The first Eizou Hakusho OVA series is essentially a clip show highlighting a few of the fights from Yu Yu Hakusho's Dark Tournament arc running about an hour in total. There is a very small amount of new footage involving Koto trying in futility to get some commentary from the Urameshi team before the tournament finals, but aside from that, these episodes have little to offer.

Writing: The Koto segment is an amusing one, granted, but that said, it only lasts about 60 seconds. After that point, the OVA runs into lengthy cuts from the original series encompassing a few of the fights from the tournament in a semi-abridged format. Thus, there's not a whole lot to say about the story element here, because... well, there just isn't one. As stated previously, it's a clip show.

Art: The art, of course, doesn't vary at all from the quality present in the original show because... well, it is the original show, in clip format. The new animation with Koto (which I'm forced to continually return to as a reference point, it being the only new piece of new animation presented) held up to the same standards of artwork and animation as the series, so the whole OVA holds up consistently, at the very least.

Sound, though... this is what really hits home. If you were one of the early birds way back in the day and were introduced to the series in its original Japanese language, you shouldn't have any complaints here. If you are like myself and many of the show's fans who fell in love with the inventive and enthusiastic English dub of the show which garnered much popularity on Toonami, prepare to be disappointed. While FUNimation was gracious enough to dub everything else on their Eizou Hakusho release, including the first movie, several bonus features, afterstories, and even some surprisingly fun Japanese anti-piracy clips, they did not dub this series. I can only assume this is due to the fact that Eizou Hakusho II would have been impossible to dub, they were presenting both OVA's together, and wanted to strive for consistency. Still, there was nothing that would have prevented a dub of these two episodes from being possible, so I am a little disappointed at the lack of one. As far as music and Japanese tracks go, however, the OVA's held up with the original because... clip show.

FUNimation's Eizou Hakusho DVD release is a real treat for fans of the show and I absolutely cannot recommend it enough, as there's some real gold on there, including character afterstories, new versions of the English songs, and plenty of content the sort of which we almost never get to see released outside of Japan. Judging this OVA and it alone, however, it simply doesn't have much to offer.

Diehard fans of the show like myself might find the 60-second introduction fun, but even those whose experience lies in the Japanese version are likely to be nodding off during the rest of the episodes. It's an abridged rehash, pure and simple, so only go for this one if you feel like getting a feel for a few of the fights from the Japanese version of the show again without watching the episodes themselves.