うる星やつら episode 145 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 145 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper set out on their latest scheme to get back at their hated senpai’s and decide to target Lum by going after Ataru. First, they decide to increase their sex appeal. First, they decide to gain the warrior Benten-senpai’s sex appeal by going to a planet, attacking an older alien (who happens to be a pervert), and calling it a success when they wink and he collapses from their attack. Second, they train in a giant freezer to acquire Oyuki-senpai’s sex appeal. Finally, they decide that if needed, they can emulate Lum’s skimpy clothing.

Arriving on Earth, they find Ataru engrossed in a magazine and not interested as Sugar tries to strangely entice him. Sakura-sensei comes and takes the magazine from him, leading Ataru to become amorous with her. She kicks him away and Sugar retreats to her two comrades. Upon seeing Sakura-sensei’s sexiness, the girls are awed and retreat. They again spot Ataru at the park asking girls for their address and phone number. So, the trio wear signs with their address and phone number, which Ataru assumes means these kids are lost. After dropping them off at a police station, the trio confronts Ataru about his lack of interest. Lum arrives and the girls attempt to hide their presence. Lum is not fooled and threatens them, leaving with Ataru who asks if Lum knows these strange girls. She says she does and advises him to stay close at hand, which he doesn’t.

Ataru decides to go on a girl hunt and is chasing a girl on a motorcycle and keeping up with her. Because she has to keep her eyes on the road, it gives him an advantage. However, Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper are chasing Ataru and thwart his plans somewhat, though they end up crashing into a train. At a park under the sakura trees, the a girl sits and reads her book. Ataru considers the importance of this situation in a girl hunt but as he goes to hit on her, Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper pop out of hiding places with ice guns trained on him, thwarting him again. The book-girl has had enough and grabs the gun, freezing the trio and Ataru, who’s girl hunting activities are hampered due to frost and ice all over him.

With Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper not leaving Ataru alone and going on and on about sex appeal, Ataru decides to feed them and maybe they’ll go away. After consuming a large amount of food, Sugar sees that Ataru is still not interested, so she sprays him with a substance that lowers his resistance and allows him to see things sexy. However, instead of seeing the girls as sexy, he sees a donburi bowl as sexy in its design. The trio are stunned by this and when Ataru returns home, he finds Ten-chan as sexy and even a burning doesn’t change that. Ten-chan flees to find Lum, leaving only Kotatsu-neko in the room. Ataru finds the giant cat sexy, calling him “Kota-chan” and rubbing all over him. “Kota-chan” repeatedly has to deal out massive punishment on Ataru since he keeps coming back. By the time Lum arrives, Ataru is literally bent out of shape. However, she hears the voices of Sugar, Pepper, and Ginger, leading Kotatsu-neko to reveal they are hiding under the kotatsu. Lum send punishment their way and tells Ataru that his current pain and inability to move is payment for not listening to her. For his part, Ataru wishes he’d just had stayed home and eaten oranges with Lum.

Meanwhile, a frustrated Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper return to their planet where the old alien pervert awaits. After he passes on doing whatever to an old lady alien, the trio arrive and he decides to pass on them too since they are brats. Frustrated because of their failure with Ataru, they decide to tease the old man again and when he finally turns around, they wink and he drops to the ground. Feeling happy in their success, the trio goes off, not realizing that a giant bear was the cause of the alien pervert’s fall and pretending to be dead. As the bear pokes at him, the alien pervert wishes he’d just stayed home with the missus!

Thoughts/Review:

I gotta say, I loved this episode! Whatever antics that Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper cook up, one knows that it is going to backfire. That could be quite boring but the moment they decided their target would be Ataru to get at Lum, I knew this was going to be good and it was. ^_^

The girls training to obtain sexiness at the first part of the episode is the weakest part. However, once they arrive on Earth, things begin to improve. Ataru is his normal self, starting with the magazine filled with girls to hitting on Sakura to hitting on ever pretty girl in the park. Sugar, Ginger, and Pepper constantly trying to catch Ataru’s eye was amusing, made more so when he turned them over to the police.

Where things became really funny was after Lum and Ataru had their very short romantic moment, followed by Ataru chasing a girl on a motorcycle. The girl never was aware of Ataru and it was funny to hear how Ataru described his girl-hunt philosophy and that he has a specific strategy to chat up a girl on a motorcycle as she’s driving down the highway. *lol* Of course, having Sugar, Pepper, and Ginger show up on their own space bike to chase Ataru completed the circle. Then for the girl in the park, Ataru has a specific and detailed strategy to hit on her, which of course the trio coming into play completed the circle again.

The funniest part came when Ataru was sprayed with the substance to make him see sexiness more easily. His going on and on about the donburi bowl was pretty funny. However, when he got home and started hitting on Ten-chan, it was oh so very wrong and pretty darned funny. When Ataru turns his attention to Kotatsu-neko and starts calling the giant cat “Kota-chan,” I was in tears laughing. His non-stop approach that he usually uses on girls being focused on a giant cat that he rubs his body against just had me hurting from laughter. Heck, just remembering it now, I’m chuckling and contemplating watching that scene again.

As an aside, AnimEigo made a rare choice to leave the “chan” honorific in the subtitles when Ataru was hitting on Kotatsu-neko. I was laughing so hard, I didn’t consciously realize it until later and rewatched the scene for the laughs and to see if I’d seen what I thought I saw.

So an enjoyable and really funny episode is to be found here. I love it when an episode makes me laugh like this one did. ^_^