Episode 82

EPISODE 82

ゲームマスター脅威の実力 (Geemu Masutaa no Kyoui no Jitsuryoku)

Game Master’s Fearsome Strength

First Broadcast: May 28, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): last 1/3^rd of chapter 134 (WSJ #39, 1993, September 13), chapter 135 (WSJ #40, 1993, September 20)

Summary: Next up, Genkai easily wins a shooting game, while Yusuke narrowly manages to win a fighting game with some advice from Genkai.  Kaito and Kurama are left to take on Amanuma himself.  Kaito loses a quiz game, so Kurama must face Amanuma in a Tetris-like building block game.  Kurama explains to Yusuke that if the team loses this round they must go on playing these games against Amanuma until they win; giving up means death. Meanwhile, Sensui’s partner Itsuki says his portal will open in 2 hours.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• In the manga the genie for the shooting game is a generic muscle-bound monster, while in the anime he’s a mustachioed skinny guy in a flight suit and helmet, plus a cape. 

• Similar to with Mitarai and the tennis game, the manga just skips to Genkai winning, while the anime shows the actual game.  In the anime it’s explained that Genkai gets three helicopters (lives, in other words) and she’ll lose if they’re all shot down.  Genkai impresses Kaito by easily getting through one of the hardest parts of the game, then wins the game by shooting down the genie’s helicopter.

• An exposition box in the manga says it took Genkai an hour to beat the shooting game, while this is left out in the anime.

• After Genkai wins her game, in the manga Yanagisawa is the next one to play.  The slot machine selects a puzzle game at the highest level of difficulty, and Yanagisawa says there’s no way he can win.  But Kurama tells him to just use his Copy ability to become Kaito, and as Kaito he wins easily.  In the anime though, Yusuke rather than Yanagisawa goes to play the next game, a fighting one (or so they say; it actually seems more like a beat ‘em up).  He has trouble at first but wins thanks to Genkai’s advice.  It’s kind of a shame they changed this, since the manga version is a nice use of Yanagisawa’s abilities.

• Once Kaito starts the quiz game against Game Master and gets the first question right without even needing to hear the whole question, there’s a filler scene in the Spirit World with Koenma continuing to consult King Enma.  Enma grants his permission to Koenma for the secret mystery thing.  Koenma heads off, leaving Jorge behind even though he wants to come along too.  This leads into a parody of the sort of overdramatic parting scenes typical of romance shows.

• After that the scene switches back to Game Master and the gang, but there’s a bit more filler as Genkai points out that despite Kaito getting the first five questions right, Game Master still seems brimming with confidence.  They all wonder what trick he has up his sleeves.

• Then there’s more filler after Game Master starts beating the pants off Kaito.  Hiei says he’s going to destroy this game, but the others tell him that’s impossible, and if he tries it things will just turn out like they did back with Kaito (there’s a brief flashback to Hiei’s sword breaking when he tried to kill Kaito inside his Territory).  Hiei says it’s at least better than just standing around doing nothing.  He slashes the quiz game screen, which explodes but is instantly returned to normal.  The gang realizes the only way to get out is to beat Game Master at the games.

• Chapter 135 ends with Gourmet noting that Kuwabara really doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with them, so maybe it’d be better just to eat him.  Sensui says not to worry, since they’ve just got to wait two hours anyway, and Itsuki agrees.  The anime omits this dialogue and instead the episode ends with Kuwabara shouting for Yusuke and co. to come rescue him.