It looks like Netflix doesn't even want to wait and see how its live-action Cowboy Bebop series is received before moving on to bigger and spirit-sword-ier things. Now, that might bode well for the streamer's confidence in their projects, but fans who aren't quite into space bounty hunters and prefer dead people fighting in martial arts tournaments might want to take note of the future. Netflix still has a live-action Yu Yu Hakusho series in the works, and it's... going to be a bit of a wait.
Anybody who doesn't pay super close attention to the oddly prolific genre of news concerning Netflix's live-action anime adaptations could be forgiven for not realizing that another popular (yet slightly more niche) series is getting the same treatment as Cowboy Bebop. Last year, the streaming giant announced that it was working on a similar recreation of the classic '90s anime Yu Yu Hakusho, and now it looks as though they're finally ready to make some real progress on it.
The Netflix Geeked Twitter account just broke the ice to announce that the live-action Yu Yu Hakusho project would officially see a release in December of 2023. Any fans out there who are familiar with how numbers work will note that that's a whole 2 years and change away, which may or may not be a shame depending on how Cowboy Bebop turns out. Maybe that will give the team enough time to learn from the mistakes of other anime adaptations. Or maybe it will just be a really long time.
Yu Yu Hakusho follows Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who gets struck and killed by a car, and somehow things get worse. After being tested by the son of the king of the afterlife (as one does), he gets resurrected with supernatural powers and tasked with investigating incidents involving demons and spirits in the real world. Naturally, as these things tend to go, he eventually moves from solving ghost mysteries to fighting in a bunch of martial arts tournaments. Anime is fun.
Based on the tweet from Netflix Geeked, it looks as though the new show will follow more closely with the original manga by Yoshihiro Togashi than with the anime series. There supposedly aren't many huge differences between Togashi's initial vision and the '90s show, so fans who only got to enjoy the TV version likely won't have to worry about missing out on anything. But it's nice to see the focus on the creator's comic.
Still, there's plenty of time to speculate about what to expect. Considering the action focus of Yu Yu Hakusho over more story-based offerings like Death Note and Cowboy Bebop, maybe that will end up being the secret to a successful live-action anime adaptation. If not, then Netflix will probably keep trying anyway.
Yu Yu Hakusho will premiere on Netflix in December 2023.
Source: Netflix Geeked/Twitter