Yu Yu Hakusho (Chapter Black Saga) Season 3 (1994)

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Yu Yu Hakusho (Chapter Black Saga) Season 3 Review

The third season of Yu Yu Hakusho is most certainly a step down from its previous seasons in terms of quality, but it was still pretty good, especially in its first half.

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“It’s never too late to reform one’s ways“

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It follows Yusuke’s conflict with a former Spirit Detective Shinobu as he sets out to open the gateway, a sort of a tunnel to the Demon World. It has 28 episodes in it and I have to say that the first ten or so episodes were absolutely fantastic, but afterwards, it just lost me due to a number of mediocre or annoying developments.

Now, I loved the first half because it was so intriguing in its new villains. Yusuke and the team had to defeat those responsible for the breach and all of them had interesting powers that differentiated them and made each and every one of them unique. For example, Doctor Kamiya was just awesome! Everything about his looks to his powers was fantastic and his couple of episodes were pure thriller gold, so intense while also having great action. Seriously, a couple of those action sequences were some of the best in the show’s history.

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Mitarai was also really good and Gamemaster is such an endearing, wonderfully childlike character. But the rest of the villains disappointed me, most especially the big baddie Shinobu who got a pretty great start, but quickly became forgettable. That was unfortunate.

As I said, I didn’t particularly enjoy the second half of the season because it for one had way too much action with excessive in length fights and because I just really didn’t dig some of those new plot developments. Everything about Shinobu was disappointing, but Yusuke’s survival near the end just felt so contrived. The twist that he is a half-demon was very poorly handled and just felt like a rushed plot point that otherwise should have been major.

With that said, I continue to enjoy Yusuke’s characterization, in particular his thirst for excitement and fights, similar to Goku. That was greatly established in the last couple of episodes and I am looking forward to the final season to see if they explore it even more.

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Kuwabara was, on the other hand, disappointing and not as likable as he was before. He was solid at first, but became a nuisance later on with too much yelling involved. That’s the problem with this season – it turned into a clichéd anime show where characters stare and yell a lot through some annoying extended close-up shots. That really frustrated me as it wasn’t that emphasized previously.

Hiei and Kurama are solid, but didn’t get much to do this time around. And I have to say that I liked Koenma’s more serious behavior and role here. I like him as a sidekick, but this was still a refreshing change in pace.

This third season has some extraordinary action sequences and set pieces with that truck one being so exciting and the hospital scenes being pure perfection. A lot can be said about its plot and its contrivances, but the action is admittedly great, though excessive later on. But it was very well executed and incredibly entertaining.

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Yes, the later parts disappointed me a lot, but that was only because I loved those earlier parts so much. Everything in it in terms of the story and of course new characters and especially villains felt fresh which is admirable for a show in its third season. Its almost video game like quality where the protagonists have to defeat the bad guys in the set time worked for me as it made the pacing a lot faster and it made the action all the more impactful.