Yu Yu Hakusho/Headscratchers

• Don't you think it's a little bit of a coincidence of how Kuwabara is almost always pit against Glass Cannons or Fragile Speedsters? Just saying, it's kind of insulting to put them against a Stone Wall like Kuwabara.
  • Just off the top of my head, Byakko and Risho were both Tanks, and Toguro Ani was invulnerable. I'm not sure what you mean.
  • I think he meant that Kuwabara was pitted against fast opponents who go down in one punch despite supposedly being Lightning Bruisers or even Nigh Invulnerable. Because the story doesn't exactly revolve around him but Yusuke, one would expect the author to give him short fights instead of the usual long drawn-out battles between Lightning Bruisers. (Dragon Ball, I'm looking at your 20-episode battles...)
• Why do demons keep mentioning how weak/frail humans are? I mean, look at Kuwabara, he got impaled, nearly had his neck snapped in two, and having every bone in his body shattered in pieces, after all that today he can stand casually as though nothing happened, Yusuke's a half-demon he got down and was temporally crippled after just one freakin hole on his abdomen. Hell, Sensui was the series' first S-class demon and owned Team Urameshi by himself, he has the strongest type of ki in his disposal, three human contestants at the Dark Tournament effortlessly killed several demons without so much as breaking a sweat. Hiei is a pure demon and goes down after just one damn hit, Kurama is a demon possessing a human and he took beatings about as worst as Kuwabara. The latter can detect a fucking earthquake, are they envious of their good life style or are they just plain racist?
  • Kuwabara is exceptionally resilient. He can take a beating like no other character in the series, and his strongest asset seems to be an absolute refusal to hit the ground. This is probably rooted in the fact that he's spent the better part of his life having Yusuke beat him half to death; to hold other humans to Kuwabara's high standard of endurance, resilience, and pain tolerance is about as unfair as expecting all humans to be as clever and versatile as Kurama.
• Hiei captures Keiko as she leaves school. However, Yusuke only realizes she's missing after Hiei contacts him...in class. He doesn't appear to be in detention, and wouldn't he have noticed if she was gone overnight? Did she actually skip or something?
  • Knowing Yusuke, he probably had his head up his ass and didn't notice.
  • This troper was under the impression that Keiko was captured after school ended, Yusuke only noticed during a that time he was held after school hours to get lectured at for being....Yusuke. After all it is about sunset or so when he finds the place Hiei is holding her, and the battle, correct me if I'm wrong-holds out til nightfall.
• On the subject,what happened to Hiei's "Jagan" form where he goes all green and has all those eyes? That would've been fairly powerful if what was said was true.
  • The transformation costs a lot of energy, therefore fairly unreliable. Also, it didn't help in his fight against Yusuke, and opponents after him were way stronger.
  • Not to mention those eyes make him more useful for target practice.
• Okay, so Yuusuke had a big wake and presumably funeral. He's Obviously Dead. The whole resurrection thing happens and....nobody seems to pay it any mind. What, do people in the YYH-verse regularly come Back from the Dead?
  • He probably said he was in a coma or something
  • Lazarus Syndrome?
  • Keiko and his mother are in on it, Kuwabara is familiar with weird spirit stuff, and the teachers clearly do figure out something weird is going on, but they don't much care why it happened, they're just irritated that, "He's like a cockroach; he just won't stay dead." The other students are afraid of Yusuke because of the rumors, so they probably assumed he was back Like a Badass Out of Hell, and they weren't interested in finding out details, lest he do all kinds of bad stuff to them.
    • It's not like his death was a small thing that could have been ruled off as a rumor or misinformation. He was gone for several days, there was a huge public funeral with lots of attendants. The little kid that he died to save were there. And yet no one thinks it odd that he just "got better" from being dead?
      • Sunnydale Syndrome.
  • They probably DO think it's weird, but the fact that no one directly confronted Yusuke about it doesn't mean that no one's talking about it. Yusuke's not a good kid; he's a violent thug that all the other kids are afraid of, to the extent that his whole relationship with Kuwabara was originally founded on Kuwabara trying to build his rep by taking down the baddest kid in school. Yes, his death was totally public and no one could have missed the fact that he died, but the fact that he's back isn't something that anyone's going to be willing to ask him about. As was said above, a kid like Yusuke coming back just means that Hell couldn't hold him, and nobody's willing to push any further than that.
  • In the manga, it's explained that Atsuko's contacts in the yakuza bully the teachers and shop-keepers in town to simply not talk about it.
• The Rescue Yukina arc as well as the details of Hiei's origins raises a lot of questions. Hiei was just a few hours old or a day at most when he was thrown off the Koorime's village. When he finds the village using his Jagan, he speaks to Rui, who tells him about his mother, and to his surprise, his sister. This was long into adulthood (for his age as a demon) so where did that one flashback where he's following Yukina as a child come from? How did Hiei know what his sister looked like? Rui didn't tell him anything but her name, so how was he supposed to identify her? And when Koenma gives Yusuke the rescue Yukina assignment, how the hell does he even know that Yukina is related to Hiei?
  • Can't explain how Hiei knew what Yukina looked like (maybe the Jagan gave him the ability to find out? I dunno, it's powers were never really explicitly covered in comprehensive detail, as far as I remember.) but Koenma is a ruler. He has spies and investigators who aren't limited by mortal means. Then again, what means they actually have at their disposal were never really covered either.
    • I think Koenma knew because he got a good look at them. Come on, look at Hiei and Yukina, the face is the same! That, or Koenma just did a dna analysis. After all, he got Hiei imprisoned for a while, and in the manga he mentions knowing about Yukina from bird spies, and guess what Yukina keeps in her cell while being imprisoned by Tarukane?
• I can't believe no one has mentioned this. The whole "Youko Kurama"/"Shuichi" identity. The anime makes it seem like "Youko Kurama" is a name, when "youko" literally translates to "demon fox". Kurama is his demon name, Shuichi is his human name. Also they make Kurama... talk to himself? This is also wrong, he doesn't have two personalities. He has one, and only one identity. How else would he have been aware of his past and his powers if he wasn't fully conscious when he took over the human's body?
  • This is a Dub-Induced Plot Hole, for the most part. I guess the dubbers thought that Kurama didn't become the mask ultimately for some reason (maybe Rule of Cool?), and also that "Youko" was a title or a Species Surname.
• Ok, I can NOT believe no one has mentioned the enormous walking plot hole that is Kaito. For those who forget Yu Kaito is one of the humans with territories, his involves word taboos, those who violate them have their souls sucked out. This is pretty powerful when you take into consideration Kaito is easily the second smartest character (smartest when it comes to literary related items), however it easily makes him the most powerful person in the series when you learn it also prevents ALL violence (for him and others, not counting his taboo) and the word taboo can be changed whenever he damn well pleases. The sheer amount of versatility this ability has is mind boggling. Why Yuusuke and Co don't use this character more (he becomes their friend shortly after stalling the group) is just jaw dropping. Every single demon/human/whatever in the entire series could be easily taken down by Kaito if he would simply engage them in words and switch the taboo midway through the sentence, even if the person he was fighting knew enough not to talk to him, one of the others could easily toss rocks or something at them and duck back in the territory when they retaliated if not just attack from inside it. This is taken to even further measures when you realize they usually leave him behind for fear he would get hurt, if anything you would want him with you at all times. Even if he couldn't move while maintaining his taboo (he can, and does) you could simply have him stop and set it up to provide a safe haven or bar a passage. He even survives the arc and in fact is not only an active participant, but is arguably the most important secondary character in the entire series, they would of never beaten the Gamer King with out him. It just stuns me that he was written in his current form, his ability is so powerful that even the author tried to get rid of it, every single character seems to forget he can do anything other than word problems the moment he is defeated (by playing on his pride and using a trick no less).
  • Maybe there is some setup involved in making his territory.
  • Kaitou is pretty powerful, but he's kind of in the same boat as Kuwabara: he Can't Catch Up because there are bad guys who are even smarter than he is. Plus this is Shonen, they probably aren't going to focus as much on the Non-Action Guy characters as they are the fighters (unless they're villains).
  • It could be many things, such as the above "set-up time" idea. It could also be that his territory is not as unbreakable as initially demonstrated, certain forms of demon energy might be able to counter it (such as Kuwabara's dimensional sword, possibly even Sensui's saint energy) and it was largely to show the territories as a new aspect of spiritual powers. As well, the guy couldn't change the rules on a whim and was subject to his own conditions.
  • There's two reasons I can think of. Near the end of series, the main cast was seriously strapped for time. Kaito's powers, while useful, would probably hurt them more than it would help. And in the final arc, I doubt the big bad demons would have taken kindly to a human walking around. (Kuwabara only went in because it looked like the world was gonna end)
• Am I the only one who thinks Yusuke's mom and Kuwabara's sister look and sound similar? Also, have they been in the same room together?
  • No, you're not. I have mistaken Shizuru for Atsuko a few times. They really are drawn too similarly.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall Atsuko going with the other girls to the Dark Tournament in the manga instead of Shizuru. Maybe this was a case of Suspiciously Similar Substitute to create Sakyou/Shizuru?
• Raizen. I know he's one of the species of youkai that supposedly have to eat humans to survive. But really, when you get down to it, meat is meat. Couldn't Raizen have eaten animals or something like to tide him over?
  • This has bugged this troper too! They never elaborate on why he can't eat other than he doesn't want to eat humans anymore. He could easily go vegan too if he wanted. It's just....makes no sense.
    • The only logic I can find behind any of this is that in order to sustain his god-like power Raizen needs an enormous amount of calories and possibly the spiritual energy of his victims. Though what makes this odd is that you would think that your spiritual energy would be independent of your normal biological processes, Raizen certainly doesn't look like he has been starving himself for hundreds of years as he is tall and muscular and his spiritual energy is greater than that of Yusuke as he is on his death bed. Raizen should never have lost any of his great power had he simply been training himself all that time and any calories he would need for his physical well-being could easily have been met had he eaten a wild animal or fruits and vegetables.
• Yusuke was in Demon World for three years, correct? What did he eat in that time? By the looks of things there are no ordinary animals in Demon World, and it's doubtful that Yusuke would become a vegetarian.
  • I am pretty sure demonish animals live there he could feast on, or maybe Raizen's men brought Yusuke food from the human world to eat.
  • There are monstrous beasts around, by then his stomach was strong enough to digest even them. That, or he pulled an Hiei and ate anyone idiot enough to try and kill him to make himself a fame.
• In the "Dark Tournament Saga", Why does Shizuru Kuwabara cry for Sakyou, but not her brother?.
  • She knew her brother was faking it?
    • She does cry for him. When Kuwabara first gets impaled by Toguro, everything goes silent, and you see her burst into tears.
• Poor, poor Kuwabara-kun. He is obviously the kind of person who believes in the heartwarmingly romantic "come home to after a hard day's work with his adorable wife smiling at him and his equally adorable children running to hug him" happy ending.But the franchise explicityly states that unless a Demon is a relationship is of S-Class Power, no children will EVER be born even if Yukina-chan returns his feelings and no matter how hard they try. Kuwabara is smart enough to get into a good university, so he should be more than aware of the fact. Coupled with the fact that she will most certainly outlive him and probably STILL be as small and cute on the day he dies as the day she met him, a marriage with her WILL be a futile and meaningless exercise that WILL end in tears for both of them like the one between Connor and Heather Macleod in Highlander. So why would he still devoted his life to her (adorable and sweet as she is) wish to start a(n ultimately meaningless) family with her if he is aware of this?
  • Where does it explicitly state this? That, and he's Kazuma Kuwabara. There's nothing else to it.
  • Then he can settle for raising Yukina's parthenogenetically conceived daughter as his own. He may not be able to impregnate her, but she'll still conceive spontaneously at age 99-100, and given the relationship between human and demonic life cycles, she's probably in her 80's during the series.
  • Re: having children... if Yukina's mother can become pregnant by a fire demon, who's to say that she can't have a child with a human? Considering how Hiei came out, it would be interesting to know what the result would be.
• On that note, did the series ever make it clear whether Yukina was a natural Ice Maiden or if she was also half-fire demon like Hiei?
• This may seem a little silly (certainly not a plot-related question), but why is Yusuke's last name Urameshi pronounced as "Yur-a-meshi"? I have watched enough anime to have a very basic understanding of Japanese pronunciation, but wouldn't it be pronounced as "Oo-ra-meish"? Is that a dub error, or is that really how it's pronounced even in Japanese? (Note: I have not watched the Japanese dub)
  • It is indeed pronounced Oo-ra-meshi in the Japanese dub.
• Mmkay, so... Hiei. He gets exiled and all that, so eventually he goes to Shigure to get a Jagan eye. The price for the eye is his story and also that he can never tell Yukina he is her brother, isn't it? So then he goes to the ice place (I haven't seen this in a while and can't remember what it's called) and... finds out he has a sister named Yukina. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?
  • Hmmm, maybe he already knew he had a sister, but thought she might've been at the island; and after he found out she wasn't there, that gave him the incentive to search for her because it's only then he's been told she's in the human world?
• Alright... We know that demons are not allowed to kill humans for any reason right? And part of the suspence of the "Rescue yukina" arc was that as much as we want that bastard Tarukane to die horribly, We don't want Hiei to get severly punished, Right? Well that would be fine, execpt When Hiei finally shows up at Tarukane's door, he runs in and kills 2 HUMAN guards and Tarukane's butler! Shoulden't he have been punished for that? Was Tarukane REALLY that special?
  • What Measure Is a Mook?
• Something that's bugged me for a while; in the Dark Tournement arc, after Kuwabara earned a CMOA by beating Elder Toguro, he confronts Yusuke about not telling him about that important, spoilery plot point, believing that him and the others didn't tell him about it because they think he's a joke. Kurama tells him that Yusuke didn't tell him or Hiei either, and that they had to sense it themselves. It's a very emotional and one of my personal favorite scenes, but I have to wonder why both Hiei and Kurama were able to sense it if Kuwabara couldn't. A big deal was made of his exceptionally high spiritual awareness during the Ghost Yusuke arc. Even Genkai seemed genuinely impressed by his score in the spiritual awareness game at her tournament.
  • Note how in the following season the Chapter Black Saga Kuwabara temporarily loses his powers, only to develop a new sword technique that saved his life when the bad guys attacked him and his friends. Genki theorized that Kuwabara's spiritual awareness was so powerful that it developed that new sword technique as a response to what it knew would be needed to defeat that season's villain, the loss of his powers was a temporary side effect of that new power developing. It is possible that during the Dark Tournament saga that said power was already beginning to develop which severely weakened his spiritual awareness. This is one possible explanation. However stories sometimes use dramatic convention to spice up the plot even when you take into account that the characters all have the ability to sense power levels. The dramatic impact of Kuwabara learning the truth about Genki's death from Toguro instead of sensing it himself, is the equivalent of characters dying in Dragon Ball Z and their friends not realizing it until later or them thinking they were dead when they were still clinging to life.
• A more mundance head scratcher from the start of the series, why doesn't the school principle Takanaka fire those two assholes?
  • Because they aren't entirely unjustified, especially in light of the Japanese educational system. They bring a positive reputation to their school by highlighting exceptional students, such as Keiko Yukimura. At the same time, they're antagonistic and cruel to kids like Yusuke and Kuwabara, because Yusuke is a violent punk and Kuwabara is running a gang; both of them are hurting the school's reputation, and while they don't have grounds to outright expel them from their school, they can make it an unpleasant place for them to be, in the hopes that they will eventually find a different school.
  • If it makes you feel better, it is heavily implied that the teacher who changed Kuwabara's test score WAS fired, since he never appears again.
• Why did Hiei never again transform into that eye-covered "true form" of his? Pride maybe, but he comes close to death in several of his fights; I'd think at that point pride would go out the window.
  • Because those eyes would scream "Hit Me".
    • In the manga at least, not sure about the anime, Kurama stated that all those extra eyes were just illusions.