Episode 66

EPISODE 66

戸愚呂の償い・一番の望み (Toguro no Tsugunai・Ichiban no Nozomi)

Toguro’s Atonement—His Greatest Desire

First Broadcast: February 5, 1994

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 112 (WSJ #15, 1993, March 29)

Summary: In the afterlife, Toguro opts to go to the worst of hells, and bids Genkai farewell. Koenma and his assistant discuss the incident that turned Toguro evil. As tournament champion, Yusuke’s greatest wish must be granted: while he and the gang prepare to leave the island, Genkai returns to life.

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• The episode starts with shots of the island from a distance, Genkai’s hat sitting beside a rock (apparently her makeshift grave), and the girls walking along the beach, with Yusuke watching them from the hotel room.  He says they’re ready to go.  Manga chapter 112 opens with a shot of the hotel, and goes straight to Yusuke saying they’re ready to go.

• Kurama’s explanation of death is slightly expanded on in the anime.  After Kurama says that the Spirit World is like a station between life and death, Kuwabara asks whether or not the dead go to the Spirit World.  Kurama says they do, but that it’s just a stopping point on the way to death itself.  While Kurama's explaining this, the anime shows the girls kneeling before Genkai’s grave.

• Yusuke says that now that the tournament’s over, tomorrow he’s going to start partying.  In the manga Kuwabara points out that today is the last day of spring vacation (explaining how Yusuke and co. could be spending all this time at a tournament without going to school).  This gets left out in the anime.

• After the part with Yusuke and co. preparing to leave Kubi-Kukuri Island, the scene switches to the Spirit World.  In the manga things go immediately to Toguro meeting Koenma.  The anime though starts by showing Koenma and Jorge finally returning to the Spirit World after all the time they spent at the tournament.  Koenma rings the doorbell to the Gate of Judgment (which is shaped like his own head), but the people there seem to have forgotten about him.  Once he and Jorge manage to reach the office, they find that it’s stacked so high with backed-up paperwork that they can’t even walk in.  The papers collapse all over them, and the angry Koenma asks some of the ogres working there what’s going on.  He had ordered them to take over his job while he was away, and even left his stamp there so they could approve thing.  The ogres explain that King Enma found out and put a stop to this arrangement, so Koenma will have to do all the work himself.  Koenma says he has more important things to do right now, and orders the ogres to clean things up.  He even shouts to Jorge to do it to, calling him by his full name: “Jorge Saotome”.  I think this is the first time we ever hear his name.

• Toguro’s meeting with Koenma is expanded on a bit in the anime.  The manga starts midway through their meeting, as Koenma asks Toguro to reconsider his decision to go to the Dark Hell Realm, the worst of the hells.  In the anime we see the meeting from the beginning, as Toguro walks in and says he’s decided to go there.  This scene always bugs me.  Koenma’s supposed to be judge of the dead, so why does Toguro get to decide where he goes?  But Koenma does say that Toguro could get off with a lighter sentence if they take into consideration his achievements as a martial artist, so maybe the idea is that the Dark Hell Realm is where Toguro deserves to go under the normal standard of judgment, and he simply has figured this out in advance.  Koenma can recommend pulling strings to get him a lighter sentence, but he can’t actually force Toguro to accept such an arrangement.  I guess.

• Ayame (Koenma’s black-haired female assistant) reads Koenma the report on the incident that lead to Toguro becoming a demon.  In the manga she says that all of Toguro’s disciples and one of his martial arts comrades were killed by a demon.  The anime mentions the pupils but not the one martial arts comrade (which would, I guess, mean someone like Genkai or his brother).

• In the anime we get a full-blown flashback scene showing Toguro’s backstory.  In the manga we only get a panel of Kairen killing people as Toguro looks on helplessly, and a panel of Toguro looking really mean.  The flashback includes a shot of Toguro’s pupils quaking before Kairen.  One of them looks kind of like Chun Li from Street Fighter.  Another one looks like Kitaro from Gegege no Kitaro.

• Kairen looks different in the anime.  In the manga he (?) looks somewhat like Toguro’s 100% form, while in the anime you don’t get that sense quite as much.  His head looks skull-like in the manga, while in the anime it’s more reptilian and has quills.  The anime also shows him attacking Toguro’s pupils by shooting out spiky tendrils from his body, somewhat like Elder Toguro.

• In the anime flashback we also see the whole team Toguro went to the Dark Tournament with 50 years ago.  Besides Genkai and Elder Toguro, there’s some really tall guy and a big burly guy.

• The anime shows the entrance to Hell as Toguro heads there.  It looks like a rundown old-fashioned Japanese mansion, glowing red.

• As Toguro meets Genkai for the last time, the anime replays the earlier scene of their past together, sitting in that boat talking about how aging sucks.

• As the two talk, the anime also adds some extra effects to make the Spirit World seem even stranger.  It snows small orbs of energy, and the space below them seems to be full of some kind of liquid that changes colors.

• After Toguro and Genkai finish their talk, there’s an anime-only scene when Genkai (now old again) meets Koenma in his office.  Jorge is confused, but Koenma explains that whoever wins the tournament must get their wish, no matter what it is.  Then he flashes back to what Toguro told him immediately after Genkai’s death: if on the off chance Yusuke won, it’s obvious what he’d wish for, so Koenma should take good care of Genkai’s body.  This flashback is actually in the manga, but it’s in chapter 113, all the rest of which is covered in the anime’s next episode.  There, Botan explains to Yusuke what went on with Koenma and Toguro, rather than Koenma himself explaining it like we see here.  After the flashback, Koenma says that he feels like Toguro has been controlling them all along

• After that is another anime-only scene.  Back on Kubi-Kukuri Island, the gang’s hanging out in the hotel lobby still getting ready to leave.  Things still seem pretty calm and business-as-usual in the hotel lobby, despite the deaths of countless people associated with the tournament.  An intercom announcement states that the last passenger line will soon be leaving the island.  The boys are sitting having some coffee, while the girls are getting ready.  Kuwabara wonders what’s taking them so long: none of them really need to wear much makeup, other than his sister of course.  Shizuru shows up just at that moment, freaking Kuwabara out.  The rest of the girls arrive too, and make Kuwabara carry all their stuff.

• After that we get back to manga material, with the scene of the gang waiting near the shore for the ship to pick them up.  Some anime-only stuff: Botan starts to say how much has happened at the tournament, but Kuwabara stops her before she can say anything that will remind everyone of Genkai.  Then we actually get to see the gang on the ship leaving the island, while the manga chapter just ends with the gang reuniting with Genkai, and a faraway shot of the island.