うる星やつら episode 114 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura ep. 114

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ten-chan sees a young girl on a roof, apparently about to commit suicide. When she steps off from the roof, Ten-chan is amazed to find himself passing through her. She introduces herself as Kotori and is apparently eager to see her uncle’s new puppies. She’d been in a hospital and had wanted to see and hold the new puppies, but she died. Ten-chan promises to help her providing she plays with him and she agrees. She thinks she spots her uncle’s home, but it turns out to be an office building with a lot of cubical workers. Eventually, they wind up at Ataru and Lum’s school, where they learn the story of Kotori along with Sakura-sensei. With the information Kotori gives the class, they plan a search for Kotori’s uncle’s house so she can hold the puppies and go to heaven despite Onsen-sensei’s objection to their leaving class.

As the search progresses, Ten-chan is wanting to play rather than look for puppies but does come around. When they find Kotori’s uncle’s house, the woman says that the three puppies have been given away. She provides them the addresses and so the group goes to the first location. Unfortunately, due to Kotori being a ghost, she’s unable to touch the puppies. Ten-chan offers his body as a means of giving Kotori physical form so she can hug the puppies. She agrees and after taking possession, Ataru and Shuutaro note that instead of hugging the puppies, it looks like they are sumo wrestling. With each puppy, Cherry declares the puppy the winner.

With the arrival of night, all puppies have been visited and it is time for Kotori to go to heaven. Ten-chan is upset that they didn’t get to play and doesn’t want her to leave. She has no choice but promises presents over the next seven nights. Ten-chan cries but waits on the roof with Lum, Ataru, and Kotatsu-neko. They see a falling star, so Ataru tells Ten-chan to make a wish. Ten-chan wishes to see Kotori as Ataru and Lum notice the shooting star is getting closer. It is a large meteor which Kotatsu-neko manages to catch. On it is written an thank you note from Kotori. Ataru demands that Ten-chan refuse this if these are the kinds of gifts Kotori is giving.

Thoughts/Review:

This is a bit of a strange episode that tugs at different emotions. For starters, the death of a child is always sad and it was made more so by the fact that Kotori so wanted to live just to hold the puppies. However, the flashback sequence showing this had the doctor wear a noh mask which I didn’t understand (I’m sure there’s a cultural reference there). With the tragedy of Kotori’s death then came the hilarity of the possessed Ten-chan in sumo matches with the puppies. So both ends of the spectrum get covered on emotions.

Ataru hitting on Kotori was freaky, even though he had the excuse of, “well I’m just trying to get her information.” Of course, he immediately asks if Kotomi has any older sisters as the punch line to the gag. This is the second time that Ataru has asked a very young girl for her name and telephone number in a manner which could be described as hitting on the girl. Just really creepy and freaky, even if there was some humor tied to it all.

Ten-chan still annoys me as a character. It is a shame that Ataru didn’t get one whack on him though Ataru took a burning. Oh well.

Now down to 80 (or so) episodes, not to mention the various movies and OVA’s. ^_^;