Episode 106

EPISODE 106

闘う親子！黄泉と修羅 (Tatakau Oyako! Yomi to Shura)

A Father and Son Battle!  Yomi and Shura

First Broadcast: November 19, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): parts of chapter 167 (WSJ #23, 1994, May 23) and chapter 168 (WSJ #24, 1994, May 30)

Summary: In the preliminaries Yomi easily but unhappily beats Shura.  Yusuke quickly passes the preliminaries, and gives a speech opening the main tournament.  To start things off, he fights the cat monster Nekotama, who looks impressive but gives him little trouble.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• As discussed in the entry for last episode, episode 105 and 106 reshuffle the order of events quite a bit from what they were in the manga.

• The episode opens with Koto explaining the whole Yomi-versus-Shura scenario.  She also gives a lot of extra commentary during the fight.  In the manga there’s just the nameless ref lady noting how Yomi isn’t holding back against Shura.

• The manga version of the Yomi/Shura fight cuts in midway through the battle.  Numerous explosions rock the giant tree the pair are fighting on, and Shura attacks with his “Ma-Enko” technique.  Yomi blocks this with the amazing, the immortal, the sensational “Makoi-ryu Renpa Hansho-heki” technique, a magic force field which absorbs Shura’s attack.  Shura complains that his dad has absorbed his attack “again” (apparently this has happened before) and is reading all his movements, leaving him helpless.  Yomi asks whether Shura is done attacking; if so, then he’ll have a go at it.  He then pummels Shura with more generic punches and kicks (the ref notes how he isn’t holding back), and asks Shura to says his key number.  As also mentioned in last episode’s entry, this “key number” is what’s needed to remove the ring around each contestant’s neck, which in the manga is how victory is decided in the preliminaries.  Shura refuses, saying that Yomi promised to fight him seriously in the tournament.  This angers Yomi, who says Shura is still too inexperienced for such a fight.  Yomi asks if Shura even realizes how much he has been holding back during their match.  Humiliated and discouraged, Shura says his key number (66091), forfeiting the match.

• In the manga after Yomi uses his shield, Hokushin discusses the technique with Yusuke.  Hokushin says that if Yomi had started drawing the spells to create the shield after Shura fired his attack he never would have made it in time.  He therefore reads his opponent’s actions to determine ahead of time what they will do and react in advance.  That’s why no matter how powerful Shura may be, his lack of experience make all his counterattacks powerless.  Even Yusuke’s Spirit Gun might not do any good against Yomi.  The anime leaves this discussion out, and it actually depicts Yomi creating his shield after Shura fires his attack, precisely what Hokushin says he doesn’t do in the manga.  However, the anime does show Yomi minutely analyzing Shura’s actions to learn what kind of attack he’s using and precisely how much time he has before it will hit him, keeping with the general theme of Yomi taking an almost computer-like approach to his fights. 

• The anime shows much more of Shura and Yomi’s fight.  First Shura seems to nail Yomi with a huge barrage of energy blasts, but Yomi appears behind him, unharmed.  Shura panics and runs off, with Yomi in hot pursuit.  Hokushin and Yusuke comment on the two’s speed, Kurama wonders what this fight means to Yomi, while Mukuro and Hiei discuss whether Yomi has really dissolved his nation.  Back in the fight, Shura suddenly turns around and attacks Yomi with a flurry of punches, but Yomi blocks them all and pummels the poor kid.  Yomi pressures Shura to give up and admit defeat, as Koto announces the huge gap in their powers.  Shura seems to give up, but merely uses this to catch Yomi off-guard and blast him at point-blank range.  He congratulates himself on his own rat-bastardness, while Jin and the others in the crowd are amazed he’d do such a thing.  Yomi isn’t even scratched by this attack though, and again demands that Shura just give up; he’s not going to put up with this much longer.  Shura says his whole plan is to get Yomi to this point, since Yomi promised to fight him without holding back.  

• In the crowd, Hokushin says Yomi and Shura’s fight reminds him of Yusuke and Raizen.  Yusuke says he never took it this far though, but Koenma suddenly shows up, calling him liar (how he’d know about that, I don’t know).  Koenma, Botan, and Jorge all greet Yusuke, still in their silly disguises.  Officially they’re here to see who will become ruler of the Demon World, but Botan says Koenma really just doesn’t want to miss out on something this fun.  Yusuke points out that if the crowd recognizes them as from the Spirit World they’ll probably get eaten.  But Koenma isn’t worried: Botan and Jorge can just stay by his side, while he’ll stay right by Yusuke.  Koenma and co. aren’t present at the tournament in the manga.

• After that little aside things get back to the fight, which now gets to the part of the fight we actually see in the manga, as Shura uses his “Ma-Enko” attack.  The anime shows Yomi noting beforehand that Shura is concentrating energy in his hands and will be using an emission-type attack.  Shura fires, and Yomi calculates the time until impact as 0.04 seconds, then forms his “Makoi-ryu Renpa Hansho-heki” barrier.  The manga shows Yomi’s fingers glowing white, and he seems to use these glowing fingers to draw the various symbols in the air that make up the barrier.  In the anime he instead makes a sign with his right hand, it glows, and he throws sparkly energy out from it, which forms the barrier’s symbols.  In the anime Shura doesn’t say anything about Yomi absorbing his energy “again”, since Yomi hasn’t used the technique earlier in the fight the way he implicitly does in the manga, and instead Shura seems totally surprised at the technique.  Why Yomi would bother forming a fancy shield when Shura’s earlier anime-only attack at point-blank range didn’t scratch him is a mystery.  I guess the Ma-Enko was just that much stronger an attack.

• After Yomi’s shield absorbs the Ma-Enko, in the anime Kurama thinks to himself that Shura has the same hot-blooded personality Yomi had when he was young, and Yomi himself is returning to the way he used to be.  Meanwhile, Yomi thinks to himself about how happy he is at Shura’s growth.  This doesn’t stop him from continuing to beat the crap out of the kid, of course.  He knocks Shura into a mountain, hoping he’ll finally give up, but he gets back up and vows to defeat his dad.  The mid-episode eyecatch comes at this point.

• When we get back, Shura is thinking to himself about how to find an opening to attack his father.  Unfortunately, he realizes Yomi doesn’t have any openings.  But he flashes back to his training with Yomi, when Yomi told him that in such situations he should just create his own openings.  Shura punches the ground and creates a big explosion as a distraction, and fires the Ma-Enko again, but Yomi again absorbs it with his shield.  At this point Shura thinks to himself like in the manga about how Yomi absorbed his energy “again”, and is reading all of his movements, leaving him helpless.  Yomi asks whether Shura is done attacking; if so, then he’ll have a go at it.  He pummels Shura with generic punches and kicks (in this version, Shura tries to run away first).  Yomi again (again again) asks Shura to admit defeat, but Shura (again again again) refuses, saying that Yomi promised to fight him seriously in the tournament.  This angers Yomi, who says Shura is still too inexperienced for such a fight.  Yomi asks if Shura even realizes how much he has been holding back during their match.  Humiliated and discouraged, Shura finally concedes defeat.  In this version there’s no nonsense about key numbers and rings, and Shura simply has to say he gives up to make things official.  Koto announces that the preliminaries are all done (in the manga Yusuke’s preliminary round comes after the Yomi/Shura fight), and brings Yusuke up to give a speech to open the main tournament, taking things back to manga material. 

• After the speech, in the anime Koto explains the setup for the main tournament.  This is in part based on what the generic tournament officials explain at the start of chapter 168 in the manga, but it’s expanded on more, although nothing’s terribly worth noting since it’s all standard tournament rules.  She does say that victory is decided in the same way as the preliminaries, while in the manga the preliminaries had those ring things while the main tournament didn’t (in Round 1 Chu loses to Natsume simply by saying he gives up, while in the preliminaries Shura has to say his key number to certify his loss to Yomi).  As Koto explains this stuff, there’s a shot of a huge tournament bracket, with the 128 finalists divided up into 4 blocks (A, B, C, D).  Chapter 168 devotes a two-page spread to just such a tournament bracket, going so far as to list the names of each and every one of the 128 finalists.

• Chapter 168 shows Jin and the other Dark Tournament characters reacting to the posted tournament chart.  D Block looks pretty crowded with tough customers, and Chu is placed worryingly close to Mukuro and Hiei (setting up the shock that he actually loses to Natsume, an unknown).  Jin says it looks like it will be hard for him to get to fight Yusuke, while it’s noted that Toya seems to be in a pretty safe part of the chart.  Toya says he can’t be careless though, since there might be strong people who simply haven’t made a name for themselves yet (a principle Raizen’s friends demonstrate).  Elsewhere, Enki notes with relief that he probably won’t have to fight Koko.

• This is followed by a detailed look at the arenas for the main tournament.  They’re huge raised circles outfitted with many different kinds of natural environments, everything from jungles to deserts, so that contestants can pick an environment which suits them.  In addition, there is also a small, more traditional circular arena in the center, which contestants can use if they want.  These huge arenas sit on top of a long metal tower, at the base of which is an area for the contestants to rest in when not fighting.  Bug-like tracking cameras follow the contestants around as they fight, projecting an image to TV monitors so that all of the Demon World can view the tournament.  The anime leaves out the detailed explanation of all these logistics, but it does show most of this stuff in action.

• In the anime Yusuke then goes on to fight “Nekotama” as the first fight in Block A.  In the manga Yusuke is instead in the middle of Block B and we don’t see him fight until later.  Instead, we see the first match in each of the four blocks begin simultaneously.  Block D is Chu verses Natsume, which the anime changed it into a match in the preliminaries last episode.  Blocks A, B, and C then have fights between weirdoes we’ve never seen before, though thanks to the absurdly huge tournament chart we can learn the names of each pair, though not which name goes with which guy.  Block A has Bairin versus Moya (a long haired monk guy versus a beast man), Block B has Oumu versus Okoze (a bird man versus a fish man), and Block C has Ichigenkin versus Abi (a man armed with what looks like a hockey stick versus a short, stumpy monster).  None of these guys are shown fighting in the anime, and I can’t say I mind much.

• Anyway, instead of all those guys the anime shows Yusuke fight Nekotama.  This guy is predictably enough a cat man (neko=”cat”, while tama means “ball” and is a generic name for a pet cat).  In the manga the character is instead named “Nekobaba”, with baba written with 糞, the kanji for “feces”, so essentially his name means “cat poop” (this may explain why his name was changed for the anime).  Anyway, in the anime Nekotama/baba powers up and grows gigantic, impressing Botan with his power.  Koenma thinks to himself that the Demon World contains powerful people besides Mukuro or Yomi, who have been concealing their strength and living in secret, so even Yusuke might not have an easy time.  The fight starts and Yusuke dodges Nekotama’s punches.  Nekotama then shoots expanding claws at him, but he dodges these too and knocks the cat out (shrinking him back to his original size).  Everyone reacts to this victory, including Shura, who notes that Yusuke doesn’t seem to use any tricks or even strategy.  Yomi says Yusuke fights for the fun of it, and he wanted Shura to fight Yusuke instead of himself.  Yomi’s lines here are in the manga, but instead come after Yusuke passes the preliminaries.  Everything else about the fight is anime-only.  In the manga we just see Yusuke instantly defeat his Round 1 opponent, who we never even get a good look at.  Togashi has to even put in a note explaining that the shapeless figure Yusuke knocks away is Nekobaba.  As his victory is declared, Yusuke is depicted like a Virtua Fighter character, made up of polygons.

• Chapter 168 has a little joke subplot where once the main tournament matchups are decided and Round 1 begins, Yusuke is approached by a thug called “Zakuro” who threatens to defeat him in Round 2.  From there he plans to take Yomi down in Round 3, win the tournament, and turn the Demon World into a true world of darkness.  Then we (briefly) see Yusuke defeat Nekobaba, and it’s announced that all the Round 1 matches are done.  Yusuke checks in with Toya on what happened with their friends (Chu lost to Natsume due to her being super-strong, while Rinku lost to Sasuga apparently due to her charm).  Yusuke then wonders what happened to “that one guy”.  What was his name?  He and Hokushin can’t remember.  We then see the tournament chart, which shows that Zakuro already lost in Round 1.  It’s pretty funny, but the anime leaves it all out for some reason.  

• However, Zakuro does appear in the last episode!  See, episode 112 adapts part of manga chapter 172, which shows Mukuro and her underlings patrolling for stray humans who accidentally find their way into the Demon World.  Shigure is shown among them, since he’s one of Mukuro’s men.  But the anime has Shigure commit suicide after losing to Kurama in the tournament, saying that a warrior cannot lose twice (apparently manga-Shigure isn’t so picky about these things).  The anime staff needed somebody to take Shigure’s place in the group of Mukuro’s underlings, so they used Zakuro.  While I’m on the subject, the guy Zakuro loses to is named “Toboso”, and so it’s this guy who fights Yusuke in Round 2.  But we never see anything of him or that fight in either version.

• This episode adapts roughly 10 pages of chapter 167 (Yomi/Shura’s fight, Yusuke’s speech opening the main tournament) and…uh…1 page of chapter 168 (Yusuke versus Nekobaba/Nekotama).  Maybe 2 pages if you count the explanation of the main tournament’s rules, and 4 if you include the tournament chart, but that’s stretching it.