Episode 85

EPISODE 85

霊界探偵・宿命の一騎討ち (Reikai Tantei・Shukumei no Ikki’uchi)

Spirit World Detectives—A Fated One-on-One Battle

First Broadcast: June 18, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 139 (WSJ #44, 1993, October 18), first half of chapter 140 (WSJ #45, 1993, October 25)

Summary: The group (sans Yusuke) is swallowed by Itsuki’s pet extra-dimensional demon, the Ura-Otoko, leaving Yusuke and Sensui to fight one-on-one. Itsuki explains his history with Sensui to Kuwabara and the others.  As the fight begins, Sensui says that while Yusuke is physically more powerful than him, he still can’t win for several reasons, the first of which is Sensui’s superior fighting experience.  Unimpressed, Yusuke knocks Sensui into a nearby lake inside the cave.  Sensui soon emerges, his clothes torn up but otherwise unfazed.  It turns out Sensui’s body is covered in countless scars as a side-effect of his rigorous training.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• The episode starts with a brief shot of Genkai and co. outside at the cave’s mouth, followed by a re-do of last episode’s end, with Kurama explaining about the parasitic tree he used to defeat Elder Toguro.

• After the Ura-Otoko swallows Hiei and co., leaving Yusuke and Sensui alone, there’s some filler with Genkai and the others outside.  Botan is nervous, but Genkai says they’ll just have to trust Yusuke and the gang.  Then we see Koenma heading through the cave, guided by the glowing grass Kurama left behind.

• When Itsuki lists what he likes about Sensui, in the manga he includes Sensui’s “ugliness”, in addition to his strength, weakness, purity, and sadness.  The anime leaves “ugliness” out, for some reason.

• After Itsuki is defeated by Sensui during the flashback to how the two met, he says he wants to live for just one more day.  In the manga this is because tomorrow (Japanese singer) Jun Togawa will be appearing on the TV show Hit Studio.  In the anime he instead wants to watch the series finale of a TV drama he enjoys.  Incidentally, Jun Togawa really did appear on Hit Studio, starting in February 1984.

• Itsuki explains that he just wanted to watch the innocent and pure Sensui becoming increasingly hurt and corrupt.  In the manga Itsuki compares this to the vulgar thrill one gets when imagining showing uncut porno to a girl who still believes babies come from the stork or the cabbage patch.  In the anime this analogy is replaced by Itsuki comparing Sensui’s corruption to a piece of white paper that gradually absorbs black ink until it turns completely black itself.

• As he and Yusuke start to fight, Sensui says that he doesn’t particularly care about the portal anymore, but rather considers battling Yusuke as what’s most important.  In the anime he goes even further and says that he even feels like the entire reason he made the portal in the first place was so he could battle Yusuke.

• Chapter 140 starts with another shot of the video player timer, which is now at 1:45:29, about 12 minutes since Kurama decapitated Gourmet.  This gets left out in the anime.

• Well it’s been a long time, but we finally return to peanut gallery filler in this episode, as Kuwabara and the others inside the Ura-Otoko’s subspace make comments on Yusuke and Sensui’s fight.  The comments in this episode that AREN’T anime-only are Kuwabara talking about Yusuke’s “Organ Killer” technique (he says he couldn’t eat for a week after Yusuke used it on him) and everyone’s reactions to Sensui’s scared body.

• The rock Yusuke throws as a decoy to distract Sensui has a little face drawn on it in the manga, while this joke is left out in the anime.

• The episode ends 10 pages into chapter 140, as Sensui gets back out of the cave lake after Yusuke knocks him in, revealing his scared body.