うる星やつら episode 88 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura 88

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lum finished knitting a muffler for Ataru complete with his name in English and takes it from her ship to his house. At the same time, Ataru has taken Ten-chan’s remote control toy fighter and is flying it around to Ten-chan’s anger. Ten-chan uses his fire breath attack, but Ataru is ready with the frying pan to shield against it. With the flames gone, Ataru begins whacking Ten-chan hard with the frying pan before settling on a practice tennis session with Ten-chan serving as the tennis ball to be hit against the wall before Ataru goes for the killer, win shot which plants Ten-chan into the wall.

Lum arrives with the muffler, which she lovingly wraps around Ataru’s neck. Ten-chan removes himself from the wall and since Ataru has his back to Ten-chan, Ten-chan is able to use another fire attack. Ataru is singed but the muffler is completely destroyed. Ataru, seeing an opportunity (and maybe more) harshly chastises Ten-chan for destroying the muffler Lum had lovingly made for Ataru. He tries to get Lum into the act, but she’s so happy at Ataru’s reaction to having a present from her destroyed that she doesn’t catch on. Ten-chan flees out the sliding glass door with Ataru yelling after him that he expects an apology. Ataru then tries to convince the happy Lum that she needs to be angry with Ten-chan.

Ten-chan is depressed and wandering the streets when he encounters Cherry. Ten-chan wants to learn how to apologize, something he’s never done. After Cherry cons Ten-chan into buying some baked sweet potatoes and then tries to get him to buy Cherry some takoyaki, Ten-chan decides to move on. Next is Mendou’s house where he discovers that the Mendou family don’t apologize as such, but puff out their chest and act dismissive to those wanting an apology. Ten-chan decides to try this out on Megane, Perm, Chibi, and Kakugari (after first having chased them with a gun). However, the attitude so irritates the boys, they give him a good beating.

Ten-chan heads to school where he sees Ryuunosuke and her father fighting over his sake drinking. Ryuunosuke appears to lose and assumes the apology position at her fathers demand, but instead of apologizing, she insults and attacks her father, leading to another fight. Ten-chan sees that Earth has a lot of ways to apologize and heads back into town. There he encounters Shinobu, who accidentally knocks over a long row of bicycles. Naturally, some of the owners aren’t happy, but she plays the airhead role and gives a casual apology, which is accepted. So, Ten-chan tries this on Megane and company which results in Ten-chan taking another beating.

Ten-chan returns to Ataru’s house, where he finds that Lum has returned to the space ship. Ataru says she’s very angry, so Ten-chan decides to go to the ship and square things with Lum. Inside the ship, Lum doesn’t know how to be angry with Ten-chan despite knowing how her father could be with her (spanking her). As Ten-chan enters the craft, Lum does a practice anger session which Ten-chan sees as true anger. So fierce is Lum that Ten-chan attempts to beat a hasty retreat, and he can’t do it quick enough.

Ten-chan returns to Ataru’s house to gather a few belongings so that he may leave for good. Ataru is sleeping when Ten-chan leaves and as the depressed Ten-chan walks, he encounters Sakura-sensei. Ten-chan can’t talk with “Sakura-neechan” at first, but eventually he does and she tells him he must honestly apologize. Ten-chan returns to Ataru’s home, where he finds him still asleep. Later, Ataru is up and Lum is in the room knitting another muffler. Ataru is still telling Lum that she needs to be angry with Ten-chan, however Lum is having a difficult time not laughing since Ten-chan wrote his apology on the back of Ataru’s shirt.

Thoughts/Review:

Since Ten-chan annoys me to no end, I loved this episode since Ten-chan gets beaten quite a few times by Ataru AND from Megane’s “Lum Stormtrooper” group. The funniest beating of course came from Ataru using his special frying pan to defend himself from Ten-chan’s fire attack, then end up using Ten-chan as a tennis ball, whacking him repeatedly against the wall. In episode 83, Ten-chan was used as a baseball and a basketball, so way to go writers on the sports ball theme. 😁

Lum’s practice anger session is also funny since Ten-chan thought she was really angry. However, I also have to admit that I was amused at Ten-chan’s written apology on Ataru’s shirt.

Since this is a Takahashi-sensei inspired title, I don’t figure Lum and Ataru will be a proper couple at the end (that is reserved first for Maison Ikkoku and then a 2nd place finish for the Inuyasha manga). Still, I did wonder if Ataru felt a little sense of loss over losing the muffler Lum had made for him or if it were all an act. For some reason, I got the feeling that it wasn’t all an act (though it was mostly to torment Ten-chan). Further, in his dream, Lum was the first of the girls who’s name Ataru spoke while he napped. So clearly, Ataru is interested in Lum more than I remember.

So, a fun episode, especially with Ten-chan getting his. 😁