What happened to Yu Yu Hakusho after the manga ended?
It kept being remade in new forms: deluxe editions first, then new anime in 2018, the stage in 2019 and 2020, and a Netflix series in 2023.
The manga closed on July 25, 1994, and the television anime on January 7, 1995. A series that size does not vanish; this one had already passed 50 million copies in circulation in Japan alone by 2013, had won Togashi the Shogakukan Manga Award for shonen in 1993, and had been voted best anime of its year twice while it aired. What followed was not a sequel. Togashi has never continued the story. What followed was the record below: the same story, reissued, restaged, and refilmed for three decades.
THE REISSUES
Japan first, English a generation laterKanzenban, 2004 to 2005
Shueisha's complete edition, August 4, 2004 to March 4, 2005: 15 volumes instead of 19, each with a new cover and more chapters per book than the original tankobon.
The art book, 2005
YuYu Hakusho Illustrations, Shueisha, April 27, 2005, collecting series art including illustrations created for the kanzenban reprints, with an index of where each image first appeared. A character book with an exclusive Togashi interview preceded it by a month.
Bunkoban, 2010 to 2011
A pocket sized bunkoban edition ran from November 18, 2010 to October 18, 2011, a third Japanese format for the same 175 chapters.
English, 2003 to 2010
Viz serialized the manga in the American Shonen Jump from its January 2003 inaugural issue to January 2010, and released all 19 English volumes between May 1, 2003 and March 2, 2010, a full English run finished sixteen years after Japan's.
Two Shot, counted in English
Viz treated the unnumbered bonus chapter in volume seven, Two Shot, the story of how Hiei and Kurama first met, as chapter 64, which is why the English edition counts 176 chapters against Japan's 175.
Digital, 2013 to 2014
Viz re-released the series digitally between August 20, 2013 and February 25, 2014, the edition most new English readers now meet first.
THE RETURN TO THE SCREEN AND STAGE
2018 to 2023The 2018 OVAs
For the anime's 25th anniversary, two new OVAs screened in October 2018 and shipped with the fourth part of the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray Box on October 26, 2018: Two Shots, adapting the Two Shot bonus chapter from volume seven, and All or Nothing, adapting the manga's penultimate chapter.
The stage play, 2019
Office Endless produced the first stage adaptation, written and directed by Chuji Mikasano, running August to September 2019 in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Aichi, with Tsubasa Sakiyama as Yusuke.
The stage play, Part 2, 2020
Part 2 ran December 4 to 15 in Tokyo, December 18 to 20 in Osaka, and December 23 to 30 in Kyoto in 2020, taking on the Four Saint Beasts and the Rescue Yukina stories, with the Toguro brothers joining the cast.
Netflix, announced 2020
Netflix announced the live action series on December 16, 2020, with Netflix's Kazutaka Sakamoto as executive producer and Akira Morii producing at Robot. It was the first production under Netflix's multi-year lease of two TOHO Studios stages in Tokyo.
Netflix, December 14, 2023
Five episodes, directed by Sho Tsukikawa, script by Tatsuro Mishima, VFX supervised by Ryo Sakaguchi, starring Takumi Kitamura as Yusuke, Shuhei Uesugi as Kuwabara, Jun Shison as Kurama, and Kanata Hongo as Hiei, released worldwide on December 14, 2023.
The first week numbers
The Netflix series ranked number one on Netflix's global non-English TV chart in its first week, with 7.7 million views and 32.1 million hours viewed for December 11 to 17, top ten in 76 countries, and number five in the United States.
THE FIRST VOLUME
Yu Yu Hakusho, in print
Yu Yu Hakusho · Volume 1 · Japan
Yusuke and Keiko on the first Japanese volume, the series whose afterlife this page follows past its final chapter.