YuYu Hakusho Manga: 005 Her First Christmas!

Oops, I'm a few months late on this one, it seems. Just try to ignore that spring is in full swing right now, okay? I mean, the sun is coming up sooner and sooner, my seedlings are in their planters, and the birds are waking me up with all their chirping in the morning, but we can pretend right? I'll put on some carols and look at pictures of Santa Claus, and try to imagine snow on the increasingly dry landscape outside. The fact that I don't have to put on a hundred layers still kind of breaks the immersion for me, unfortunately. 

I feel like being a guide to the afterlife would make religion... unnecessary.

Botan doesn't answer, of course, but mostly because she suddenly tenses up from what she identifies as a spirit energy that is not at ALL Christmasy. Yusuke repeats the phrase "spirit energy" back to her as a question, so she explains that it's the aura that souls give out when they can't rest in peace, and it's one of the more difficult aspects of her job as a "Grim Reaper", because it's made up of resolving the spirit's conflicts so they can get off to Heaven. Yeah, human conflict? It turns out that's not easy to work through. Go figure.

Botan identifies the spirit as a depressed-looking young lady, in a jacket over a frilly shirt with a high collar accented by some sort of brooch. Yusuke lounges in the air behind Botan, looking curious but not overly invested, but Botan is immediately put-off; she says this one is a "fixated" ghost, meaning she is fixed in a certain spot by strong emotions, and those tend to be SUPER stubborn. She is, indeed, seated on the very edge of a bench in a long pleated skirt, and she's looking around at the people bustling around her, but doesn't appear to be ready to move. 

She looks like she perceives Botan just as Botan swoops in on her oar.

Oh, it looks like she ditched the oar, never mind.

Botan lays it on real thick with a big kitty grin and by pointing to her own face with both hands, introducing herself as a guide to the underworld, and saying that she's pleased to meet the spirit. Yusuke looks disgusted with this display and tells her to stop with the chipper intro already. The spirit says she knows who Botan is and why she's there, since a couple of other guides tried. She already told those others that she's waiting here on this bench for someone, so she doesn't really want to leave, thanks. 

Botan begins to inform her about her, *ahem*, condition, but the girl cuts her off to tell her that she KNOWS, but she's wanting to wait there all the same. Yusuke also takes on a kitty-face, but a significantly more mischievous one, and raises a thumb to ask if whoever she's waiting for is the Tarzan to her Jane. The note under this panel explains that this thumbs-up gesture is used when referring to someone's boyfriend, so I guess that makes sense, but that face Yusuke is using makes me think there's a little more to the euphemism than that. Feel free to comment if you've got a little more info!

While Botan tells Yusuke he's NO Mr. Sensitive, the girl tells them that the person she's waiting for is named Kenji, over a tinted panel with a boy giving a peace sign. The girl ghost says that they agreed to meet at this spot last year to spend Christmas together, but she fell REALLY ill on the day. She wanted to call him, but she didn't have much of a chance, seeing as she went into a coma and never woke up again. Botan wears a concerned expression as she reiterates the meaning of this - that the girl's desire to see Kenji intensified in her death and bound her to the place they were to meet. The girl says she STOOD HIM UP WITH NO EXPLANATION and wanted to apologize. 

... I guess she COULD conceivably argue that she literally ghosted him.  

Hang on, gotta go to pun jail for a sec.

Botan makes a sad noise, but Yusuke is incredulous. He asks her who would POSSIBLY expect an apology for getting sick and dying, telling her to let it go. I agree with him, because who'd even WANT to apologize to that kind of person anyway? The girl says he might be right, but she's content to wait anyway, and she likes sitting here, watching the people bustle by, daydreaming. 

I mean, it's a toss-up. If the trauma around this place and day are too much to handle right now...

Sweatdropping, Yusuke turns to Botan and asks if this is possible, and Botan says Christmas isn't her department, so she doesn't really know. There's a Christmas DEPARTMENT? And Botan, with all her gushing about the warm-fuzzies of the season, doesn't get to be a part of it??? INJUSTICE. Over a clock which shows the time as a quarter to twelve, Botan asks politely what time the girl and her beau were planning to meet last year, and the answer is noon. Botan advises the girl to take it as a sign that it's time to move on if he doesn't show, because it would do her no good to hang out here for the rest of eternity. The girl responds with silence.

The silence stretches to the next panel, which shows the clock at 1:30 now, and either Yusuke or Botan comments on that fact. Botan shrugs and says she really doesn't think the dude is coming. Yusuke is sitting next to the girl on the bench now, man-spreading for maximum comfort during the long wait, no doubt. The girl says that Kenji was usually a half hour or more late as if this is an explanation, prompting Yusuke to grimace and remark with disbelief that anyone who made him wait more than fifteen minutes got their lights put out. Seems like a disproportionate response, Yusuke, but okay. 

The girl admits hesitantly that she LOVES the moment he shows up at last, saying he's sorry he's late, as he's trotting toward her. Dude is sounding more and more like a major flake the more she tells us about him, huh? Yusuke jabs at his own forehead and says he just doesn't get it, and he's not the only one. I am just flabbergasted. 

After a while more watching the crowd, the girl recognizes a figure glancing over toward her among the throngs of people. All three of them stare, identifying the boy that's milling around the place as Kenji in shock. Yusuke turns toward Botan again, slowly beginning to voice what this means, before Botan interrupts him to excitedly declare that God granted the girl's wish. Kenji looks again in the girl's direction and starts heading straight over. 

Uh, can he actually SEE her...?

... Guess not. 

Kenji leans a knee on the bench right next to our original girl to talk to the flesh-and-blood one over the backs of the benches, apologizing again and giving the excuse that he overslept. What, slept until NOON, dude? I don't buy it. The other girl sits with her arms crossed and her back to him, informing him she's been there for half-an-hour and that she was about to take off. She should do that anyway, this guy is the flakiest MF in the universe. Get you a man who don't suck.

Kenji clams up for a second, looking off to the side contemplatively, then tells the other girl that she reminded him of something. They're facing each other now, her asking him what it was, though she still looks pretty peeved. He confesses that he used to go out with a girl who would wait for HOURS for him without complaining. Kenji says with absolutely NO remorse that he bet a buddy last year that this chick would wait for him at this very spot for FIVE HOURS, but the little prissy-pants (his words, not mine) didn't show and he lost 10,000 Yen. Oh, the injustice of it all. The other girl asks what happened to this first girl, and Kenji says he just doesn't know, and that they haven't talked since. 

How... how do you NOT KNOW? You didn't hear about her death through the grapevine AT ALL??? 

Anyway, Kenji says she was nothing special anyway, just someone to kill time with. Or deliberately kill HER time, anyway. Meanwhile, Yusuke is once again trying to punch the shit out of a corporeal target with incorporeal fists - he's pretty angry at this dude. Kenji says he's got another like her RIGHT NOW, and somehow this other girl and he laugh about this notion, despite the CLEAR INSULT this is on her. Just totally fails to realize that he's calling her nothing special to kill time with. She seems none too bright, unfortunately. 

Veins popping in rage, Yusuke asks Botan how he can clobber this clown, but she says he's not going to be able to do that in his current state. The original girl is sitting quietly, tears forming in her eyes. Trembling, she stutters that she would have waited those five hours if she hadn't gotten sick, and that she's stupid that way, a humorless laugh escaping her. The more painful irony being that she ended up waiting A LOT more than five hours because she got sick. She buries her face in her hands, Botan kneeling in front of her to try and persuade her not to cry, that it's better knowing all this than continuing to wait. Yusuke is still staring off in the direction Kenji and his new mark fucked off.

That's not unusual for you, though, kiddo.

Yusuke turns to the girl with his teeth still clenched in his not-at-all contained fury and yells at her to forget Kenji and erase him from her memory, never giving him another thought again for eternity. Recoiling, she meekly tries to tell him that she can't just DO that, but Yusuke growls in rage that "can't" means "won't" and she just "won't" if she keeps on sitting there on the bench like that. He seizes her by the back of her collar and DRAGS her off her seat of an entire year, ignoring Botan's impotent protests, and the more insistent ones from the girl, declaring that there's only one way to forget that good-for-nothing POS, and that's them going to party. 

Well, you know what they say. You've got to fight. For your right.

To party.

After all that crazy fun, Yusuke walks ahead of the girl, who staggers a bit, saying she can barely walk anymore. Why not just fly, since you're a ghost and all? Anyway, she exclaims that was the most fun she'd ever had in her life, if you'll pardon the inaccurate expression. Yusuke says it's too bad they couldn't have scored some beer, but the girl says she's not complaining, smiling wide. Pointing at her, Yusuke comments on this smile, and casually states that she's really cute when she does that. She blushes and covers her mouth in embarrassment, and Yusuke asks what's wrong, insisting he meant what he said. As she bashfully tucks in her chin, he goads her into looking at him, and when that doesn't work, he starts making his faces at her to try and get her to give him another smile. She relents and laughs that he's a big goof. The girl recalls in the moment thinking about it that Kenji never told her she looked cute, and Yusuke says it's Kenji's loss. It's all painfully adorable.

Yusuke comments on how hard it is to see beautiful things like this from a stupid street bench, and after a pause, she agrees. Referring to the city lights below, Yusuke suggests that the guy she'd waited a year for was down there somewhere, and she should give him a piece of her mind. She places a hand on her chest as she takes a short breath... then yells out over the city her thanks to Kenji for everything, and her goodbye wish that he'll be happy. What a cinnamon roll! I could eat her up!

Yusuke is literally turned on his head by this, and questions these well-wishes of hers, suggesting that she tell him to go to Hell, at the very least. She refuses, because, in her mind, if he hadn't done what he'd done, she never would have met Yusuke and had the best day of her... not-life is left off the end of the sentence, of course. Yusuke gives her a curious look, rendered mostly speechless. 

The next panel shows that Botan has rejoined them, and the girl is sitting right behind her on the flying oar. Botan asks if the girl is ready to go, who answers in the affirmative. Addressing Yusuke, Botan says she'll see the girl to the entrance of Heaven. He's standing astride a roof as he gives his blessing, so to speak, and offers the girl a parting haiku poem: "Don't let stupid jerks rag you around in life or the afterlife, okay?" He acknowledges that there's one extra syllable in there with consternation, before wishing her good luck. While the girl agrees to this sentiment with some sadness, Botan nervously laughs that Yusuke makes quite the point. 

The girl looks even more melancholy when she thanks Yusuke for everything, and she means EVERYTHING. No one has ever pushed her into actually enjoying herself before, I guess. Yusuke reminds her that he told her she's at her best when she smiles, and tries to persuade her to do so again, putting one of his shoes on his head to act like a goofball again. Nevertheless, her eyes are filled with tears.

Careful, Yusuke, your tough-guy persona is suffering. 

After the girl disappears in a flash of light in the sky, Yusuke's expression turns to a strange mix of quizzical and serious, and he makes a trailing comment hinting that he's got some new plans to be getting on with. 

Cut to what looks like an apartment building, where Kenji and the other girl he met at the bench are lounging on a sofa, the latter draped across the former's lap while he holds a phone to his ear. He says it's almost time to go see if his girl is still waiting for him, betting he wins this year with a laugh. Ah, I guess he WASN'T referring to the other girl hanging out with him when he said he has another just like our original girl - he must have literally meant that he was stringing another random chick along that we've never seen. What is WITH this guy???

Kenji is confused when he hears a click and a tone on the phone he was speaking into, then shocked when a new menacing voice floats through it giggling, asking how he can dare make a game of loyalty and trust. Shrieking, Kenji drops the phone on the floor, upsetting the position of the girl over her lap so she has to sit up in alarm as he draws his feet up to crouch on the sofa. The hand that was holding the phone is trembling, and he can't help but ask who THAT was. 

Another yell as knocking and tapping starts surrounding them, then more maniacal giggling. Kenji demands, unconvincingly, that whoever is doing this stop fooling around, but the voice says it's really just begun. Kenji starts trying to guess who the voice/strange happenings belong to, listing off a list of female names. The girl next to him suddenly questions just how many others he's been seeing and deceiving in this way, as if it's only JUST occurred to her that this might be problematic behavior. But Kenji is too busy fleeing to the door to try and get out of there to answer. It's stuck at first, but just as it opens and he can express a little relief that he's able to escape...

I mean why SHOULDN'T Kenji get a little Ebenezer Scrooge treatment? 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It was cute on its face, and it was unmistakably a good deed to help this girl have a good time to allow her to let go of her attachment to a very unworthy fellow. As a woman who has experienced the pain of being led on and made a fool of by a couple of guys back in her day, this one DID tickle my vicarious revenge bone a little. But honestly, ANY situation in which a bully buddies up to you to humiliate you in some way is applicable here - doesn't have to be in a romantic way. If only they would all get the shit frightened out of them by ghosts for treating the pain of others as entertainment. 

I did cringe a LITTLE when Yusuke commented on the girl's cute smile and tried to coax another from her. This is a peeve for a lot of women, including myself, because it indicates a certain level of entitlement to women performing pleasantries for them. BUT, in this situation, she was already really happy, smiled because of that, and only stopped because she was bashful over Yusuke's comment and became self-conscious, so he was just encouraging her to go ahead and express her joy in the moment. My cringe was really more of a reflex, and when I had a thought about it, I was relieved to be able to honestly conclude that it was about as unproblematic as any manifestation of this could get.

Kenji not knowing WHAT happened to our girl is still mystifying to me, though. I realize they're in a city, and there probably isn't a lot of opportunity to hear about these things without social media around yet, but really? Not one INKLING that something was up? Did he not have ANY friends or acquaintances in common with her that he could potentially hear the news of her death through? At the very least he should have had SOME curiosity about why this girl who so obediently waited hours at a time for him suddenly up and disappeared without a trace. I'm almost tempted to think that he DID know and he didn't want to seem like even MORE of an unfeeling asshole to his legit squeeze, in case disrespect for the dead was a hard line for her, but I think that might have been communicated in some way in the text. 

In any case, the only REAL problem I have with this chapter is that we just... never learn the name of our girl, but we learn the name of her tormentor pretty early on. We almost didn't learn the name of the little boy in the last chapter either, so I feel like this might be an emerging pattern with this comic, and a somewhat annoying one to me. It's not inherently bad not to name one-offs that won't be coming back, but it DOES make my job as recapper and analyst a little more difficult.