Everybody Loves One Piece, But Don't Sleep On Netflix's Other Great Live-Action Anime That Came Out The Same Year

Published May 12, 2025

Followed

live-action adaptations of anime series have a bad reputation, the industry seems to be learning from past mistakes. One Piece was as good as a live-action version of Eiichiro Oda's masterpiece could be, staying true to the source material but also making the story digestible for all audiences.

I was pleasantly surprised that One Piece, among all manga, ended up having such a great live-action adaptation. The world created by Oda is not the easiest one to translate to another medium, yet the Netflix live-action series was able to make not only the characters but also the locations feel real and earnest. As a result, One Piece was one of Netflix's most-watched shows of 2023, which may have overshadowed the streamer's live-action Yu Yu Hakusho series.

Yu Yu Hakusho Was A Solid Live-Action Adaptation Of The Iconic Action Manga

Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho Was A Nostalgic, Well-Made Adaptation

Yoshihiro Togashi's Yu Yu Hakusho is one of the best, most influential action manga of all time. The anime adaptation, which premiered in 1992, ran for 112 episodes and gave Yusuke Urameshi and his friends worldwide fame. Given how many live-action adaptations were being made recently, it was only a matter of time before Yu Yu Hakusho got a similar treatment. Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho remake was a Japanese production consisting of five episodes and came out on December 14, 2023, a few months after One Piece season 1 dropped.

Yu Yu Hakusho nailed many aspects of the manga and the anime, from the fight choreography to the costumes. Whereas a lot of live-action anime remakes fail to capture the sense of speed and energy that comes from animation, the characters from Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho felt larger than life. Although changes were made to the source material, especially in of which arcs were covered, Yu Yu Hakusho was a solid show that checked a lot of important boxes in adapting such an iconic franchise.

Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho Was Great, But It Was Not As Good As One Piece

Yu Yu Hakusho Rushed Through The Series' Best Moments

There is one important difference between One Piece and Yu Yu Hakusho that explains why the former was a better adaptation than the latter. Whereas One Piece season 1 was meant to be just the start of the show and covered the first arc of Oda's manga, Yu Yu Hakusho was apparently meant to be a one-off thing. This is why Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho combined the Spiritual Detective saga with the Dark Tournament, resulting in a strange adaptation in which nearly half of the canonical story was covered in less than five hours.

Live-Action Show	Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score	Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score
One Piece	86%	95%
Yu Yu Hakusho	82%	82%

Some iconic moments from the anime were accurately recreated in live-action, but others were entirely skipped over. Netflix's Yu Yu Hakusho didn't include the Dark Tournament, instead having famous matches like Kurama vs. Karasu and Yusuke vs. Toguro happen in completely different contexts. While that did not prevent Yu Yu Hakusho from being a good show, I would've loved to see a more faithful adaptation that followed the structure of the manga. The ideal Yu Yu Hakusho live-action show would have covered the Spirit Detective saga in the first season, with a second season then dealing with the Dark Tournament.

Yusuke Urameshi, Genkai, and Younger Toguro in the live-action Yu Yu Hakusho

How Much Of Yu Yu Hakusho Netflix’s Live-Action Covers (& How Much It Skips)

Despite only having five episodes, Netflix’s live-action Yu Yu Hakusho covers multiple anime arcs and merges two major sagas into one story.

Posts

One Piece was not without its flaws, and when it comes to the hand-to-hand action sequences, I preferred the ones in Yu Yu Hakusho. Still, One Piece season 1 only scratched the potential of Luffy's story and set up a very promising live-action franchise that will hopefully get to cover a lot of important moments from the manga. One Piece is saving Arabasta for season 3, further indicating that the Netflix show will take its time when adapting the manga, regardless of how long it is.