Localization
In early 2001, the series was acquired by Funimation Entertainment for North American distribution as Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files.[15] Funimation's production saw a significant contribution from voice actor Justin Cook, who not only directed the dub but also voiced the protagonist Yusuke.[16][17]
The American-produced English dubbed episodes aired from February 23, 2002, to April 1, 2006, on Cartoon Network. Initially, the series was shown on the channel's Adult Swim programming block from February 2002 to April 2003, but was later moved to Toonami.[18][19] Some of the show's original depictions of mature content including violence, sexual humor, and coarse language, as well as some controversial cultural discrepancies were edited out for broadcast.[20][21] Yu Yu Hakusho was taken off Toonami around March 2005 and moved to an early Saturday morning time slot that October where the series finished its run.[22] It was also aired uncut as part of the Funimation programming block on Colours TV in 2006 and the Funimation Channel in high-definition in 2011.[23][24] Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was moved to Crunchyroll.[25]
The series was distributed in the United Kingdom by MVM Films and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment.[26][27][28][29][30][31] In India the English-language version of the series was released as Ghost Fighter.[32]
Yu Yu Hakusho was localized in the Philippines as Ghost Fighter and aired on IBC in the mid-1990s, as well as on GMA Network in 1998.[33] This dub, in Tagalog,[34] localized the characters' names, such as changing "Yusuke" to "Eugene".[35][36] At the time the World Wide Web was not yet widely available in the Philippines, and the creators of the dub had received limited information on the television series and its characters. Therefore they mistakenly believed Kurama was a female character, assigning the name Denise, and that Genkai was a male character, assigning the name Jeremiah. In regards to the former, after the dubbers learned Kurama was male, a later episode explained that Denise, now with the real name Dennis, is a male character pretending to be female.[37]
Funimation separated the series into four "seasons", that each compose their own story arc, which they refer to as "sagas". In North America, 32 DVD compilations have been released by Funimation for the four sagas, with the first released on April 16, 2002, and the last on July 19, 2005.[38][39] The episodes have been released in both edited and uncut formats. In addition, DVD collection boxes have been released for all four sagas, each containing all the episodes of that particular saga, except for the Dark Tournament Saga, which was split into two collection boxes.[40][41][42][43][44] Funimation released season box sets of the anime starting with season one on July 8, 2008, and ending with season four on January 13, 2009.[45]
