YuYu Hakusho Watch Order: the Series, the Films, the OVA

YuYu Hakusho is one of the easiest long shonen series to watch in order, because there is almost nothing to route around. One television series, two short films that sit outside the story, one two-part OVA made twenty-three years later, and a live-action remake that retells the opening. The short answer: watch the 1992 series from episode 1 to episode 112, then the 2018 OVA, and treat the films and the Netflix series as optional extras in that order.

The 1992 series, all of it

The anime was produced by Studio Pierrot and ran on Fuji TV for 112 episodes from October 1992 to January 1995, directed by Noriyuki Abe. It adapts Yoshihiro Togashi's manga, which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from December 1990 to July 1994 across 175 chapters and 19 volumes, and it adapts essentially all of it. The four arcs fall where the manga's do: the Spirit Detective saga (episodes 1 to 25), which is where this site's YuYu Hakusho quotes are densest; the Dark Tournament (26 to 66); Chapter Black (67 to 94); and the Three Kings (95 to 112).

The question every watch order for a 1990s shonen has to answer is which episodes to skip, and here the honest answer is none. Anime News Network's encyclopedia lists 112 episodes for 175 chapters, which is a ratio no long-running Jump adaptation of the era comes near, and ComicBook.com's guide to hundred-episode series puts it plainly: nearly all of its chapters are essential. There is no filler arc, no recap season, and no stretch where the anime marks time waiting for the manga. A viewer who wants a filler list for YuYu Hakusho wants a document that would be one line long.

That does not mean every episode is strong. The Three Kings arc is where the manga wrapped up fast; CBR's trivia piece on the series notes that Togashi had very different plans for it than what was published, and the anime is faithful to what was published, which means the final tournament is decided largely off screen. Watch it anyway. It is short, and the last episodes give Yusuke an ending the Dark Tournament could not.

The two films

Yu Yu Hakusho: The Movie was released in July 1993 and Poltergeist Report in April 1994. Both are side stories with no bearing on the series, and both were made while it was still airing, so they assume you know the cast. The first is a short piece about Koenma being kidnapped; the second is a longer, better-animated story about an invasion of Spirit World by a rival netherworld. Neither is required. If you want them, watch the first after the Spirit Detective saga and the second after the Dark Tournament, which is roughly where each was released relative to the broadcast.

The 2018 OVA: Two Shots and All or Nothing

For the anime's twenty-fifth anniversary, Pierrot produced a two-part OVA that screened in Tokyo in October 2018 and shipped with the final volume of the anniversary Blu-ray box the same month; Funimation announced an English release with the original dub cast, including Justin Cook and Christopher Sabat, at New York Comic Con in 2019. The two parts adapt the only two chapters the series skipped. Two Shots is the bonus chapter from the manga's seventh volume, and it tells how Kurama and Hiei met, before the series begins; All or Nothing is the manga's penultimate chapter, in which the cast reunites to deal with a hostage crisis in Spirit World.

Watch both after episode 112. Two Shots is a prequel by content, but it is written for people who already know the pair, and the pleasure of it is seeing their partnership from the other end. All or Nothing is the epilogue the series proper never animated, and it only means anything after the Three Kings arc.

The Netflix live-action, as a footnote

Netflix released a five-episode live-action series worldwide on 14 December 2023, directed by Sho Tsukikawa with Takumi Kitamura as Yusuke. It covers the Spirit Detective saga and then reaches ahead to borrow the Toguro brothers from the Dark Tournament, and in doing so it reveals the outcomes of matches it never stages. Screen Rant's episode-by-episode comparison recommends that anyone who arrives from the live-action start the anime or the manga from the beginning rather than trying to pick up where it stops, and this guide agrees. It is a way in, not a chapter. Watch it first if you must, and do not expect the anime's episode 26 to feel like a continuation.

Sub or dub

The Funimation dub is unusual for its era in being the version most English-speaking fans know and most quote pages transcribe, including the Wikiquote page this site's quotes are checked against. It takes liberties, gives Kuwabara a whole vocabulary of insults the Japanese does not have, and is in places funnier than the original. The Japanese track is more restrained and closer to Togashi. Either is defensible; the one thing to know is that if you learned the lines from the dub, the sub will sound like a different show for the first ten episodes.

The order, stated plainly

YuYu Hakusho (1992), episodes 1 to 112, skipping nothing. Then the 2018 OVA, Two Shots and All or Nothing. The two films, if wanted, slotted after episode 25 and after episode 66 respectively. The Netflix series whenever, on the understanding that it retells the first arc and spoils the second.