Episode 1

EPISODE 1

死んだらオドロいた (Shindara Odoroita)

Surprised To Be Dead

First Broadcast: October 10, 1992

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 1 (WSJ #51, December 3, 1990), first page of chapter 2 (WSJ #52, December 10, 1990)

Summary: Delinquent Yusuke Urameshi dies saving a child and meets the afterlife guide Botan. After seeing his wake, he decides to take on a trial to return to life.

Differences from the Manga 

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• The episode starts with the car crash that kills Yusuke.  In the manga the chapter starts immediately after this, and we don’t see the actual accident until Yusuke’s flashback reaches that point.

• When Yusuke lifts up Keiko’s skirt, in the manga he says her panties are dirty and Keiko notes that they’ve got some poop on them.  In the anime this charming conversation is changed to Yusuke simply noting that her panties are white.

• In the manga, the kid who scared someone into giving him his wallet by claiming to be Yusuke’s cousin is shown smoking.  Yusuke overhears this story, and acts like he’s going to beat the guy and his friend up.  The guy’s so scared that the cigarette falls from his mouth, but Yusuke just asks for 500 yen (roughly $5) out of the 15,000 yen in the wallet.  Iwamoto shows up and asks the pair what Yusuke took from them, but they say nothing (a lie, but he didn’t take much).  Then Iwamoto sees the fallen cigarette and accuses Yusuke of smoking.  A false accusation, but Yusuke is shown smoking in the very next scene, so it’s not that far off from reality.  Anyway, in the anime the kid isn’t smoking, he drops his ill-gotten wallet in fright, and Yusuke doesn’t ask him for any money.  Iwamoto sees the wallet and accuses Yusuke of mugging the two.  So the anime cuts out underage smoking and makes Yusuke more innocent of Iwamoto’s accusations.

• On that note, Yusuke is smoking right before Takenaka appears and tries to get him to come to his office, but in the anime he’s just eating some candy.

• Takenaka grabs Yusuke by the ear.  In the manga Yusuke escapes by covertly substituting an entire dummy for himself, while in the anime he just uses a plastic ear.  No clue how he’d possibly manage either of those tricks (in the manga Takenaka asks if he’s a ninja).

• Atsuko’s wearing a sexy nighty in the manga but infinitely more concealing pajamas in the anime.

• Right before Yusuke fights Kuwabara, in the manga there’s a brief bit where all the shop owners are leery of Yusuke, because he has a (only slightly exaggerated) reputation for shoplifting.  This bit isn’t in the anime.  Also, after the fight, in the anime Kuwabara’s friend notes that Kuwabara’s now lost to Yusuke 156 times without winning once.

• Botan leaves off the second half of the various offences recorded in Yusuke’s profile in the anime: “extortion, shoplifting, fighting, smoking, drinking, gambling, regularly taken into police custody, etc etc”.  I guess they didn’t want him to seem quite that bad in the anime.

• The anime leaves out the moment at the hospital where Masaru’s mother learns Yusuke died saving her son.

• In the manga Botan says the reason Masaru would have miraculously survived even if Yusuke hadn’t jumped in was because his ball would have cushioned the blow from the car.  This is probably a joking reference to Captain Tsubasa, and might have been left out to avoid trouble.

• In the manga Yusuke mentions that his mother is 29 years old.  This gets left out in the anime, probably because if you do the math this means Atsuko was only 15 when she gave birth to him, and the anime likes to tone down those sorts of elements.

• There’s a little tiny bit from the start of chapter 2 at the end of the episode.  Chapter 1 of the manga ends with Yusuke telling Botan he’ll take the trial to return to life, but episode 1 shows them starting to go off to the afterlife to meet Koenma.