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「愛と闘魂のグローブ / 君待てども…」 (Ai to Toukon no Guroubu / Kimi Matedomo …)
“The Glove of Love and Conflict / How I’ve Waited for You…”
Urusei Yatsura’s fifth episode shows us both the best and worst of Ataru as he alternates between caring for Lum and discarding her. But even with his shameless disregard for Lum’s happiness, he finds that he can’t quite shake off his own budding feelings for the alien girl as she tries to look out for him even when he’s at his most insufferable.
THE MEASURE OF A MAN
I felt bad for Sakura in this episode because her new job as a nurse hasn’t been panning out well so far. She’s been trying to steer away from Cherry’s line of business as a shrine maiden, but the moment she comes to school, she’s aggressively hit on by all of the boys. It completely ruins her first impression of anything outside of the shrine maiden life. Even Mendou becomes a rabid dog in her presence.
On top of all of this, she still can’t escape the supernatural life as haunted boxing gloves make their way onto Ataru’s hands. This wound up being a funny way of getting everyone to smack Ataru around because of all the hijinks the glove got him into. I’m surprised at how the amorous Love Clincher is an equal opportunity offender since Ataru gropes onto Mendou with the same glove that veers in the path of all the girls.
I cracked up the hardest when the Rage Hitter glove got in his hands, and his first impression was to smash his fist right into a teacher’s face. It makes it all the more hilarious when he goes out of his way to protect Lum from the glove by jumping in front of its punch only to immediately let Mendou have it while his guard is down.
FIND A BRAND NEW LOVER
There is some talk from Urusei Yatsura fans about how the curated “Best of” approach the new anime did doesn’t quite do justice to the segments as they were shown in the older anime or manga. I’m not as well-versed in this so I’ve been enjoying the reboot, but if there are any complaints I have, it’s that sometimes, the segments they choose don’t quite align in this episode.
Seeing Ataru be selfless and truly want to protect Lum in the boxing glove section makes it unusual to see the second segment where he outright shoves Lum onto Mendou so he can invest more time in any other girl. It feels like, even with some of the strides he’s taken to warm up to Lum’s presence, he still has an impulse to break her heart in the process of pushing her away to live his own life.
I am wondering, with the scrambled chapter order in mind, which developments will stick more than others? If episodes after this have Ataru acting crueler to Lum than ever before, it’d feel weird to see that after he was taken aback by her beauty and held her hand.
Speaking of, they did a great job with the build-up toward Ataru reaching out to grab Lum’s hand. Lum’s beauty comes out so nicely with DavidPro’s artwork, so it does really look striking when Ataru notices Lum staring listlessly forward as she yearns for romance. It’s an evocative scene, and I can only imagine it’s even more striking in some of the other mediums where they adapted “How I’ve Waited for You…”.
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ANNOUNCEMENT: This upcoming Thursday, I will be away on break. That means I wouldn’t be writing articles for Akiba Maid Sensou and Urusei Yatsura next week on the 17th. They might be posted by another author, but if they aren’t, I’ll have a double post set up for the week after.