Urusei Yatsura 87
うる星やつら episode 87 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Onsen-sensei sees Ataru has a daikon in class and demands to know why he has it. Ataru says his going to eat it. An inspection of the class reveals that they’ve all brought in ingredients for nabemono (aka: nabe). Because he will interfere, Onsen is knocked out and tied up. Thus, it is time to make a giant pot of nabe but Cherry is in the pile of vegetables. He’s about to be expelled, but then Ataru notices Cherry has a basket full of matsutake mushrooms. This results in Cherry going from unwanted parasite to hero since matsutake mushrooms are extremely expensive. Cherry tries to say something but gets cut off.

The nabe is cooked but four girls pass out. Ataru and some of the other guys jump in there and start scarfing. Mendou chastises them but Lum feeds him some of the mushrooms. Ryuunosuke remembers her father preventing her from eating the “evil mushroom” and weeps as she eats. Soon, the class begins acting strange as various students put on stupid acts to the cheering of their fellow classmates. Lum sees this and realizes that this is a side effect of the mushrooms, so she gets Sakura-sensei. Sakura-sensei realizes Cherry isn’t eating the mushrooms and so avoids them herself.

Lum starts bringing in all kinds of people including Ataru’s parents, Otama (the ghost from Sudama Inn), Ryoko, and Sakura-sensei’s boyfriend Tsubame. Two other teachers even pop by to eat from the nabe as does the principle. Soon, everyone is acting a fool with more and more demands to have more entertainment. Tsubame, under the influence of the mushrooms, decides to marry Sakura and upon kissing her, she too is under the mushroom’s influence. A mock wedding is arranged and as the nuttiness continues into the evening, Cherry walks away, glad he didn’t eat those poisonous mushrooms.

Thoughts/Review:

Wow. Talk about needing to kill time. This entire episode was basically an excuse to (1) cut some costs, (2) kill time (the ultimate filler), and (3) give an excuse to show off some of the myriad of characters that this series contains, including some minor ones like Otama.

That’s not to say there wasn’t some entertainment value. I’d have to say that the first half of the anime was entertaining, but the joke of these faux matsutake mushrooms and their effect on the class gets old after that. So a mixed bag in the end and really nothing much to comment on.