Episode 91

EPISODE 91

覚醒の時！バトル再び (Kakusei no Toki! Batoru Futatabi)

A Time of Awakening! The Battle Re-Commences

First Broadcast: July 30, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 148 (WSJ #1 1994, published December 20 1993), first half of chapter 149 (WSJ #2 1994, published December 27 1993)

Summary: The Spirit World Special Defense Squad arrives and gets to work sealing the portal back up.  They reveal to Koenma that Yusuke is a demon’s descendent and will soon be reborn as a demon himself.  As the squad prepares to execute Yusule, Puu (now a huge bird creature) shields Yusuke from their attacks.  Yusuke is reborn, and he terrifies the squad with his new S-class power.  He and Koenma set off on Puu for the Demon World, where they join up with Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara just as Sensui was about to finish them off.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• This episode first aired five days after the final chapter of the manga came out in Weekly Jump, making it the first episode to air after the manga’s completion.

• Chapter 148 begins with Puu’s transformation, while this episode starts with a kinda-sorta re-do of last episode’s closing scene where Sensui tells Hiei and co. that they won’t die easily.  Then there’s fighting filler as the gang regroups and attacks Sensui some more: Kuwabara with his Dimensional Sword, Kurama with his Rose Ship, and Hiei with some sort of black energy sword (it seems different than the Jao-Ensatsu-Ken from last episode).  None of this does any good against Sensui.

• Following that is the scene showing the start of Puu’s transformation.  This is all one scene in the manga, while the anime splits it up into two scenes.  As mentioned before, in the manga Atsuko and Keiko are with Puu, while in the anime it’s Shizuru and Keiko.  The manga version just starts right out with Puu glowing and flying off in his new giant form, which we don’t see at this point, but Keiko’s dialogue makes it clear that Puu has transformed.    The anime version starts out with Keiko re-stating that Puu isn’t moving; she thinks that something must have happened to Yusuke.  Puu then starts to glow and floats off into the sky, but doesn’t transform at this point.  Shizuru and Keiko run after him.

• When the Spirit World Special Defense Squad reach the portal, in the anime Koenma gives a fuller explanation of who they are and why they’re here (basically, they’re the best of the Spirit World’s warriors, sent because the situation has gotten so critical).  In the manga he just mentions them being the Spirit World’s elite warriors, and he only says this after the group starts talking and Captain Otake assigns tasks to everyone.

• The anime superimposes the names of the squad members over them, while in the manga Otake just rattles off names and you can’t tell who’s supposed to be who.  The group assigned to closing up the portal consists of Suho (the man with long black hair), Saito (the shaved head guy), and Sorai (the brown haired woman).  The group assigned to stay inside subspace and destroy any demons who try to come through consists of Ryohi (the woman with big puffy hair and a bandana), Rinpai (the man with spikey hair and red lines on his cheeks), and Shunjun (the man with hoop earrings).  Otake likewise has his name superimposed on him, while in the manga it’s comically written on his cheek during a close-up.  We never get names for the two members who stay behind to assist Otake is killing Yusuke in either version.

• Some of the squad members look a little different in the anime.  Most notably, Rinpai is heavyset in the manga and has sort of a Mohawk, while in the anime he’s thin and doesn’t have the Mohawk, just spikey hair. 

• After Otake tells Koenma that he will have to witness something unpleasant if he doesn’t return to the Spirit World now, in the anime there’s a flashback scene showing Otake being ordered by King Enma to kill Yusuke, while in the manga it just goes straight to the squad members preparing to fire at Yusuke.  Interestingly, the anime portrays Otake as very reluctant to take on these orders, pointing out that Yusuke has done many things for the Human World.  In the manga he doesn’t seem to have such reservations, and he later joins an extremist group devoted to undoing the changes Yusuke has helped bring to the relationship between the three worlds (a story left out in the anime), so overall he comes across as pretty unlikable in that version.  Also notable is that this flashback is where we first learn in the anime about Yusuke’s demon ancestry, while in the manga we only first learn it when Otake explains about it to Koenma.

• In the manga one of the nameless squad members who assists Otake tells Mitarai to get away from Yusuke, while in the anime he actually blasts Mitarai away.

• After Otake tells Koenma that Yusuke has demon ancestry, the anime inserts another scene with Shizuru and Keiko.  They’re still chasing after Puu, who’s floating away in a ball of light, otherwise unchanged.  Suddenly though, the ball grows enormously, and we see the shadow of the transformed Puu as it flies away.  Shizuru wonders if that was really Puu, while Keiko is worried about Yusuke.

• The explanation about Grand Demonkin Atavism is a little different in the anime.  After the narrator explains about atavism (genes “skipping a generation”, from grandparent to grandchild), in the manga Grand Demonkin Atavism is just said to be an extreme form of this, while the anime further explains that it involves a descendant many generations later inheriting demonic traits.  In the manga, after explaining that some demons can intentionally cause this phenomenon, the narrator goes on to note that they may do this to try and destroy the Human World from the inside, or simply out of an interest in crossbreeding, or in extremely rare cases to create a love child.  The anime just mentions demons doing it intentionally, without offering the reasons why they’d do it. 

• In addition, certain parts of the explanation are moved around.  For instance, in the manga Otake explains at the beginning that Yusuke holds power that was implanted in humans 44 generations ago, and a note in the margins explains that this was before the barrier between the two worlds had been put up.  In the anime this comes at the end of the explanation, with Otake himself noting that the barrier had not been put up back then.

• In the anime Puu is shown flying in through the big hole in the cave roof created when Sensui deflected the Mafukan, while the manga doesn’t make it clear how he gets in.

• Yusuke bids farewell to the unconscious Mitarai before heading off to the Demon World in the anime, while in the manga Mitarai gets pretty much ignored.

• Chapter 149 opens with Kurama and co. all battered and bruised on the ground before Sensui, who is reminded of this RPG video game he once played.  He maxed out his character’s level and fought the final boss, but while his character was too strong for the boss to damage, the boss had roughly 10,000 HP while Sensui’s character could only take away 100 HP at a time.  Sensui gets the same feeling fighting Kurama and co., who can’t hurt him but simply won’t stay down.  The scene then continues as the gang begrudgingly acknowledges Sensui’s strength, and Sensui decides to finally put them out of their misery.   The video game analogy gets left out in the anime, while the rest of the scene is present.

• The scene order gets rearranged in the anime though.  In the manga it goes 1) Hiei and co. are beat up, and Sensui starts to finish them off 2) Yusuke, Koenma, and Puu fly through the barrier, startling the squad members standing guard 3) the squad members ask Otake why Yusuke is so powerful and he has to tell them about S-class demons, then order them to get back to work 4) back in the Demon World, Sensui suddenly senses a powerful energy, and Yusuke shows up.  In the anime it goes 1) Yusuke, Koenma, and Puu fly through the barrier 2) Hiei and co. are beat up, and Sensui starts to finish them off 3) Sensui suddenly senses a powerful energy, and Yusuke shows up.  The episode then ends, and the scene where Otake tells the squad members about S-class demons and then has to order them back to work when they all get discouraged is in the next episode.

• The episode ends roughly 9 pages into chapter 149, as Yusuke shows up to fight Sensui again.  But all the scene reordering means that only about 6 pages are actually covered in this episode.