New information has surfaced online regarding a potential second season of Netflix's YuYu Hakusho TV series.
The intel comes from a Japanese media outlet that's reporting on local TV series and movies having trouble casting celebrities due to the high number of Netflix adaptations. The write-up says networks like Fuji TV are having trouble drawing top tier talent away from the streaming networks.
An anonymous source stated, "Even when TV stations make offers, their schedules are often already booked. Actors also tend to prioritize work with Netflix and other services due to factors such as better compensation."
In that report is news that a second season of YuYu Hakusho is on the way, meaning stars like Takumi Kitamura (Let Me Eat Your Pancreas, Tokyo Revengers) who plays Yusuke Urameshi, Kuwabara actor Shuhei Uesugi (Followers), Kurama actor Jun Shison (Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day) and Kanata Hongō (Shin Kamen Rider) who co-stars as Hiei, are all tied up for the foreseeable future.
The site adds that filming on YuYu Hakusho season 2 is expected to kick off this fall.
Tokyosports.co.jp adds that the second season is looking to cover the Demon World Unification Tournament, which is actually the final arc of Yoshihiro Togashi's (Hunter x Hunter) 1990 shonen manga series.
The first season consisted of 5 episodes and covered over 60% of the manga. Fans of Togashi's shonen series and the anime were highly critical of the pacing and dropped storylines.
However, if the report out of Japan is accurate, the same blistering pace will be repeated for season 2.
YuYu Hakusho was first written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi (Hunter x Hunter) in 1990. The series has 175 chapters compiled in 19 volumes and was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. The manga has sold over 78 million copies as of 2022.
The manga skyrocketed in popularity upon the debut of a 1992 anime series by Studio Pierrot. The anime was 112 episodes long and covered the whole manga series, which is unusual in the genre. Anime series frequently only tackle a fraction of the manga series and primarily serve as a marketing tactic to drive manga sales.
The official Netflix series synopsis for season one reads, "The series follows Yusuke, a tearaway teenager who dies trying to save a young boy from being hit by a speeding car. As he looks down at his body from the afterlife, Yusuke meets a woman named Botan (Kotone Furukawa), who guides him to the spirit world. She tells Yusuke that his death was premature and unexpected, but that no one would’ve ever believed a troubled kid like him could perform such a selfless act — so there’s no place for him in heaven or hell. Yusuke is then given the opportunity to be revived after completing a trial, allowing him to be sent back to the human world to investigate demons as an Underworld Detective."