Yu Yu Hakusho: The Dark Tournament Saga - Part 1 (UNCUT)

Pros: 21 uncut, uncensored episodes on six discs for one low price, just the way they were meant to be seen
Cons:Aside from the translator's notes and textless complete openings and closings, the "extras" were pretty bland

My Take:

These are the episodes that made Yu Yu Hakusho TXB's best Toonami show of 2003.

Straying from the more familiar quest format of the past 25 episodes, Ghost Files shifted into a fan-favorite tournament format similar to the ones that tranformed Goku into the iconic hero he is to this day. Yusuke isn't Goku by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he's more or less the anti-Goku, slightly arrogant, brutish, bullying, and a little lazy, but like Goku, Yusuke's heart is in the right place. His heart raced faster than ever when he realized that Toguro, a villian he thought he killed, was not only alive, but also ready to confront the young hero. He threatened to kill everybody Yusuke knew if he didn't take the invitation to compete in a tournament of demons and demonic warriors throughout the spirit world. So Yusuke gathered a team that comprised of himself, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, and a mysterious masked warrior.

The one thing I loved about these episodes is that the heroes aren't exactly the invincible uberbeasts like the characters of other popular shows. They can be defeated. They can lose. They can become injured. And that's what makes Team Urameshi human, even the demon fighters on the team.

This boxset of Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files contains six, uncut, uncensored volumes of the popular series (Vols. 8 - 13), so if you have these episodes individually, you could skip these episodes. However, if you want to enrich your DVD collection by adding some of the best episodes of the popular series, Part One of the Dark Tournament Saga is a great place to get started. These are the episodes that helped inspire the popularity the series enjoys to this day. Check them out the way they were meant to be seen!