The five-part adaptation of the legendary smash-hit manga from Weekly Shonen Jump takes place across three worlds and follows a dead teen detective tasked with investigating demonic and spiritual cases in the Human World; the series begins streaming December 14.
The adaptation of the legendary smash-hit manga from Weekly Shonen Jump takes place in the Human World, the Demon World, and the Spirit World, and follows the young teen Yusuke who is struck by a car and killed after attempting to save a child’s life. After passing tests in the Spirit World, he becomes a detective tasked with investigating demonic and spiritual cases in the Human World.
Sho Tsukikawa directs from a screenplay by Tatsuro Mishima. The cast includes Takumi Kitamura, Jun Shison, Kanata Hongo, Shuhei Uesugi, Sei Shiraishi, Kotone Furukawa, Ai Mikami, Hiroya Shimizu, Keita Machida, Meiko Kaji, Kenichi Takitoh, Goro Inagaki, and Go Ayano.
The series captures the essence of the original manga by incorporating supernatural elements in a realistic way, made possible by the creatives at Scanline VFX and VFX supervisor Ryo Sakaguchi.
“To what extent CGI-characters can be shown close-up depends on the distance from the camera, whether there’s dialogue, and the facial expression,” said visual effects director Tomofumi Akahane. “With Scanline VFX on board, we were able to reach higher than any other Japanese title and achieve a quality where the average viewer won’t be able to tell that CGI is actually CGI.”
The team made use of the latest performance capture technology, with 170 cameras filming the actors simultaneously in 360 degrees, resulting in realistic CG character assets that seamlessly interact with the live-action elements.
The battles between humans and demons were among the most difficult to recreate visually, especially the scenes with the Toguro Brothers—the Elder Toguro can distort his body and the Younger Toguro can expand his muscles.
“The body size of the actors and the characters are different, so it was really hard to change the scale,” said Sakaguchi, the first Japanese visual effects producer to win a Scientific and Technical Award at the Oscars. “It wasn’t just a matter of changing their height, we needed to ensure that the sight lines of the opponents were accurate. The team ended up creating and printing 3D models of the Toguro Brothers, and attaching them to the actors for the shoot, so that it was easier and more natural for those acting opposite them.”
Moreover, as many of the actors were not used to working with CGI during shoots, the production team came up with various ideas to help the actors perform, including having a stunt person wear blue clothes and fight opposite the actor.
“How do actors imagine an enemy that isn’t actually in front of them?” asked action director Takahito Ouchi. “No matter how much you tell them that an enemy is there, they need to get fired up enough to make it seem like they are really fighting. And that realism is born from the passion of the actors.”
Kaata Sakamoto executive produces the Robot production for Netflix, in association with The Seven. Akira Morii produces.
Yu Yu Hakusho streams December 14 on Netflix.
Watch the battle unfold in the new trailer:
Source: Netflix