Surprised To Be Dead is the first episode of season 1 of YuYu Hakusho. It aired on October 10, 1992 in Japan and February 23, 2002 in the United States.
Short Summary[]
Yusuke Urameshi is hit by a car after saving a child who was playing with a ball in the street. He soon learns that the child would have lived anyway, and that the Spirit World was not expecting him to die. For this reason, he is then offered the chance to be revived by the mysterious Botan, Guardian of the river Styx. He initially refuses but accepts after seeing the people he thought did not care for him, including his childhood friend Keiko Yukimura, his mother Atsuko Urameshi, and his rival Kazuma Kuwabara grieving for him at his wake.
Detailed Summary[]
Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year-old junior high school student, dies at an early age while saving a little kid from being hit by a car. He wakes up as a ghost, and sees his unconscious human body lying on the floor. Still not aware of his death, he tries to communicate with the medical staff who takes his human body, but finds no success in doing so. Upset with this, he tries to remember everything that happened to him that day.
Flashback: That day started differently. The first thing he was able to remember was his time at Sarayashiki Junior High. He remembered making a comment about Keiko's skirt, their class representative. Afterwards, Keiko scolds him for not wearing their school's proper uniform (his own uniform version is green) and for giving their class a horrible attendance average. Then, the next thing he remembered was confronting two students for using his name in stealing a wallet from another student, but the teacher Iwamoto came to the scene and accused him of trying to steal the wallet from the students. Then he went home only to be "given a lecture" by his young mother, telling him if he hates creatures too much then he should live on his own, furthering his annoyance that day. Afterwards, he walks away.
Yusuke is known as Sarayashiki Jr. High's special number-one delinquent, a position just rivalled by the other number one delinquent of the same school, Kazuma Kuwabara. Now Kuwabara and Kuwabara's Gang show up in front of Yusuke but the latter easily knocks down Kuwabara, and comments that their brawl made him in a better mood.
Next, he continued to walk around until he meets a kid who was playing ball. He warned the kid that playing ball on streets is dangerous because there are a lot of cars that might hit him. The kid was a little bit scared with the way he warned him, so Yusuke made the kid happy by making funny faces. So, he decided to leave the kid by warning him again to not play ball on the street. But the kid kept on playing, until he kicked the ball onto the street. The kid went to the street to get his ball back, unaware that a car (driven by a careless driver) was coming in his direction. In an instant, Yusuke runs to save the kid's life, sacrificing his own life in the process. (End of Flashback)
After he realizes that he was already dead, Yusuke meets Botan, who claims herself to be the grim reaper. He asked her about the condition of the kid he saved so they went to the hospital to check on the kid's condition. After seeing that the kid was alright, he tells her that he has no regrets and she can take him wherever he must go. Then she tells him that she wasn't there to take him away and she proposes to him an ordeal that could give him his life back. Yusuke was confused at this, so she further explained that the Spirit World wasn't expecting him to die that day and they haven't prepared a place for him yet.
He became upset with that statement and asked her if they were expecting the kid to die instead of him, to which Botan replies that the kid would have survived anyway. [1]. The young delinquent became more upset at this as he is seen falling back to the ground, then Botan reminds him that he will be granted a second chance to live, but he surprisingly declines her offer, saying that everyone is going to be much happier now that he is dead. However, Botan advises him to see his wake first before making a final decision.
When he arrived to see his wake, he saw all of his classmates, and seeing that some of them were laughing made him think they came there just to get extra credit, but not until Keiko, who was really crying over his death, caught his attention. Afterwards, the next person to catch his attention was Kuwabara, who was also mourning over his death commenting that he was supposed to be there for him. Then he noticed Iwamoto and another teacher, who seems to be rather glad that he was already dead. But Principal Takenaka confronted the two, then proceeds inside their house. He follows him, and seems to be a little bit surprised to see the teacher mourn over his death. He also saw his mother who was also doing the same. The kid whom he saved was also there with his mother, and as they left the kid told his mother that he was really a nice guy even though several people there hate him or do not care for him.
After seeing all of the people who do care for him mourn, he finally accepted the ordeal, and as the episode ends, Botan takes him to the Spirit World.
Characters in Order of Appearance[]
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Relevant Techniques[]
- Flight (Botan, Yusuke's spirit)
Anime Notes[]
- Keiko declares that Yusuke can't whistle but he actually whistled after he defeated Kuwabara, though this error only exists in the dub.
- We see a white petticoat under Keiko's skirt.
- This is the first episode of the Spirit Detective Saga.
- This is the first episode of the Revival Arc.
- Yusuke's smoking is censored in the anime which shows him chewing gum instead of smoking a cigarette in the manga.
- For the entire Spirit Detective Saga, the next episode previews had their background music changed to reflect the English cover of the opening as scored by Carl Finch. It was likely done because Funimation was not given the materials to use the original score for these episodes, though they did eventually switch to the original BGS starting from "Toguro Returns". The Blu-ray remastered dub eventually reinstated the original music for the earlier episodes.
- Another change in the dub was shifting the previews to come after the closing theme instead of right before like in the original version. This would continue until "Genbu, The Stone Beast" where the previews would be shifted back to before the ending credits for the remainder of the series. The blu-ray also rectified this by switching the previews back for the initial fourteen episodes.
- The little boy goes unnamed in the English anime, however, the manga and original Japanese anime specify his name as Masaru.
- The bespectacled friend of Keiko's is named Natsuko in an unadapted chapter of the manga, whereas the taller one with pigtails isn't given a name in any medium.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Gallery
References[]
- ↑ In fact, in the manga it is specified that the kid was to be saved by his own ball and be unharmed, so Yusuke's attempt at saving him was in fact unnecessary, so to speak.
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| e v | Spirit Detective Saga | |
| Episodes: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | |
| Anime: | Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3|Season 4 | |
| Manga: | List of Chapters | |