Episode 87

EPISODE 87

コエンマ・覚悟の魔封環！ (Koenma・Kakugo no Mafuukan!)

Koenma, Primed With the Mafukan!

First Broadcast: July 2, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 142 (WSJ #47, 1993, November 8), first half of chapter 143 (WSJ #48, 1993, November 15)

Summary: Koenma plans to close the portal with the “Mafukan”, a powerful sealing technique he’s spent centuries storing energy for, sacrificing himself and Sensui in the process. Yusuke stops him at the last moment and beats “Kazuya”, causing Sensui’s “Shinobu” personality to finally emerge.  Being the central personality, Shinobu is vastly stronger than the others and easily outclasses Yusuke.  When Yusuke stubbornly declares he’ll still win, Shinobu starts laughing uncontrollably, emitting even more powerful energy.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• At the start of the episode there’s another scene where Kuwabara tries fruitlessly to escape from the Ura-Otoko.  Itsuki re-explains about how the group is inside an alternate dimension he controls and can’t leave unless he lets them.  Hiei stops Kuwabara from attacking Itsuki, and Kurama says that if they kill him they’d be stuck there forever.

• Koenma tells Sensui that he should stop committing sin after sin, and in the anime Sensui replies that those “sins” are merely what the Spirit World decides on.  If he were the judge, he’d judge fairly (implying that the Spirit World doesn’t do this).  In the manga it goes straight from Koenma telling Sensui to stop his sinning to Sensui tossing Yusuke aside when he notices Yusuke is about to fire his Spirit Gun.

• On that note, in the manga we just see Sensui suddenly throw Yusuke across the room, and only after that is it shown that Yusuke was charging his Spirit Gun.  But he never actually fires anything, his finger is just charging with energy.  In the anime we see Yusuke’s finger glowing right before Sensui tosses him aside, and he actually fires a blast as he’s thrown, but it misses Sensui.  This kind of interferes with the idea of Yusuke being limited to a total of four Spirit Gun and/or Reikodan blasts a day, since it would knock the number he uses during this day to five: one against Sensui’s truck as it flees, one against Sniper’s knives, one against Sensui in the Demon World, one when possessed by Raizen, and in the anime this one here.

• Following that blast in the anime, there’s another scene of Genkai and co. outside.  Having felt the explosion, Botan again asks if Yusuke has defeated Sensui, but Genkai says Sensui’s spiritual energy hasn’t drop at all, while Yusuke’s is getting pretty low.

• In the manga version, after throwing Yusuke aside Sensui notes that Yusuke is someone you can never let your guard down against, as befits Shinobu’s successor.  The gets left out in the anime.

• Instead of the above mentioned line, the anime expands on the dialogue between Koenma and Sensui.  Most notable is that now Kazuya explains all about how he’s just one of seven personalities inside Sensui and not Shinobu, which seems to shock Koenma.  In the manga though, Sensui just says that he’s Kazuya and that Shinobu is resting, which makes it sound like Koenma is already familiar with Sensui’s different personalities.

• Itsuki gives an expanded explanation of the origin of Sensui’s multiple personalities in the anime.  He says Kazuya was created from Sensui’s inability to cope with all the killings he had committed.  Then his Minoru personality was created when he came up with his plans of atoning for humanity’s sins, but became disgusted with how he manipulated others to carry out these plans.  The remaining four personalities came later.  In the manga we don’t get any indication of when or in what order Sensui’s alternate personalities were created, and Koenma’s apparent familiarity with them would perhaps rule out Minoru and the remaining four personalities being created only after Sensui began creating his plans against humanity.  In the manga Itsuki explains that Shinobu is Sensui’s main personality, and then he has three personalities in charge of fighting, and three more in charge of other matters.  This gets left out in the anime.

• As Koenma takes his pacifier out of his mouth and threatens to use the Mafukan against Sensui, the anime has the narrator explain about the technique.  This explanation actually comes from chapter 144 of the manga, when Koenma finally fires the technique against Sensui, but the anime moves it to this earlier point in the story.  The explanation in the manga mentions that Koenma has used the technique twice in the past, but never against a human before, while the anime leaves that part out here.

• Koenma says that he has been saving his energy up for the Mafukan to stave off the “dark age” which will reach the Human World several hundred years from now.  In the anime Sensui replies that in that case it’s pretty dumb to waste the technique against him, but Koenma retorts that if the portal opens the Human World won’t last even ten years, let alone hundreds.

• When Koenma reflects on how he’s responsible for the way Sensui turned out, since it was him who made him become a Spirit World Detective, in the anime this is expanded into another recap of Sensui’s past.  Also, in the manga Koenma says if he uses the Mafukan, he and Sensui will both become part of the new barrier and be thrown into the Demon World, while in the anime “becoming part of the barrier” means they will be paralyzed for all eternity.

• In the manga once Yusuke grabs Koenma’s pacifier there’s a little panel showing Koenma chasing him all over the place to try and get it back (Yusuke even puts it in his own mouth), while the anime leaves this bit out and just has Yusuke punch Koenma straight away.

• After Sensui’s “Shinobu” personality finally emerges, the anime expands on Kuwabara and co.’s reaction to it, but there’s nothing really worth mentioning.  Which is why I mentioned it.  Or something.

• In the manga, upon seeing Shinobu Yusuke merely says “Interesting!” and Shinobu starts laughing psychotically.  In the anime Yusuke says that he’s going to defeat Shinobu, and Shinobu apparently finds the idea of Yusuke defeating him so funny that he starts laughing psychotically.

• The episode ends about 9 pages into chapter 143, as Sensui laughs uncontrollably and begins emitting powerful energy.