Episode 7

EPISODE 7

蔵馬の秘密?!母と子のきずな (Kurama no Himitsu?! Haha to Ko no Kizuna)

Kurama’s Secret?!  The Ties Between Mother and Son

First Broadcast: November 21, 1992

Equivalent Manga Chapter(s): chapter 21 (WSJ #20, 1991, May 6), chapter 22 (WSJ #21-22, 1991, May 13)

Summary: Beaten by Goki, Yusuke recovers and goes after him again, managing to beat him by shooting a Sprit Gun off inside his mouth.  Yusuke then meets Kurama, who reveals his origin and motives (he’s a former demonic Yoko fox, now a human), and Yusuke saves Kurama from sacrificing his life to cure his mother

Anime/manga differences after the jump.

Differences from the Manga

(What's all this about?  Read here)

• In the anime, Yusuke freaks out when he learns his mom can see Botan, and Botan whispers to him that Koenma had said it wouldn’t be very useful to have an assistant that nobody could see.  In the manga Yusuke doesn’t say anything about Botan’s new-found visibility.  Neither the manga nor the anime actually explain at this point how Botan is now visible to ordinary people.  In the manga, during the Sensui story arc we eventually learn that when she needs to interact with regular humans, Botan’s spirit body (the invisible form she first appears in) possesses an artificial physical body.  Her spirit body’s always wearing the same kimono, and it’s her physical body that wears various more modern clothing.  In the anime they just skip over this whole divide between Botan’s spiritual and physical bodies.

• After Yusuke and Botan contemplate the difficult in taking back all three treasures within a week, there’s a brief filler scene where Koenma (watching the pair on his magic TV thing) goes over again how huge disasters will occur if King Enma returns before the treasures are recovered.

• In the manga Botan explains that Goki can go for years without eating souls, but once he starts eating them he can’t stop.  This gets left out in the anime.

• When Yusuke talks about how bad it is to have your soul eaten, in the manga he notes that it means you can never be reincarnated, while in the anime he instead says you can’t become a ghost and fly around.

• The anime leaves out the part of the explanation for the demon detector gizmo that says its ability to detect distant demons is proportional to the user’s spiritual power.  At Yusuke’s current power he can only use it to detect demons within 500 meters.  Then when Yusuke goes after Goki, he uses the detector to see that Goki’s only 300 meters away, but this part likewise gets cut out in the anime.

• In fact, the anime rearranges the whole end of the “Yusuke decides to go after Goki again” scene.  In the manga, after giving Yusuke the ring to increase the Spirit Gun’s power, Botan says that even using the ring Yusuke might not be able to critically damage Goki, since his skin is as hard as steel.  Then they use the detector to find him.  In the anime Botan’s warning to Yusuke appears as a brief flashback after Yusuke starts fighting Goki again.

• Right as Goki’s about to kill Yusuke, in the manga a boy happens to stumble on them.  Goki goes after the kid and steals his soul, giving Yusuke the chance to recoup a little and finally beat Goki.  Once the kid’s got his soul back along with all the others, Yusuke tells him it was all just part of a movie, but the kid clearly isn’t buying it.  In the anime instead of some random kid, Botan comes along and helps Yusuke out again by throwing something at Goki.  Goki chases after her, and things then go more or less the same as in the manga.

• In keeping with the above change, originally Yusuke’s alone as he travels back to his house after fighting Goki, but in the anime Botan’s with him.  In the manga the second part of what Kurama tells Yusuke is revealed when Yusuke tells Botan the story, but since in the anime Botan’s there with Yusuke and so doesn’t need to be told anything later on, the whole conversation’s just shown in one go.

• When Atsuko comes in to offer Yusuke and Botan dinner, in the manga she asks Yusuke whether he’s two-timing Keiko with this new girl.  This gets left out in the anime.

• There’s a brief filler scene where Botan, now back in her kimono and flying oar form, flies off to ask Koenma about the Dark Mirror.  As mentioned before, in the manga it’s eventually revealed that Botan’s flying kimono form is her spiritual body (her natural state), while the form that’s earthbound and wears modern clothing is her artificial physical body she possesses to blend in in the Human World.  By manga logic, for Botan to fly off like this implies that she’s left her physical shell behind somewhere (like we see in the Sensui story arc), but in the anime things are different.

• In the manga there’s a scene where Kurama shows up at Yusuke’s school and invites him to visit his mother in the hospital, but in the anime Yusuke just goes straight to the hospital without any explanation.  Apparently Kurama invited him there when they first met.

• Kurama’s human father died “a little while ago” in the manga but a “long time ago” in the anime.

• Kurama’s explanation of his origin is a little different in the anime.  In the manga he says that after being wounded by a powerful Hunter, he possessed a newly fertilized egg because he no longer even had the power to possess a regular human and evade the Hunter’s notice that way.  In the anime he doesn’t explain why he possessed the fetus, besides being injured.  He also says he intended to demonize his human body as his spectral power increased, which is left out in the anime.  The idea that he demonized his human body may explain why everyone considers Kurama a demon even in his non-Yoko form.

• Then the anime leaves out a major part of the manga’s explanation of Kurama’s motives.  When Yusuke first meets Kurama's mother, in the manga he sees that she has deep scars on her arms.  Kurama explains that these came from an incident 6 years ago, when his mother cut herself on some dish shards to prevent Kurama from falling on them.  This was the event that made Kurama start to regard his mother with genuine affection, and why he didn’t run away after 10 years like he originally planned.  In the anime he doesn’t offer any explanation for why he goes to such great lengths to save his mother other than that he owed her a lot.

• In the anime Kurama says that after his mother took ill, Hiei and Goki happened to approach him asking for his help in stealing the three treasures, and that’s when he thought of using the mirror to save his mother.  But the manga doesn’t say this, and makes it sound like he thought of using the mirror all on his own.  Also, in the manga we later see that Kurama and Hiei met and first teamed up a year before stealing the treasures, and it seems that they only picked up Goki later.

• The anime also depicts Kurama as an actual, four-legged fox prior to incarnating as Shu’ichi Minamino.  In the manga there’s an image of such a fox in the background as part of the explanation of the whole “Yoko” concept, but it’s not directly tied to Kurama like it is in the anime (with this fox actually running around stealing stuff, escaping the Hunter, etc).  Of course, Kurama’s Yoko form is later depicted as a humanoid fox, but the anime at least tries to tie in its four-legged version by implying it’s an alternate form (or something), but more on that when we get to it.

• After Kurama says he’ll turn himself in after using the mirror to save his mother, in the manga Yusuke says that would leave his mother all alone.  But Kurama says she’s in love with a man she met at work, so she’ll at least have him.  It’s this guy that Kurama’s mother later marries in both the manga and anime, but he’s only introduced later in the anime.  In the manga he’s the one who runs out to tell Kurama his mother’s in critical condition.  In the anime a nurse does this.  This guy’s also shown in the Dark Mirror along with Kurama’s mother, but in the anime he’s left out again.

• In the manga Kurama’s the one to explain all about how the Dark Mirror takes your life to grant your wish, and how it’s changed hands many time because of this.  In the anime Kurama starts giving the explanation, then the scene switches to Koenma explaining the same thing to Botan.  Botan rushes off to tell Yusuke this, and she shows up right as all the mirror shenanigans wrap up.  In the manga Yusuke’s all by himself when he recovers the mirror.

• The manga chapters wraps up with Yusuke returning home and offering to make dinner, and Atsuko wonders what’s come over him (apparently Kurama’s filial piety has rubbed off a little).  Instead of this, the anime episode ends with Koenma saying that getting the final treasure back from Hiei won’t be easy.