Urusei Yatsura – 08

「転入生, 危機一髪… / お別れパーティー危機一髪…」 (Tennyuusei, Kikiippatsu… / Owakare Party Kikiippatsu…)
“Transfer Student Close Call… / Farewell Party Close Call…”

The eighth episode of Urusei Yatsura brings along Ran, another childhood friend of Lum who has a less-than-cordial view of their relationship. While some of Lum’s other old friends have a sense of decorum about any negative feeling towards Lum, Ran is too resentful to avoid letting their animosity spill and has been itching to dunk on Lum in a bitter revenge plot.

YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING

I don’t have as much to say about this episode, to be honest. I’m starting to understand that there’s a little fatigue that comes with writing about an older comedy with a set pattern like this. Ataru lusting over Lum’s friends only for them to drop a deal-breaker on him has gotten to be too predictable lately. Even the sections unrelated to Lum’s friend circle have gotten to be a bit blase with the beach episode spending most of its time creeping on Sakura and setting up the joke where the kid reveals he had an old man as a pet.

I figured this might happen since it’s still an adaptation of an older gag manga with its own set of obstacles. A writer would grow impatient with not having all of the characters they had in mind at their disposal, so getting all of the character intros out of the way would be preferable to playing in the same sandbox with the same toys. The pressure of having to make a chapter week in and week out is also bound to stoke complacency, so you can make chapters where the same jokes are recycled while you gear up to have new scenarios and characters crafted in the meantime.

At the same time, the “Best of” format of the anime might have placed this adaptation in a temporary slump as it irons out the character introductions. They likely wanted to have all of the characters introduced by the beginning so that they can adapt whatever chapters they want with ease. But with that comes the cost of having episodes that start looking samey as we get one new character after another.

I RAN

I can also see them wanting to give pomp and circumstance to finding out who voices all of the characters and make sure that no one is left out. Ran felt like a lesser version of Benten and Oyuki in my eyes, but for the fans of Ran, they’d be pumped up to see her in all of her glory, voiced by a beloved veteran VA and ready for vengeance. And, indeed, Hanazawa Kana puts out another great performance with Ran as she shifts between the oblivious, cutesy act and her vengeful fury with ease.

Based on the casting, this reboot attracted many high-profile voice actors who grew up with the series and wanted to be a part of it, so that alone would add to the significance of this production in general. But the mad dash to see everyone’s favorite characters and reveal who voiced them comes at the price of potentially causing fatigue with seeing the same set-up to many of the girls and guys who prove to be difficult for Lum and Ataru to navigate around.

As far as the Ran segments go, there wasn’t a punchline that was as consequential or laugh-out-loud as the jokes from past episodes. I’m left underwhelmed thinking about how the main jokes of this episode were that Ran is resentful, the wrong guy who kissed Ran had gotten so weak that he started developing elderly man habits, and the snafu where Ran’s plan to clone Ataru made her kiss the wrong Ataru.

The idea of two Ataru’s on paper would be insanely hilarious, but it’s squandered to its fullest degree because it was for a one-off attempt for Ran to get petty revenge on Lum. The Ataru’s barely acted the same way, so that kind of madness was already doomed. It also would’ve been funny if Ran got it right and did give Lum the clone Ataru. That way, it’d open up the funny scenario where Lum would be concerned that Ataru suddenly isn’t a massive screw-up, and Ran finds out the boy she pushes herself to kiss is even more of a repulsive cretin than she thought.

Hopefully, the next episode will be a lot more amusing since it looks like they are hinting at another character introduction for another one of Lum’s past cohorts. I don’t think it’s something I can go through in the long run since the fatigue started to hit me far earlier than I would’ve hoped.