Yusuke Urameshi is the main protagonist of the manga series YuYu Hakusho. He is a Spirit Detective who is tasked with protecting Human World from various supernatural threats over the course of the series and his closest friends as well as greatest allies include Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Keiko, Genkai, Koenma and Botan. He is also the de facto leader of Team Urameshi and the general person to look to when the going gets tough.
At the start of the series, Yusuke is a teenage delinquent / street fighter with little to no positive qualities to his character. Over the course of the series, he starts becoming a better person, changing into an almost altruistic defender of the Human World.
He is voiced by Nozomu Sasaki in the original Japanese, by Justin Cook in FUNimation's dub and Mauricio Valverde in the Intertrack Latin American Dub.
He is known as Eugene in the Filipino Dub of the anime and he was voiced by Bonner Dytoc during the Spirit Detective Saga until the final round against Team Toguro in the Dark Tournament Saga. In the battle between himself and Younger Toguro, The Chapter Black Saga and onwards he is voiced by Eric Resurreccion.
Appearance[]
Yusuke has black hair, usually slicked back with gel, with brown eyes. He has a peach to tan skin complexion and has a skinny but lean, muscular body.
He wears a green jumpsuit with yellow buttons and black shoes (a substitute for the blue school uniform he should be wearing). At the Dark Tournament, he wears a red jacket (with yellow tinted cuffs and collar) over a white shirt, along with jeans and white sneakers. When actually fighting, he switches to a yellow sleeveless shirt and blue pants, with black shoes, a black karate belt and green wristbands. At the beginning of the Chapter Black arc, he wears his red jacket look, replacing it with a dark green suit jacket. In his fight against Sensui, he was seen without the green suit jacket as his white shirt that he wears was now loose. During the final arc, he returns to the complete red jacket look and when fighting in the tournament, dons a fully white-clad karate uniform, complete with a green sash around the waist and black shoes. He is also seen wearing a complete dark blue suit with grey pants, black shoes and a white undershirt when visiting Kuroko Sanada.
In some episodes, his hair became messier when it's not slicked back, like when his body was taken care by Keiko until his revival or in his first fight against Chu in the Dark Tournament.
When his demon blood is awakened, he has long black hair (white when possessed by Raizen in the anime) and demonic markings on his face, arms and chest.
Personality[]
Having a no-show for a father and with his mother always off somewhere else (getting drunk or partying), Yusuke has grown up in a very neglectful environment. He's short-tempered, impulsive, merciless and likes to intimidate those who are afraid of him. Underneath his bold, cocky attitude, he has a joking and kind nature.
Yusuke has also had the bad luck of having to deal with so many cruel and despicable people at such a young age. Iwamoto being among them.
One of his most notable traits is his desire to fight, which becomes more noticeable as the series progresses. Yusuke has been noted on many occasions to be rather unintelligent, and, at times, just plain stupid. However, as his teacher Genkai later notes, he "can be a genius at fighting". Yusuke's desire to fight is more out of enjoyment of a good brawl, and surprisingly Yusuke doesn't like killing if he can avoid it.
Even though Yusuke is feared by most students and severely disliked by almost all of the teachers, he is generally misunderstood. Keiko Yukimura, one of his childhood friends (and later love interest), is one of the very few who knows Yusuke is actually very kind, and she sympathizes with his problems in life. Yusuke also becomes very protective of his friends, especially Keiko, Botan, Koenma, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei. Out of all the six mentioned, though, Younger Toguro notes that Yusuke is "the most protective" of Kuwabara, most likely because Yusuke knew him longer than Hiei and Kurama, and also because of the frailty of Kuwabara's human heritage.
History[]
Yusuke's Father mentioned spanking Yusuke in his childhood to teach him discipline. Yusuke is also shown in a flashback during the Dark Tournament Saga as a Kindergartner on a playground. As his friends leave one by one till all of them are gone, a toddler Keiko comes over and says that they should go home and extends her hand towards him to which he agrees. They are later shown after a time skip of a few years with Yusuke racing ahead of Keiko, shouting that melons and watermelons are the same thing. He then stops and calls out to Keiko to come over so that he could give her a spanking and loses his foothold, falling into the water. Keiko then calls him an idiot and says that is why she told him that they should go home.