うる星やつら episode 124 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura ep. 124 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ataru tells Lum and Ten-chan the story of (Kaidan) Botan Dōrō, in which HAGIWARA Shinzaburo (Ataru) begins a love affair with a beautiful woman named Otsuyu (Ryoko). Otsuyu visits Shinzaburo nightly in secret (to avoid scandal) with her maid but as Shinzaburo’s health deteriorates, a concerned neighbor discovers that Otsuyu is actually a skeleton. To keep Shinzaburo from dying, his house is covered with ofuda to keep the undead woman and her undead maid out, which must happen for thirty days. However, on the final night, Shinzaburo is tricked into thinking it is morning and opening the door, lets Otsuyu in, thus sealing his fate.

The story has Ten-chan scared and Ataru laughing as he goes outside to the neighborhood vending machine to get a Pepsi. However, he hears the sounds of wooden clogs, as he described Otsuyu making when she visited Shinzaburo and sees the peony lantern that Otsuyu carried. When Ataru doesn’t return, Lum becomes concerned and arriving at the vending machine, she finds a dropped Pepsi can and Ataru’s sandal. She hunts for him all night without success but returning in the morning, she finds Ataru has returned but is exhausted.

Ataru begins to eat less and less and each night, the sound of wooden clogs are heard and the light of the peony lantern seen, but nothing Lum, Ten, or Cherry attempt to do can keep Ataru from being taken away. Shuutaro gets involved after seeing that Ataru somehow is even eluding his spy satellite, thinking that Ataru’s “paradise” is a place full of girls. He, Lum, Ten, and Cherry tail Ataru to Ryoko’s school dorm where each one is knocked out and captured. Ataru is acting like a dog before Ryoko and her female classmates and reveals she’s been hypnotizing Ataru. When her methods fail to work on Shuutaro, Cherry points out that she forgot an ingredient in her hypnotism dust, meaning Ataru has been pretending the whole time in order to be around so many girls. As a result, Lum lets loose on everyone, destroying the dorm in the process.

 

Thoughts/Review:

Well, another “youkai” episode, only this time the youkai is actually a ghost, or rather Ryoko playing the story. This is one of those stories that once the explanations for things come into play, as a viewer, I’m thinking, “OK, whatever.” That started immediately with the floating lantern suddenly being revealed to actually be attached to the end of a long poll that’s part of a small construction vehicle, driven by one of Ryoko’s bodyguards. Considering that no one ever saw the vehicle nor the poll whenever Ataru was abducted, nor could anyone apparently follow Ataru until the very end (to include tracking satellites), the explanations ended up sort of ruining things to a degree.

Fortunately, the hypnosis angle combined with the revelation that Ataru was faking being hypnotized so that he could be around Ryoko and all her girlfriends made up for the weak “reality” explanations of the supernatural events. Lum’s snapping at the end worked well since she got Ataru, the girls, and destroyed their dorm in the process.

I did some research and the Kaidan Botan Dōrō ghost story (sometimes known as The Peony Lantern) is a classic one in Japan, going back to the 1600’s. There are apparently two versions of the story and this episode took bits from both (or so it appeared to me). So that was an interesting bit of Japanese cultural learning for me.

Overall, this was a mildly amusing story, though it had a decent entertainment factor until the Earthly explanations of the supernatural events.