Netflix’s live-action adaptations have always been in the news, and sometimes for the wrong reasons too. But after the response to the Cowboy Bebop live-action series, Netflix has once again jumped into the genre. This time around, Netflix chose Yu Yu Hakusho for its latest live-action series.

Netflix made the news at Netflix’s Japan Festival 2021, where the streaming service announced a vast slate of anime and anime-inspired projects currently in development. The 1992 anime based on Yoshiro Togashi’s manga, first aired on October 10, 1992, and ended on January 7, 1995. The 112-episode anime earned an IMDb rating of 8.4, and we hope the live-action series can match this number, if not surpass it.

The big announcement by Netflix about Yu Yu Hakusho

The NetflixGeeked Twitter account broke the news that the live-action Yu Yu Hakusho project would be officially available to viewers on December 2023. Indeed, almost two years is a long wait for us, but there is a silver lining to it. This time could do wonders for the showrunners, who will get time to understand the audience’s response to other live-action series.

Netflix Japan and ROBOT (Alice in Borderland) have partnered up to develop a live-action Netflix series based on the Yu Yu Hakusho manga. Unfortunately, Netflix hasn’t divulged more details about the project so far. But Teru Morii and Kazutaka Sakamoto (Devilman Crybaby, Aggretsuko) will be the producer and executive producer of the show, respectively.

What’s the big deal?

While Japan had already recognized the anime’s potential in the early 1990s, the anime didn’t premiere in the US until 2003. Even after the release, Dragon Ball Z ended up eclipsing it. Yu Yu Hakusho, like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and others, is one of the primary pillars of the weekly manga anthology Shonen Jump’s shonen series. These are manga and anime aimed at young teen boys.

Yu Yu Hakusho follows Yusuke, a teen hooligan who dies protecting a child from being hit by a car. But Yusuke gets another chance after his revival, and his new task is to investigate supernatural behavior in the underworld. As one would guess, the anime always involves a lot of one-on-one combat.

How excited are you for this shonen live action to release? Let us know in the comment section.