Yu Yu Hakusho - Ghost Files - Season 1

Yu Yu Hakusho is one of my favorite anime of all time. While it's weak in plot structure, it makes up for it with interesting characters and intense battles. The 112-episode series is being re-released a la DBZ in economically friendly, multi-episode seasons. This set contains the first 28 episodes of this classic anime for one low price.The story goes that Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year old street fighting punk, when having a bad day, saves a young boy's life at the cost of his own. This selfless act was something no one on Earth could predict. No one in the afterlife could predict it either. Thus, the Spirit World sends a guide to tell Yusuke that he can undergo an ordeal to come back to life. And so begins the resurrection of Yusuke and his career as Detective of the Spirit World.As I said, it's the characters and fight scenes that MAKE this series. The plot is basically one "tournament"-style battle after another. But the four main enduring fighters uplift the story with their comical arguments and moments of pure cool. There's Yusuke, the snarky lead who cares about others more than he lets on. Kuwabara, the silly comic rival of Yusuke who has a soft spot for the safety of his friends and kittens. Kurama, the cool, collected demon who tries to do all the right things. And then Hiei, the short, angry demon who loves a good fight, and holds deep respect for those he deems worthy.For this first set, the episodes chronicle the death and resurrection of Yusuke, his first case against three demon thieves, his search for a technique-stealer amongst fighters vying for a Master's teachings, an allied assault against four demons who want to enter the Human World, a rescue mission to save an ice maiden from a greedy mobster, and the first battles of the infamous Dark Tournament.The English dub is fantastic. As Funimation's second major feature, they demonstrated great ability in casting the key primary and secondary characters. I actually find more joy listening to the dub than the Japanese with subtitles. Most of the original voices just don't feel like they portray the characters to their full potential. Yusuke's lacks the smarmy attitude, Kurama is voiced by a woman, who can't quite pull off the deep cool that is Kurama, Kuwabara is debatable on both sides, as his original voice portrays his comical side well, but not the serious side, and his English voice sounds much deeper, but feels more adapt to all his emotions, and Hiei is the only one who has both voices pull off his angry awesomeness to full effect. Several of the minor characters have decent Japanese voices, but some have very, VERY poor voices(like Rando). Not to say that the dub is perfect, no way, because several of the street punks have unnecessary Brooklyn accents, and some characters like Sayaka and Yukina have mediocre actors.As for the packaging, its 28 episodes on four discs. These discs are in two thin boxes, making the set very compact and easy to store. The set includes all Japanese audio, and it features subtitles for both languages. The subtitles for the Japanese audio are some of the best put together Funimation has produced. They refer to all artifacts, creatures, and places by their Romanized name(Koma no Ken, Yokai), and only when they introduce the said term that they translate it at the top, making the sub appear like a Fan-sub. Extras are sparse, which include textless opening and closing songs, meager character profiles, and trailers for upcoming Funimation titles. One thing that disappoints me is the lack of a marathon feature that Funimation has included on DBZ and One Piece sets, which allows you to view all the episodes in order without bothering with the extra openings, closings, and teasers.However, one thing I like is that the DVD menu music is very cool. It sounds somewhat like the music from Jefferson Airship's "White Rabbit". It's the sort of music that you close your eyes and lightly bang your head to.I highly recommend this set to any anime fan, as the fights and animation just keep getting better and better as the series goes. This is a great deal for a great anime.

Yu Yu Hakusho is a classic series of which I've been a fan of since I was a little girl, and it is a long series at that. So, I was ecstatic to find the complete series. I won't review the series here (there's a wiki page for it and plenty of online reviews for the show itself), just the box set.Packaging:Overall, I would have preferred a single box set, but considering the series length, the four sets take up very little shelf space. Each season is two thinpaks (each containing two discs) in a slim, thin box. Honestly, I wish the box covers were a bit thicker and sturdier, these will tear and show wear quite easily I'm afraid. Each season has a different character theme for the box and thinpaks: Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei. The dvd menus also have character themes. Every inch of the box sets are covered in nice art, from beautiful line art on the inside of the thinpaks to colorful group artwork on the covers. The only undecorated space is the dvd's themselves, which are white with minor detail, but it's a nice bit of symmetry and simplicity to contrast the rest of the detailed and colorful packaging.Dvd's:The dvd's themselves are fairly simple; the sound and picture quality is excellent in both English and Japanese, and there are two sets of English subtitles -one that matches the English dub and one that is a direct translation of the Japanese. Both are in small, white unobtrusive font which is nice in that they don't clutter up the screen but is harder to read on smaller screens. The special features are sadly nothing special; usually just trailers for other anime or one-paragraph character profiles. The main menu has no fancy video intro but it does have a really awesome rock-theme that plays in the background. Still, it would have been nice to have different music for different menus, as YYH sports a varied and catchy arsenal of themes.Another nitpick is the weird cutting off points for the seasons - the Dark Tournament Arc starts in box-set one and ends in box-set three, and considering the number of Dark Tournament Arc episodes on box-sets one and three it would have been easy to fit them on the dvd's for box-set two, or add one more thinpak. I would not have minded even a slimmer (and by extension cheaper) fourth and final box set (The Three Kings Arc is under twenty episodes) if it meant each box-set would truly only contain one season each. This is a minor, organizational complaint, though. It only really becomes an annoyance if you were to go looking for a particular episode to re-watch and it turned out to not be in the box-set you expected because it was tacked on to the beginning of the box-set after or the ending of the box-set before.In conclusion, it's a great value for the money simply due to the series size, and everything is done well, but it would have been nice to see the distributors go the extra mile and splurge on thicker packaging and better special features. I'm satisfied with these four box sets but if a more complete single box set comes out I'll be the first to sell these and buy that. If you are already a fan of the series I recommend picking these up, but if you just want to test it out I'd recommend you find another way to watch a few episodes (funimation sometimes offers free streaming of their anime on their website) and see if you genuinely like it before you lay your cash down, as these won't have great resale value if it turns out it's not your thing.A satisfactory job, but not an exceptional one. 3.5/5 stars, which for convenience I'll round up.EDIT: Also, be careful when putting the dvd's back in to secure them firmly. They tend to fall out of their places a lot easier than other thinpaks I have had, my season 2 box-set in fact had one loose dvd. Not deal-breaking, you just have to make sure they are secure instead of just throwing them in all willy nilly.

4 stars because this is still a fighting anime, so if you're looking for complex narratives and deep themes that require analysis then watch something else.That being said, I think is still one of the better ones. The most similar series I can compare it too is the original Dragon Ball (not Z, Super, nor GT - well, maybe GT) and Yu Yu Hakusho itself watches sort of like an RPG fighting game (if that makes sense).Pretty much if you like fighting animes then this is for you.

My son's favorite cartoon

The casing was perfect and the case is good happy with the cover