Episode 86

EPISODE 86

幽助苦戦！決定的な差 (Yuusuke Kuusen! Kettei-teki-na Sa)

Yusuke’s Tough Battle! A Decisive Difference

First Broadcast: June 25, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): second half of chapter 140 (WSJ #45, 1993, October 25), chapter 141 (WSJ #46, 1993, November 1)

Summary: Sensui reveals two more reasons Yusuke can’t defeat him.  First is that Yusuke is weak against attacks that come from many different directions at once, while Sensui specializes in them due to constantly fighting multiple opponents.  Most important of all though is that Sensui has ten times the amount of spiritual energy as Yusuke, allowing him to constantly fire powerful spiritual attacks.  Still not impressed, Yusuke pummels Sensui with a surprise attack.  Sensui, who really has seven different personalities, suddenly switches over to his “Kazuya” personality and catches Yusuke off-guard (Yusuke has previously been fighting Sensui’s “Minoru” personality).  Just as “Kazuya” is about to finish Yusuke off, Koenma arrives on the scene.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• The episode starts with a re-do of last time’s closing scene, as Sensui comes out of the lake and explains that all his scars came from his own training rather than fighting enemies.  There’s a shot of the video player timer reading 1:50:01 at this point.

• The anime shows a butterfly float around Sensui and land on his finger right before Sensui fires those gazillion energy balls at Yusuke.  I guess this is to show Sensui’s gentle side or something.  The butterfly also might somehow represent Sensui’s spirit, since for some reason it’s briefly shown again when Itsuki explains about Sensui’s multiple personalities.

• After Yusuke gets hit by all those energy balls, there’s a filler scene with Genkai and co. outside.  Botan wonders if the portal has opened, but Kaito doesn’t think things feel that way.  They think Yusuke must have defeated Sensui, but Genkai says she can tell by the smell emitting from the cave that the portal is still expanding.  She says it’ll probably open in another 10 minutes, and Botan wonders if Koenma will make it in time.  Cue another brief scene of Koenma walking through the cave.  He finds that the glowing weeds Kurama left behind as markers have been scattered by an explosion, so he uses his own extrasensory powers to determine the correct path.  

• Then we get back to Yusuke and Sensui’s fight, only to immediately have some peanut gallery filler.  Kurama says it will take more than that to finish off Yusuke, but thinks to himself that even so, Yusuke probably can’t handle too many more such attacks.  Also, after Sensui states that his quantity of spiritual energy is ten times higher than Yusuke’s, Kuwabara and Mitarai repeat this in disbelief.  Note that all the other comments Kuwabara and co. make during the first half of the episode actually are in the manga.

• On that note, when Kuwabara yells for Yusuke to get up after Yusuke gets hit by more of Sensui’s countless energy balls, in the manga for just one panel he’s got an eye-patch over his right eye and is missing his front teeth.  I assume this is some reference, but don’t know to what.  Anyway, the manga just shows Kuwabara as normal for that part.

• In the anime Hiei explains a little about the principle behind the gun Sensui’s “Kazuya” personality uses, saying that he apparently fashioned his own spiritual energy into a bullet.

• When Itsuki explains about how Sensui developed multiple personalities over the course of his “endless battles”, the anime replays scenes of Sensui’s fights throughout his life, which were all previously used in flashbacks to Sensui’s past.  These include those images of what Sensui saw in Sakyo’s mansion that are much closer to the manga version but weren’t used in the actual episode that covered that part of the manga.

• As Kazuya beats up Yusuke, the anime shows Kuwabara produce his Spirit Sword and try to cut his way out of the Ura-Otoko dimension.  Hiei tries too, but to no effect.  Itsuki tells them there’s no way out.  The anime also inserts shots of Kuwabara and co. shouting as Kazuya is about to shoot Yusuke in the head.