Spirit Detective Saga

Spirit Detective Saga
Saga Info
Manga Chapters	Chapters 1-51
Episodes	Episodes 1-25
Saga Guide
Previous ← N/A	Next Dark Tournament Saga →

The Spirit Detective Saga is the first saga of the YuYu Hakusho series. It spans from chapters 1 to 51 in the manga and episodes 1 to 25 in the anime. The saga focuses on Yusuke Urameshi's first tasks as a Spirit Detective. This saga stands out from the sagas following at as it actually consists of five shorter arcs rather than one.

The Spirit Detective Saga

The Spirit Detective Saga is divided into 5 story arcs:

"Yusuke's Ordeal" (Manga: Vol. 1-3 (Chapters 1-18) Anime: Episodes 1-5)

"Artifacts of Darkness" (Manga: Vol. 3 (Chapters 19-24) Anime: Episodes 5-8)

"Genkai's Tournament" (Manga: Vol. 3-4 (Chapters 25-32) Anime: Episodes 9-13)

"The Beasts of Maze Castle" (Manga: Vol. 4-5 (Chapters 33-44) Anime: Episodes 14-21)

"Rescue Yukina" (Manga: Vol. 5-6 (Chapters 45-51) Anime: Episodes 22-25).

During the anime, "Smile Bomb" is the opening theme with "The Homework Never Ends" as the closing theme.

Summary

Yusuke Urameshi is nothing more than a 14-year-old trouble-causing-punk, who's always ready for a fight! But a single, selfless act results in Yusuke sacrificing his life for another person. Now, he's been given a second chance at life, instead of spending time in the afterlife. Put to work as a Spirit Realm Detective with amazing powers, he's tasked with tracking down demons and humans who desire to rule over the three realms of reality.

Yusuke's Ordeal

 Yusuke Urameshi is 14 years old at the start of YuYu Hakusho. He is the toughest student at Sarayashiki Junior High School. He brawls with Kuwabara on a frequent basis. He is a stereotypical bad egg, with a bad attendance record and picks fights with other kids at school. In the manga, he is even revealed to be drinking, smoking and gambling. 

While skipping school and being neglected by his mother, Yusuke wonders around the town.  [1]Yusuke comes across a little boy playing in the streets and scolds him for it. This upsets the child, so Yusuke entertains a child by making silly faces. The little boy disregards his advice and walks into the street again chasing his ball and, you guessed it, a car comes speeding down the street and Yusuke shoves him out of the way. Yusuke is struck by the car, and killed. As a ghost, Yusuke is greeted by an atypical version of the Grim Reaper; a bubbly, cheerful young woman named Botan. She informs Yusuke that no one in Spirit World had expected him to die, risking his life to save the little boy. The boy would've survived; Thus, Yusuke's interference was unnecessary and only resulted in the kid having a minor scratch. They have no place for him in the afterlife because of his abrupt death. The Spirit World is also amazed how Yusuke, known for his bad attitude, could save a boy, and for these reasons, he was given the chance to live again. Botan remarks that Yusuke can return to life, but he initially declines.

Yusuke's mind changes after he attends his wake, where people he knows pay their condolences to his mother. Atsuko(Yusuke's mother) is extremely distraught & borderline catatonic about losing her son. Keiko Yukimura (his classmate) sobs uncontrollably, yelling Yusuke's name. Kuwabara appears, angry and upset that Yusuke died before they could finish their battles. When two of Yusuke's teachers belittle him at the wake, Mr. Takenaka, another teacher, berates them for insulting him. He pays his respects to Atsuko and sobs at Yusuke's passing; only then, Atsuko reacts, collapsing in tears at the mention of Yusuke. Lastly, the child whom Yusuke saved and his mother show up, and when the child asks if he can play again with Yusuke, his mother cries and hugs him. Understanding that he meant more to others than they let on, he decides to come back.

Yusuke is given an egg by Koenma, acting lord of Spirit World (in place of his father, who often left to work in

other places), and is told that it will hatch a Spirit Beast, which will help him get back to life. However, he must be a genuinely good person. If he is evil, the beast will devour him. While Yusuke only accomplishes two good deeds in the anime, he does a lot more in the manga due to the timeline of events being more stretched out. This includes helping a boy named Shouta get over his dog's death, helping a girl who had died get over her obsession with a boy, (who didn't really care for her) so she can move on, and also being temporarily revived to keep his body fresh so it won't die out. The last deed involves not allowing Keiko to know about this, though Kuwabara encounters him and Yusuke explains to him what is happening before he returns to being a ghost. Keiko, who had received dreams and messages from Yusuke's ghost telling her he would be returning to life, needed to take care of his body so that he would be able to return to it. However, a fire starts in Yusuke's home and his body runs the risk of being incinerated. Keiko runs into the fire to protect it, and is trapped in the fire. Yusuke gave up all the power gained from his good deeds after his death to have Koenma save her. Koenma used this to put out some of the flames and opened up a path for her to escape from the fire.

Due to this incident, with Koenma directly in contact with Yusuke's soul,  [2]Keiko kissing Yusuke to resurrect him he figured that the wave cycle of Yusuke's power is extremely long and has to meet the right time to be resurrected or he would have to wait for another fifty-two years (fifty years in the Japanese version and English manga) before the next chance and decided to let Yusuke return to life earlier even though the fire incident should have delayed the process since his power gained from good deeds were used up (In the manga, Yusuke had to go through one more good deed to be eligible for this by possessing an old acquaintance named Matsuo Suekichi to help him gain the confidence to achieve his dream of becoming a boxer). The only way for Yusuke to be resurrected is by a kiss from someone who is very close to him until midnight. Yusuke could tell, by dream, to three people he knew in order to do this, but he only told Keiko and Kuwabara since his mother started drinking and would not go to bed. Kuwabara did not believe the dream, due to its homosexuality, and Keiko got delayed by her mother's illness. Botan possessed Keiko's mother to leave a message saying Yusuke was in a more dire state than she was. Keiko manages to kiss Yusuke in time, and Yusuke is returned to life.

Artifacts of Darkness

After returning, Yusuke is surprised to notice a demon inhabiting the body of a street punk. Botan shows up and tells Yusuke that his experience with death allowed him to do these things. He is to become Earth's Spirit Detective, and protect the human race from demons by solving cases involved with the apparitions.

Yusuke engages in many difficult trials in his first assignments as Spirit Detective. The first is to recover three items bound by Hiei's Jagan Eye Curse stolen artifacts from Spirit World. Koenma trains him by teaching him how to fire his spirit energy, energy possessed by humans and spirits, as a weapon. This technique is called the Spirit Gun, and becomes the signature attack of Yusuke. Yusuke attempts to combat these three thieves: Goki, who stole a soul-stealing article called the Orb of Baast; Kurama, who stole a mirror called the Forlorn Hope; and Hiei, who stole the Shadow Sword. Yusuke was able to defeat Gouki the aid of Botan (anime only) and his Spirit Gun. Kurama willingly turns over the Forlorn Hope, as he only wanted to use its power to save his mother's life. Kurama intended to sacrifice his life for the mirror to save hers, but Yusuke selflessly asked the mirror to take his so Kurama can enjoy his mother's life. The mirror granted Kurama's wish, taking half of each of their life force, but killing neither, and Yusuke took the mirror. Yusuke and Botan then went to fight Hiei, who kidnapped Keiko and tried to turn her into a demon by slashing her with the stolen sword. While Botan staved off the transformation, Yusuke fought the extremely-fast demon, and managed to defeat him by reflecting his Spirit Gun off of the Forlorn Hope, intentionally missing Hiei to strike it and causing the arrogant demon to believe Yusuke missed. They found the antidote in the hilt of the sword to stop Keiko's transformation. After the ordeal, Yusuke turned over the three artifacts to Koenma.

Genkai's Tournament

Yusuke then was sent to the compound of Master Genkai, an aged, experienced fighter who was looking for a successor to her powerful Spirit Wave technique (Reikō Hadō Ken or Spirit Light Wave Fist in the original Japanese version). To decide her successor she decided to hold a tournament which Yusuke and Kuwabara enter. Botan warned Yusuke that a demon named Rando would probably try to inherit her technique and it was his job to stop him. Yusuke fought through her tournament and defeated Rando in the end, becoming her successor. For the next two weeks (in the Japanese anime, it is a month and in the English anime, it is six months), Yusuke undergoes tough training with Genkai. As a result, his strength radically heightens, push him from a D-class to a C-class.

The Beasts of Maze Castle

Yusuke was then sent to Maze Castle in Demon City to defeat the Four Saint Beasts and stop them from

taking over the human race with demon parasites. Kuwabara decided to go with Yusuke, and Koenma sent Kurama and Hiei, who were on probation in the human world, to assist. Yusuke and the others fought their way to Suzaku, the leader of the group, and Yusuke managed to defeat him, but at the cost of his own life energy. Kuwabara, the only human of the group, saved him by transferring part of his own life energy. ==

Rescue

Yusuke teams up with Kuwabara (and Botan in the anime) to rescue a beautiful ice apparition named Yukina, to whom Kuwabara becomes smitten. However, Yukina is actually Hiei's twin sister, a fact that Kuwabara and even Yukina herself is unaware of. Yusuke fights all the way to the Toguro brothers. Yusuke and Kuwabara defeat them with awesome teamwork and rescue the maiden, but it turns out that the Toguros threw the fight on purpose. The Younger Toguro brother coerces Yusuke to join the Dark Tournament (Ankoku Būtsukai or Black Martial Arts Tournament in the original Japanese) and defeat him in a real fight.

Differences between Anime and Manga

• Manga Chapters 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, and 45 weren't adapted into the anime, except for a few short moments (this often leads to scenes slightly changing order). All the skipped chapters were stand-alone adventures that didn't affect the larger continuity.
  • Due to the omission of Chapter 45, the method of how Yusuke received the videotape from Hiei regarding the orders for his fourth mission had to be rewritten for the anime. As such, Hiei gives the tape to Yusuke while he is on his way to school, while in the manga, Hiei instead gave the videotape to Yusuke after their battle against the Half Breed Demons.

• In the manga, Sayaka was a ghost of a little girl who befriends Yusuke. Because the chapter that introduces her has been skipped, the anime introduces her as a spirit inspector sent to see if Yusuke is worthy of resurrection.

• The anime adds a lot of scenes with Koenma watching Yusuke and commenting on his mission, usually in a comedic manner. Similarly in episode 22, a video cassette from him starts with a parody of Columbia Pictures' intro.

• Yusuke smoking before being punched by Takenaka is censored in the anime adaptation as it is illegal to show someone under the legal age smoking on Japanese television. This is a common problem with delinquent characters in anime.
  • Due to this, Genkai was shown as a smoker for the first part of the final stage of her selection exam for the anime. Since Yusuke's cigarette was used to help defeat Kibano in the manga, this had to replaced for the anime, as Genkai threw her cigarette into the battlefield after Yusuke made an insensitive comment. It is also the reason why Genkai was never seen smoking a cigarette again for the remainder of the anime.

• In the manga, when Yusuke saves Kurama from sacrificing himself with the Forlorn Hope, he asks the mirror to take some of his life force so Kurama would not have to sacrifice all of his so he could live. In the anime, Yusuke instead asked the mirror to take his life instead, and the mirror rewards him by granting the wish, sparing both Yusuke's and Kurama's lives for this deed.

Kuwabara's outfit from the Genkai Tournament in the manga.

• Kuwabara was wearing street clothes with a baseball shirt when he competed in the Genkai Tournament. In the anime, this was replaced with his school uniform.

• In the manga, the timeframe between the events of the Genkai Tournament and Saint Beasts story arcs is two weeks. In the anime this was changed to one month (which for the English dub version was changed to six months).

• Unlike in the manga, Murugu's role during the battle between Yusuke and Suzaku is more prominent in the anime. One anime-exclusive scene was that she briefly stalled Yusuke from getting the flute after he temporarily knocked out Suzaku. She also died when her body disintegrated from Yusuke's final attack, unlike in the manga where her death was never confirmed.

• In the manga, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei arrive at Suzaku's chamber right after Suzaku had died, while in the anime this instead took place during Yusuke's final attack on Suzaku.

• In the manga, Shizuru was first introduced after the burning of Yusuke's old apartment, where she was revealed to be the one responsible for restyling Keiko's hair after the incident. In the anime, her first appearance was at the beginning of the Rescue Yukina arc.
  • Furthermore, as Shizuru was not introduced until later in the series, the anime does not identify the one who told Kuwabara about Genkai. In the manga, it was mentioned that Shizuru was the one who informed her brother about Genkai.

• In the manga, Hiei only hits Gonzo Tarukane once before he lets him go out of respect for Yukina. In the anime it was extended where Hiei attempted to kill him, but Yukina stopped him.

• Kurama was added to the Rescue Yukina arc in the anime, whereas he was absent in the manga. Similarly, Botan who only appeared at the beginning of the arc in the manga, was given a larger role in the anime where she accompanies Yusuke and Kuwabara during this mission.

• The Bat Tamer was given a completely different look for the anime.

• During the Rescue Yukina arc, the events that occur between Hirue's death and Yusuke's group entering Tarukane's mansion such as Yusuke's group camping out at night are anime-exclusive. Additionally as Kuwabara's "Headband of Love" is also anime-exclusive, the scene where Inmaki cuts it off with his claw was also added into the anime.
  • The flashback of Hiei receiving his Jagan is also anime-exclusive. Furthermore, Shigure's appearance as seen in this flashback can be considered non-canon. This is due to the fact that Shigure had not been introduced in the manga yet when this anime episode first aired, hence the different appearance in this saga when compared to the Three Kings Saga.
  • On a similar note, the part where Tarukane's men attempt to fire on Yusuke and Kuwabara with their guns when they enter the mansion before Miyuki stops them was not adapted into the anime.

• Kuwabara's crush on Botan prior to first seeing Yukina is anime-exclusive.

• During the final battle between Yusuke and Gouki, Gouki was distracted by another child arriving unexpectedly to whom Gouki steals his soul. In the anime this was replaced with Botan, who was there to assist Yusuke. As such, the part where Yusuke tells the boy a cover story about a movie being made at that location to encourage him to leave was omitted.

• A number of fights are extended or altered in the anime:
  • Yusuke's battle against the Bat Tamer. In the manga this fight was not shown.
  • Yusuke's attack on Rando after emerging from the swamp by striking him is replaced with the Spirit Gun to pit both his and Rando's attacks with this technique against each other.
  • Hiei's battle against Seiryu is extended as the manga had him finish off Seiryu with a single attack, where instead Hiei struggled for a bit against Seiryu's ice powers before he finished him off.
  • Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei's battle against the Cultivated Humans is shown in the anime, whereas the Cultivated Humans were already shown defeated in the manga. Furthermore, several anime-exclusive scenes were also added.
    • The part where Kuwabara tries to use his Spirit Sword extension ability to reach inside the tower to help Yusuke only to slam into the wall of the tower.
    • The group fighting more Cultivated Humans inside the tower.
    • The stairway giving out from Yusuke and Suzaku's battle, forcing Kurama and Hiei to work together with their respective weapons so the three of them could climb up and be able to get to Yusuke.
  • Suzaku finding out about his damaged tentacle was changed to just before he launched his final attack, whereas in the manga it took place before his death.
  • Yusuke and Kuwabara's battle against Gokumonki was extended due to Botan's presence in the anime version.
  • Yusuke's attack on Younger Toguro is extended by having him first attack with the Spirit Gun followed by the Spirit Shotgun prior to firing the Spirit Gun at point-blank range, while only the latter occurred in the manga.