Urusei Yatsura 109 (Hey! A Paper Tape Punch!)
うる星やつら episode 109 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura ep. 109

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ran has a nightmare that while on a picnic date with Rei, Rei ends up consuming her. She wakes up and decides Rei must be hungry. After tracking him down with technology, she uses a mandala to teleport to his location to feed him. Lum sees this and is happy for Ran. Lum returns to Earth and when Ataru asks about Ran, Lum lets him know she’s on a date. Ataru is not happy about this and when Ran finds out Lum has blabbed, Ran’s not to happy about it. Determined to win Rei’s heart with food, Ran acquires rare ingredients on another world to create a special diet taiyaki. She delivers these to Rei, who consumes them all. Seeing a tiny bit of anko (sweet red bean) on Ran’s face, Rei removes it with his lips. Naturally Ran assumes this was a kiss and she’s happy.

Ran breaks the news to a suspicious Lum, who’s very happy when she finally gets Ran to spill it. Lum feels that if Rei did kiss Ran, then Ran will be off Lum’s back. However when Lum returns to Ataru’s home, she finds Rei there, apparently missing Lum. Lum is furious about this but also scared that Ran will find out. Sure enough, Ran arrives as Lum tries to escape from Rei’s grasp. Ataru tries to hit on Ran while Rei keeps trying to show affection for Lum. Both males take beatings as a result but soon Ran realizes that it is hopeless. Kotatsu-neko offers Ran some taiyaki, which she ends up eating to forget. Rei sees the anko on Ran’s lips and kisses her to get it off. Ran is super happy about that but for Rei, it was just food as he still only has eyes for an annoyed Lum.

Thoughts/Review:

This episode started off rather uninteresting to me, mainly because I don’t care for the character of Ran. However, things grew more interesting to me as time went on with some humor moments coming here and there (such as Lum having enough of Ran’s “shy” routine and trying to get away). I also laughed out loud when Ataru got turned down by an elementary school girl, though I was creeped out that he’d even try to hit on one even for practice.

By the end of the episode though, things got funny as the physical comedy kicked in with Lum and Ran not hitting each other but beating the object of the other girl’s desire (Ataru and Rei). Of course when Rei “kissed” Ran in front of everyone, I had a good laugh at the reaction of everyone to this, aided by the flying taiyaki, the “broken down” instrumental of “The More We Get Together,” and Ataru. That was a good piece of comedy. ^_^

On a personal note, I was highly amused by the “advanced” paper tape punch produced by Ran’s computer to locate Rei’s whereabouts. *lol* I got into the IT field before the last of these ancient-of-days pieces of computer technology were removed. So I was actually trained on paper tape punches and readers and I can honestly say that one evening at the Comm Center, a message came in on the paper tape punch machine. I couldn’t believe it. I think it may have been the last official message we received by that method as the Air Force began migrating off of 60’s technology and onto mid-80’s technology (even though we were in the early 90’s).

So in the end, this turned out to be a rather fun and funny episode despite it having a not so promising start.