うる星やつら episode 146 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 146 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Kotatsu-neko purchases a used kotatsu for ¥100 and takes it to Ataru’s room. Just as Lum wins her 121st game of Go against Ataru, the kotatsu comes alive to avoid Kotatsu-neko placing a blanket over it. Cherry stops by, after first eating all of the tempura being cooked by Ataru’s mother, to investigate this kotatsu. Combining efforts, the group manages to get a blanket on the kotatsu and get it plugged in, but to their surprise, it causes a blizzard to happen in the room. Seeing the Mendou crest on the kotatsu, Ataru screams an insult, causing Shuutaro to arrive instantly to attack. Lum gets Shuutaro to calm down by having Cherry in his face, so he explains that this kotatsu is named Kotaro and came from wood from a tree from the South Pole. Cherry sees it is masterly made, so Shuutaro gives the name of the creator — KABUTOGANI Sakichi. With that, it is time to see the craftsman.

Sakichi’s home is in a terrible state of disarray when the group arrives to discuss Kotaro but as they talk to what they think is Sakichi, they’ve been talking to a dummy, part of a joke by the real Sakichi. After discussing the situation with Sakichi, he again has another joke on the group before they set out for Ataru’s home. Meanwhile, Kotatsu-neko and Ten-chan are fighting a losing battle against Kotaro, who escapes. As they give chase, they encounter Lum and company. Helping in the pursuit, Cherry and Sakichi are lost when one of the homes invaded by Kotaro has a pot of nabe which they consume. Kotaro is going after all kotatsu and freezing them. This causes the people affected to riot. As they give chase, Cherry and Sakichi return and Sakichi says that the only thing that will help is a female kotatsu he made called Kotatsu no Omatsu. As the crowd chases Kotaro to a cliff, Kotatsu-neko attempts to defend the kotatsu. However, as Sakichi stated, the arrival of Omatsu tames Kotaro and the two kotatsu’s form a rainbow and fly into the sky.

Thoughts/Review:

Good grief! I know a lot of these Urusei Yatsura episodes take a while to get into but this one seemed ridiculous. Not that this one took more time than others, but I kept thinking, “spin on” and had to resist hitting the fast-forward button. ^_^;;;

Then again, this episode was much ado about nothing with the typical Urusei Yatsura weirdness that we’ve come to expect.

There was nothing really that funny to me in this episode but there were amusing moments. For starters, Ataru’s method for summoning Shuutaro made me smile. For some reason, the word “bakayarou,” the more insulting form of “baka” which is often translated as “dumb ass,” is usually enough to make me smile. So Ataru yelling at the top of his lungs that Shuutaro is a bakayarou made me smile even though the result was completely predictable.

I also smiled at the moment when Ten-chan was shown having taken a beating when Kotaro escapes. Then, the moment when the crow’s flew by going “aho” (idiot) made me smile as well because the episode was pretty dumb. ^_^

Beyond that, the episode just meandered along. I won’t say it wasn’t fun to watch (though the first couple minutes were tedious), but this episodes falls short for me. It tries to be funny but it is very rare for a Kotatsu-neko episode to be funny (though I admit, episode 145 has a Kotatsu-neko scene that was outrageously funny).

Oh well. Not all episodes can be big winners but maybe the next one will be. ^_^