BODY: If you're cutting through the basement level of Ikebukuro Station this week, you may find yourself face to face with a demon fox with the most enviable hair in Tokyo.
A large-format advertisement for the collaboration between the Yu Yu Hakusho TV anime and Premior, the premium line from hair care brand La Sana, is currently installed along the Orange Road corridor on the B1 level of the Tobu Tojo Line's Ikebukuro Station. The display runs for one week only, from September 21 through September 27.
The ad features Kurama alongside his true form, Yoko Kurama — a casting choice that practically writes its own pitch. Kurama's flowing red hair and Yoko's silver mane are among the most recognizable silhouettes in Yoshihiro Togashi's 1990s classic, and putting them in front of a shampoo campaign is the kind of joke that Japanese fandom has been making unprompted for three decades. The station takeover is part of a broader collaboration campaign with La Sana that is running now.
Yu Yu Hakusho, adapted from Togashi's Weekly Shonen Jump manga and animated by Studio Pierrot from 1992 to 1995, has stayed commercially alive in a way few series of its era manage — sustained by anniversary merchandise, stage adaptations, and a steady stream of brand tie-ups aimed squarely at the adults who grew up with it.
The insider take
Location matters enormously here. Ikebukuro is the center of gravity for female-led fandom in Tokyo — Otome Road sits a short walk from the station's east side — and the Tobu Tojo Line's Orange Road has become a well-worn venue for anime ads precisely because that foot traffic converts. These week-long installations aren't really about commuters glancing at a poster. They're engineered for oshi-katsu pilgrimage: fans travel in, photograph the boards, and post them, giving the campaign a second life online that dwarfs the physical impressions. A seven-day window creates urgency by design. If you want the photo, you go now.
Originally reported by コミックナタリー - 最新ニュース (Japanese).