Yu Yu Hakusho/Fridge

• The third Saint Beast has almost no presence in the plot; in fact, he could easily have been removed from the story arc with little effect. His only role is to kill the second Saint Beast (Who had apparently been killed by Kuwabara moments before; had he been actually dead, no one would have complained), and then be killed by Hiei in one of the shortest fights in the series. However, it all makes sense once you realize that Hiei was originally supposed to be a one-shot villain, but became so popular that the author wrote him back into the story. In order to do so, the author had to make last-minute changes to the plot so that Hiei would have something to do—and since all of this was added in at the last minute, neither Hiei nor the Saint Beast he fights have much effect on the plot of that story arc.
  • Makes sense. Although I assume Seiryu would still need to appear if Hiei hadn't been brought back as he and his fellows were based on these constellations.
• Why would a tournament that encourages "winner via killing" and also only allows ONE substitute per team no matter what make it MANDATORY that there be five people on each team in the FINALS or face instant DQ?
  • To make it exceptionally rare that anyone actually wins said tournament, thereby avoiding having to actually give out the promised "Anything you ask for with no exceptions" prizes the winner is supposed to receive. Big promise gets people to enter, technicalities keep anyone from winning, no prize is handed out, sorry, better luck next time. Classic scam.
  • On this subject, who else was on Toguro and Genkai's team and where are they now?
    • I always assumed that Genkai was actually the fifth member of Team Toguro, and that the other three were just kept on for fifty years.
• A lampshaded and Played for Laughs example of Fridge Logic comes up in the manga, when a story towards the end concludes with the statement that "Humans are as bad as demons, maybe worse!" Then the author's editor comes in and says "But Yusuke's part demon".