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Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'
Yu Yu Hakusho, Volume 1: Goodbye, Material World! by Yoshihiro Togashi
3 reviews
scoobygirl93's review
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Car accident, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Bullying, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Death, Grief, Medical content, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship
wickedgrumpy's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
It's been ages since I read the manga or watched the anime so this is another nostalgic read for me. I had low-key forgotten how much Japan has a tendency to sexualize girls which, when I was 14 and reading/watching this, I thought it was a little creepy to normalize harassing teens, but as an adult I am just sad. For reference, the ages of our main character Yusuke is 14, his mom is 29, so she had him at 15.
Overall, I still love the premise of the story. I legitimately unexpectedly teared up even knowing that Yusuke dies right at the beginning. I'm trying not to let my familiarity color my rating too much, but I am so excited to delve back into this world.
Overall, I still love the premise of the story. I legitimately unexpectedly teared up even knowing that Yusuke dies right at the beginning. I'm trying not to let my familiarity color my rating too much, but I am so excited to delve back into this world.
Content Warnings
Minor: Addiction, Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Child death, Death, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Infidelity, Sexism, and Sexual harassment
alexathenaeum's review
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Yu Yu Hakusho succeeds in its world building, fantasy system, and fun characters that are easy to root for. This explains why I had so much fun reading and writing fanfiction for it in the 2000s. But when you sit down with the original story, you can’t help but wonder what Togashi could have come up with under more ideal circumstances.
It’s clear from the complete shifts in genre and tone along with Togashi’s author’s notes that he was saddled with unrealistic and dangerous expectations to crank out content according to what his editors asked for with little control over the actual story. The first 3 volumes are a cute and spooky detective story that I found pretty boring. When Yusuke finally starts to interact with demons, the story gets a lot more interesting. The Toguro brothers’ Dark Tournament was well fleshed out with interesting and compelling stakes.
Then there was the Sensui arc… This was another complete shift, where humans suddenly had stand-like powers and the increases in strength in the cast follow Dragonball Z levels of logic. Sensui could have been an interesting character had he been given some time to really flesh out. Instead, he was given multiple personality disorder, where the audience sees 3 out of 7 supposed personalities, are told about a 4th, and in the end, it adds nothing to the story and doesn’t really matter. It was a quick way to make a villain more interesting, maybe more sympathetic, but just felt completely out of place.
The last arc, with the demon lords battling it out to rule all demons, was rushed and disappointing. Especially when you think about how awesome the Dark Tournament was, it pales in comparison and was so quickly rushed through that I just didn’t care by the end of it.
The anime is better than the manga in this case, if that matters. I think they fix the pacing issues that the manga had. The entire series is full of casual sexism that many other works at this time were full of and it definitely didn't age well.
This was an interesting read for historical purposes, but I’m glad to be done, and much happier with the author’s work since this.
It’s clear from the complete shifts in genre and tone along with Togashi’s author’s notes that he was saddled with unrealistic and dangerous expectations to crank out content according to what his editors asked for with little control over the actual story. The first 3 volumes are a cute and spooky detective story that I found pretty boring. When Yusuke finally starts to interact with demons, the story gets a lot more interesting. The Toguro brothers’ Dark Tournament was well fleshed out with interesting and compelling stakes.
Then there was the Sensui arc… This was another complete shift, where humans suddenly had stand-like powers and the increases in strength in the cast follow Dragonball Z levels of logic. Sensui could have been an interesting character had he been given some time to really flesh out. Instead, he was given multiple personality disorder, where the audience sees 3 out of 7 supposed personalities, are told about a 4th, and in the end, it adds nothing to the story and doesn’t really matter. It was a quick way to make a villain more interesting, maybe more sympathetic, but just felt completely out of place.
The last arc, with the demon lords battling it out to rule all demons, was rushed and disappointing. Especially when you think about how awesome the Dark Tournament was, it pales in comparison and was so quickly rushed through that I just didn’t care by the end of it.
The anime is better than the manga in this case, if that matters. I think they fix the pacing issues that the manga had. The entire series is full of casual sexism that many other works at this time were full of and it definitely didn't age well.
This was an interesting read for historical purposes, but I’m glad to be done, and much happier with the author’s work since this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual harassment and Sexism
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