Sfdebris.net

Been rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho since, tbh, I'm very skeptical of Star Wars Visions, I don't think it's actually a real Star Wars anime so much as smokescreen tactics (real Japanese businessmen would have taken far longer to hammer out some kind of contract - it took a year and a half before to get a Dragon Ball Super dub licensed, they needed that much time to be satisfied with all details inked out) to try to cash in on the recent anime hype, to get jaded fans to THINK it's anime. I mean, come on, there's going to be restrictions placed on it (no Star Wars Legends, for one, even though Japanese studios have been adapting manga to anime for decades, lol, no reason they couldn't do the same for American comics past Disney's paranoid hawk management), so no, I'm not falling for it, I'd rather check out REAL anime.

And it got me thinking of one of my favorite battles - in theory, at least. Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho vs. Poison Ivy or Pamela Isley from Batman! In practice, however, it always felt like a curbstomp battle in the worst way. Really, does she stand any chance? Kurama could just plant a seed in her and when he explodes, she's ripped apart from the inside, and yes, I love me some good innuendoes! Though it really isn't a joke, anyway. From what I know, the only resistance to Kurama's demonic plants comes from beings with a strong resistance in either Spirit Energy or Demon Energy and Poison Ivy has none, does she not? She's a normal human, though "normal" in the same world as Batman might temper her on the end of the bell curve there. We could go with any incarnation of Poison Ivy. Do any of 'em stand a chance? I'll be defending my boi, Kurama. Let's see your best case for why Poison Ivy across some of the various continuities might stand a chance.

Also, gotta love 1980s/1990s anime synth scores, and Kurama's score is no different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKpPtJAMy8c

Seriously, why isn't the pic for the video showing?

Yu Yu Hakushu isn't what I'd think of as the "real Anime' to watch in place of a Star Wars project. The Legend of The Galactic Heroes Reboot has a lot of Star Wars like appeal going for it.

To take the kind of meta PoV on this, Kurama's deal is that he is an ancient fox spirit who has lived for so long that he has transcended the demonic nature of being a fox spirit and attained humanity. This had the cost of reducing his learned abilities but preserving his innate nature.

Poison Ivy is basically the reverse, she started out with humanity and "fell" into her anti-villain kind of role, where we all have to admit she is right to want to save the planet but also no one wants to be killed by her. Her ability to refine plants is like Kurama's ability to refine his skills, but material instead of skill driven.

How characters escalate their abilities in semi-predictable ways to resolve conflicts is a really interesting part of fantasy writing.