Session #1: From the Ashes (60,474 views)

I finished both Tales From the Darkside and Yu Yu Hakusho yesterday.

The last few episodes of Darkside were interesting. The screenplay for one was written by Stephen King, and another was directed by Jodie Foster. Much of the show can be described as surprise credits of people better known for other things (e.g. Brett Spiner starred in one episode). One of the final episodes is this weird one where a woman puts on glasses and some sort of hearing aid, and suddenly she can see and hear that all the food she wants to eat is living things that can actually talk to her and feel pain. This includes bananas, apples, already cooked meat, etc. It's just weird.

Yu Yu Hakusho was... okay. Having Yusuke suddenly part-demon, and not having Kuwabara in it, both seemed pretty stupid. Also felt like the story was building toward a huge armies fighting each other storyline, only to pull out of it in favor of a weaker Dark Tournament repeat cause it's easier. Yusuke tapping into his demon side, only to transition over to using her regular spirit side, then gaining power akin to Sensui's sacred energy, felt like the writer(s) realizing that "Yusuke's suddenly part demon and that's why he's so powerful!" undermined the original theme of the show and turned people away. A little too late though of course.

Despite all that, the final episode actually was a lot of good emotional payoff. I'd be interested in an OVA or show set something like 20 years later and how their lives changed since then. The show seemed to technically be saying that this is the end of Yusuke's journey, but it also emphasized the idea that Yusuke would return to demon realm some day.