Episode 54

EPISODE 54

波瀾の決勝戦開始！ (Haran no Kesshou-sen Kaishi!)

The Turbulent Final Round Begins!

First Broadcast: October 30, 1993

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): second half of chapter 93 (WSJ #46, 1992, November 2), chapter 94 (WSJ #47, 1992, November 9)

Summary: As the gang prepares for the finals, Yusuke finds himself unable to tell the others of Genkai’s death. Next day, the finals begin at last. Sakyo is the 5^th member of Toguro’s team, and Koenma replaces Genkai on Yusuke’s team. Kurama and Karasu will fight first.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• After Kuwabara gets the hang of the Sword of Trials, he runs off to tell Yusuke.  In the manga he bursts into their hotel room and finds Yusuke channeling his power through meditation or something.  Hiei and Kurama soon show up too.  In the anime he shouts at Yusuke from outside the hotel window, only to see that Yusuke is outside too, by the beach, doing his meditation thingy.  In the anime Yusuke’s meditation shakes the ground and causes rocks to fall into the sea.  After seeing Yusuke’s power, Kuwabara has a brief flashback to Yusuke’s huge Spirit Gun from last time.  Hiei and Kurama then show up at the beach.  For some reason, when Kurama shows up the anime shows a brief glimpse of the four-legged Yoko.

• In the manga, once Kurama and Hiei show up, Kuwabara (or somebody, it’s not clear) says that the gang’s all here.  Then the narrator explains that Yusuke only told the others that Genkai would no longer be coming back today, since he half-thought she’d come back the next day.  Some realized (Kurama), some figured something was up (Hiei), and some had no clue (Kuwabara), and so the day of the finals came.  In the anime, with everyone gathered on the beach, we actually see Yusuke start to try and tell them what happened, but all he can manage to say is that Genkai wouldn’t be coming back today.  At that point the narration takes over (for some reason Botan rather than the regular narrator reads these lines).  The narration is the same as the manga except for leaving out the part about some people realizing and some not, but there are still shots of Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara.

• After Yusuke and co. start walking over to the arena for the finals (you think there’d be a shuttle or something), there’s some filler where baby-form Koenma and Jorge stop by Botan’s place.  Botan is still sad over Genkai’s death, while Koenma complains that he told her long in advance that Genkai was going to die soon.  Koenma then leaves, saying he’s going to be busy today.  Botan wonders what he means.

• Following that is another brief filler scene as Juri and Koto comment on the huge crowd showing up for the finals.

• During the brouhaha over both teams lacking a fifth member, there’s more filler as Botan and the girls can’t get inside the stadium, since Botan forgot to get tickets from Koenma.  The same big security guard guy from before is still fending off the angry crowd outside.  Shizuru spots the same ticket scalper from the start of the tournament.  He offers them tickets for a bunch of money, but Shizuru steals them.  In chapter 95 of the manga Shizuru mentions in passing that the group got really good seats thanks to the ticket scalper (there’s even a little note saying to check the relevant volume for more details on this character), but it’s only in the anime that we see the actual incident.

• Right after that, Sakyo comes out and is revealed as the fifth member of Team Toguro, in addition to being the owner.  There’s more filler as Shizuru and co. get to the ring just in time to see this.  Shizuru is disturbed to learn who Sakyo really is, and there’s flashbacks to the times Sakyo helped her out.

• When Koenma is revealed as the new fifth member of Yusuke’s team, in the manga he just walks up, while in the anime he makes a big fancy entrance, with dry ice and everything.  Also, when Koenma shows off the rockets he’ll use to escape if his turn to fight happens to come up, in the anime we can see that the rockets have the face of his baby form printed on them.  In the manga Hiei says he never expected anything of Koenma anyway, while this line gets left out in the anime.

• In the manga Kurama goes to fight Karasu right away, while in the anime Kuwabara wants to go first, but Kurama stops him.