Yusuke Urameshi/Synopsis

This is the story of the Spirit Detective named Yusuke Urameshi.
==Beginnings==
Yusuke Urameshi was 14 years of age in the beginning, as well as the toughest member of his middle school and is the rival of Kazuma Kuwabara. He used to be a stereotypical bad kid, with a bad attendance record and picks fights with other kids at school. In the manga, he also smokes, gambles and drinks.
While skipping school and being berated by his mother, Yusuke wanders around the town. He entertains a child by making silly faces, but when the kid wanders into the street in front of an oncoming car, Yusuke risked his life to save him by shoving him out of the way. He is struck by the car, and killed. As a ghost, Yusuke is greeted by an atypical version of the Grim Reaper; a bubbly, cheerful young woman named Botan. She informs Yusuke that no one in Spirit World had expected him to die risking his life to save the little boy. Thus, they have no place for him in the afterlife. She remarked that Yusuke can return to life, but he initially declined.
==Story==
===Spirit Detective Saga===
This changes once he visits his wake, where people pay their condolences to his mother. Atsuko, his mother is really depressed about her son dying. Keiko Yukimura, a childhood friend cries uncontrollably, screaming Yusuke's name. Kuwabara appears, a somewhat rival of Yusuke's, mad and sad that he died before they could finish all of their battles. Two of his teachers disparage Yusuke at the wake; Mr. Takenaka, also a teacher, scolds them for insulting him. He pays his respects to Atsuko and cries at Yusuke's death; only then, Yusuke's mom reacts, bursting into tears when she hears about them talking about Yusuke. Lastly, the child who Yusuke saved appears with his mother. The boy asks if he can play with Yusuke again, his mother cries and then hugs him. Knowing now that he meant more to others than he realized, Yusuke decides he wants to be alive again.
Yusuke is given an egg by Koenma, acting lord of Spirit World (in place of his father, who often left to work in other places), and is told that it will hatch a Spirit Beast, which will help him get back to life. However, he must be a genuinely good person. If he is evil, the beast will devour him. While in the anime Yusuke only accomplishes two good deeds, he does a lot more in the manga due to the timeline of events being more stretched out in the manga. This includes helping a boy Shouta get over his dog's death, helping a girl who had died get over her obsession with a boy who didn't really care for her so she can move on, and also being temporarily revived to keep his body fresh so it won't die out and not allowing Keiko know about this, though Kuwabara encounters him and Yusuke explains to him what is happening before he returns to being a ghost. Yusuke sacrifices the beast to save Keiko, who had received dreams and messages from Yusuke's ghost that he would be returning to life, and she needed to take care of his body so that he would be able to return to it. However, a fire starts in Yusuke's home and his body runs the risk of being incinerated. Keiko runs into the fire to protect it, and is trapped in the fire. Yusuke gave up all the power gained from his good deeds after his death to have Koenma save her. Koenma used this to put out some of the flames and opened up a path for her to escape from the fire.
Due to this incident, with Koenma directly in contact with Yusuke's soul, he figured that the wave cycle of Yusuke's power is extremely long and has to meet the right time to be resurrected or he would have to wait for another fifty-two years (fifty years in the Japanese version and English manga) before the next chance and decided to let Yusuke return to life earlier even though the fire incident should have delayed the process since his power gained from good deeds were used up (In the manga, Yusuke had to go through one more good deed to be eligible for this by possessing an old acquaintance named Matsuo Suekichi to help him gain the confidence to achieve his dream of becoming a boxer). The only way for Yusuke to be resurrected is by a kiss from someone who is very close to him until midnight. Yusuke could tell, by dream, to three people he knew in order to do this, but he only told Keiko and Kuwabara since his mother started drinking and would not go to bed. Kuwabara did not believe the dream, due to its awkward subject matter, and Keiko got delayed by her mother's illness. Botan possessed Keiko's mother to leave a message saying Yusuke was in a more dire state than she was. Keiko manages to kiss Yusuke in time, and Yusuke is returned.
After returning, Yusuke is surprised to notice a demon inhabiting the body of a street punk. Botan shows up and tells Yusuke that his experience with death allowed him to do these things. He is to become Earth's Spirit Detective, and protect the human race from demons.
=== Artifact Recovery Arc ===
As Spirit Detective, he is now assigned with a mission. First, he has to recover three stolen artifacts from the Spirit World. Koenma first trains Yusuke by teaching how to fire his spirit energy. Humans and spirits can use this energy as a weapon. This becomes Yusuke's signature move, the Spirit Gun. Yusuke tries to combat the three thieves. First is Hiei, who stole the Sword of Shadows. Next Kurama, who stole a mirror called the Forlorn Hope. Last is Goki, who stole a soul-stealing article called the Orb of Bast.
Yusuke, with help from Botan, defeated Gouki with his Spirit Gun. When he confronts Kurama, Kurama voluntarily turns over the Forlorn Hope since he only wanted to use its power to save the life of his mother. Kurama wanted to sacrifice his life for the mirror so he can save his mother's, but Yusuke selflessly asked the mirror to take his own life so Kurama can be with his mother. The mirror granted Kurama's wish and spared both of their lives, and Yusuke took the mirror. Yusuke, with Botan, then went go to fight Hiei, who kidnapped Keiko so he can turn her into a demon. While Botan fought off the transformation, Yusuke outmaneuvered the super fast demon by using his Spirit Gun to bounce off the Forlorn Hope, purposely missing Hiei to strike the mirror, which caused the arrogant demon to believe Yusuke missed.
==== Rando Arc ====
Yusuke then was sent to the compound of Master Genkai, an aged fighter who was looking for a successor to her powerful Spirit Wave technique (Reikō Hadō Ken or Spirit Light Wave Fist in the original Japanese version). Botan warned that a demon named Rando would probably try to inherit her technique. Yusuke fought through her tournament and defeated Rando in the end (out of luck), becoming her successor. For the next two weeks (in the Japanese anime, it is a month and in the English anime, it is six months), Yusuke undergoes tough training with Genkai. As a result, his strength radically heightens, push him from a D-class to a C-class.   
=== Saint Beasts Arc ===
Yusuke was then sent to Maze Castle to defeat the four Saint Beasts and stop them from taking over the human race with demon parasites. Kuwabara decided to go with Yusuke, and Koenma sent Kurama and Hiei, who were on probation in the human world, to assist. Yusuke fought his way to Suzaku, the leader of the group, and managed to defeat him, but at the cost of his own life energy. Kuwabara, the only human of the group, saved him by transferring part of his own life energy.
==== Yukina Rescue Arc     ====
Yusuke then goes with Kuwabara (and Botan in the anime) to rescue a beautiful ice apparition named Yukina, of whom Kuwabara becomes smitten. However, Yukina is actually Hiei's twin sister, a fact that Kuwabara and even Yukina herself is unaware of. Yusuke fights all the way to the Toguro brothers. Yusuke and Kuwabara defeat them with teamwork and rescue the maiden, but it turns out that the Toguros threw the fight on purpose. The younger Toguro brother coerces Yusuke to join the Dark Tournament (Ankoku Būtsukai or Black Martial Arts Tournament in the original Japanese) and defeat him in a real fight.
===Dark Tournament===
Over the next two months Yusuke trains with Master Genkai for the Dark Tournament. For the Tournament they have have teams. Yusuke's team consist of himself, Kuwabara, Hiei, Kurama, and Master Genkai as "The Masked Fighter" to create Team Urameshi. The first round they have to fight the team called the Jolly Devil Six. Yusuke won against Chu. In this fight the two finish the fight with a knife edge death match. In this type of match, Chu puts two knives into the floor and he and Yusuke put their feet in front of the knife. Whoever slipped first off the knife would lose and the winner could kill the loser. Fortunately for Chu, Yusuke doesn't kill him. The next round he along with Kuwabara and Genkai face M1, M2, and M3 in a 3 vs. 3 match. Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Genkai, as "The Masked Fighter" win. Yusuke had to skip the fourth round so Genkai can train him to face Younger Toguro. Genkai gave him the Spirit Wave Orb, which was most of her reiki (or spirit energy) in an orb.
Yusuke had to face an unbearable pain in order to absorb the orb. He was now prepared for the finals to face Younger Toguro. Genkai attempts to face Toguro but she is killed by him. With the last of her strength, she explains her connection to Younger Toguro. In a Dark Tournament 50 years ago Genkai and Younger Toguro were teammates. She explains that Younger Toguro was human, until he became a demon to keep his strength and be young.
She thens warns him not to become like Younger Toguro and then the fight begins. During their long battle Genkai possesses Pu, Yusuke's spirit beast, to tell Younger Toguro that in order to bring out Yusuke's full potential, he must kill Kuwabara, his best friend. He does so but Kuwabara was secretly alive. This brings out all of Yusuke's strength and he defeats Younger Toguro.
===Chapter Black Saga===
In this saga, Yusuke has to stop Shinobu Sensui. Sensui was a former Spirit Detective who was driven insane by the Chapter Black videotape, a tape with the cruelest things that humans have ever done. He wants to open a portal to Demon World so the demons can bring terror to people to punish them. But in order to defeat him, he must defeat the rest of the Sensui Seven. With help from Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara he fights Sensui. But he realizes he can't defeat Sensui. So he has Sensui kill him to awaken Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama's hidden potential.
But this wouldn't be the last time to we see Yusuke. His ancestral demon blood has resurrected him and he now has the power of an S-class demon. It was revealed that he is a Mazoku, or a descendant the Amazaku demons. His demon ancestor named Raizen had a baby with a human woman. Raizen made so when the stars reach a certain alignment, a descendant would become a demon if they were worthy of being resurrected. The first time Yusuke died, his potential awoke and so did his hidden spirit powers. Missions after wards, especially during his fight with the Younger Toguro, they helped awaken his demon blood.
However, in the end, it was his death at the hands of Sensui that pushed his change over the edge and completely changed him, allowing demonic kinship symbols to emerge all over his body and pushes him to S class power. After this transformation, he fights Sensui in the Demon World. Even with his new demon energy he still cannot defeat Sensui, until he is then possessed by his ancestor Raizen to help control his new-found power. This causes Yusuke's body to transform yet again, gaining demonic eyes and long white hair, and bringing out his potential power, boosting him to upper S class demon power. As a result, Raizen, through Yusuke's body, kills Sensui which upsets Yusuke greatly. So much in fact, Yusuke wanted to track down Raizen over the ordeal, thinking that if he was to kill a human like Sensui, he should have been the one to make the decision, not his ancestor. Koenma informed him that the passage way to the living world and the demon world was closing. He presented Yusuke with a choice; stay in the demon world forever, or return to his home. Yusuke chose the latter in the end.
Eventually, Yusuke is removed from his position as Spirit Detective because he is considered too dangerous for the Human Realm. The Great Emperor Enma (King Yama in the English anime) wants Yusuke dead so that he does not become as dangerous as Sensui. Even going to the home of former Spirit Detective Kuroko Sanada does not help much, since she partly agrees with Enma's judgment after Hokushin, Raizen's second-in-command shows up demanding that Yusuke come to the Demon Realm to help Raizen because Raizen is dying.
===Three Kings Saga===
Yusuke agrees to do so since Raizen interrupted his match against Sensui. He has everyone meet at Genkai's temple for a farewell and promises Keiko that he will return in three years time. After meeting Raizen, he learns that Raizen is dying because he needs to eat humans to survive, which he gave up after he met a female doctor who is Yusuke's ancestor. Yusuke fights him, but loses to him quite easily; then learns that Mukuro and Yomi are just as strong as the current, and weakened, Raizen.
After a year of training Yusuke, Raizen dies, but reveals to Yusuke that if he had eaten humans he would have already been the strongest yōkai. Yusuke chooses to hold a tournament, since he knows he is incapable of ruling Raizen's territory. During his match against Yomi, Yusuke suddenly realizes he has lost his purpose, and questions why he is fighting. He used to fight because as a child, he had been angry and neglected, and took out his anger by fighting. Then he became a Spirit Detective and fought powerful men such as Toguro and Sensui to save the world, although they were actually looking for someone more powerful to defeat them.
Yusuke wonders whether he is now just waiting for someone to defeat him, now that his anger is gone and all he has is fighting, but Raizen's voices comes back and refreshes his mind. He remembers that he is fighting, not just to find his own identity, but for the sake of his friends as well. From this renewed strength, Yusuke discovers a new seikouki, and the fight between him and Yomi comes down to one punch. Rushing at each other, the fight would have been a tie, except that Yomi was able to continue standing because of an impromptu shout from Shura. Yusuke falls unconscious and doesn't awaken until after the tournament ends. After wards Yusuke leaves Makai shortly between the time after the tournament ends and before his three years are up.
===Final Chapters===
At the final chapters sometime after the end of the tournament, he opened a ramen booth and restarted his spirit detective business. Most of the work he received are getting signatures from friends of his that became famous idols.
Category:Synopsis