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theonlywayoutisforward · 7 years

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I haven’t finished Yu Yu Hakusho yet, but I did just finish the Sensui(?) Arc, so enjoy these thoughts on how that went.

Let me start with a simple statement: Sensui is the living embodiment of bullshit. Spoilers through roughly the end of YYH.

The fight with Sensui took a long ass time. Like I swear we spent less time consecutive time with Goku fighting Frieza than we did in the actual fight with Sensui (This is likely not true, Frieza took a VERY long time, but Sensui felt like a long time and that’s just as bad.) We spent as much time actually fighting Sensui, as we had time between finding out Sensui exists and getting into the cave to have the Final Showdown(TM).

Long fights aren’t necessarily bad, for example parts of this fight had the best actual kung fu I’ve seen out of the series, out of any series of the era for that matter. There were also many examples of the characters learning to fight smarter and not harder, which I really like to see in Anime fights, especially late-series fights.

but let me explain to you why this is not a fight I enjoyed, in bullet points.

Sensui as a Character- Sensui is a good ass premise. Like, I would gladly watch an OVA or miniseries about Sensui as a Spirit Detective and “Pre-fall”. The so-called “Psychic Arc” had a great deal of a running theme about the darkness of humanity and good vs. evil, and a lot of really GOOD PHILOSOPHICAL SHIT that I love. Sensui as an absolute utilitarian archetype is something that I liked and understood from a character perspective, and how he showed his true colors throughout the arc, through his treatment of his allies especially, was good stuff.

However, the embodiment of this ideology and Sensui’s evil is ultimately very straightforward. “Humanity is bad, it must be destroyed, here have some demons.” And yet, once our Spirit Detectives come to blows, this ideology isn’t advanced at all. We get basically a rehash of the simple premise of “I am stronger than you, I am right, I will destroy humanity.” repeatedly for what I’ve already stressed is a very long fight. Maybe this came out better in serialization, but for a marathon it got old pretty quick. Sensui’s Ideology, while complex, was boiled down to its barest bones and repeatedly fed to the audience without advancing character or plot.

Sensui as a Powerhouse- This may be the most egregious use of what a friend of mine has called “Anime Bullshit” I have seen in some time. I loosely interpret this phrase “Anime Bullshit” as those times that new powers come to light, that essentially just exist to make the Big Bad that much more untouchable. This is the most evident in Sensui’s absolutely spontaneous creation of “Sacred Energy”. The show had barely touched on the various Brands of energy, for lack of a better word, though precedent was definitely set. (See Toguro’s quote about Demon energy being “Weaker than Spirit Energy but far more pleasurable to use.” From that time he killed Genkai). That being said, when Sensui starts his one man laser light show and Koenma starts screaming how Sacred Energy is this New and Better Thing that No One Can Do, I really have to call it what it is.

Sensui did not earn this power. Nothing we’re shown before this point even hints that Sacred Energy is a thing, that Sensui- God just no, Sensui should not be having this power. Sensui continues powering up over the course of the fight, from Sacred, to Sacred armour, to whatever the fuck blue armor was, seemingly without limitation or cause. He just kinda decided to power up so he did.

Let me emphasize, Yusuke was going toe to toe with (admittedly “weaker” Kamiya) Sensui at the beginning of the fight. Both get beat up, both repeatedly regenerate, Now-God-Tier Hiei, Kurama, and Kuabara take him on simultaneously, YUSUKE EVOLVES INTO A DAMN DEMON GOD, all before Yusuke finally gets into a position where he can STILL BE GOING TOE TO TOE WITH SENSUI.

I will willingly forgive Yusuke’s “anime bullshit” transformation for now because we still have 3/4th of a season to talk about what that is and what it means. Just put that on the back burner and let it simmer.

Also rolled into the “Anime Bullshit” trope is Koenma’s Mahuken(?) Pacifier. I will accept everything about that Pacifier, and I mean literally all of it, up until it is used and promptly annihilated by Sacred Energy Sensui. It was a funny joke for a while, and also a really serious WTF moment when you think “Aw, man, that thing is actually a THING.” But the moment it ended up being absolutely useless is the moment that I lost interest. It was ultimately just a thing to show how bad ass Sensui is.

And I apologize for this but we’re also going to do my old spiel on Character Death here. WHEN A CHARACTER DIES, IT BETTER BE TREATED AS GOD DAMN IMPORTANT. One of my favorite moments in this whole Psychics arc was when Gamemaster died. Realizing that he WASN’T immortal, that his life was VERY MUCH going to end, and that he was FUCKING TERRIFIED. THAT WAS SOME GOOD SHIT! Not because he died, but for what it meant for Kurama that he had to do it. The kid pleads for his life, in a super sincere and heartbreaking way, but to save the world old softy Kurama has to make the decision to pull his plug. It’s like that Scene in new ATK where that one girl was eaten by the titans and her last, manic words are “No daddy, please I’ll promise I’ll be better.” That one line gave me the deepest chills over a character I previously gave few shits for.

BUT the fact that Koenma ultimately brings him back using the Pacifier magic TAKES ALL OF THAT AND THROWS IT OUT THE GOD DAMN WINDOW. Not least of my questions is why the Kakai barrier making, Deus Ex Pacifier is now Koenma’s only way of bringing people back to life when he brought Genkai back to life last season? What? But no back to character death. Kurama’s choice doesn’t mean shit. His rage and frustration that we see in the Gourmet fight doesn’t mean shit. The Resurrection of Gamemaster is a terrible thing for character development.

AND FUCKING THEN! (HOW DO I EMPHASIZE THIS MORE?) SENSUI CLAIMS IT WAS ALL PART OF HIS GLORIOUS KIKAKU!* (*Kikaku means plan.) No it wasn’t you piece of trash. There’s no way you could possibly have known that any of this was going to happen. There are too many wheels you couldn’t feasibly have been aware of to make sure that decision would be made in time to save you from being Kekai shielded. Sit back down you lunatic. You’re still not the good guy and I hate you.

Sensui’s Multiple Personalities- I don’t know if I should even talk about this. But I will. On some level, the fracturing subconscious story is something I can get behind. He did it to protect his precious sense of justice. But there is just SO MUCH that is off about this little detail that I don’t like. Why seven if we only ever see three(?)? Why does only Shinobu have access to Sacred power if he’s still a steaming mess. How does it fit into protecting his innocent Psyche if ALL SEVEN OF HIS PERSONALITIES WERE IN AGREEMENT ABOUT THE DEMON INVASION PLAN? The only reason one of his splintered personalities is “a girl” is not out of any legitimate transgender statements but so that personality “Can just feel so awful and tearfully confess the sins of the boys.” and “Be in love with Hitsuki (From Hitsuki’s viewpoint.)” TLDR None of that is really a thing that needed to happen for me to feel better or worse for/about/because of Sensui.

Elder Toguro Gets to Talk More!?- So I’m straying from the topic of Sensui to talk about another piece of shit- nay a shitlord in the truest sense of the word, Elder Toguro. So unimportant the bastard never gets a name. So much bullshit that they had to ROB US OF HIS DEATH SCENE TWICE in the Dark Tournament arc, Robbing Kuabara of the privilege of winning and showing him what a piece of shit he is, and robbing Toguro of the additional badass points for beating his infinitely regenerating brother in one punch, all to do...what? Elder Toguro is rescued by Sensui at the end of Dark Tournament arc as a bit of foreshadowing I guess? Goes on to do literally diddly squat as a talking head, until he’s eaten, only to once again retroactively show how bullshit he is and become a head on a head with the power to eat people and gain their powers. THE ONLY SOLACE WE HAVE IS THAT HIS ARC FINALLY ENDS WITH HIM IN THE CLOSEST THING TO HELL AN INFINITELY LIVING THING CAN EXPERIENCE AT THE HANDS OF A REALLY ANGRY KURAMA. Arguably worse than real Toguro’s self-imposed 10,000 years in Limbo.

(Serious side note: What is Elder Toguro’s role in the story period? Young Toguro and Genkai have this whole thing, and Young Toguro has this whole backstory about why he became a demon, and Elder just...is a demon because he was there? I don’t fuckin’ know.)

And Finally? Why are you So Sad Sensui’s Dead?- It’s the end of the fight, EVERYONE has spent the last three episodes trying to kill this guy for vengeance. Yusuke dies at his hand and comes back to fight him FOR VENGEANCE. And at the end of the fight we get, “Oh shit, Kurama, you gotta heal him, I didn’t mean to hit him quite that hard.” Nothing says it better than Kurama saying “I can’t heal him, I used all of my energy kicking his ass.” and Koenma saying “Oh wait, I can’t resurrect him because he killed my Resurrecting Pacifier when I used it to prevent him from destroying the world.”

In All seriousness, there is a thing in fiction in general that really gets on my nerves about killing the bad guy. The good guy never gets the chance to kill the bad guy because it makes them “the same”. We see this in Lord of the Rings when Gollum launches himself into the fire and Saruman jumps off his Tower. We see this in FullMetal Alchemist when Roy isn’t allowed to kill Envy. We see this theme in so many things, and sometimes I just can’t justify it. Especially here in Yu Yu Hakusho.

Sensui and his band of (mostly) serial killers are ready to kill anyone and destroy the entire world because they’re evil and humanity is evil. They demonstrate this AT LENGTH. Yet when Yusuke is confronted by the Doctor early in the arc, the plot makes him hesitate to use his full power because MORALS. There are hundreds of lives on the line, several of them absolutely precious to Yusuke, but he’s not allowed to cross that final line on one of the most low-down villains he’d crossed to date. There are times to play the morality card. That isn’t one of them.

Yusuke is a character I love, partially because of his ability to quip at ANY TIME, but also because he can seriously say. “For everyone of my friends you hurt, I’m taking a limb,” And you know that he’s not just talking. He’s serious. He would ACTUALLY CUT A MAN’S LIMBS OFF FOR HIS FRIENDS. Yet when it comes down to that final moment, he has to beg to have his enemy healed so he looks like he’s still moral and good.

Kuabara’s Power-up- Kuabara’s power-up in this arc was just kinda...useless? “My new sword can cut through dimensions Urameshi. Hah Hah.” Almost like it was created solely for this arc, solely for the bad guys to need it to cut the multi-dimensional Kekai strings. (Which Kuabara does. Ultimately, for no extraordinarily good reason. But I won’t pick on that too much.) Kuabara could have been a much more useful character, seen at least his usual level of treatment, if he’d been allowed to show even a little Spiritual improvement because of the Dark Tournament like everyone else. Hiei ate a god damn dragon, Kurama learned how to fox out, and Kuabara got a neat new sword. And yet they still took away Kuabara’s modest power up in the tournament for...plot?...reasons? I don’t know. I like Kuabara, he’s always going to be fourth banana behind MC Yusuke and Actual Gods Kurama and Hiei, but his mistreatment still upsets me.

Also, the normal anime problem of strong characters standing around not doing much. I’m looking at you Genkai. You could’ve at least punched some bugs or something I don’t know.

End Criticisms.

Please don’t take this to mean that I don’t like YYH or even that I didn’t like this arc as a whole. I do so far and I did. However, it’s because I like it that the things I’ve listed irked me so much I felt like I had to talk about it. Expect a full review after I finish the series that will probably be much better toned, but I’m all out of things to say for now. It’s 4 a.m.

#YYH #Yu Yu Hakusho #Spoilers #Sensui #Shinobu Sensui #Rage #Andy Reviews Anime #Anime

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