Sage of the Three Kings (Yu Yu Hakusho)(1992 Anime)

 

Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Keiko and Botan (the Grim Reaper)

Title: Saga of the Three Kings

Series: Yu Yu Hakusho Season 4

Episodes: 95-112

My Thoughts:

In this final story arc of Yu Yu Hakusho, the three kings of Demon world are at war for supreme dominance. At this moment in time, they are all balanced against each other, but one of them is on the brink of death and his death will trigger an all out war, which could spill over into the Human world. Yusuke is chosen by the dying demon king to be his Second, while the other two Kings each pick Kurama (the red pretty boy on the left in the picture above) and Hiei (the short, black haired guy on the left) to be their seconds. War is immanent and the three friends are now on opposing sides. Until Yusuke proposes a tournament where ANY demon can enter and the winner is the king of demon world for 3-4 years and then they repeat. This appeals to practically every demon and thus the demon tournament takes place. Yusuke and Friends know they each aren't strong enough to win, but they strategically play the tournament to tire out the top contenders and in the end, some randomly strong demon wins who doesn't want to invade Human world. Everybody wins. Yusuke returns to Human world to be with Keiko and is fully retired from being a spirit detective. The end.

This went rather fast. There was a lot of setup near the beginning, so the demon tournament ended up being short changed in my opinion. They "overcame" this by having several fights per episode and too contributed to the feeling of just rushing through this. I enjoyed this, but that feeling of being rushed just wouldn't go away. At the same time, I was ready for this to be over.

One of the detractors for these episodes was that Kuwabara (the tall guy with the red haired pompador in the picture above) isn't involved at all. He was the funny straight man in previous story arcs and brought a sense of fun to things, as Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei all are the super serious kind of personality. I missed having him around.

Overall, for the entire anime series, I am still VERY pleased with this. I don't know if I'll ever watch it again, but I'll be hanging onto my discs just in case.