Yuske Yurameshi is a delinquent, a thug, and a teenage Bansho. This highschool gangster is the toughest around and the bane of his teachers. his alcoholic mother barely cares if he lives. Unfortunate for her, she find out how untrue these feelings are when he inexplicably dies saving a small child from a reckless car. He learns in his next life that not even the psychopomp sent to collect him saw this coming. This final act of surprise valiance may be enough to earn him a second chance at life.

This show is responsible for crafting the single greatest tournament arc of all shonen anime.

*Spoilers*

Oh, you have seen the thug with a heart of gold trope? It's played out? This is Yuske Yurameshi. His heart is gold but his mouth is full of shit. He just can't stop being an entertaining asswipe.

He's joined by the second strongest thug around KUWABARA! This idiot had his ass beat dozens of times by Yuske but wasn't ready for his sudden death. Somewhere being drowned in his own blood dozens of times Kuwabara discovered friendship.

This (not) buddy cop adventure fighting demons is quickly joined by the survivors of the first mission on probation by the big baby in charge, Koenma.

The Jigan Eyed Hiei is the demon just doing his time until he is released. This ain't your typical Sasuke clone, he predates him. He may still be unironically evil by the end of the show. Your guess is as good as mine.

The second demon Kurama, again not a Naruto clone as he predates him, will make you gay. I don't make the rules, you're just gay now, for Kurama. This bishi bitch is a gentleman and kind unless you get on your bad side. Then you're going to wish you were dealing with Hiei.

This show is as impossible to hate as Botan is impossible to not love.

The very first ~6-7 episodes are way more different than the rest, as these start with well, you will see pretty early anyways and as a mystery world adventure. It will quickly turn into a superhero Shonen though, including Dragonball vibes.
There is even a Vegeta in this anime (Hien).
This is from the same Mangaka as the later Hunter x Hunter. You can see many templates and ideas in here already, such as Botan's catface that will be later related to Killua, the concepts of auras in different forms, albeit way less streamlined and explained. A basically (short-lived) Hisoka, and maybe one could compare Kuwabara with Leorio or Kurama as Kurapika.
I think this anime is cheap at times, pulling out random new super powers.
The start of the series felt like it wasn't sure where to head yet thematically

What did I like the most?

[spoiler]- Skill territories, especially with these three playing games against the groups
- Demon world
- The pretty chaotic group, of which it is not clear all the time for how long the bond will hold or how strong it will be in the end, with individuals having their own special motivations - especially Hien.[/spoiler]

What did I dislike?
[spoiler]- The start. It felt pretty boring, and was absolutely off-theme from the rest of the series. I mean, it also let's one wonder: Why should anyone care to die if they can come to live theoretically again anyways? Why even bother?
- The mega tournament arc. Just took 60 episodes and was way too long. There have been quite some twists in there at least.
- The birb. I think it was nice it was eventually re-used after the start, but I think it fell short in it's usage after all.[/spoiler]

Final Arc:
[spoiler]I was really surprised by the developments during it. The tournament ended way differently than expected, and Yoki made - similar to the Ant King of HxH - mayor character development. I think all three Kings had their time to shine, even if not immediality.
Going to be honest, I expected actually Hiei to fight vs Yusuke, and then I thought it would be Yoki vs him in the finals - or Mokuro.[/spoiler]

I also still need to watch a few OVAs.


Be like:
Dragonball, Hunter x Hunter

Rating: 8/10