Episode 96

EPISODE 96

闇の訪問者・深まる謎 (Yami no Houmonsha・Fukamaru Nazo)

Visitors of Darkness—The Mystery Deepens

First Broadcast: September 3, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): most of chapter 155 (WSJ #10, 1994, February 21), first half of chapter 156 (WSJ #11, 1994, February 28)

Summary: The visitors say Yusuke’s “true” father, Raizen, is one of three kings who keep the Demon World in political balance.  Though Raizen can only survive on human flesh, he gave up eating humans hundreds of years ago and has been slowly dying of hunger ever since.  His death now imminent, he wants Yusuke to come help his country in the war which will envelop the Demon World once he’s gone.  Yusuke is unconvinced by the visitors’ story though, and fights the group’s leader, Hokushin, who defeats him with a psychological trick.  Still unconvinced, Yusuke can tell that Hokushin has recently eaten human flesh, despite supposedly following Raizen’s example in abstaining from it.  He punches Hokushin and asks him to explain himself.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

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• The anime explicitly identifies the third member of Hokushin’s party as “Seitei”.  In the manga Hokushin refers to one of his two companions as Toh-Oh but we don’t get a name for the other guy, at least not until the Unification Tournament, where besides Hokushin and Toh-Oh it’s revealed that two of Raizen’s monk follower guys are named “Nankai” and “Seizan”.  However, it’s not clear which of these two, if either, is the one who accompanied Hokushin and Toh-Oh to see Yusuke.  Anyway, “Seitei” is obviously “Seizan” slightly altered: Seitei=”Western Emperor”, while Seizan=”Western Mountain”.  Raizen’s followers have a cardinal direction theme, with Hokushin meaning “Northern God”, Toh-Oh meaning “Eastern King”, and Nankai meaning “Southern Sea”.

• When Hokushin explains the Three Grand Demon’s argument over using humans as a food source, in the manga it’s not identified which of them takes which position.  It’s later made clear that Raizen is the one who wants them all to stop eating humans, but the other two’s responses are harder to peg down.  The anime though shows Mukuro as the one who says her stomach simply can’t except any food besides humans, and that even as-is she often has to go hungry, while Yomi is identified as the one who says they should eat as many humans as they want because humans just keep multiplying anyway.

• Similar to what happened before with Kurama’s line about Yusuke ancestor being a “battle-god”, when Hokushin identifies Yusuke’s true father as the battle-god (toushin) Raizen, in the anime he further clarifies that battle-god Raizen is a “god of battle” (tatakai no kami).  This rather redundant description is probably because toushin is not a particularly ordinary or common word, and since Japanese is full of homonyms, in spoken dialogue it’s not too clear what toushin is supposed to mean (in the manga you can just see what kanji it’s written with and learn its meaning that way).

• After Yusuke goes outside to fight Hokushin, in the manga Kuroko’s husband Shogo wonders if he could use Hokushin’s explanation of Demon World politics as the basis for a novel, but dismisses it as too far from reality.  In the anime Kuroko asks if he can use it for a novel and he dismisses it, then wonders if Yusuke will be OK.  Kuroko says that he’s not only a former Spirit World Detective but also the descendant of a Demon World battle-god, so he should be fine, but Shogo points out that the people he’s fighting are also masters from the Demon World.

• After that is a filler scene where Keiko calls Kuwabara to ask about Yusuke.  She thinks Kuwabara’s hiding something, but he maintains that he doesn’t know anything about where Yusuke is.  Shizuru scolds her brother to study more.

• The episode ends 10 pages into chapter 156, as Yusuke punches Hokushin and demands that he tell him the truth.