A return to a common theme in Urusei Yatsura and a return to a better class of episode.

Something that comes up a lot in Urusei Yatsura is the idea that any woman who is acting overtly “girly” is doing just that, acting. Ran, the obvious example, being a direct parody of the Burriko girls of the time, but other characters indulge in it too – Shinobu often acts weak to try attract Mendou, even though she’s clearly the toughest character in the series, Ryu hangs onto to a warped, overly romanticised, view of femininity, rather than being herself.

In this episode we meet Katsuragi Anna, a Tomobiki High School student from the year below Lum, Ataru et al. She admits early in the episode that she feels like she’s acting like a girl rather than actually feeling like one. And she appears to be a parody of female manga/anime leads, in that she’s excessively girly and has excessively sparkly eyes.

She gets mugged by Soban and Lum comes to her rescue. She asks if Lum could beat him without her powers, and Lum says yes. This is all done in a way that comes across as a parody of the schoolgirl romantic friendship genre, though not as obvious and all-out as Project A-Ko would do it. However, Anna then goes and challenges Soban to a fight on Lum’s behalf, so that she can see Lum beat him and Anna can become really brave.

Lum, foolishly accepts, only to discover that without her powers she is really weak. There’s an hilarious line at this point from Shinobu who claims that “It’s too much for a girl. We just don’t have the strength” that leads to a fun visual gag.

We then get a training montage, and for once it shows great restraint in not doing a Star of the Giants or Tomorrow’s Joe homage. We do however get an Ultraman homage with Ryu and her dad, and a Rocky homage with Lum. There’s some fun physical comedy in this sequence and some very Eighties keep fit outfits.

Lum realises she can’t get stronger naturally in the three days Anna had given her, so uses some power boosting alien bracelets and strength boosting pills.

We then get the fight and the resolution, and this is probably where it comes undone a little. Soban eats Lums bracelets and she has to rely on the pills which only last 3 minutes and get less effective each time. Eventually everything descends in chaos, but as well the Oshii era episodes did. Could have used one really strong punchline to end everything on.

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Screenplay: Shigeru Yanagawa
Storyboard: Iku Suzuki
Director: Iku Suzuki
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

Love-sick shapeshifting fox Kitsune returns, with another plan to woo Shinobu.

This time the diminutive critter views a film (at the fox cinema) in which a fox turns a human woman into a fox for a night when she eats a magic nut. So Kitsune sets out to feed Shinobu the very same nut. However he’s forgotten where she lives. So he turns into Sakura to get Onsen-Mark to tell him the way to her house. Onsen-Mark is very drunk and very love-sick himself and actually thinks the tiny, fox-eared Sakura he sees before him is Sakura. He soon passes out though, and fter burying the unconscious Onsen-Mark under a pile of leaves, the dogs appear that were attacking him when Sakura saved him, and chase Kitsune. This time though, it is Kotatsu Neko makes the save, but Kitsune accidentally leaves his magic nuts behind.

TROUBLE.

As you may have guessed, if you’ve been following these episode write ups, these nuts are going end up eaten by everyone… Cunningly “disguised” as Shinobu, Kitsune gets Lum and Ataru to take him to Shinobu’s house claiming “I’ve forgotten where I live”. Shinobu is pleased to see Kitsune, but discovers he’s lost he nuts. It also becomes clear at this point that Kitsune can only talk to humans when disguised as one, as he turns into Lum and Ataru to tell them the fox as lost his nuts.

To Ataru’s surprise, even after learning that the nuts will turn her into a fox, Shinobu agrees to help look for them. However their search is in vain, until they run across Kotatsu Neko and Cherry making a stew… Everyone tucks in and soon, Shinobu, Lum, Ataru, Cherry and Kotatsu Neko have all turned into foxes and start floating away. Then as the smell of the stew spreads across Tomobiki everyone starts to grow fox ears & tails and start to frolic under the full moon.

Then we see Kitsune waking up in front of the cinema screen. Was it all a dream???

Another fantastic script from Michiru Shimada, who had also written Kitsune’s last appearance. Yuichi Endo also brings the same strong visuals, and what seems like the first time in ages the dream-like quality associated with the peak of the Oshii years.

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Screenplay: Michiru Shimada
Storyboard: Naoyuki Yoshinaga
Director: Naoyuki Yoshinaga
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

Once again Ryoko is portrayed as a having an interest in the supernatural. Not sure if this is a permanent shift in how she’s presented or if she returns to a straight mischievous portrayal later. This time round she makes a voodoo doll of her brother, and not trusting herself with it she decides to give it to someone she can trust to look after it (after using it to throw Mendou around a bit first).

That person is Ataru Moroboshi.

The twist that Takahashi throws in is that Ryoko doesn’t tell Ataru what it is, merely that he’s to look after it. As it’s Ryoko who’s asked him to do something, he actually does it, tying it round his neck and wearing it under his shirt. This leads to Mendou suffering all the ignominies that Ataru befalls the next day, such as being hit by Shinobu and electrocuted by Lum. Oh and being kissed by Ataru when Ataru kisses the doll thinking it’s a good luck charm.

Realising the situation and what Ataru would do if he learnt that he had a voodoo doll of him, Mendou dedicates himself to acting as Ataru’s protector the rest of the school day. Here the animation really comes into its own, escalating the tasks Mendou has to do to crazy levels not seen in the manga. And inserting all sorts scenes of the pair gazing longingly into one another’s eyes. It’s not until he’s been trampled by elephants that Mendou snaps and demands the doll.

Which of course leads to Ataru, who up to this point had been admiring Mendou for his heroism in saving him, nailing the doll to a tree!

Another solid episode, and Toshiki Inoue continues to show their skill at expanding a manga chapter to TV episode length. There’s also some flashy animation filling those gaps too. An sci-fi film parody that Mendou is watching on TV early in the episode and a baseball game both have some fun stuff in them.

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Screenplay: Toshiki Inoue
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Naoyuki Yoshinaga
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

Let us talk of the love between Pear and Chestnut.

Class 2-4 are once again on a field trip, this time to a pick your own pears farm. The characters actually comment on the disproportionate number of field trips they seem to take the school. They also all sing the theme song on the bus. WHICH IS EXCELLENT. Cast singalongs are always awesome and if they are not quite in tune, all the better. Makes it seem more natural that way.

So anyway, at this farm are Kuriko and Chojuro. Chojuro is a pear who is love with Kuriko, a chestnut of a tree the other side of the gulch there respective trees are adjacent to. Kuriko is knocked off her tree when Ten flies into her during a fight with Ataru. Chojuro is distraught, but then Lum picks him, and throws him at Ataru’s head when she sees Ataru flirting.

This leads to Chojuro being embedded in Ataru’s head and he is able to control Ataru’s body. Meanwhile Kuriko has done the same with Ten’s body, and the pair try and embrace, much to Ten and Ataru’s annoyance. Lum of course mistakes this show of affection for Ataru and Ten finally getting along, until Kuriko is knocked off Ten’s head. Lum then considered putting Kuriko on her own head so she can kiss Ataru, however Ataru has other plans and snatches it away, intent on putting Kuriko on other girls.

First it ends up on Sakura, however she can overcome Kuriko’s control. Then it ends up on Megane’s head. Then Ryuu’s. Then Kotatsu Neko’s head, he however doesn’t seem effect and throws Kuriko away, causing her to land on Mendou’s head. Of course. With Ataru and Mendou refusing to embrace, Chojuro and Kuriko ask if there is no couple in love amongst the field trip.

To which Sakura utters perhaps the truest statement of the series and replies to the lovelorn fruit that no-one present is capable of a true relationship. Then Lum points out that the Chojuro and Kimiko could just snuggle together without needed to be on two different people’s heads.

And so we end with the class back at school and Ataru with both Chojuro and Kimiko living on his head…

Like the Kitsune episode, this maybe as near perfect as the UY TV
show gets. And once again Yuichi Endo is the animation director. So
hooray for Yuichi Endo.

Not only is Yuichi Endo neat, scriptwriter Shigeru Yanagawa is too. This is fantastically written episode from top to bottom. So far 2 for 2 on funny, funny scripts from Yanagawa. All round great episode.

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Screenplay: Shigeru Yanagawa
Storyboard: Naoyuki Yoshinaga
Director: Naoyuki Yoshinaga
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

This is an unbelievably sweet episode. And it introduces a new recurring character.

When Shinobu saves a fox from being beaten up by some dogs (she does this by swing a telegraph pole at them), the fox develops a huge crush on her, seeing her as the heroine in an action film he once saw. So he tries to find her and pay her back for her kindness. However it doesn’t quite go right. When Shinobu can’t afford the make-up she wants, the fox puts the make up in her bag as a present, but only ends up getting her accused of shoplifting.

He does manage to get her umbrella back to her when she leaves it at the shop. And when she throws the flowers she was taking to class in order to beat up Soban, he recovers them and puts them in a vase on Onsen-Mark’s desk. However he’s also left little fox foot prints everywhere.

But that’s OK, because “Ataru” appears to clean them up. For this fox has shape-changing powers, unfortunately they are a little incomplete as he remains the same size, and retains his fox ears, tail and his little dot eyes and nose. So this little Ataru tries to clean up the footprints but keeps leaving more. When other class members arrive, they are so shocked they fetch Onsen-Mark. Who is also shocked as this Ataru is so polite.

Then the Headmaster arrives, and for reasons unknown cannot find his glasses (Kotatsu Neko is wearing them). He thinks this is the real Ataru and compliments Onsen-Mark on turning him into a model student. Eventually the real Ataru arrives and the truth is revealed, but Shinobu points out that the fox is just trying to pay her back. She thanks him and he goes off, his debt paid, never to be seen again…

Until a tiny fox-eared Onsen-Mark arrives to teach the class!

This may be a perfect Urusei Yatsura episode. The first half captures the melancholic, nostalgic sweetness at the heart of the anime, and the second half in the class is full of the escalating insanity that comes from the manga. It also helps that it looks fantastic, lots of great shots and a trademark crazy running sequence when Soban appears.

The fox, Kitsune is voiced by Masako Sugaya, who also voiced the very similar character, O-shima, in episode 52.

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Screenplay: Michiru Shimada
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Kazuo Yamazaki
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo

Didn’t they do this one already?

Megane and the Stormtroopers decide to make a student film, at first as a means of driving a wedge between Lum and Ataru, then as a means of killing Ataru. Then when they run out of money they are faced with getting Mendou to fund it (who they so far have been using as an extra to humiliate him). Ataru warns them against this, instead suggesting he ask Lum to do a nude scene so they can sell tickets in advance. This has the expected electricity based response from Lum and so Mendou gets recast as the lead, making Ataru jealous. When they finally view the film, it resembles a stalkers eye view of Lum, with everyone else pretty much cut out. We close with Megane & crew being beaten up by Ataru, Mendou and Shinobu.

This is nowhere close to episode 72, for a start there’s no cyborg Mendou shooting his fists off in a Mazinger style rocket punch. Where that episode was wild, this is stilted and mild. Far too many musical montages with little to no humour in them. And the character design is all over the place, great in spots, and just way off in others. The Stormtroopers get the best of it, with Ataru and Lum looking like storefront mannequins in spots.

A few nice parodies in there though, a North By North West crop duster scene and a Casablanca scene with some English language dialogue that puts most modern anime attempts at English dialogue to shame. And the gag of Mendou continually trying to appear on camera in his extra roles works quite well.

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Screenplay: Yoshiyuki Suga
Storyboard: Junji Nishimura
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Yuichi Endo