Disclaimer
While I will be reviewing the movie, I will also talk about the OVAs that come with the Fundimation dub that you can get now. The OVAs and my quick opinion on them will be at the bottom at the conclusion. Also, I'll try to be as unbias as I can in this review. This review will be conducted on a point system, number of points dependent on how the movie in question does in each category; plot, characterization, emotional pull, scene quality, and creativity. Each category can earn as low as no points and as high as two points. Thank you.
WARNING possible spoilers WARNING
The plot is that this little guy in demon school was trying to get a girlfriend. Koenma comes in and steals the girl, and that literally starts the plot. We don't know this until later but that is the plot in a nutshell. So this little shrimp hires some muscle, kidnaps Koenma, and demands the Golden Seal, an artifact that can mess up paperwork and send the world into chaos. While Yusuke tries to get the Golden Seal to Koenma, demons attack. I should mention here that this movie is incredibly short. Is the plot good? Well not really, because the movie is so short the plot is rushed and bare boned making it somewhat predictable and silly when you learn it was all because Koenma stole a girl in preschool. It isn't a bad idea, but it isn't really fully developed either.
If the movie is rushed due to run time, you can bet Yusuke, Hiei, and the others don't learn anything from this. The only real characterization here belongs to Koenma who realizes Yusuke kind of does care about him. Villain? Cliche wanted criminal. Koenma's rival? Silly and nearly pointless and doesn't expand the plot at all, since the criminal could have done this all himself. Bleh.
There was a couple really good fight scenes. Not bad, but not great. I'm not joking either, that is about all the emotion I felt.
Great animation for how old the movie is, and honestly none of the scenes are pointless (with how short the movie is how could anything be wasted?). It is a bit grainy of course due to age, but for the time this animation is pretty awesome, and it works rather well. Every scene was excellently working for the movie and the animation is great.
How Yusuke beat the demon at the end was pretty good. Outside of that, the movie is a creative flop. Yes there are decent ideas, like the tree demons and the powers of the main villain, but none of it is really used well enough. The new demon types are cool, but we barely get to see them before they are slaughtered and the main villain who has the most air time isn't unique enough to care too much.
This movie is mediocre, not really being bad, but not really being good either. It exists, but if you skipped this, you wouldn't be missing much. This movie is bundled with OVAs however, but they aren't all that long nor are they all that developed. Plenty of extras but even they get a little old at times. The extras and OVAs mostly recap what has already happened, as well as show you a little bit on what happened after the series. Do these extras and OVAs add points to buying the bundle? No. You really could look most of them up elsewhere and not be disappointed.
If you are a huge fan of Yu Yu Hakusho and you have twenty bucks to spend on ten dollars worth of content, go for it. Everyone else, I'd either ignore or watch online. There isn't too much content here movie wise and even the OVAs repeat most of what you can see in the rest of the series. The movie is a short movie that is neither bad, nor is it good, and the rest is just small shorts. I don't recommend buying unless you really REALLY have nothing better to do.