うる星やつら episode 137 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 137 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

A girl named KATSURAGI Anna finds herself the target of a gang of thugs, led by the big lipped giant, Soban. After making Soban act like a seal, the thugs really want Anna’s money and she gives them what little she has. Lum, who’d been chasing Ataru, sees this and punishes the gang with electricity. Anna is grateful to Lum-senpai and Lum offers words of encouragement, telling Anna that she has to stand up to these bullies with courage. Anna is happy about this, but that night as she thinks things over, she realizes that words mean very little. As such, she sets up a fight between Lum and Soban. She then informs Lum of this, saying that if Lum can defeat Soban without use of her powers, Anna will believe her. Lum agrees to this.

Ataru quickly shows Lum how weak she is by beating her at arm wrestling several times and taking a bunch of money from her to boot. Lum consults with Ryuunosuke, who attempts to demonstrate the technique of surprise on her father. Fujinami has a surprise for her as well as Ryuunosuke plays Ultraman and Fujinami plays a giant kaijuu. Lum decides she needs to train and attempts to do so, discovering that it isn’t as easy as it first appeared. She decides that she can use some power bracers which will give her strength. She also decides to uses some strength pills despite the fact the pill’s effect is short lived.

The day of the fight comes with Anna all excited. Lum uses her bracers to punch Soban away, but he quickly returns unfazed and even eats her bracers. Lum takes a pill and punches Soban away, but again he returns unfazed. Lum accidentally drops the bottle of pills, scattering their content, which forces her to run from Soban until she can find and consume a pill at which time she attacks. Each time, the effect on Soban is the same. Sakura-sensei realizes Lum is overdosing on pills and tries to get Shuutaro to covertly help her, but he fails. It is only when Soban sees Shinobu that he gives up on Lum. Lum passes out and dreams that Anna commits suicide after Lum cheated. She awakes to find that isn’t true and that Anna is happy as Soban rampages with Shinobu.

Thoughts/Review:

This is a pretty fun, humorous episode with some parodies to boot.

We hadn’t seen much Ataru-Lum stuff of late and the episode gets that out of the way immediately by having Ataru chasing skirt and getting punished. Once that’s done, there’s a sort of strangeness to their relationship. They act like a long time married couple as Ataru is often seen reading nearby while Lum trains. Then Lum goes to her match and Ataru is there and DOES NOT PURSUE ANNA! That was odd but I liked it. ^_^

The punishment of Ataru was funny but so was Lum’s punishment of Soban and his gang. Ataru’s taking advantage of Lum to score some quick cash made me chuckle. The fight between Soban and Lum was funny simply because (1) he kept coming back no matter what and (2) with Shinobu in the episode, it was only a matter of time before Soban spotted her and forgot everything else. *lol*

Finally, there were three major parodies I noticed and two of them were U.S. related. First was the Ultraman parody with Ryuunosuke as Ultraman. That was amusing and were I more versed on that series, would have been funnier. Next was the Rocky parody with Lum’s training, complete with her wearing the hooded jogging suit. However, she jogs up the steps of a shrine rather than the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. ^_^ Then at the end, Soban gets Shinobu and climbs up to the top of the school bell tower and does the old King Kong parody. ^_^

Anna had a bit of comedy too with her initial handling of Soban and his thugs by “proving” Soban was a seal. *lol* I wonder if we’ll see her again.

So as I said, a fun, funny, and parody-filled episode that was pretty enjoyable.