Yuusuke Urameshi

Yusuke Urameshi is the main protagonist of the manga & anime series YuYu Hakusho. He is a Spirit Detective who is tasked with protecting Human World from various supernatural threats over the course of the series and his closest friends as well as greatest allies to many. He is also the de facto leader of Team Urameshi and the general person to look to when the going gets tough.

In the AWA fics, Yuusuke is a student at the AWA Academy and is a part of Class 2.

Appearance
Yuusuke has black hair, usually slicked back with gel, with brown eyes. He has a peach to tan skin complexion and has a skinny but lean, muscular body.

He wears a green jumpsuit with yellow buttons and black shoes (a substitute for the blue school uniform he should be wearing). At the Dark Tournament, he wears a red jacket (with yellow tinted cuffs and collar) over a white shirt, along with jeans and white sneakers. When actually fighting, he switches to a yellow sleeveless shirt and blue pants, with black shoes, a black karate belt and green wristbands. At the beginning of the Chapter Black arc, he wears his red jacket look, replacing it with a dark green suit jacket. In his fight against Sensui, he was seen without the green suit jacket as his white shirt that he wears was now loose. During the final arc, he returns to the complete red jacket look. During his training with Hokushin and being given his inheritance by Raizen before dying, he wears the same outfit as in the Dark Tournament; his sleeveless shirt became light yellow and his black karate belt is replaced with a black obi and his blue martial arts pants became longer due to his current height. When fighting in the tournament, dons a fully white-clad karate uniform, complete with a green sash around the waist and black shoes. He is also seen wearing a complete dark blue suit with grey pants, black shoes and a white undershirt when visiting Kuroko Sanada.

Personality
Having a no-show for a father and with his mother always off somewhere else (getting drunk or partying), Yusuke has grown up in a very neglectful environment. He's short-tempered, impulsive, merciless and likes to intimidate those who are afraid of him. Underneath his bold, cocky attitude, he has a joking and kind nature.

Yusuke has also had the bad luck of having to deal with so many cruel and despicable people at such a young age. Iwamoto being among them.

One of his most notable traits is his desire to fight, which becomes more noticeable as the series progresses. Yusuke has been noted on many occasions to be rather unintelligent, and, at times, just plain stupid. However, as his teacher Genkai later notes, he "can be a genius at fighting". Yusuke's desire to fight is more out of enjoyment of a good brawl, and surprisingly Yusuke doesn't like killing if he can avoid it.

Even though Yusuke is feared by most students and severely disliked by almost all of the teachers, he is generally misunderstood. Keiko Yukimura, one of his childhood friends (and later love interest), is one of the very few who knows Yusuke is actually very kind, and she sympathizes with his problems in life. Yusuke also becomes very protective of his friends, especially Keiko, Botan, Koenma, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei. Out of all the six mentioned, though, Younger Toguro notes that Yusuke is "the most protective" of Kuwabara, most likely because Yusuke knew him longer than Hiei and Kurama, and also because of the frailty of Kuwabara's human heritage.

Abilities

 * Spiritual Peering Lenses: One of the first items Yusuke gets to help him out as a spirit detective, it is able to see hidden items in clothing and implied to see through clothes. It is stopped being used after the first arc, as the enemies focus more on combat than retrieving items.


 * Spectral Energy Meter: One of the first items Yusuke gets to help him out as a spirit detective, it is able to locate identified demons no matter how far they are, however it breaks after sensing Rando implying it is useless on C class and higher ranked demons.

Super Human Stamina/Endurance: Yusuke has shown feats of stamina and endurance beyond that of a human multiple times, and after his Mazoku rebirth he displayed an even higher level of stamina. His most notable is where he is shown running for 3-5 days straight at high speeds along side Hokushin and Touou, while the two monks are exhausted Yusuke is fine, he went to fight Raizen afterwards. Another notable example is Yusuke's fight against Yomi, which lasted for around 60 hours - this is mentioned by Yusuke in the 170th chapter of the manga.
 * Spiritual Shooting Ring: One of the first items Yusuke gets to help him out as a spirit detective, it is able to boost his offensive spiritual energy at the cost of exhaustion. It is implied to be removed after Yusuke trains hard enough under Genkai to fight C-class demons and higher.

Super Human/Enhanced Strength: While not immediately evident at the start of the anime/manga, Yusuke is clearly stronger than all of his peers and most adults. At age 14, he was shown as strong enough to hurt Gokiin his human form and even lift a fallen tree to stab him. When participating in Genkai's tournament, he is shown to be strong enough to create a sharp 'wind blade' by just using his full strength in a punch. During the Chapter Black arc, Yusuke's punch at one-third of his strength was capable of knocking out amateur boxer Moruta with merely its shock wave.

Super Speed: Yusuke has shown multiple instances of super speed. During the Artifact Retrieval Arc, his rage increased his speed to Hiei's level, and he was show to able to follow Hiei's movements even in his Jagan/full demon form. Another show of his speed was when Hiei attacked him in order to test the progress he made in his training when they met up for the Dark Tournament. He is also shown to be fast enough to overtake cars with ease while on a bicycle. While battling Sensui, Yusuke is capable of moving at incredible speeds faster than Hiei.

Super Human Durability: Yusuke, in his fight with Bakken (a very physically imposing man) was taking several blows and would continue to get back up like nothing ever happened. And in his fight with Chu he got hit with one of his ogre boulders and emerged only with a few scratches and no shirt.

Power Sphere Fusion: In the second movie, Yusuke is shown to be able to control and convert the energy in the power sphere to Spirit Energy, something which even King Enma could not accomplish. [Not to be confused with the attack which has the same name.

Spirit Awareness: After being revived from the dead and obtaining the ability to use spirit energy Yusuke gains Spirit Awareness. While not as talented as the Kuwabara siblings, he is perceptive of beings who have large amounts of spirit or demon energy, such as Younger Toguro. The usage and amount of spiritual abilities and energy develop over the series, where he can discharge his spirit gun at a limitless rate and designate specific individuals' energy, despite not being in close proximity.

Yusuke enjoys a good brawl, and seems to prefer fighting with his fists, though he specializes in long range projectile techniques that destroy foes from a distance or many foes at once. Thus when he fights to defeat the opponent, for the sake of efficiency he will tend to strike from afar with his spiritual projectiles (when using Spirit Gun, his face rarely shows the satisfaction he has when fist-fighting), but will fight using his physical skills if he wants to enjoy a good battle. A tactic he sometimes employs is to fight with his fists at close range, and once the opponent leaps back to dodge an attack, Yusuke will shoot a Spirit Gun at them.

While Yusuke prefers to use his fists in a fight, he will use any type of blow (punch or kick) to attack his opponent like when he kicked the Younger Toguro in the face to attack and avoid Toguro's punch. Yusuke is also a fan of mixed martial arts and it seems likely that he has taken more than a few moves from watching matches. Unless he is in a dangerous situation, Yusuke is a very aggressive fighter and rarely thinks before making a move, even firing a Spirit Gun at Sensui and realizing too late it may harm Kuwabara. Overall, One would describe Yusuke as an instinctive fighter. His ability to read and attack his opponents comes from a high innate fighting sense rather than practiced study.

Due to his experience as a delinquent, Yusuke knows quite a few street-fighting techniques. He has a very hard head, which results in a very powerful headbutt, which is apparently stronger than Chu's whose own headbutt was known to have broken boulders. He also has a body blow rush technique called the Intestine Killer. Shura and Yomi describe him as using "No cheap moves or any real form to his fighting at all." and "He fights simply to enjoy the true nature of it."

Due to his relative weakness compared to demons, initially he defeated his enemies by outsmarting them (i.e. Goki) or by sheer luck (i.e. Rando ). In later battles, this is not emphasized as much, and tends to defeat his foes with his strength or a boost of power he gains from a dire situation or from rage.
 * Spirit-Gun or Ray Gun - This is Yusuke's signature move. He concentrates his Spirit Energy into his right index finger and releases it as a projectile. After channeling his energy, he pulls the trigger in his mind when he wants to fire the "bullet." The Spirit-Gun blast can range in size from a small shot (at this point it was only twice as strong as his punch), to a full-sized cannon blast, to a near atomic-explosion, as demonstrated in the demon world tournament. Initially, Yusuke can only fire the spirit gun a limited number of times per day. At first, early in his commission as Spirit Detective, he can only use it once per day, but by the beginning of the Dark Tournament, after rigorous training under Genkai, Yusuke can use it four times per day. After this, the number of bullets did not increase, but the strength of the individual bullets did. Eventually he gains the ability to shoot the spirit gun with virtually unlimited ammo in the anime, as shown in his fight against Yomi. It was originally given to him by Spirit World to fight off demons as required during his cases, but later becomes his signature move. Yusuke can deliberately weaken his gun so that it merely stuns the opponent rather than kill them, as shown by its use on Kuwabara.


 * Spirit-Gun Mega - In his battle against the Younger Toguro, Yusuke uses up all his remaining energy to summon a gigantic energy bullet. Though unnamed in both the anime and manga, it is called such in the games.


 * Demon-Gun - This is the demon energy version of the Spirit-Gun. After he is reborn as the Mazoku, Yusuke gains the ability to fire his demon energy from his index finger. It is a vastly powerful attack. Yusuke fires a concentrated crimson blast of powerful demon energy that inflicts greater damage than a normal Spirit Gun did prior to his transformation. By the end of the series, Yusuke is able to fire both his spirit and demon gun with virtually unlimited ammo, so long as he has energy. It is unnamed in all versions.


 * Demon Gun Mega - An ultimate version of his Spirit Gun, where an intense concentration of energy is released to create a devastating energy attack capable of annihilating anything. He first uses this upon receiving Raizen's power, and kills Shinobu Sensui with it while under Raizen's control. It is unnamed in the manga and anime, but called Demonic Spirit Gun in the card game.


 * Spirit Shotgun - Yusuke gathers spirit energy into his fist to form a large blast of spirit energy from it to shoot out in less powerful but many blasts. While the technique is not as powerful as the Spirit Gun, a few advantages it has is that the shots are widespread, which makes it highly effective against quick or invisible opponents or large numbers of weak enemies. Yusuke first used this technique against a group of thugs, who were controlled by the Demon World Insects. It may not be the same technique, but Yusuke used a punch with multiple spirit gun blasts (used on Yomi but had no effect probably because spirit shotgun has weaker bullets).


 * Spirit Punch : Though primarily a long distance fighter, in close combat, Yusuke is able to infuse parts of his body with Spirit Energy in an effort to enhance his ability in physical combat, especially his punches, but he does the same to his feet in the Tournament Tactics video game. The coating of spirit energy around his hands also can serve as a barrier to defend against projectile attacks such as Suzaku's arrows. It is unnamed in both versions, but is called as such in the video game, and is called "Spirit Fist" in the card game. He is once seen using Spirit Energy to strengthen his foot as well.


 * Spirit Kick: Along with Kuwabara, he is seen surrounding his foot with energy to strengthen his kicks to knock out the Third Ogre. In the manga it is just a regular kick, and Gokumonki was just weak. This was carried off into the GBA game as Kuwabara's counterpart to Yusuke's Spirit Punch.


 * Spirit Gun Barrage - Yusuke shoots two Spirit Guns in rapidfire. This technique has more force than the combined power of two Spirit Guns due to the fact that the second bullet pushes the first bullet as well, giving it more offensive power, to the point it could pierce Chu's giant Demon Energy Ball (Chu comments that the force of a single Spirit Gun would have been consumed). This technique was only used against Chu in the finals of the first round of the Dark Tournament by using Yusuke's remaining Spirit Gun shots together. While not mentioned in the English anime, a side effect from using this advanced technique caused Yusuke to temporarily lose the ability to use his Spirit Gun prior to the match against the Dr. Ichigaki Team due to his inexperience at manipulating Spirit Energy. Later in the anime, Yusuke uses a variation of this when he tries to break though Yomi's Demon Energy Absorption Wall during the Demon World Tournament.


 * Spirit Wave - Yusuke uses it to turn his entire body into a catalyst for his Spirit Energy. Instead of using his index finger to focus energy, Yusuke uses his entire body for this attack. This makes for extremely-powerful close-range attacks that negate the opponent's attack, but it's extremely difficult and dangerous to use. This was first seen being used against Jin in the Dark Tournament Saga. He tried using this against Sensui, in the original Japanese version, but was kicked out of range before he could do anything. It also has some healing properties, as he is able to heal from the wounds Kazuya inflicted when he shot at him, close range. Not to be confused with Genkai's Fighting Style, or Genkai's purification technique, which all share the same name in the English dub.

Trivia

 * Yuusuke is the first character from Yu Yu Hakusho to be introduced in the AWA fics.


 * Yusuke's first name means "ghost helper" and his last name is a word that is said by dead spirits.


 * Although he is often overlooked, Yusuke is the youngest human to achieve S-Class energy levels. Even as a Mazoku he still will be the youngest to achieve this level of strength.


 * He is called Eugene in the Filipino dub of the anime.


 * Keiko says he doesn't know how to whistle.