Urusei Yatsura – 07

「住めば都 / 生ゴミ, 海へ」 (Sumeba Miyako / Namagomi, Umi e)
“Home Is Where You Find It / Marine Garbage Disposal”

Episode 07 of Urusei Yatsura takes a bad situation and makes it worse when a scaly man-fish named Pochi begins dragging people to the deep end of a pool to make new friends. But when everyone turns their back on Pochi and wants them gone, the cast is forced to debate the matter of who gets to have Pochi as their new problem.

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

In all honesty, this was a very weird episode. It’s hard to write about because much of Pochi’s angst over wanting a companion is overshadowed by all of the crazy acts of depravity that Ataru and the rest of the cast embrace in this episode. The pool scene is relatively tame and has its fair share of funny moments like Ataru imagining all of the half-naked men as floating vegetables.

But all of its outrageous stand-out moments shine through with the next segment when they try to dump Pochi somewhere on the beach. Ataru’s mom sets the tone right away by continuing to be one of the best characters in the show and happily putting it upon her son to get rid of Pochi. From that point forward, all of the characters are willing to dip into their own fair share of nefariousness.

This episode’s treatment of Sakura is way high up there as the cast is more than happy to push their boundaries with her. The beach segment is especially morally dubious as Ataru, Lum, Mendou, Shinobu, and Pochi voyeuristically watch Sakura with her boyfriend, anticipating the possible moment where they get some hanky panky in. While a lot of the show is still a product of the 70s and 80s, it’s all the more apparent this time around when we’re making full-on gags about how funny it is to stalk your school nurse with the hopes of watching her have public sex with her boyfriend.

However, its craziest twist comes from the tail-end of the episode with a side story involving a young boy mournfully giving up his “pet”. He kept going on and on about how his parents forced him to abandon his “pet” and looked on at Pochi with a sad touch of jealousy. Come to find out that when the boy picks up the wrong cardboard box with Pochi, the real “pet” that the boy has been playing with and sleeping with is the elderly monk Cherry.

Needless to say that this raises many questions with the flashbacks of the boy playing with and sleeping with his “pet”. The implication of his parents forcing him to give away Cherry is definitely the idea that they thought Cherry was a pervert who tried to make his way into the bed of a little boy. It’s the wildest plot twist I could imagine and didn’t think that they’d put Cherry into the position where he’d look like a sex offender for going along with being a little boy’s pet. It’s an awkward note to end on, but the good thing is that Cherry isn’t wind up being a disturbing pervert towards the boy, and the boy wound up having a nice time with Pochi as his new pet.