Urusei Yatsura – 134

うる星やつら episode 134 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 134 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Urusei Yatsura - 134The little kitsune watches a movie about one of his kind turning a human girl into a kitsune for a night so they could be together and decides to try to see Shinobu. It takes all day but late one night, he arrives at her school. Kitsune sees Onsen-sensei practice asking Sakura-sensei out but when she comes out of the nurses station, the conversation doesn’t go as planned and Onsen-sensei is left alone and depressed and so gets drunk at a local outdoor stand. Kitsune uses a Sakura disguise to try to find out the location of Shinobu’s place, but the drunk Onsen-sensei is fooled into thinking this is Sakura-sensei despite the ears, tail, and short stature of Kitsune.

Urusei Yatsura - 134After placing the passed out Onsen-sensei under a pile of leaves for warmth, Kitsune sets out to find Shinobu in the night streets only to be beset upon by some dogs. An encounter with Kotatsu-neko soon has the dogs packing and Kitsune is free to go but accidentally leaves his bag of magic gingko nuts. Kitsune encounters Lum and Ataru at an outdoor vending machine and using a Shinobu disguise, tries to find information about Shinobu’s house. They recognize Kitsune and Ataru takes the fox there to Lum’s annoyance.

Urusei Yatsura - 134At Shinobu’s home, Kitsune discovers his bag missing and under the guise of Lum and Ataru, ends up confessing his plan to get Shinobu to eat the gingko nuts and live the kitsune legend. Ataru isn’t happy when Shinobu agrees to do this and helps Kitsune look for the nuts. Ataru and Lum join in as well and eventually come upon Cherry’s camp, where Kotatsu-neko has made a contribution to the evening meal in the pot. The others end up eating as well and turn into kitsune because Cherry added them to the pot. After an evening of fun, Kitsune awakens at the outdoor kitsune theater and is very happy.

Urusei Yatsura - 134
Thoughts/Review:

Urusei Yatsura - 134When I saw this was going to be a Kitsune story, I wasn’t that thrilled because it just didn’t seem appealing to me because while episode 122 was OK in the end, it just didn’t seem like there was anything much left to say story wise with the kitsune.

The first third of the anime was OK. Seeing Onsen-sensei plan out the entire conversation with Sakura-sensei only to have it not go according to plan is something I think most guys can appreciate, especially from our teen years. *lol* Having the drunk Onsen-sensei mistake a small kitsune as Sakura was a Urusei Yatsura - 134fail moment for me, but I’ll live with it.

When Kitsune encounters Kotatsu-neko, I think this is the first time the giant cat has made me laugh. When the dogs that chased Kitsune stopped and showed fear, I thought that they might go the obvious route and have Shinobu arrive (since she saved Kitsune from dogs previously) but a part of me suspected someone else would appear. I never would have thought “Kotatsu-neko” though. *lol* So kudos for giving Kotatsu-neko something to do that I found enjoyable. ^_^

Urusei Yatsura - 134The encounter with Lum and Ataru had rather a strange but nice moment attached to it. Ataru doesn’t often willingly go out with Lum anywhere. Having the two of them outside, sharing a bite to eat, then having Ataru buy Lum a canned orange juice from the vending machine was rather sweet and I liked it. Of course it doesn’t last too long once Kitsune arrives and Ataru agrees to get him to Shinobu’s house. ^_^

Also in the scene was this little Easter egg. ^_^

Urusei Yatsura - 134
Urusei Yatsura - 134Not the first time for a Star Wars reference. ^_^

Once they found Cherry and Kotatsu-neko, it was pretty obvious that Cherry would have cooked the nuts and everyone would turn into kitsune for the night. Having Kitsune wake up at the wooded spot where the kitsune gathered to watch the film made it seem like the whole thing might have been a dream. In other words, the writers want the audience to decide whether the events of the night actually happened or not. I suppose when the next Kitsune episode happens (if it does) and they Urusei Yatsura - 134refer back to this episode, we can assume it was real.

So, in the end we have an entertaining episode with no Lum electrocutions, a bit of Lum-Ataru sweetness, and a lot of Shinobu-Kitsune sweetness with a side dish of Kotatsu-neko win. Not a bad way to spend 24-minutes. ^_^

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3 Responses to “Urusei Yatsura – 134”

  1. arimareiji says:

    One of my top few favorite episodes of UY. ^_^ I’ve always had a soft spot for Shinobu and the kitsune, and it was nice to see them get both some screentime and some happiness.

    The only episodes I can remember liking more were the ones where Lum leaves Ataru with the doll transmitter, and the one where Ataru finally realizes “Well, I’m going to get shocked either way” but has to spend the night in a protective suit. To me, all three were big on character development, rather than just transposing them into different settings or giving them different personalities.

    Well, maybe not big by comparison to more development-focused series like Twelve Kingdoms or Fruits Basket, or even Maison Ikkoku… but pretty big for UY. ^_~

  2. O-chan says:

    I always like to think of the Kitsune episodes as what would happen if Hayao Miyazaki directed UY.

  3. Anonymous says:

    It’s a nice episode and a welcome break from the more chaotic episodes.

    I can safely conclude that the episode was a dream. I can’t grasp the idea that Kitsune would decide to walk all the way back to the area where he was watching the movie after playing with Shinobu (unless she accidently flung him all the way across town). His look of disappointment at the end pretty much says, “Aw, it was only a dream.” Also, this episode is never mentioned in future episodes.

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