YuYu Hakusho Volume 14 ~ review

Here's my review for the manga YuYu Hakusho Volume 14. Spoilers alert! If you haven't read this, please be aware that this review will contain spoilers.

A lot of revelations in this volume of YuYu Hakusho. First, readers were re-introduced to the people that abducted Yuusuke in Volume 13; Asato Kido, Mitsunari Yanagisawa and Yuu Kaito. They are not the bad guys and it was actually Genkai (Yuusuke's mentor) who asked them to abduct Yuusuke to test their powers. Then it was revealed that someone had been trying to break the spell surrounding the borders between the human world and the demon world and create a hole between them. If the spell breaks and the hole was created, then demons can easily enter the human world and create chaos. Then Yuusuke and the team found out that "someone" who was trying to break the spell is actually a group of 7 people. Yuusuke team managed to defeat two of them; "Doctor" who can infect other people with deadly virus, and "Seaman" who can manipulate water with a drop of his blood. Finally, it was revealed to Yuusuke team that the leader of this group (and the main villain of this story arc) is Sensui, the former detective of the Underworld, which is the role that Yuusuke currently held. In the last chapter of this volume, Yuusuke finally came face-to-face with Sensui but can he defeat him? The last 3 members of Sensui's team were also revealed with code names "Sniper", "Gobbler" and "Game Master" (another member "Gate Keeper" had been introduced to readers in the first chapter of this volume).

I was satisfied with this volume of YuYu Hakusho because it was balanced between dialogue scenes and action scenes. I like the fight scenes between Yuusuke's team and "Doctor" who seems a bit psychotic. I also like the introduction of a video tape called "Black Chapter" which Sensui used to recruit members to his team. The story behind the video tape brings a bit of a dark aspect to the manga which I love. Another scenes that I love is the backstory of Sensui told by Koenma and why he changed from being a good guy into a bad guy. It somehow made readers sympathetic towards Sensui and shows that he is not just a regular villain who wants to take over the world but someone with a dark past that somehow changed him into who he was today.

It will truly become more intense in Volume 15 as Yuusuke team try to find out the location of Sensui's hideout. Can they defeat him and prevent the hole between the two worlds from being created? All will be revealed in YuYu Hakusho Volume 15.

Image from Amazon.