Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho ending explained and season 2 chances (2024)

Yu Yu Hakusho spoilers follow.

Recent live-action anime adaptations produced by Netflix have been divisive to say the least. For every success story like One Piece, there's also been a Cowboy Bebop.

And now Yu Yu Hakusho, a celebrated but occasionally forgotten anime from the early '90s, has received the same treatment via Japan rather than the US.

While there's much to love about these first five episodes and how they update Yusuke's story for modern audiences, the fact that this season only lasts for five episodes means that a lot had to be cut and changed.

Most of the Spirit Detective saga makes it through intact, although some arcs have been skipped or merged, yet elements of the fan-favourite Dark Tournament story also pop up, condensing huge swathes of the source material in one fell swoop.

What does that mean for Yu Yu Hakusho's ending? And how does this all bode for Yu Yu Hakusho's potential second season?

Charge up your Spirit Gun and join us here at Digital Spy as we blast through the noise to explain that final episode and how it sets up a possible season two.

In the final two episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke teams up with Kurama, Hiei, and Kuawabara to rescue Keiko and Yukina from Sakyo and his men on Kubikukuri Island. After various battles take place, this all leads to one final confrontation between Yusuke and Young Toguro where the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

All season long, Yusuke has been struggling to fully master his Spirit Gun technique, the key to taking down Toguro's final muscly form. So of course, in classic anime-style, Yusuke draws on strength from his friends to channel all his spirit energy into one final blow.

Toguro dies, his body disintegrating into ash, but he can't really be dead, right? Longtime fans who know the source material well would surely expect him to come back in the next batch of episodes. Except, Toguro's death is then confirmed when he meets Genkai in the other world. Toguro does die in the original anime too, but this happens far later on, so it's a bold move to reimagine the source material in such a game-changing way.

With Toguro defeated and the merging of two worlds prevented, our faves head back home on a boat before the show then speeds through the last few dangling plot threads.

Hiei holds back from telling Yukina that he's actually her long-lost brother, which is kind of wild given how hard he just worked to save her. Family, eh?

The show also surprises us with the decision Toguro makes regarding his own fate. Upon his meeting with Genkai on the path to the afterlife, we discover that he's on his way to Hell because he's actually asked to be sent there. And to the worst corners of Hell, no less.

It turns out that Toguro wants to atone for everything evil he did, and crucially, how he failed to protect his students back when he was a human. Apparently, getting burned away to a crisp wasn't punishment enough in his eyes, so Toguro actively chooses an afterlife of endless torment. Not such a bad guy, after all, it seems.

During a surprise end credits scene, the villain's older brother, Elder Toguro, returns again just briefly after we last saw him getting launched out of the arena by Young Toguro. His head landed on a beach nearby and a seagull is eyeing him up as a snack.

The scene is pretty jokey, so it doesn't look anything's being set up for a second season here. That makes sense with Elder Toguro's story as he didn't appear in the manga beyond this arc anyway, but with the way everything ends, a second season doesn't look too likely in general.

In the original Yukina rescue arc, Kuabara is the one who defeats Toguro, and crucially, the villain doesn't die here. Just a couple of episodes later, Toguro returns to challenge Yusuke in a tournament. This time around, Yusuke's death blow scenario basically combines their first encounter with their final confrontation in the Dark Tournament saga, which usually happens much later on.

The ending doesn't suggest any hint of a future tournament like this, and with the deaths of Genkai, Sakyo, Karasu, Bui and Younger Toguro already taking place so soon, it's hard to imagine how Yu Yu Hakusho could continue for a second season without radically reimagining the series as a whole.

For context, Netflix’s Yu Yu Hakusho covers around 66 episodes out of the anime's total 112-episode run. So technically then, there is enough source material there for at least one more season, but with the way this version reinterprets the story, it seems that Netflix only intended this season to be a standalone run.

And that's a shame, because when it comes to live-action anime adaptations on Netflix, this one definitely skews towards the One Piece end of the spectrum rather than the likes of Death Note or Cowboy Bebop.

Yu Yu Hakusho is now available to stream on Netflix.