Character · Yu Yu Hakusho
Hiei
Four letters, three of them vowels, and one of the shortest tempers in shonen.
In Otakana the clue reads: Short demon with a bandaged third eye
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Yu Yu Hakusho
- Letters
- 4 · Normal
Hiei enters Yu Yu Hakusho as a thief. He steals three artifacts from the underworld vault with Kurama and Gouki, gets caught by a newly employed dead teenager, and is sentenced to work off the crime by helping the same teenager on future cases. He accepts the arrangement while making it clear, at length and often, that he considers all of them beneath him.
He is small, he is a fire demon, and he is fast enough that his sword work reads as a blur followed by an outcome. Under the white bandana sits a third eye, the Jagan, implanted by a surgeon in exchange for a considerable price, which grants sight and control at a distance. His strongest technique summons a dragon of black flame that is as likely to consume the user as the target.
The reason he stays with the group has nothing to do with the sentence. Togashi threads a family connection through the series that Hiei refuses to acknowledge out loud, and the character is at his sharpest whenever he is protecting something while insisting he does not care.
Spelling HIEI
HIEI is four letters, and only the H is a consonant. Three vowels in a row, I then E then I, which is the sort of shape that either unlocks a row instantly or eats a guess. Read it in three beats, hi-e-i, with each vowel sounded separately rather than glued into a diphthong. The kanji 飛影 means flying shadow, and the same reading names Mount Hiei outside Kyoto.