| Characters: Urameshi Yusuke
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Yusuke Urameshi is the main character of Yu Yu Hakusho. He starts out as a 14 year old juvenile delinquent that's known for fighting, ditching school, petty theft, smoking, and plenty of other things kids shouldn't be doing at 14. We can't say his Mom's that much of a good influence on him though. She had him when she was 14 herself and is known to be seen drinking and smoking until all hours of the night. It's no wonder Yusuke has so much trouble in school!
This isn't to say that Yusuke's a bad kid or anything though. He's actually a pretty good kid deep down and that's why he gets hit by a car right in the first episode! (You heard me.) One fine day, he was ditching school as usual and passed by this kid on the sidewalk playing with a soccer ball. He entertained the kid a little with funny faces and told him not to play too close to the street. Sure enough though, soon afterward, the kid loses his ball to the street and goes after it. Yusuke thought he would've been hit by the car for sure, so he dove in to knock the kid out of harm's way. Not quite though. When Yusuke "comes to", he finds himself high in the air and watches his body get carried away on a stretcher into an ambulance. Then he meets death himself, or rather, herself: Botan. Botan informs him that his death was totally unexpected and that neither heaven nor hell has a place for him yet. She also tells him he wasted his time because the poor kid was destined for his ball to have acted as a cushion against the car and would've lived unscathed, but since Yusuke interfered, the kid got scratched and Yusuke's kinda "dead".
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After the incident, Yusuke thinks no one'll probably miss him because he did so many awful things, but upon going to his own funeral, he sees that his mother misses him dearly, his school rival misses him (although it's mostly cuz he never got to beat him in the fight as Yusuke's the #1 brawler at their school), his childhood friend Keiko misses him, and also one of his teachers, Takenaka-sensei, who always beleived in him. In addition to those mourners, the little boy Yusuke saved, Masaru, and his mother went to his funeral to mourn as well. After seeing this touching scene, Yusuke became determined to find a way to go back to them, so Botan took him to Reikai to see Koenma so that they could find a way to reverse his death. This obviously isn't a very easy task and one must go through several trials including holding onto a magical egg that tests moral character, doing good deeds by inhabiting the bodies of people who are out cold so that he can help them with their problems, and inhabiting Kuwabara's body so that he can tell someone alive he's coming back so that his body doesn't get destroyed. The egg gets lost though when Yusuke tries to save Keiko who is trying to save his body from a burning building, so Koenma ends up deciding on his own that Yusuke's worthy of going back.
The next task on the path to returning is to get someone to kiss his body to give it life energy so that he can return before Yusuke's window to return was closed (it wouldn't come back for another 50 years). A dream of this mission was sent to Keiko, Yusuke's Mom, and Kuwabara. Yusuke's Mom never got it though because she was up all night drinking (duh!), and Kuwabara thought it was a nightmare, so he shrugged it off. Keiko was the only one who really got the message, but didn't see Yusuke's body glowing like in her dream when she checked on it. Later on, her Mom got sick, so Keiko forgot all about Yusuke until he possessed her Mom and reminded her. With Keiko's kiss, Yusuke awoke. Kind of like a reverse sleeping beauty. ^O^ After that it was a grand old day back to school, but his life still wasn't quite back to normal. Why? Cuz now he can see demons and Reikai recruits him to be a Reikai Tantei (Spirit World Detective) with Botan as his forever helpful messenger to Koenma and assistant. To become an armed Reikai Tantei, Koenma has Yusuke acquire a strange pen with a gold dragon coiled around it and teaches him to use the "Rei Gun". This is the first of Yusuke's arsenal of "Rei" (Spirit) attacks that he learns. Others include "Shot Gun" and "Reikoudan".
Later on in the series though, much later, Yusuke dies yet again, but returns because they find he is related to one of the S-Level youkai leaders of Makai: Raizen. During the last battle with Sensui, Yusuke's demon heart begins to beat and he turns into his longer haired Toushin form. Soon after this, Yusuke goes to see Raizen in Makai for three years and train and stuff and promises Keiko that when he returns, he'll marry her. Keiko waits and waits and upon his return, Keiko eagerly jumps him and kisses him on the beach. One of the cutest scenes in anime history, I tell ya. ^^ Age: 14 (and 18 by the end of the series) Seiyuu: Nozomu Sasaki For more pictures of Yusuke, go to Yusuke's Image Gallery. | ||
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