Episode 26

Toguro Returns
Kanji	暗黒武術会への招待者
Rōmaji	Ankoku Bujutsukai e no Shōtaisha (Invitees To The Dark Tournament)
Japan Air Date	April 17, 1993
English Air Date	April 8, 2003
Manga	Chapters 51-52 (first half)
Saga	Dark Tournament Saga
Opening Song	Smile Bomb
Ending Song	Homework Never Ends
Previous Episode	←Kuwabara's Fight of Love
Next Episode	The Dark Tournament Begins→

Toguro Returns is the first episode of season 2 of YuYu Hakusho. It aired on April 17, 1993 in Japan and April 8, 2003 in the United States.

Short Summary

Yusuke Urameshi once again meets Toguro, who forces Yusuke to enter the "Dark Tournament," or he will kill all of Yusuke's friends. Yusuke and his allies begin a two-month training period. After this period, they join together, alongside a disguised fifth fighter that Yusuke brings, as Team Urameshi.

Plot

Kuwabara is bummed because Yukina had to return to the Ice World where she previously resided. Yusuke asks Hiei why he doesn't tell her that he is her brother. Hiei explains that he is a convicted felon and they are siblings through father only, so he feels she would be better off not knowing. Yusuke asks him if the reason he got the Jagan Eye was to keep constant watch over her, but Hiei doesn't answer.

Meanwhile, back in the city, Yusuke is finally spending some quality time with Keiko, when a huge chunk of a building is blown up. He goes out to see what all the commotion is about. Then a masked man comes up to him on a motorcycle, and it is Toguro. It seems that after Yusuke and Kuwabara "defeated" the Toguro Brothers, Sakyo contacted them. They were working for him the whole time, and had staged their defeat to allow Sayko to win all of Tarukane's money.

They let the girl go since she wasn't even part of the plan. Toguro, however, is intrigued by Yusuke's power, and asks him if he will enter the Dark Tournament, a tournament thrown by greedy human mafia bosses and demons every year, for an all-out bloodfest. Yusuke declines, but Toguro brings up the other part. If he doesn't join, Toguro will kill Yusuke, and all of Yusuke's friends and family. He goes on to tell Yusuke that he was only fighting at 20% of his true strength when they battled before.

He demonstrates 60% of it by taking out an entire column of a parking garage. Needless to say, Yusuke is convinced, and rounds up Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama to be on his five-man team to enter the tournament. Yusuke goes off to train with Genkai, and Kuwabara trains with Kurama and Hiei for the two months before the tournament. On the final day, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama are waiting to board the ship to the island, and Yusuke hasn't shown up yet.

He arrives right before they leave, with the fifth man for their team, a short person with a white cloth wrapped around their head. No one knows who the masked person is, but Yusuke assures them that the fifth fighter will be an incredible asset to their team.

Anime Notes

• This is the first episode of the Dark Tournament Saga.
• The Next Time preview has different music in the English dub for the rest of the series. It is a more lively and jazzy version of the previous theme, as it is the Japanese original. The previous theme was a recreation by Carl Finch since Funimation was not provided the materials to use the original piece for the first twenty-five episodes. However, the Blu-ray and future re-releases have replaced the Carl Finch cover in said episodes with the original jazzy Japanese music to maintain consistency.
• Hiei mentions here as Yukina leaves that the two of them have different mothers and thus are half-siblings. This is later retconned to be a lie as they both share the same mother in Hina.
• For the Blu-ray remastered dub, a muffled effect was added to Younger Toguro's voice while he has his helmet on. The original version had no effect. Also, the ogre that reports on the Toguros' survival originally had his voiced deepened slightly while the Blu-ray plays it at its natural pitch.

Trivia

• The police officer who closes off the area damaged by Younger Toguro is voiced in English by Phillip Wilburn in a manner identical to his Inspector Koichi Zenigata from Lupin III, of which Funimation dubbed two of the feature films and several of the franchise's yearly specials.

Gallery

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