Episode 93

EPISODE 93

決着！魔界の死闘！ (Ketchaku! Makai no Shitou!)

A Conclusion! Deathbattle in the Demon World

First Broadcast: August 13, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): most of chapter 151 (WSJ #5-6, 1993, January 17), chapter 152 (WSJ #7, 1994, January 31), tiny part of chapter 153 (WSJ #8, 1994, February 7)

Summary: In his new form Yusuke is in full control of his power, but seems possessed by a foreign intelligence.  He easily (but unconsciously) defeats Sensui, firing a massive Spirit Gun blast to finish the job.  Regaining his senses, Yusuke begs Sensui to survive and get better so that they can fight a proper rematch.  Itsuki suddenly appears and explains that Sensui has a fatal illness and never had more than half a month left to live anyway.  Sensui’s true motive was simply to come to the Demon World before he died.  Mortally wounded from Yusuke’s Spirit Gun, Sensui dies and Itsuki takes his body, vanishing into another dimension.  Yusuke figures that the being who triggered his transformation and possessed him must be his demonic ancestor.  Dissatisfied that his duel with Sensui was interrupted in this way, he considers staying in the Demon World to track his ancestor down, but ultimately opts to return to the Human World. 

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 Yusuke’s transformation.  Notably, while last episode the transformed Yusuke had long black hair like in the manga, this time he has silvery white hair, similar to Raizen’s.  The anime seems to use this to differentiate between “possessed” transformed Yusuke and regular transformed Yusuke: he has white hair while possessed by Raizen, but once he regains consciousness his hair turns black like in the manga.  Possessed Yusuke also has some kind of distortion effect on his voice in the anime.

• In the manga Kuwabara’s line about not believing his own eyes and Kurama’s line about how apparently something has triggered Yusuke to fully awaken come after Yusuke pummels Sensui, while in the anime they come before.  Originally Kurama’s line about Yusuke’s full awakening led to his comment about Yusuke’s ancestor having been a “battle god”, while the anime splits these lines up.

• Following those moved lines, there’s some anime-only lines before Yusuke and Sensui start fighting again.  Kuwabara asks why Sensui is still smiling, and wonders whether he still has that much confidence he can win.  Koenma replies that he doesn’t, but that he has now “transcended” everything.  Back when he was fighting in the cave his emotions were all jumbled together, but now this internal conflict has disappeared.

• What’s more, in the anime before they start fighting Sensui tells Yusuke he feels very lucky, since his greatest desire has been to fight a demon like Yusuke.  Yusuke says he’ll change that desire into regret, and the two finally start fighting.  In the manga Sensui and the transformed Yusuke don’t say anything to each other save for Sensui saying “magnificent” when he first sees Yusuke’s new form, and Yusuke saying it’s time to finish Sensui off after he pummels him a whole lot.

• Yusuke’s one-sided pummeling of Sensui is expanded on a bit in the anime, most notably in showing several of the flat-toped mushroom tree things scattered throughout the Demon World getting taken out as collateral damage.

• In the manga Kurama says Yusuke’s ancestor must have been a toushin, a “battle-god”.  The anime slightly changes this to tatakai no kami, “god of battle”.  Mostly this is notable because toushin is later used almost like a title for Raizen, so it’s interesting to see it used here prior to Raizen’s proper introduction.

• The anime depicts Yusuke having a conversation with his Raizen-possessed self before firing the final Spirit Gun blast at Sensui.  Regular Yusuke wants to know what the heck is going on, but the Raizen-controlled part of him just tells him to shut up.

• When Itsuki suddenly appears from out of a portal, in the manga he opens the portal by pulling aside the fabric of reality (?) with his hands, as if it were window drapes.  In the anime a perfectly circular hole in reality suddenly appears.  Itsuki materializes inside the hole and steps out.

• Yusuke insists that though Sensui may have only half a month left to live, that’s still plenty of time for him to heal and fight him again.  In the manga Kuwabara thinks to himself that Yusuke is some kind of monster, while in the anime Hiei is the one annoyed at Yusuke’s obsession with fighting.  Hiei then passes out from exhaustion, and Puu lifts him up and places him on his back.

• In the manga Koenma mentions that he used up a good portion of the energy for the Mafukan midway through the cave, performing the “Technique for Returning Wandering Spirits” (Yuukon-Kaiki no Jutsu).  The scene then cuts to Amanuma, alive and sitting outside the cave.  In the anime Koenma just mentions having used up a lot of the energy for the Mafukan midway through the cave, without mentioning what for.  The scene then cuts to Amanuma, who is just now reviving in the back of Sensui’s truck outside the cave.  Genkai asks him if he’s finally come to, and explains that he was revived by Koenma’s power.  There’s then a flashback to Koenma reviving him by firing a beam from his pacifier (here the technique name is simply Yuukon-Kaiki/”Return of Wandering Spirits”).

• After Amanuma is shown to be alive, in the manga Kaito says it’s gotten awfully quiet, and not even a single demon has come out.  Yanagisawa mentions how a bunch of guys looking like the “Science Special Investigation Squad” entered the cave, and wonders what’s happened with Yusuke and the others.  The “Science Special Investigation Squad” (aka the Science Patrol) were the group from Ultraman who Ultraman’s human counterpart was a member of.  Along with Super Sentai groups, they’re an obvious inspiration for YYH’s Spirit World Special Defense Squad.  Anyway, Genkai tells the others that Yusuke and co. have probably entered the Demon World, while the Special Defense Squad is sealing up the portal, and all they can do it wait.  This whole scene gets left out in the anime, replaced with the scene of Amanuma’s revival (as mentioned, in the manga he’s apparently been awake for a long time now and nobody pays any mind to him).

• When Koenma asks Sensui why he’s been so obsessed with making a portal to the Demon World, in the manga he explains that he simply wanted to come here.  After learning that the human race which he had fought to protect up until then was nothing but scum, he began to loathe having the same blood as them flowing inside him.  He wanted to be reborn in the Demon World, and get there by any possible means.  The portal itself was just a gift to the demons; his real goal was simply to die in the Demon World, and he’s glad he got to do it.  He thanks Yusuke for making him enjoy fighting for just a brief moment, then says that he’s certain he’ll be reborn as a demon this time.  And with that he dies.

• In the anime however, he explains that the Demon World is the home of the demons, so when he started having doubts about his simplistic black-and-white world view, he started wondering what had happened to all those demons he had killed without even thinking about it.  He started to want to come to the Demon World at all costs, and is glad he was able to see their home world.  His true goal was to die in the Demon World…and be killed by a demon, though he knows that this won’t really help the demons he killed to rest in peace.  He thanks Yusuke for making him enjoy fighting for just a brief moment, then dies without saying anything else (there’s a dramatic thunderclap here). 

• Besides changing Sensui’s motivation from wanting to be reborn as a demon to wanting to die by a demon’s hand, the anime leaves a little part of Sensui’s death speech out.  When describing his past, in the manga Sensui says that as a kid he soon “got used to the blood on his clothes nobody else could see” (from fighting demons) and believed the world was comprised of good and evil, even thinking that wars always involved a good country fighting an evil one. 

• When Itsuki comes forward to take Sensui’s dead body away, in the anime he says that Sensui’s desire was to be killed by the strongest demon in the Demon World, which turned out to be the reborn Yusuke, which must have made him happy.  Itsuki goes on, saying that in the end Shinobu overcame the different personalities he created to deal with his internal contradictions, becoming the pure Shinobu he once was, and perhaps his soul has been partially saved.

• In the manga Kurama explains that Yusuke’s ancestor was an S-class demon, and may still be alive somewhere in the Demon World.  In the anime Koenma says this.  When Yusuke says that this ancestor must have been the one who interfered in his fight with Sensui, the anime replays this scene, complete with the images of Raizen sitting in his throne room and the close-up of his eye.

• After Yusuke explains that the power he had when he finished off Sensui was totally beyond what he’s capable of now, in the manga Kuwabara asks how this can be possible, since Yusuke was already on par with Sensui from the start, and Sensui was supposed to have S-class power.  Kurama says that “S-class” merely refers to any power too great for the Spirit World to handle, which really has no meaning from the perspective of the demons themselves, and so there can be enormous differences in power between S-class demons.  As background for this explanation, there’s a really badass picture of a demon whose head is made up of smaller heads.  This whole bit gets left out in the anime.

• Koenma says he’ll give Yusuke time to think about whether he wants to return to the Human World or stay in the Demon World.  In the manga he says he’ll give Yusuke 40 hours, while in the anime he doesn’t give any specific time frame.

• The episode ends only 1 page into chapter 153, as Yusuke says he’s decided to go back to the Human World.