5. Yu Yu Hakusho

There are a lot of inevitable comparisons of Dragon Ball Z to make with Yu Yu Hakusho. Both have buff guys shooting energy or ki blasts at each other, and both feature rapid martial arts fighting. However, Yu Yu Hakusho is its own animal. Yu Yu Hakusho’s plot and characters are incredibly unique and no one will accuse it of swiping material from something else. The plot of Yu Yu Hakusho is an interesting one. In the very first episode our protagonist dies from saving a kid from a car. Yep. He’s dead. Luckily, Spirit World intervenes and restores Yusuke to his body for good deeds that he continues to do in the afterlife. Once back to the living world the action really cooks up. Yusuke, at the urging of Koenma, the toddler overseer of the Spirit World, becomes a “spirit detective” and must hunt down evil apparitions. This leads Yusuke on all sorts of adventures and he teams up with Kuwabara, his goofy rival, to Kurama the wise tactician, to Hiei a hot-headed demon. Yu Yu Hakusho is great because none of the good guys become irrelevant (except one, but that’s not until really far into the show) and they all competently help out fighting the villains. Like I said before, Yu Yu Hakusho features Dragon Ball Z style action, but in some cases it’s better because there is no filler in the show, only hard-knuckle action. Watch the show and you’ll learn how to shoot a spirit gun… that may or may not be true but you’ll still be entertained.