Episode 42

EPISODE 42

決死の桑原！愛の突撃 (Kesshi no Kuwabara! Ai no Totsugeki)

A Desperate Kuwabara! The Charge of Love

First Broadcast: August 7, 1993

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 74 (WSJ #26, 1992, June 15), first third of chapter 75 (WSJ #27, 1992, June 22)

Summary: Risho one-sidedly pummels Kuwabara, when Botan, Yukina, and co. reach the arena. Seeing Yukina inspires Kuwabara to finally defeat Risho. With Round 3 over, Yusuke and Keiko reunite and have a (mostly) private conversation.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

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• I guess it’s just the animators, but Risho looks a lot more like his manga version in this episode, though he still lacks the weird nose.

• At the start of the episode there’s a brief bit of filler where Kuwabara falls down before the match even begins, only to get right back up when Risho mocks him.  Some of Kuwabara and Risho’s dialogue is recycled from the end of last episode (“You want to die that badly?”).

• Sakyo doesn’t like Butajiri’s trick of declaring Yusuke and Jin’s match a draw, so he has Toguro kill him.  In the manga this scene comes right between Koto announcing the start of the final match, and when Kuwabara and Risho actually start fighting.  In the anime this scene comes after the fight begins, the scene with the girls outside, and Risho pummeling Kuwabara some more.  Butajiri’s death is a lot less graphic in the anime.  Well, “graphic” might not be the right word: there’s a lot more blood in the anime but it’s just a generic fountain with no detail, while in the manga we see his brain and eyeballs fly out of his shattered skull.

• Outside, Shizuru and co. try to get in, but the security guard monster guy says all the seats are full.  He says he might let them in if they “service” him (in the anime he even puts his hand on Keiko), but they beat him up instead and go in.  In the manga the group has no further problems, and it’s at this point that Yukina explains how she’s looking for her brother.  In the anime, beating up the big guard just draws the attention of a bunch of others, who chase the group through the stadium interior and finally corner them, at which point the scene cuts back to Kuwabara and Risho.

• There’s a lot of filler fighting as Risho pummels Kuwabara.  In the manga he puts on his dirt armor pretty fast, but in the anime he fits Kuwabara a zillion times, and even knocks him down long enough for Koto to start a 10 count before finally resorting to the armor.  Yusuke, now that he’s not fighting, joins the peanut gallery and has various filler conversations with Kurama about how dire Kuwabara’s straits are.

• After Kuwabara gets hit by Risho’s Bomber Tackle, we return to Shizuru and co.  The guards say they’ll be investigated for unlawful entry, but they manage to escape, only to run into Toguro.  Yukina reacts badly to seeing him, and there’s a flashback to the Toguro Brothers killing those birds and otherwise abusing her, back in the Tarukane story arc.  Toguro tells them to go, while the guards catch up, having caught Shizuru again.  Sakyo appears and says Shizuru’s an acquaintance of his, so they guards take the hint and leave.

• In the manga once Kuwabara’s knocked down by the Bomber Tackle, Koto gets up to 2 in her 10 count before he gets back up again.  In the anime she gets up to 7, then suddenly launches into a speech about how resilient Kuwabara is as he struggles to get back up, which clearly takes longer than it would have taken her to finish counting to 10.

• Most significant peanut gallery filler: as Kuwabara prepares to perform a suicide attack to defeat Risho, Koenma explains to Jorge that he plans on burning up his own life force, the same as Yusuke did against Suzaku.  There’s even a short flashback to the Yusuke/Suzaku fight.

• In the manga, after resolving to die, Kuwabara rushes towards Risho, thinking that he wished he could have seen Yukina one last time before he died.  At that moment, he hears Yukina’s voice and turns to see her, while Risho rushes to punch him and asks where he’s looking.  Kuwabara punches Risho high up into the crowd seats.  Kuwabara wins, the end.  In the anime, after rushing forward prepared for death, Risho jumps up into the air and dashes at Kuwabara with (probably) another Bomber Tackle.  Kuwbara manages to catch him and hold him off even though the force of the attack keeps pushing him backward.  While holding Risho off, Kuwabara thinks about wanting to see Yukina again, and we see some images of their brief time together.  He hears her voice, manages to fully stop Risho, and knocks him out of the ring, into the wall around the audience seats.  Risho gets back up and runs at Kuwabara, transforming his armor into an even spikier version along the way, and goes into yet another Bomber Tackle attack.  But Kuwabara is now finally able to use his Spirit Sword, which he uses to break Risho’s armor to pieces and knock him high up into the crowd seats, winning the match.

• Chapter 75 begins with a brief recap of the Ichigaki and Masho-Tsukai Team fights, and Kuwabara vs Risho, but there’s no need for this midway through an anime episode of course.  Notably, the recap describes Kuwabara’s love for Yukina as “one-sided”.

• The episode ends 6 pages into chapter 75, after Yusuke and Keiko’s reunion conversation.