10/10 for effort and nostalgia.
Actors/casting: on point.
Character design: on point. Excusing Kurama's wig.
Stunt choreography: on point.
CG lacking in every possible way.
Maintains spirit of characters from manga.
Screenplay: Impossible to do just 5 episodes to give adequate character development. But nice try!
They could have really revived this classic for another generation if they had not tried to cover 2 years worth of character growth in 1 month.
Timeline: Manga/Anime 2 years vs Live Action: 1 month
--------///SPOILERS AND HARD TRUTH BELOW-----/// 5 episodes to tell 3 seasons of worth content. Bonkers!
They should have stopped just before dark tournament and they would have been in a nice spot or expand this to 10 episodes.
No time for team building or exploring characters other than Urameshi and even that was cut short. Not having enough time to really do character development and relationship building is the punch in the gut.
CG budget and/or quality was just not there. Also, not even enough budget to cast all the characters or render CG characters properly.
But you can tell they worked hard to write a storyline that worked with 5 episodes that covered 100% character arc. They didn't have enough time or money to do what Yu Yu Hakusho did best made you fall in love with the characters. Just enough for those already familiar with the franchise to reminisce.
Even with a reduced timeline they needed way more CG budget and at least 10 episodes to really get the necessary build up to the final fight.
You can tell they had to make a lot of gut-wrenching choices on CG and storyline because YuYuHakusho has tons of transformations and supernatural characters that just weren't there.
The most gut wrenching part was the reduction of Genkai training and this led to an absence of fear in the characters. Genkai was an epic fighter and she was pit stop without dark tournament arc. There's probably a 100 fights literally cut out that build the skills and drives character development that couldn't possibly be reduced to just 5 episodes. 20 days of training instead of damn near a year or more of experience and training.
Not to mention Hiei and Kurama training. Urameshi literally grows 3 inches in the animation to give you a gauge of original timeline. I was hoping they were going to end it on the first fight 100% guy when he faked dying. But the timeline was just too aggressive.
I really wanted to see baby Koenma at least once. Please redo this and give it enough time for character development. Did we need 2 seasons of dark tournament to make it work? No, but deleting it just rips a massive amount of character growth. The five episodes could have been just Urameshi earning the right to be Genkai's pupil and that would have been good enough for me. Leaving plenty of reasons to make additional seasons.
Actors/casting: on point.
Character design: on point. Excusing Kurama's wig.
Stunt choreography: on point.
CG lacking in every possible way.
Maintains spirit of characters from manga.
Screenplay: Impossible to do just 5 episodes to give adequate character development. But nice try!
They could have really revived this classic for another generation if they had not tried to cover 2 years worth of character growth in 1 month.
Timeline: Manga/Anime 2 years vs Live Action: 1 month
--------///SPOILERS AND HARD TRUTH BELOW-----/// 5 episodes to tell 3 seasons of worth content. Bonkers!
They should have stopped just before dark tournament and they would have been in a nice spot or expand this to 10 episodes.
No time for team building or exploring characters other than Urameshi and even that was cut short. Not having enough time to really do character development and relationship building is the punch in the gut.
CG budget and/or quality was just not there. Also, not even enough budget to cast all the characters or render CG characters properly.
But you can tell they worked hard to write a storyline that worked with 5 episodes that covered 100% character arc. They didn't have enough time or money to do what Yu Yu Hakusho did best made you fall in love with the characters. Just enough for those already familiar with the franchise to reminisce.
Even with a reduced timeline they needed way more CG budget and at least 10 episodes to really get the necessary build up to the final fight.
You can tell they had to make a lot of gut-wrenching choices on CG and storyline because YuYuHakusho has tons of transformations and supernatural characters that just weren't there.
The most gut wrenching part was the reduction of Genkai training and this led to an absence of fear in the characters. Genkai was an epic fighter and she was pit stop without dark tournament arc. There's probably a 100 fights literally cut out that build the skills and drives character development that couldn't possibly be reduced to just 5 episodes. 20 days of training instead of damn near a year or more of experience and training.
Not to mention Hiei and Kurama training. Urameshi literally grows 3 inches in the animation to give you a gauge of original timeline. I was hoping they were going to end it on the first fight 100% guy when he faked dying. But the timeline was just too aggressive.
I really wanted to see baby Koenma at least once. Please redo this and give it enough time for character development. Did we need 2 seasons of dark tournament to make it work? No, but deleting it just rips a massive amount of character growth. The five episodes could have been just Urameshi earning the right to be Genkai's pupil and that would have been good enough for me. Leaving plenty of reasons to make additional seasons.
Tell Your Friends