Episode 5

EPISODE 5

幽助復活!新たなる使命 (Yuusuke Fukkatsu! Arata-naru Shimei)

Yusuke’s Resurrection! A New Trial

First Broadcast: November 7, 1992

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 17 (WSJ #16, April 8, 1991), chapter 18 (WSJ #17, April 15, 1991)

Summary: To return to life, Yusuke must get someone to kiss his body by midnight.  Keiko manages to at the last minute, resurrecting him for good.  Later, Yusuke saves Kuwabara and his cat from the demon Jaki, and Botan informs him that he will become a Spirit World Detective, solving cases involving demons. 

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• In the manga Koenma doesn’t immediately decide to return Yusuke to his body following the incident where his house caught fire, and so there’s a two chapter mini-story where Yusuke helps an old friend of his win at boxing.  During this time, Koenma tells Botan of his plans to return Yusuke to his body, and Yusuke doesn’t learn until the start of chapter 17.  But in the anime Yusuke learned this at the end of the last episode, so the beginning of this episode had to be changed.  Originally we see Yusuke’s reaction to learning that he’s coming back, and then he asks Botan whether it’s not just another 1-day resurrection like before (another plot left out of the anime), but she assures him it’s for real this time.  In the anime this is replaced by Yusuke complaining about Koenma being late for his appointment to meet them.  Koenma’s explanation about why he’s going to resurrect Yusuke is more or less the same in both versions, when you account for the differing story circumstances: basically, the only way to know what he’s really made of is to give him a body and see what he’ll do.

• As Koenma explains about how Yusuke is to be resurrected, in the manga he does it as the gang just hangs out in the air over the city, while in the anime they go to Yusuke’s new apartment to see his body (Koenma performs some mystic ritual to prepare Yusuke’s body for resurrection).  This is the first time we see the place Atsuko moved to after her house burned down.  In the manga it’s only introduced later, when Keiko goes there to help resurrect Yusuke.  We also get to see Atsuko decide to go out drinking, which in the manga it’s just conveyed through another one of her notes to Keiko.  Yusuke’s comment that his mother can drink for 3 days straight actually comes from chapter 2, but was left out of the anime version of that part and turns up here instead.

• After Keiko goes to visit her mother in the hospital, there are two filler scenes where Yusuke visits Kuwabara and Atsuko and tries to get them to go perform mouth-to-mouth on his body.  Kuwabara’s hanging out at an arcade, a reference to how in the manga his dream about kissing Yusuke upset him so much he skipped school, a line that got left out in the anime.  Meanwhile Atsuko’s at some transvestite bar.

• In the manga it is only 10:50 when Botan manages to contact Keiko, but in the anime it’s after 11:45, less than 15 minutes before the midnight deadline.  The warning Botan gives via Keiko’s unconscious mother is more detailed in the anime.  In the manga she just tells her to get to Yusuke’s quick, while in the anime she flat-out explains that if she doesn’t get there by midnight Yusuke won’t be able to come back to life.  Then when Keiko does get there, in the manga it’s 11:50 while in the anime it’s only five minutes until midnight.

• Everything before the episode break is from chapter 17, and everything after is from 18.  Since both these chapters are pretty self-contained, it gives the episode an odd flow.

• The scene where some thugs try to mug the newly revived Yusuke, only for him to be thrilled just to see someone talking to him, is adapted from the manga chapter where Yusuke returns to life for a day.  In the chapter though, Yusuke actually ends up beating the two up once they get rough with him, but in the anime his odd reaction convinces them that he’s crazy and should just be left alone.

• Kasane-ga-fuchi Middle School is “Kasane-ga-buchi” in this episode, despite being the same as the manga in earlier episodes.  There’s also a slightly more elaborate explanation of the balance of power between the Sarayashiki and Kasane-ga-fuchi hoodlums in the manga, with a diagram showing their power is supposed to be split along the Sanzuno River, but that Kasane-ga-fuchi’s been gaining ground on Sarayashiki’s side of the river since Yusuke’s death.

• As the Kasane-ga-fuchi punks are discussing how Yusuke died saving a kid, in the manga they bring up how “Yusuke’s zombie” beat up their fellow Kasane-ga-fuchi punk Motomoto (their leader dismisses this as just Motomoto’s drunken vision), another reference to the manga story where Yusuke returns to life for a day.  In the anime this line is removed.

• In the manga, the Kasane-ga-fuchi punks try to get Kuwabara to beat up his friends by threatening to stick a burning cigarette butt into his cat Eikichi’s eye.  In the anime they instead threaten the cat with the sharp end of a broken beer bottle (apparently this was seen as more palatable). 

• Once Kuwabara and his friend start beating up the Kasane-ga-fuchi thugs, in the anime their leader chickens out and runs away.  Yusuke gives chase, punches him out, and that’s when the demon Jaki emerges from his mouth.  In the manga he’s not shown running, and it’s not quite clear where Kuwabara and co. are as Yusuke encounters Jaki and Botan appears and tells him about his new job as a Spirit World Detective.  I guess they’re all supposed to still be too busy fighting to notice this stuff.

• In the manga, the chapter just ends after Botan tells Yusuke he’s supposed to be a Spirit World Detective, saying he’ll have to resolve cases (like this one with Jaki) where the Spirit World’s involved.  In the anime though, Koenma appears in the sky and gives Yusuke a more detailed explanation about what being a Spirit World Detective entails (he’ll get orders from Botan, etc).

• Botan’s basic explanation about a Spirit World Detective resolving incidents involving the Spirit World is also given to Koenma in the anime.