Lum plans to take Ataru on a ski trip alone, but The Stormtroopers, Shinobu and Mendou get wind of it. Shinobu gets Mendou to take her to the ski resort by private jet, while the Stormtroopers follow Lum and Ataru by train. And when they all get there, Ataru finds Ten hiding in his luggage.

With all our players on the stage, we get the crux of the episode. There is a treasure hunt, where the winner gets a kiss from the resort’s “Miss Snow Queen”. And so the race begins!

Cue excessive amounts of ski related slapstick. Including the mandatory MASSIVE SNOWBALL WITH PEOPLE IN IT.

Naturally Ataru wins, only to discover “Miss Snow Queen” is Lum herself!

Storywise, this one works really well as it’s just wall to wall gags. Animation-wise, there are a few flaws. Often in the talking head scenes, the character design looks too plain. Secondly they either forgot to animate a lot of mouths moving, or they added a lot more dialogue after the animation got back. However, there is a lot to like the treasure hunt scenes and along with the story, it works well as an episode.

—

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Keiji Hayakawa
Director: Keiji Hayakawa
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

A day late because of router death…

—

Lum’s father is kicked out the house after a row with his wife about the size of their starter course, and moves in with Lum and Ataru. This greatly annoys the Moroboshis as it means their fried prawn dinner will have to stretch further. Only for Mr Invader to…

Of course Mr and Mrs Moroboshi are too polite to actually complain and so falsely praise him on his appetite. Over dinner he reveals that he’s staying until Lum’s mother apologises…

There’s lots of little pieces of business early in the episode rather than an overall plot. Ataru and his Mum discussing eating tactics. Ataru and his Dad arguing over how best to serve instant noodles. The reason Mr & Mrs Moroboshi sleep in seperate beds (Mrs Moroboshi has what Kramer would call “The Jimmy Legs”!).

After the break, Mr Invader follows Lum and Ataru to school. When Onsen-Mark, Ataru and Lum discuss how to get rid of him, Ten stirs things up by telling his uncle that they are insulting him. This fires him up and he decides to teach the class how to be a real man.

Which involves this long, confusing rambling speech that makes little sense and offends all the girls in the class.

Finally Lum’s mum shows up to fetch her husband. And once again Ten stirs things up, this time by telling her the truth about what her husband has been saying.

So she beats him up.

Then in the next scene Lum beats Ataru for making a similar speech about girl chasing.

Then it goes all weirdly sentimental with Mr Moroboshi actually managing to stand up to his wife for the first time in 57 episodes.

There’s some nice animation in here, the flashback to Lum’s parents as newlyweds is very good. However the script sort fizzles out in the second half. Once again Ito proves to be great at scripting comic scenes, but getting to the end of the story is hard for him.

A couple of lengthy bits of Maison Ikkoku product placement show up here.

Mrs Moroboshi has a Piyo-Piyo apron on.

Mr Invader is seen reading the manga, including reproductions of actual pages.

This episode’s Animation Director, Kazuo Yamazaki would go on to be the chief director on the first 26 episodes of the eventual MI anime.

—

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Kazuo Yamazaki

The beginning of the episode opens with Onsen-Mark fighting with a cat for food. A fight which he loses. From there on out his day just gets worse… He’s second breakfast is stolen by Cherry, the headmaster warns him the PTA are on the warpath, then he is mocked by his class when he goes to see Sakura, and finally he gets into a fight with a Beef Bowl restaurant mascot at lunch.

Pushed to breaking point, he threatens 2-4 with detention the next time talk in class. Ten overhears this, and when they start throwing snowballs at him, he decides to deliberately disrupt the class.

And that gives us the second half of the episode as Ten tries to make the class say something, but they constantly remain quiet. Not so much to spite Ten as to spite Onsen-Mark, as even when he gives them permission to talk, they refuse.

Once again, the episode ends with everything blowing up. Because that’s the scientifically proven best way to end stories!

Not quite as kinetic as I remembered, it picks up in the second half as Ten attacks the class with an army of remote controlled vehicles (and one goofy looking combining mecha) reminescent of The Beano’s General Jumbo.

—

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kanzaki Mitsugi
Director: Takashi Anno
Animation Director: Asami Endo

Another new year’s story with the cast sent back in time.

This time Onsen-Mark is cast as Musashi with Cherry cast as Takuan. Ataru and Lum appear to be simply 16th century versions of themselves (though they might be meant to be Motoida Matahachi and Otsu). Mendou is cast as Kojiro.

Musashi, Kojiro and Ataru are responsible for many food thefts in the region, but all of them end up credited to Musashi. The villagers then hire Sakura to track down Musashi (Sakura and Shinobu are cast as the heirs to the Yoshioka School, Sakura as Yoshioka Seijūrō and Shinobu as Yoshioka Denshichiroo) along with Kojiro.

The whole episode is little more than a series of historical references tied to Ataru and Onsen-Mark being chased around while eating and running at a series of restaurants. And when I say historical references, I mean the characters from UY dressed up as various people Miyamoto Musashi killed. As well as all the characters mentioned so far we also see Chibi as Shishido Baiken and Kakugari as Muso Gonnosuke.

There’s also an odd gag involving Kojiro’s monkey getting bigger throughout the episode. And it all ends with a very convoluted gag involving fugu and getting buried on Ganryu Island.

Not a great episode, though it did remind me that I really ought to get Vagabond sometime. Even discounting the fact that 60% of the gags require knowledge of Musashi’s story, it’s just not very well animated. Nothing excited me about the episode I’m afraid.

Thankfully the next episode is a very kinetic one if my memory serves me correctly.

—

Also this episode we get the fourth ending theme:

I,I, You and Ai by Izumi Kobayashi

This was also the credit music (and animation?) to the first UY movie Only You.

—

Still no idea who 鳥南 乃 is…

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: 鳥南 乃
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Hayao Nobe

As I’ve just got to the end of the 1982 episodes of UY it might be worth a look at what else was around on TV that year. And it turns out that 1982 was pretty awesome.

Ai no Senshi Rainbowman

An anime update of the 70′s tokusatsu show.

Asari-chan

I wrote about this here.

Sasuga no Sarutobi

I wrote about this here.

Game Centre Arashi

OK, this goes on my list of shows I want to see more of.

Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV

Vehicle Voltron!

Minky Momo

Makyo Densetsu Acrobunch

Between this and the next show Erich Von Daniken’s touch was obviously being felt in anime this year.

Mysterious Cities of Gold

Ochame Gami Monogatari Koro Koro Prorin

Pataliro!

Xabungle

Macross

Space Adventure Cobra

Technovoyager/Thunderbirds 2086

Couldn’t find a copy of the originl Technovoyager opening.

Time Bokan: Gyakuten Ippatsuman

Tokimeki Tonight

Arcadia of My Youth: Endless Orbit SSX

The Kabocha Wine

Hey it’s the premise of Love★Com almost 2 decades early!

1982 draws to a close, along with the third production batch.

When Lum gets asked to organise the class year end party, she of course holds it in a pocket dimension. When Ataru goes through the door to the party, he finds a costume and when he puts it on he becomes “Zenigata Heiji“.

Yes, it’s another year end episode where history is played with fast and loose. Much like the Tale of Genji episode we have the cast put into historical roles once more. With Ataru cast as a famous Japanese detective, Mendou is cast as Sherlock Holmes. And they compete against one another to try and figure out who Onsen-Mark is dressed as.

Shinobu is Oshizu, Megane is Hachigoro and Kakugari is Dr Watson.

There is then a lot of running about, which the animators use to work in tons of blink and you’ll miss them visual references.

Eventually it looks like Onsen-Mark is cast as Urashima Tarō and they try to find the treasure box he was given. But instead they find Aladdin‘s magic lamp (or is it Tony Nelson‘s?) and Lum comes out dressed as a genie to grant Ataru three wishes.

Ataru first wishes for “all the girls in the world to think he’s a scream”, but this just makes the women scream in fear when he approaches them.

His second wish is for “a good poke with all the girls in the world”, which of course ends with him being hit with sticks.

Then everyone gets back on with the task of finding the treasure box, which leads to a mass battle between the class to try and keep hold of it. Eventually Onsen-Mark gets hold of it and opens the box returning everyone to the class, with no memory of the “party”, and so it all begins again…

Yes, more Beautiful Dreamer forshadowing with Urashima Taro references and the circular plot.

Unfortunately, Hayakawa was clearly rushed on this episode after the great work on episode 53, the animation is often very choppy, with few inbetweens. And there’s lots of looped animation. Despite that the two chase scenes have some nice stuff in there, and story is a lot of fun.

—

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Keiji Hayakawa
Director: Keiji Hayakawa
Animation Director: Asami Endo

The Best Show On WFMU Greatest Hits podcast has arrived.

Everyone should go listen, because Scharpling and Wurster are among the top things you can listen to.

Ataru wants a part time job, so Lum helps him get a job at the Asura bathhouse. Ataru’s happy with this as he thinks it will give him the chance to spy on pretty girls. In order to get to the bathhouse though, he has to enter a strange part of town. One that feels like it’s come from the pen of Shigeru Mizuki.

In many ways this feels like a dry run for Beautiful Dreamer. There’s a surreal dreamlike quality to it not to mention some specific visuals that would be used in that film (the deserted streets, the inability to see some characters faces, the elusive Chindon’ya band, characters finding themselves back where they started). In fact, without Ataru and Lum you’d could mistake this for a horror anime for much of the first 10 minutes.

The second half however is back to the normal goofery, as Ataru discovers the bathhouse is for aliens and monsters, rather than the cute girls he thought would be here. However when Ten shows up, he learns there actually is a women’s side and that it’s not as terrifying as the men’s side. So he tries to get over to that side. Lum stops him, but when he hears Benten and Oyuki’s voices he just gets more determined. And so we are treated to lots of attempts by Ataru to get across the wall. Eventually he manages to get there, but Lum blindfolds him and he ends up making out with a statue.

Then Ten blows him up and suddenly the mood changes back to the ghost story we started with. THE END.

The second half is probably the closest in animation terms the show has come so far to the later Takahashi adaptations in terms of character design and movement. It’s also an excuse for the animators to draw a load of naked women and spaceships. Yes spaceships. They find a way to insert a gratuitous amount of spaceships into this episode. Oh and there’s this frame, which is one of the greatest I’ve seen in the series so far:

All told, this is a very odd episode. The space bathhouse bit seems something straight out of Takahashi’s head, but I do wonder if the bookending horror/ghost story elements were something Ito thought of. It’s times like these I wish Viz had all of UY translated.

—

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Keiji Hayakawa
Director: Keiji Hayakawa
Animation Director: Hayao Nobe

I think this could be argued to be the best animated episode so far.

We open with Ataru and Lum on a bike ride, where they come across a crane in snare. Ataru frees the crane, demanding it return the favour some day (a reference to “Tsuru no Ongaeshi“). This all takes place with slightly daydreamy effect, added to by the somewhat prog-rock background music.

The “crane” hears this and sneaks into Ataru’s backpack. Lum and Ataru go and get their dinner when they get home, leaving Ten in Ataru’s room. Ten, coincidentally, is reading Tsuru no Ongaeshi. So when the “crane”, who now looks like a Tanuki (the “Racoon” of the title), pops out the bag looking to return the favour, he reads the book.

We, the viewers, get the story told to us too, with Ataru and Lum cast in the roles of the old couple that the crane returns the favour to. This sets O-shima, the tanuki, off to help Ataru. First by being his housemaid, then by introducing him to a “cute girl”…

…and finally by making him lots of money (which just turns out to be leaves). Upset that he can’t repay the favour, Ten adds to his woes by telling him another fairy tale, again with Lum and Ataru in the roles of an old couple – Kachi-kachi Yama (you know, the one where a tanuki tricks a farmer into eating his own wife…). This horrifies the poor little thing, and is only made worse when they point out he’s a tanuki. He denies this, turning back into the crane and flying away.

First time watching this back in 1999, I think I thought of this as a throw-away episode. It’s a weirdo of the week episode, spends a lot of time on the telling of the fairy tales, not that many of the main cast, but looking at it now, there’s a lot of craft in this episode. It’s a shame there’s been less episodes with both Oshi and Endo on them in the more recent batches as they really did seem to bring out the best in each other.

—

Screenplay: Hiroyuki Hoshiyama
Storyboards: Motosuke Takahashi
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Animation Director: Asami Endo

Here’s a good way to completely bum yourself out on a Saturday. Watch this episode of Urusei Yatsura. While there’s the usual slapstick and goofery, there’s also a really depressing tale of a dead cat at the centre of it.

For this is the episode we are introduced to Kotatsu Neko, the sumo wrestler-sized ghost cat who Ten befriends and brings home. When it finds Ataru’s kotatsu, it sets it up on the stairs and won’t budge. Leading Ataru to be stuck in his bedroom with Lum, much to his discomfort.

When Cherry and Sakura try to exorcise it, we see the tragic tale of Kotatsu Neko’s life. A stray kitten in what appears to be the Edo era, he tries to get some shelter from the cold under various kotatsu, but beaten and left to die in the snow. So in his vengeful state he becomes bakeneko (Cherry and Sakura expressly use the term and he we see him as small cat stand on his hind legs as he swears vengence).

Meanwhile, Mrs Moroboshi tries to leave home when her husband orders expensive eel dishes for Cherry and Sakura (Sakura seemingly as big a sponger as her uncle).

Eventually Cherry successfully exorcises the ghostly cat from the stairs, when he points out to him that the kotatsu doesn’t reach the electricity socket from there. This doesn’t put him to rest, mind you, he just moves up to Ataru’s room where he plugs it in.

The cat scenes, both the flash back and the scene where Kotatsu Neko is introduced breaking up a fight between stray cats and dogs have some really nice animation. Like Genma in Ranma 1/2, Takahashi’s design for Kotatsu Neko is wonderfully simple and so he’s often a lot more expressive in animation than more complicated designs are. He’s also a nice break from the usual motormouths on the show, in that, except for the flashback, he’s totally silent.

Kotatsu Neko remains in the series, often seen sharing a drink with the Headmaster in the school. Two islands of calm in the insanity of the series.

—

Kotatsu Neko is voiced by Tomohiro Nishimura

Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Kazuo Yamazaki