Episode 19

EPISODE 19

最後の四聖獣・朱雀!  (Saigo no Shiseijuu・Suzaku!)

The Last of the Four Holy Beasts, Suzaku!

First Broadcast: February 20, 1993

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): second half of chapter 40 (WSJ #41, 1991, September 30), chapter 41 (WSJ #42, 1991, October 7)

Summary: Yusuke goes ahead to fight Suzaku while the others hold off a horde of lesser monsters.  Keiko stays safe with Botan’s help, while Yusuke uses trickery to block Suzaku’s attack and gets in a good hit.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• The episode opens with an anime-only scene of Yusuke and co. running towards Suzaku’s tower.

• When Botan grabs Keiko and drags her to safety, in the manga right as you see someone’s hands yank Keiko away, the scene switches to Yusuke and co. running along.  Botan contacts them and we see that she was the one who grabbed Keiko.  So the manga leaves you in suspense a bit about whether Keiko was grabbed by some monster, while in the anime there’s no scene change and we see right away that it’s Botan grabbing Keiko, and only then does Botan contact Yusuke.  Maybe this is because the anime colors all the demon bug people blue, so they couldn’t really create any ambiguity over whether the hands grabbing Keiko are friend or foe.

• After Iwamoto ambushes Keiko and Botan, the manga makes a point of showing that Botan’s compact communicator gets smashed.  We don’t see this in the anime.

• Following Iwamoto’s ambush, there’s another Koenma and Jorge scene.  Koenma tells Botan to protect Keiko, and worries about what he’ll tell Yusuke if anything happens to her.  Then he wants to switch his magic TV to Yusuke, but he can’t find the remote.  By the time he locates it, Jorge has already switched channels manually.  Later, after Yusuke first gets hit by Suzaku’s thunder attack, Koenma and Jorge get the shivers just by watching.  Koenma decides to eat a lot so he’ll have enough energy to cheer Yusuke on.

• The narrator’s explanation of the Cultivated Men in the manga mentions that they’re also used as food for Genbu and Byakko, which gets left out in the anime.  Also, in the manga Hiei compares them to living wooden dolls, while in the anime he calls them zombies.

• In the anime after Yusuke manages to enter the upper tower via the window, we see Hiei and the others start to fight the Cultivated Men.  In the manga we don’t see any of the gang’s fight with the plant guys.

• When Keiko and Botan discover Takenaka, in the anime they mention that he’s unconscious.  In the manga we do eventually learn that he was merely knocked at, but at the time it seems like he’s dead.  So the anime makes it clear at this point that he’s still alive, probably because it leaves out the later line explaining what happened to Takenaka and Iwamoto.