Yusuke Urameshi is your average 14 year-old troublemaker. He gets in fights, skips school and has no respect for authority. As a student as Sarashiki Jr. High, he is feared by nearly all his classmates, the only exceptions being his long-time friend, Keiko Ukimura, and his rival Kazuma Kuwabara.

One day Yusuke decides to show up at school. He runs into Keiko while skipping Gym class. After, he decides to walk around awhile. As he wanders the outside hallways, he overhears a few boys taking advantage of his reputation. He threatens them with a name dropping fee, but is caught off-guard by Mr. Iwamoto who mistakes Yusuke for beating the kids out of their money.

Yusuke's nasty reputation gives him no reprieve. As he takes abuse from Mr. Iwamoto, Mr. Takanaka steps in the bring the dispute to a closure. Yusuke decideds that he's had enough school for one day, and takes off. At home, his mother Atsuko lies in front of the t.v. still in her pajamas. She demands coffee and Yusuke ends up walking out on her. 

As he walks down the street, passersby look fearly at the foul-tempered teen. Lucky for Yusuke that he would run into his long time rival, Kuwabara. Kuwabara challenges Yusuke to a fight, who lets off a little steam by beating Kuwabara into the ground. Feeling relieved, Yusuke walks briskly away. And the score, Yusuke 156, Kuwabara, 0...

As Yusuke continues his walk, he's startled to see a young boy kicking a soccer ball on the sidewalk. Seeing that he was unsupervised, Yusuke goes to scold the kid. His words were a little harsh, and the boy looked upset. Yusuke decides to chear the boy up by making faces for him. He smiles back at the now cheerful child. But as Yusuke reaches the other side of the side walk, he notices the boy is back to bouncing his ball.

Just as Yusuke was wondering why he should care, he heard the squealing of car tires and looked just in time to see the soccer ball and the boy heading into the street. "Watch out kid!" He yelled. Seeing that the boy had not heard him, Yusuke dove in the path of the speeding car.

As Yusuke opened his eyes, he immediately noticed that something was wrong. The world was upside down! As he righted himself, Yusuke noticed...himself laying in the street in front of the car. An ambulence came from the distance, stopping at the accident. The paramedics came out and checked on the boy first, who appeared to be okay. As they moved on to Yusuke, they declared that he wasn't as fortunate as the boy. Yusuke shouted at the paramedic and took a swipe at him, but to no effect.

"Am I a ghost?" Yusuke realized. "Bingo, bingo! You win the prize!" As Yusuke turned around to see a girl in a bright pink kimono was floating on what appeared to be an oar. She wore a cheery smile on her face. As Yusuke looked on in disbief, the girl told him that she was Botan, Guide to the River Styx, or, as she was known in Western Mythology, the Grim Reaper. "How grim can you be when you go around saying bingo..."