Episode 90

EPISODE 90

友の意志を継げ！ (Tomo no Ishi wo Tsugu)

Carrying On Their Friend’s Will!

First Broadcast: July 23, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): last 2/3rds of chapter 146 (WSJ #51, 1993, December 6), chapter 147 (WSJ #52, 1993, December 13)

Summary: As demons start to stream out from the newly opened portal, Hiei, Kurama (now in his Yoko form), and Kuwabara confront Sensui between dimensions.  Yusuke’s death has indeed triggered a power-up in the group, and Hiei and Kurama are now too strong to pass through the barrier between the Human and Demon Worlds, which blocks all demons with A-class power or higher.  Sensui is on the other side (his sacred power allows him to pass right through), and to reach him Kuwabara uses his Dimensional Sword to cut through the barrier.  In the afterlife, King Enma dispatches his strongest warriors, the Spirit World Special Defense Squad, to deal with the situation. Hiei and co. reach the Demon World and begin to fight Sensui, but are absolutely no match.  Meanwhile, Shizuru and Keiko notice something odd is happening to Puu.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• This episode first aired a mere two days before the final chapter of the manga came out in Weekly Jump (July 25^th, 1994).  OK, so that’s not a manga/anime difference, but I felt it worth noting.

• While Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei are flying through subspace towards the barrier, in the anime Kuwabara asks Kurama when he became able to turn back into his Yoko form again.  Kurama answers that he hasn’t actually turned back and is “still the person I used to be”, but that his body probably changed form due to the rise in his spectral power.  Perhaps because of this, Yoko Kurama’s voice here is the same as his human form’s, unlike during the Dark Tournament when it was different.

• The scene where King Enma tells Botan that they need to dispatch the Special Defense Squad is expanded on in the anime with a bit at the end where Enma hints at Yusuke’s demonic ancestry, vaguely saying that they may have made a mistake.  Jorge is also present in this scene in the anime version, constantly bowing to Enma in abject fear.

• When the Spirit World Special Defense Squad are introduced, in the anime we get some more shots of them gearing up and riding an elevator up to their takeoff point.  This serves as the background for the narrator’s explanation of their function, which in the manga is all in an exposition box over the panel where Enma and Botan watch them fly off.  Also, in the manga the code “A II” is used for the current level of danger, that of an entire country being at risk of eradication, while the anime leaves this code word out.

• As Sensui and the rest reach the Demon World, we see some demons there discussing the portal’s completion, and noticing that four incredibly powerful people have just come out of the portal.  In the manga there’s a note in the margins explaining that these guys are all B-class demons, which gets left out in the anime.  We do get a closer look at them in the anime though (in the manga they just appear in shadows), and they talk a bit more.  They note that two of the four powers are spectral (Hiei and Kurama), one is spiritual (Kuwabara), while the final one they aren’t sure about (Sensui).  But there’s no doubt that all four powers are much stronger than they are, so they run off.

• When Sensui sees the Demon World for the first time, in the anime there’s a sort of flashback to his past, showing scenes of him fighting demons, him telling Itsuki he’s going to the Demon World, his different personalities talking, him saying that the corrupted parts of himself are who he really is, etc.  Notably, during the part with his different personalities we see a close-up of Sensui’s face where he’s crying and has long eyelashes.  Presumably this is supposed to represent Naru, the female personality Itsuki mentions, who’s supposed to be a crybaby and easily hurt.  

• The anime makes a point of showing Sensui dodging Kuwabara’s Dimensional Sword, after Kuwabara and Kurama charge him.  The manga just shows Sensui attacking Kurama, leaving it unclear what happens with Kuwabara.

• Chapter 147 ends with Keiko and Atsuko noticing that something has started to happen to Puu, followed by an image of the supposedly dead Yusuke lying on the ground.  In the anime there are shots of Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara thinking of Yusuke’s dead body, with a dialogue-free shot of Keiko and Shizuru holding Puu.