うる星やつら episode 130 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 130 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After Kotatsu-neko finds an old theater flier at Kocho-sensei‘s house, Kocho-sensei recalls his days as a young man and the girl he met at the theater. While reading on the riverbank, the girl pays him a visit. Kocho-sensei stops his recollections and comes to school to handle Onsen-sensei’s class talent show. After hearing Lum is bringing a judge, Ataru is going to leave but is tricked into staying. Lum’s alien friend is not a hot babe, so Ataru tries to leave, only to have the red alien cause the door to turn into a wall, providing for a slapstick moment.

With Kotatsu-neko and Kocho-sensei also judging, the red alien has act after act of male performers disappear but the female ones he gives passes to, even Ryuunosuke once he realizes she’s a girl. The red alien even loves Lum’s terrible song, which somehow results in the banished guys returning. Ataru disguises himself as a woman and as they guys fail again, Ryuunosuke decides to expose Ataru. Ataru demands that the red alien show his talents, so the alien makes Ataru vanish. Ataru discovers that the place of banishment is a theater filled with red blob aliens and the banished have to perform.

Thoughts/Review:

Boring, then stupid. That pretty much sums up this episode.

Seriously, what was the point of Kocho-sensei’s reminiscence if it wasn’t going to go anywhere? We see him notice a young lady at the theater, then later the same young woman comes to him and WHAM! “Nothing more to see here. Move along. Move along.” It is as if the anime writers desperately needed filler and thought, “wouldn’t it be nifty to show pre-World War II Japan life and comedy?” Meh. I suppose it is supposed to show Kocho-sensei’s love of performance arts. Ugh.

The red blob alien wasn’t any better. I had one chuckle when Ataru ended up slamming into a wall that had moments before been a sliding door. After that, things went downhill to stupidity with there again being no point to anything in the episode. Having Ataru in a dress was a wasted opportunity for comedy in my opinion because they didn’t do anything funny. Having the males fail and the girls pass no matter how bad wasn’t funny but stupid.

This has been the worst episode since the updated animation started and harkens back to the days when the stories just made me almost nauseous.