Kurama (PL 10, 188 PP)
First Appearance: Yu Yu Hakusho #20 (Early 1991)
Role: Smart Stoic Pretty Boy, Scary Hero, Skillmonkey (in a shonen?)
Abilities (76 PP)
STR 6 STA 6 AGL 3 DEX 5 FGT 6
INT 4 AWA 4 PRE 4
Skills (34 PP)
Acrobatics 6 (+9)
Close Combat [Rose Whip] 4 (+10)
Deception 8 (+12)
Expertise [Plants] 4 (+8)
Insight 10 (+14)
Intimidation 8 (+12)
Investigation 4 (+8)
Perception 6 (+10)
Persuasion 6 (+10)
Sleight of Hand 8 (+13)
Stealth 4 (+7)
Advantages (10 PP)
Accurate Attack
Attractive
Benefit (Cipher)
Defensive Attack
Diehard
Eidetic Memory
Evasion
Quick Draw
Speed of Thought
Well-Informed
Powers (41 PP)
Plant Control [30]
- Death Seed (Subtle Improved Critical IV Fortitude Damage 10, Triggered five turns after attack hits) [26]
- Rose Whip (Improved Critical II Reach II Penetrating Strength-based Damage 4) [1]
- Petal Whirlwind (Burst Area Damage 6) [1]
- Plant Growth (Growth 8 Affects Objects Only, Limited to Plants, Increasing Size Only) [1]
- Deus Ex Planta (Variable 2 [different kinds of plants]) [1]
Closed Mind (Immunity 5 [mind reading]) [5]
Demon Body (Immunity 2 [critical hits]) [2]
Ki Sense: Senses 4 (Ranged 2 Radius Detect Ki) [4]
Offense
Death Seed +6 (Fort DC 25 Crit 16-20)
Petal Whirlwind (Area DC 21)
Rose Whip +10 (DC 25 Crit 18-20)
Throw +5 (DC 21)
Unarmed +6 (DC 21)
Defense (28 PP)
Dodge 14, Parry 13, Fortitude 10, Toughness 6, Will 10
Complications
Relationship: Kurama has a family who doesn't know he's a demon or a fighter, and his enemies frequently find them. He's especially close to his mom.
Flowery Heart: Kurama can't resist hurting people who prey on the weak, and he'll fall for sob stories despite his normal cunning.
Old Evil: While he doesn't transform into Yoko Kurama against his will, his personality becomes similar once a month, and when he spends time with people from his past.
Shuichi Minamino
Kurama shows up in Yusuke's first case, when he, Hiei and another demon named Goki steal magic artifacts from Spirit World's vaults. He's a cipher even to Spirit World and he stole the Dark Mirror which can grant any wish at a cost. However, he leaves them pages after they show up and Yusuke's sudden appearance distracts them before they can stop him.
He intercepts Yusuke the moment after he beats Goki, but all he does is take him to his house, where he somehow has a human mother who thinks he's an ordinary high school student named Shuichi Minamino. We learn he was a bandit, a fox demon (yoko) who almost died 15 years ago and sent his soul into an unborn fetus. He meant to leave his new family when he recovered his powers at age 10 but his mother got scarred protecting him and his father died. She has a new boyfriend but she's on death's door and he's going to use the Darkness Mirror to save her, even though it will cost his life. But Yusuke saw his mom after his own death and he can't let Kurama do that to his, so he joins the ritual and they each give up half their life. In return, when Hiei's about to kill Yusuke he suddenly shows up, takes the blow and blinds his Evil Eye with his blood.
Once Yusuke gets Genkai's training and gets tapped to fight the Four Saint Beasts, Kurama and Hiei unexpectedly return and we establish two important things. First, Kurama and Hiei are on probation and have to follow Spirit World's orders. Second, Hiei forgives Kurama cause even that cocky little shit would rather be with him than against him (and that clearly wasn't their first mission together, they know each other too well). He can turn an ordinary rose into a Rose Whip that cuts through stone like butter, which considering the first Beast is made of stone is very effective. But the Beast sucker-punches him so bad at the start he can't fight anyone else.
Togashi makes both the good guy demons mysterious in different ways. We know Kurama's backstory and some of his personality but it's still hard to read him and we don't even learn his powers until his second arc. You only see what Kurama wants you to see. Compare Hiei, whose personality's obvious but he has a hidden past.
Pull Back the Canopy
Kurama really comes into his own as a character in the Dark Tournament. He and Hiei train Kuwabara, though Kurama's the more vicious teacher.
His first-round fight proves Toguro's not the only one to worry about in the Tournament: Roto's weak but he has friends, and one of them's tailing his parents and will kill them at the press of a button! Roto cuts him and cruelly insults him and all he can do is kick pebbles at him, but he keeps a calm face. He won't give him the satisfaction. Besides, he has a plan. That "pebble" was actually a seed and the roots have spread throughout his body. Now HE'S the one with the magic button. And people like Roto deserve to die. The plant flowers and bursts out all over his body, and Kurama declares the blood of evildoers produces the most beautiful flowers.
And so we finally know who Kurama is. He's a pretty boy who controls plants. His real power is pulling new powers out of his ass. And he's compassionate towards innocent people. So compassionate that if you hurt innocents you better run, because there is NOTHING he won't do if it's necessary to stop you. And none of that's obvious until now cause he doesn't advertise it, he's not an edgelord like Hiei or the legion of other "ruthless" pretty boys in anime. He seems like a completely normal boy, good student, loves his mom, and that's all true, but then you watch him pass divine judgement the first time. He's the only shonen hero who actually scares me.
In the third round his enemy sacrifices himself to curse him, sealing his plant powers and adding a 600-pound weight. But in this round the winner fights the next team member immediately and Touya is an experienced ice master. All anyone else could do is run but he plants the same seed in his own body; his energy's stuck there but not gone. When it flowers it stabs him. The strain knocks Kurama out... but he's still standing in the ring, and the bribed organizers make him "fight" again. The asshole jobber Bakken beats the shit out of him and doesn't stop until his boss wisely realizes Yusuke will break the rules and kill him if he goes any further.
In the semis they fight a "fractured fairytale" team, but of course they're all Japanese fairy tales so no one's ever heard of them. Kurama's opponent is Ura Urashima ("Reverse Urashima"), based off a Rip van Winkle-type character. He takes advantage of Kurama's compassion, pretending to be a criminal against his will before hitting him with his power: as Reverse Urashima he can make people younger even before birth. It's an insanely overpowered attack against anyone who didn't possess a fetus and grow up in his body (you just KNOW some gamer out there would try to take that as a "limit"
). Shuichi Minamino gets youthened away. Enter Yoko Kurama.
See, we've learned by now that Kurama used to be a BIG DEAL. Multiple Dark Tournament fighters know who he used to be, though they think he just has the same name. Urashima instantly recognizes his original self. Most evil sides in anime are about the main character becoming completely different, or learning to get along with this guy in their heads who's nothing like them (or they're just edgy). Yoko Kurama talks and acts exactly like his regular self with only one difference: Kurama uses his mind and his cold, cruel streak to punish those who hurt others. Yoko Kurama uses it for himself. It's such a thin line. He is, of course, much stronger than the original*.
That's demonstrated in his fight with Karasu. Team Toguro's been built up the whole tournament, with single members wiping out whole teams. Kurama can't win, but the same man who gave Kuwabara his Sword of Trials also gave him a liquid form of Urashima's gas. It's a creepy fight. Both are sadists who toy with the other whenever they get the upper hand and it's also weirdly sexual; Karasu gets off on the "connection between murderer and victim" (he strokes his hair before the match) and the demon plants' mouths look pretty vaginal. But Kurama doesn't realize he's building up a tolerance to the youth drug so his form runs out early, and he has to risk his life to win. He does but he doesn't know he's already lost the ten-count so the dead Karasu "wins".
*And sexier if you're a catgirl: the announcer calls him a love god and says her weekend's ruined when he turns back to normal!
Event Horizon
When Genkai sets up a simulation against psychic opponents where force is useless, Kurama's predictably the only "survivor". He also helps Seaman turn good again. But he doesn't do much until near the end of the arc.
Sensui forces the team to fight "Gamemaster", who can make video games real, to stall them. It's an unusual take on that power cause instead of an FPS or a fantasy game like you'd expect, Gamemaster likes party games. He takes the role of the Demon King and they have to beat him and his summoned minions in games like tennis, shooting, puzzles, etc. Sounds like a lighthearted break before the final battle, right? Kurama realizes a few things: first, Gamemaster will die if he loses a game where his character dies; second, he clearly doesn't know this; third, Sensui told him to play this specific game, betting on the team realizing and being too guilty to kill him, so they'll never make it out of his room before the Demon World tunnel is open.
Gamemaster is 11 years old.
Kurama is Gamemaster's last opponent. He can't beat him. So he tells him everything he figured out, how his cool older friend Sensui set him up to die, and predicts exactly what Sensui said to manipulate him. It shakes him up just like he wanted and minutes later our hero's killed a little boy in cold blood.
Kurama fights Gourmet, who can eat people and gain their powers, and cuts off his head in 1/50 of a second for the fastest kill in anime history. He knows who's really in control. He can smell Elder Toguro's stench anywhere. Elder Toguro's head grotesquely emerges from the bottom of Gourmet's and the sickest villain in the series starts gloating but Kurama's had enough of this bullshit. He traps him in eternal hell, a hallucinogenic plant that continues their fight until the victim starves... but Elder Toguro can't starve. He can't even kill himself.
Three Kings Saga: An Old Friend
Kurama's surprised to learn his reckless old partner Yomi turned into a calculating, soft-spoken King. Yomi still trusts his judgement and recruits him, even letting him attend school and call his family from Demon World. He's not toothless though, he's tracking Kurama's family at all times and has a parasite demon holding his little stepbrother hostage. He learned from the best. Yomi brings Kurama to a room where he tortures the man who blinded him a thousand years ago and reveals he knows Kurama hired him to kill him for his stupidity. Yomi doesn't have a grudge even though the assassin blinded him. He needed that lesson.
Yoko's getting stronger too. He doesn't need the liquid to transform anymore and every month he takes on his personality, though he doesn't transform against his will. Meeting Yomi again just made it worse.
Kurama promises Yomi he can give him six S-ranked fighters to earn his favor and he does by having Genkai train the most popular Dark Tournament characters. He uses them to go independent when Yusuke offers his tournament (it's implied he recruited some of Yomi's other heavy-hitters too) and Yomi can't afford to stop him right then. He doesn't get very far in the tournament. In the anime it's because he rejects his Yoko form, and while it isn't in the manga it's consistent with his character.
Kurama plays the smallest role in the epilogue. He's moved back to Earth and helps Yusuke with his detective work. There's a great scene where he goes to school with Kuwabara and everyone thinks he's his girlfriend. Then Yusuke asks him to sneak into an all-girls school... Once he graduates he goes to work for his stepdad's company.
Build Notes
Kurama stands out on this team. The other three are shoot-first-ask-later brawlers with simple powers that come under cost, then you have this smart, socially adept skillmonkey with a Variable. And thank God for it or the others would've been killed long ago.
Kurama imbues plants with his ki to make them grow and change. He can use one transformation per kind of plant but considering how many plants there are that's not much of a limit, and he has a new one almost every fight. His basic attack is the Rose Whip, but he can also release razor-sharp petals. When he plants his Death Seed in a target, it germinates and kills them from the inside 5 rounds later. With his demonic body he can survive more damage than a human (people punch through his and Hiei's guts and they survive). In theory you could take these seeds away from him but no one ever does and you can't see them hidden in his hair. He even knows how to silence his mind so telepaths can't tell what he's thinking. Most of his stunts are afflictions of some kind like the Sinning Tree.
Kurama uses Skills in combat more than other anime fighters. He tricks you then he scares you, and you never know everything he can do. You only see the emotions he wants you to see: he killed a little boy and Elder Toguro had to read his mind to know he was guilty. His only mental weaknesses are (a) he wants to see the good in people so if you pretend to be good you might trick him, and (b) he's cautious at the start, but if he thinks he's won (reasonable with his planning skills and broken powers) he gets sloppy. Physically he's much weaker than his friends without his plants.
Interestingly he's one of the few shonen heroes with a superhero-esque secret identity. Unfortunately for him it's more realistic because it seems like any random demon with intel can threaten his family. Sadly we don't see enough of that family to know how his double life affects them. Can't have everything.
Yoko Kurama (PL 11, 244 PP)
First Appearance: Yu Yu Hakusho #81 (Mid 1992)
Role: Evil Side, Manipulator, Master Criminal
Abilities (82 PP)
STR 6 STA 6 AGL 3 DEX 5 FGT 7
INT 4 AWA 5 PRE 5
Skills (36 PP)
Acrobatics 6 (+9)
Close Combat [Rose Whip] 4 (+11)
Deception 8 (+13)
Expertise [Plants] 4 (+8)
Insight 10 (+15)
Intimidation 8 (+13)
Investigation 4 (+8)
Perception 6 (+11)
Persuasion 6 (+11)
Sleight of Hand 8 (+13)
Stealth 8 (+11)
Advantages (14 PP)
Accurate Attack
Assessment
Attractive 2
Benefit (Cipher)
Connected
Contacts
Defensive Attack
Diehard
Eidetic Memory
Evasion
Fascinate (Intimidation)
Quick Draw
Speed of Thought
Well-Informed
Powers (84 PP)
Plant Control [72]
- Summon Demon Plant (Heroic Controlled Mental Link Summon Plant Monsters 11, Concentration) [67]
- Death Seed (Subtle Improved Critical IV Fortitude Damage 1, Triggered five turns after attack hits) [1]
- Rose Whip (Improved Critical II Reach II Penetrating Strength-based Damage 5) [1]
- Petal Whirlwind (Burst Area Damage 6) [1]
- Plant Growth (Growth 8 Affects Objects Only, Limited to Plants, Increasing Size Only) [1]
- Deus Ex Planta (Variable 3 [different kinds of plants]) [1]
Closed Mind (Immunity 5 [mind reading]) [5]
Demon Body (Immunity 3 [aging, critical hits]) [3]
Ki Sense: Senses 4 (Ranged 2 Radius Detect Ki) [4]
Offense
Death Seed +6 (Fort DC 26 Crit 16-20)
Petal Whirlwind (Area DC 21)
Rose Whip +11 (DC 26 Crit 18-20)
Throw +5 (DC 21)
Unarmed +7 (DC 21)
Defense (27 PP)
Dodge 14, Parry 13, Fortitude 10, Toughness 6, Will 10
Complications
Amoral: Imagine being controlled by someone who would hurt anyone to get what he wanted and how that could screw up your life. That's Yoko.
Reputation: Yoko Kurama has been famous for a thousand years. He has many old enemies and the powers that be want to control or kill him.
Yoko (it's not really a name, just an adjective, but they're both named Kurama so I have to tell them apart somehow) is stronger than normal, but the biggest difference is his Summon. In this form he doesn't have to turn Earth plants demonic, he can control Demon World plants directly, which are apparently all big monsters with tons of tentacles and mouths. He makes a monster and lets it do the fighting.
Regular Kurama is really Yoko's soul mixed with whoever Shuichi Minamino would have been. That explains a lot about his personality; he's a thousand years old but he's also 15. It also means Yoko is literally Kurama minus his humanity. He seems like the kind of evil side who schemes behind your back and doesn't care if he wrecks your relationships. But he's also ambitious. He even wanted to build a country when he was young, though it's unclear if he still does. Togashi was starting to explore that in the Three Kings arc but because it was so rushed and the main cast was separated it didn't hit its full potential (see, I CAN say bad things about YYH!).
This is one of those quirks of M&M power scaling. In canon Yusuke's clearly stronger by the end of each arc, even with the demon plant, but I feel like this version might beat him. Kurama can also use some of his power and even at one point his appearance by the end of the series, and he might be able to use it all someday, but this build keeps a wider gap between them. I like it this way, it makes Yoko much more threatening.
Also Yoko Ono's name is written completely differently (Wikipedia says it means "ocean child") and the name "Kurama" has nothing to do with foxes, Kurama from Naruto's just named after him.
). We also find out his mom and dad still talk every month though he hasn't seen Yusuke since he was 3; he's been giving them money without Yusuke's knowledge. Yusuke finally came to terms with himself in Demon World and even though he doesn't fight he's happier than we've ever seen him.
