Variety has reported that Takumi Kitamura, actor and vocalist/guitarist for the Japanese band Dish, will play Yusuke Urameshi in Netflix’s live-action Yu Yu Hakusho series.
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Kitamura was previously in the live-action version of Tokyo Revengers, where he played Takemichi Hanagaki, so this won’t be his first live-action anime adaptation. Yu Yu Hakusho is set to premiere on Netflix in December of 2023, where it will stream worldwide simultaneously.
The Yu Yu Hakusho manga originally ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from December 1990 to July 1994, while the anime ran on Fuji TV from October 1992 to December 1994. The series is seen as an influential classic in the shonen genre, and its creator, Yoshihiro Togashi, would later go on to create the similarly beloved Hunter x Hunter.
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“One fateful day, Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year-old delinquent with a dim future, gets a miraculous chance to turn it all around when he throws himself in front of a moving car to save a young boy,” reads the official synopsis for the manga. “His ultimate sacrifice is so out of character that the authorities of the spirit realm are not yet prepared to let him pass on. Koenma, heir to the throne of the spirit realm, offers Yusuke an opportunity to regain his life through the completion of a series of tasks. With the guidance of the death god Botan, he is to thwart evil presences on Earth as a Spirit Detective.”