| Review by Jim |
| Plot: When the Spirit World is completely submerged underwater, Boton flees to the human world with a mystical item in hand. After meeting with Yusuke, it's revealed that the cause of all this is a group of powerful demons that want to recreate their netherworld on earth and now it's up to the rest of the YuYu Hakusho gang to take them out. Review: It's a good thing I've watched quite a few episodes of YuYu Hakusho on Cartoon Network before watching this movie. Needless to say, if you don't watch the show you won't have a clue about anything in the movie. But if you've seen a quarter of the show, you know what's going on. The movie takes place sometime after the Dark Tournament, but we really don't know the outcome since Cartoon Network isn't exactly rushing to get new episodes. Poltergeist Report the Movie isn't a good introduction to YuYu Hakusho for newbies anyway since there's barely any plot or characterizations, just straight up action for 90 minutes. The animation is pretty standard stuff, it's exactly what you'd expect from the average early '90s anime movie (1994 or so, I think). Everything is drawn slightly crisper and clearer than in the show, but not by a large margin. There's some more cussing and gore than there was in the series. Case in point, Kuwabara and Yusuke are filleting some demons and there's a gush of blood coming out of them, with varying colors, that is. So I guess if I had to rate the gore on an anime scale, it would be somewhere along the lines of a PG-13 movie. Not much blood, but just enough for it to be kept out of the kiddie's reach. Poltergeist Report would be so much stronger if it had the voice actors from the series, but since it came out before the series was aired on Cartoon Network, we're given a group of extraordinarily forgettable voice actors. They're not bad by any means, but they all sound very generic and have no presence whatsoever. For all I know, every one of the male characters could've been done by one guy. They all come off as being very mechanical in the way they talk and hardly act like the characters they represent. The guy that dubs Kurama sounds identical enough to the one in the series, but none of the other voice actors sound unique. A nifty little fact here, throughout the movie Kuwabara is called "Kuwahara." A typo, maybe? The plot itself is paper thin to say the least. The Spirit World and the human world are in trouble, a group of demons are after an item that threatens humanity, and our heroes have to stop them. Sound familiar? It's the basic plotline for a few of the YuYu Hakusho episodes in the series. What exactly the netherworld is isn't explained very well, it has something to do with evil human souls, but that's about as much information as we get. There's also five elements that the demons need in order to recreate their netherworld, but that's hardly explained at all. The only new character is Hinogashi--an apprentice to Boton. Hinogashi is, for lack of a better word, just filler. I mean, what the hell does she do besides fly around and explain a few weak plot points? There's also a subplot involving one of the demons and Kurama in which Yoko-Kurama betrayed him during a heist gone wrong. The subplot is fleshed out fairly nicely, but the main plot is left kicking up dust less than halfway through the movie. The villains aren't even memorable at that, save for Kurama's nemesis. Hell, I can't even remember their names. The movie is essentially an extended episode of a fight scene and while it is entertaining, it just isn't as interesting as the series. As far as movies based off anime series are concerned, this one feels pretty weak in comparison to the likes of the Tenchi-Muyo and Cowboy Bebop movie. The movie just feels pretty empty and not much of the charisma in the series is found in the movie. If you liked YuYu Hakusho, then Poltergeist Report is worth checking out. But if you skip out on it you're not missing much. |
| Rating: ** |
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