SPOILERS OH GOD SPOILERS.
Okay, I've been rewatching YYH with understandable subtitles for the first time ever. This is. The best show. EVER.
THAT SAID.
CANON WRITE-UP SPECIAL EDITION:
Yuusuke's heritage
When Yuusuke was first killed, he was brought back to life because he wasn't supposed to die; there was no plan for his soul. He was reborn and became a spirit detective, appointed by Koenma.
Successes don't last forever though, and a villain finally wins: Sensui, a human with S-class power (read: Godmode, it's seriously not even fair), kills Yuusuke. We get to see all the panic of what happens when the hero really DOES fail - Enma himself intervenes, sending his special forces to the Human World. Except Enma isn't just worried about Sensui's ambition to destroy the human world...
He orders his special forces to eliminate what's left of Yuusuke, for the preservation of the Human Realm.
Turns out our boy is a descendent of "mazoku," demonkin, blood. (This is the first real time the word "mazoku" is used to describe the youkai - it seems when referring to the youkai as a people or culture, they use mazoku, but when referring to individuals or groups they use youkai.)
To specify, both of Yuusuke's parents were human - his grandfathers and grandmothers were human, and before them, and before them. Yuusuke is the result of a practice called "mazoku daikakusei" - Genetic hybridization with a human that only A-class or higher youkai can achieve. How does that work? Basically, atavism (according to subtitles) is when one person's genetic information is not passed along to their children, but does get passed down to their grandchildren, skipping a generation. Mazoku Daikakusei, translated as "Mazoku Grand Atavism," is an extreme demonstration of atavism, where a descendant dozens of generations later inherits the unique characteristics of demon kinship. Demonkin are capable of intentionally causing this to occur.
When he died the first time, he had neither the ability nor the capacity to to withstand being reborn as a youkai. But by bringing him back to life as a spirit detective, giving him endless opportunity to increase his power, the spirit world assisted his rebirth. Determined to fix the mistake before it was too late, Enma made the order to wipe him out.
Yuusuke's reborn anyway, shielded by a transfomed phoenix-shape Puu. He puts on the BEST. EVIL. ACT. EVER. Because he's overheard everything - he acts like an overlord just to fuck with their minds. Obviously he's still Urameshi Yuusuke - youkai or human, he's nothing else. This, however, is contested eventually... when Raizen takes over his body and kills Sensui, he doesn't have any of the usual shounen hero "Shit I just killed someone" reactions. Instead, he's infuriated that his fight was interfered with, saying it didn't count because it wasn't him, and is left unsatisfied. The weeks of peace afterwards, he's restless and edgy - while everyone else returns to normal life, even villains that survived the arc, Yuusuke feels like he doesn't belong anywhere - "I want something I can't have." When confronted with Raizen's men when they request he return to the demon world, he toys with their lives, threatening to kill them if they don't come clean with their story - he finds out they eat humans and almost doesn't even care. A witness says maybe he should go to the demon realm, because anyone who can just accept someone who eats humans as food no longer belongs there... and Yuusuke is visibly stung, but he just says, "Maybe you're right." A week later, he goes to the demon world to meet his father, and instantly tries to kill him for interfering with his fight with Sensui. (and gets his ass kicked. Raizen owns him. Yuusuke calls him "oyaji" and Raizen calls him his boy and everything, it's awesome.)
Anyway, Yuusuke's heart has definitely stopped beating. It's useless and dead in his chest. There is nothing human about his life energy, it's all youki - and he has a "nucleus" acting in place of a heart, like any youkai. THAT oughta be fun for the next doctor to check out.
CFUD changes and ideas
As I've been playing Yuusuke, I've taken information from Ye Olde Subs that nobody understood, and mixed it with what I definitely knew for certain. In other words... he has partial amnesia, and since this is camp, his body hasn't been up to date either. He knows he has youkai abilities, and has met Raizen, but his personality is still the way it used to be: a human's personality, someone who would be worried over his behavior while posessed. I've been having more and more youkai tendencies surface, thinking I was pushing it, and here it turns out that I wasn't pushing it at all; I've been showing the human he used to be the youkai he is now. He would, and has, acted like an Evil King towards his enemies, like a boss toying with the weak. The reasons he was truly bothered by the shards incident was A: He doesn't remember ever acting like that so he was spooked he was capable of it, B: He wasn't in control and that pisses him off, C: he wouldn't ever hurt people he cared about no matter how pissed off he was, ever, and that goes for the youkai version too. Now he's appealing to Kurama for help in locking down his youkai side~ and that's probably going to backfire now that I know what I know.
[EDIT: And it did backfire! The thread is here. Watch Kurama brainrape Yuusuke so badly, the final block that is his tetris mind snaps in and esplodes the memory problems!]
Yuusuke isn't evil at all, he still has his code of honor and his sense of humor; being a youkai doesn't make you evil, after all, just... base, opposite of pure. He's just very mentally unstable otherwise. He's been a human all his life, and now there's nothing left of that - he doesn't belong anywhere, and as one person puts it, he "needs to feel like he's in danger at all times." He goes to his master Genkai for advice, and she says casually, "Don't get bored one day and destroy the world. Anyone can take something down if they want to - for some people it's their toy, or their pet, or their country. Your range is just larger than ours. But if you ever get like that, come to me - I'll give you my life first." Yuusuke says "That's stupid," and she just says, "Yeah, I thought so too." Genkai is subtle like that, but despite Enma's worries (and maybe her own lingering ones), Yuusuke would never snap and blow up the world.
I'm thinking soon that everything is going to surface for him, and I'll have him exactly where I always wanted him - yanked out of the Demon World and still very unstable. It'll be fun, that's for sure. He'll eventually settle down, but damn, I want his crazy edge.
...The best part? The one-liner summary for Yuusuke is still, "You just beat the shit out of me and it was AWESOME, do it again."
THAT SAID.
CANON WRITE-UP SPECIAL EDITION:
Yuusuke's heritage
When Yuusuke was first killed, he was brought back to life because he wasn't supposed to die; there was no plan for his soul. He was reborn and became a spirit detective, appointed by Koenma.
Successes don't last forever though, and a villain finally wins: Sensui, a human with S-class power (read: Godmode, it's seriously not even fair), kills Yuusuke. We get to see all the panic of what happens when the hero really DOES fail - Enma himself intervenes, sending his special forces to the Human World. Except Enma isn't just worried about Sensui's ambition to destroy the human world...
He orders his special forces to eliminate what's left of Yuusuke, for the preservation of the Human Realm.
Turns out our boy is a descendent of "mazoku," demonkin, blood. (This is the first real time the word "mazoku" is used to describe the youkai - it seems when referring to the youkai as a people or culture, they use mazoku, but when referring to individuals or groups they use youkai.)
To specify, both of Yuusuke's parents were human - his grandfathers and grandmothers were human, and before them, and before them. Yuusuke is the result of a practice called "mazoku daikakusei" - Genetic hybridization with a human that only A-class or higher youkai can achieve. How does that work? Basically, atavism (according to subtitles) is when one person's genetic information is not passed along to their children, but does get passed down to their grandchildren, skipping a generation. Mazoku Daikakusei, translated as "Mazoku Grand Atavism," is an extreme demonstration of atavism, where a descendant dozens of generations later inherits the unique characteristics of demon kinship. Demonkin are capable of intentionally causing this to occur.
When he died the first time, he had neither the ability nor the capacity to to withstand being reborn as a youkai. But by bringing him back to life as a spirit detective, giving him endless opportunity to increase his power, the spirit world assisted his rebirth. Determined to fix the mistake before it was too late, Enma made the order to wipe him out.
Yuusuke's reborn anyway, shielded by a transfomed phoenix-shape Puu. He puts on the BEST. EVIL. ACT. EVER. Because he's overheard everything - he acts like an overlord just to fuck with their minds. Obviously he's still Urameshi Yuusuke - youkai or human, he's nothing else. This, however, is contested eventually... when Raizen takes over his body and kills Sensui, he doesn't have any of the usual shounen hero "Shit I just killed someone" reactions. Instead, he's infuriated that his fight was interfered with, saying it didn't count because it wasn't him, and is left unsatisfied. The weeks of peace afterwards, he's restless and edgy - while everyone else returns to normal life, even villains that survived the arc, Yuusuke feels like he doesn't belong anywhere - "I want something I can't have." When confronted with Raizen's men when they request he return to the demon world, he toys with their lives, threatening to kill them if they don't come clean with their story - he finds out they eat humans and almost doesn't even care. A witness says maybe he should go to the demon realm, because anyone who can just accept someone who eats humans as food no longer belongs there... and Yuusuke is visibly stung, but he just says, "Maybe you're right." A week later, he goes to the demon world to meet his father, and instantly tries to kill him for interfering with his fight with Sensui. (and gets his ass kicked. Raizen owns him. Yuusuke calls him "oyaji" and Raizen calls him his boy and everything, it's awesome.)
Anyway, Yuusuke's heart has definitely stopped beating. It's useless and dead in his chest. There is nothing human about his life energy, it's all youki - and he has a "nucleus" acting in place of a heart, like any youkai. THAT oughta be fun for the next doctor to check out.
CFUD changes and ideas
As I've been playing Yuusuke, I've taken information from Ye Olde Subs that nobody understood, and mixed it with what I definitely knew for certain. In other words... he has partial amnesia, and since this is camp, his body hasn't been up to date either. He knows he has youkai abilities, and has met Raizen, but his personality is still the way it used to be: a human's personality, someone who would be worried over his behavior while posessed. I've been having more and more youkai tendencies surface, thinking I was pushing it, and here it turns out that I wasn't pushing it at all; I've been showing the human he used to be the youkai he is now. He would, and has, acted like an Evil King towards his enemies, like a boss toying with the weak. The reasons he was truly bothered by the shards incident was A: He doesn't remember ever acting like that so he was spooked he was capable of it, B: He wasn't in control and that pisses him off, C: he wouldn't ever hurt people he cared about no matter how pissed off he was, ever, and that goes for the youkai version too. Now he's appealing to Kurama for help in locking down his youkai side~ and that's probably going to backfire now that I know what I know.
[EDIT: And it did backfire! The thread is here. Watch Kurama brainrape Yuusuke so badly, the final block that is his tetris mind snaps in and esplodes the memory problems!]
Yuusuke isn't evil at all, he still has his code of honor and his sense of humor; being a youkai doesn't make you evil, after all, just... base, opposite of pure. He's just very mentally unstable otherwise. He's been a human all his life, and now there's nothing left of that - he doesn't belong anywhere, and as one person puts it, he "needs to feel like he's in danger at all times." He goes to his master Genkai for advice, and she says casually, "Don't get bored one day and destroy the world. Anyone can take something down if they want to - for some people it's their toy, or their pet, or their country. Your range is just larger than ours. But if you ever get like that, come to me - I'll give you my life first." Yuusuke says "That's stupid," and she just says, "Yeah, I thought so too." Genkai is subtle like that, but despite Enma's worries (and maybe her own lingering ones), Yuusuke would never snap and blow up the world.
I'm thinking soon that everything is going to surface for him, and I'll have him exactly where I always wanted him - yanked out of the Demon World and still very unstable. It'll be fun, that's for sure. He'll eventually settle down, but damn, I want his crazy edge.
...The best part? The one-liner summary for Yuusuke is still, "You just beat the shit out of me and it was AWESOME, do it again."