonetheless everything still manages to go hand-in-hand. Never in my life up until the point of playing CT for the first time, would I have ever thought I would be playing a video game with a talking frog and a talking robot in the same party along with a cave girl who could kick some serious butt. Be sure to continue reading to find out more!

Throwback Thursday: Samurai X Trust and Betrayal

Hitokiri Battousai; the name that shook fear in everyone’s hearts when it was mentioned, the name that made even those of the most power tremble, we’ve all heard the name of the legendary man slayer. The man who took down a single army all on his own. The man who had no remorse towards any of his victims as his cold blood-stained blade was the last thing his victims felt as they fell to the legend of the man slayer. But just who was he anyway? Hit the jump to find out more!

Case of the Real Folk Blues

The rain can always have a love/hate relationship depending on the type of person you are. Living in Seattle you’ll eventually become to grow into that person. When I think of the soothing pitter patter of the rain as it softly hits the roof of my house I can’t help but be reminded of the ending theme to “Cowboy Bebop”, The Real Folk Blues by The Seatbelts.

The real folk blues
I only want to know true happiness is
All that glitters is not gold

The Seatbelts ft. Mai Yamane – The Real Folk Blues

Listening to this songs brings back a ton of memories for me. Saturday nights I would stay up late at night watching the anime block of Adult Swim and Cowboy Bebop was the anime out of the bunch that I really liked a ton. But lets go back to the song before I start rambling on (don’t I always though?). When you read the lyrics as you listen to the song you can really feel the true raw emotion that the artist wanted you to feel. Through the vocals of her voice, through the tempo of the song, it’s like painting a story of love and tragedy in your mind. I guess that’s what Cowboy Bebop was really about after all. But I won’t take too much of your time, so sit back and relax to the sounds of “The Real Folk Blues”.

-Aniplays

Throwback Thursday: Cowboy Bebop

Space, a place that holds so many unanswered questions, a place that has so many mysteries, and last but not least a place where space cowboys travel searching for their next bounty. As you guys have probably realized by now, Throwback Thursdays are childhood memories that I love to indulge in and I hope you guys feel the same. Cowboy Bebop was one of the very few space animes that I really enjoyed. This anime isn’t normally something I would watch in the first place. Come to think about it, I would choose just about any other genre before any kind of space related anime. But the opening intro looked good so I thought to myself “lets just go with it”.

Another trip down memory lane: Return to Zanarkand

Probably known as the Final Fantasy that changed the franchise. This game was jam packed full of new features, mini games, characters, and everything else alike. For me, I had a love/hate relationship with this game. One aspect of the game that I absolutely loved was being able to switch out characters mid-battle. I thought that brought a lot of new excitement to the series. As I said in one of my previous posts (here) I never really did know what was going on in any RPG games, I would just grind the hell out of my characters until I was able to 1-hit KO all the monsters in the area and move onto the next. But as you grow up and you finally understand what the story is about, you finally begin to appreciate the story and all it stands for.

Throwback Thursday: Medabots

If you were to ask me what I wanted when I was younger I would’ve said “a medabot!” with so much enthusiasm and stars in my eyes. As a child I remembered waking up Saturday morning for whenever this aired on TV and I would love every single second of it. I remember daydreaming of how things would be if I had a medabot. I always thought I’d be the champ and would kick so much butt around my school with my medabot haha, my childhood mindset was a pretty interesting one to say the least.

Music Monday: Kingdom Hearts

Good morning and happy Monday! Sometimes I wish we had 3 day weekends instead. But anyhow, lets kick off Monday with one of my favorite songs from the KH series, “Simple and Clean” by Utada Hikaru.

I’d like to say that this song is very nostalgic for me whenever I hear it, I remember the very ending of KH where I finally defeated Ansem. Waves of excitement washed over me as the final cutscene for the game happens. I put my controller down and propped my elbow on my knees and watched the game finally come to an end. The part where Sora and Kairi let go of each others hands nearly had me in tears as I finally realized that their might not be another game, little did I know about the secret ending at the very end of the credits though. Anyways, without further ado, feel free to relive the ending of KH again and listen to the song we all know and love.