Summary: >

Yohko 1 - Yohko Mano was a girl who had little on her mind accept perhaps her constant crushes on various boys. Okay her ninja grandmother is a bit on the unusual side, but maybe her family is just a bit more on the traditional side. But as it turns out Yohko is about to be cursed with anything BUT a normal life, because she's destined to be the 108th generation Devil Hunter! Not that Yohko wants to be, but when her current crush gets kidnapped to be sacrificed by demons, and her grandmother takes a mortal wound, she may have no choice.

Yohko 2 - Yohko seems to be getting the hang of the Devil Hunting business. Her best friend Chi even decides to self appoint herself as Yohko's manager. Then Yohko gains another daunting task - an apprentice named Asuza. While Asuza may lack skill, she does have enthusiasm. But when Asuza stumbles on a shrine where a demon king is awakened she ends up in quite a mess that she's not able to handle. But then again Yohko may not be able to defeat him on her own either.

Yohko 3 - Yohko dreams of a beautiful prince who is sealed away by his father for a forbidden love. But as it turns out it isn't so much a dream and Yohko is transported to an alternate dimension where she finds out this prince is real. But he is indeed sealed away. If it seems absurd that Yohko would chase after some dream and fight demons just to meet some hunky guy... well that's about right, but this is Yohko after all. And some demons aren't going to get in the way of her and her dream of finally getting a boyfriend.

Yohko 5 - Yohko has done fairly well for herself up to this point. However now she will face her hardest challenge of all. As a right of passage each devil hunter has had to face the most powerful demon: Tokima. Tokima however isn't a fool by any means, and has many plots up his sleeve to defeat Yohko. But when an attack by Tokima turns her grandmother back into her youthful self, Yohko ends up with even more problems. But Yohko isn't really prepared to face the likes of Tokima either so she'll need all the help she can get - especially the help from previous generations.

Yohko 6 - Up until now Yohko has faced demons of many kinds but she is up for the fight of her life when her evil twin Ayako shows up! Not content to simply defeat Yohko, Ayako also steals away the guy she has a crush on. With her extreme dedication and abilities at least on par with Yohko, Ayako doesn't seem like she'll easily be beaten by Yohko. Especially since Ayako will stop at nothing to obtain the title of Devil Hunter.

Thoughts: >

Devil Hunter Yohko isn't really noteworthy aside from being the first title released by ADV, and thus given special treatment by that company. The catalog of titles that have a girl fighting monsters with a few super abilities could fill volumes at this point, but when Devil Hunter Yohko came out this was a new idea to American audiences. A bit of fan service, with some action and a bit silly, Devil Hunter Yohko is one of the first fluff titles that ever made it to American markets - but for what it is, not entirely bad.

The series is actually made up from a collection of OVAs that span years, different art styles and budget allotments. Grouping them together is probably not exactly fair, but then again Yohko never gets so deep that it goes outside of that first concept, and are thus pretty similar.

Yohko 1 is more like a b-grade horror flick, mashed together with anime comedy. The result is that the horror aspects don't work very well, but it takes itself too seriously for the comedy to work either. Still not exactly bad. Yohko 2-3 were OVAs released not too far apart, and drop most of the "horror" elements to focus on an action comedy formula that works much better for the series, but lacks depth and makes the title feel a bit generic - aside from that the stories are pretty short and unremarkable. Yohko 5 is where all this finally came together in the classic Yohko title, getting the action, and comedy stuff down but with a decent enough story to pull the title along. Then came Yohko 6 where things were getting a little tired, animation designs took a step down, and on top of this we are presented with an "evil twin" story. I was not impressed with Yohko 6.

About the only thing that prevented DHY from being a complete speed bump in anime history was mainly due to being at the right place at the right time. While not particularly bad, it's only a decent fluff piece at best. Unfortunately when taken in context of the overwhelming mountain of fluff in anime these days, there's no compelling reason to dig it up either. Still it holds a place dear to my heart for some reason that I've never been able to explain. Nostalgia I guess.