うる星やつら episode 149 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 149 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ten-chan irritates Ataru at home, causing Ataru to whack Ten-chan before booting him outside.  This causes Ten-chan to crash into the tiger cat Torajima, who takes a whack at Ten-chan himself.  Ten-chan finds himself outside a pet store with a pufferfish (fugu) in the tank in the window for ¥500.  The shopkeeper attempts to make the sale but fails to do so when Ten-chan flees.  Ten-chan encounters Sakura-sensei and the two head to a cafe where she downs parfaits while Ten-chan speaks.  After his talk with her, Ten-chan heads back to buy the fish.  Meanwhile, Lum and Ataru are out and at the same pet store where Ataru haggles with the shopkeeper, getting the price down to ¥300.  Lum is embarrassed as they head home from their shopping trip but Ataru is in good spirits as he wants to eat some fugu, a delicacy in Japan.

Meanwhile, Ten-chan returns to Ataru’s home to find the pufferfish in the fish bowl and gives it some extraterrestrial candy.  This causes the fish to rapidly grow and break out of the bowl but survive without water.  Lum comes down and is angry with Ten-chan for feeding the fish when it attacks her with water, causing her to short out.  The pufferfish flees and Ten-chan gives chase.  Meanwhile, Megane and Perm leave a ramen shop and see the flying fugu fish.  However, it attacks them and knocks them out.  The pufferfish is then spotted by Cherry and Kotatsu-neko, but Ten-chan spares it from being snared in a pot of nabe but that results in Ten-chan being attacked as well.  A recovered Lum rescues Ten-chan while Cherry and Kotatsu-neko miss out on a meal.

Ten-chan visits Sakura-sensei again over his friend (the fugu) when the fish shows up outside her window.  She’s about to snag it for food when Ten-chan explains it is his friend.  The fugu makes its way down to the school store where Fujinami is making lunch.  Seeing the pufferfish, Fujinami attempts to lure it down and take it out with his cooking knife but instead slashes Ryuunosuke’s shirt and chest wrap, making her angry.  Ten-chan provides cover for the fugu as it makes its way to the girl’s locker room.  Shinobu notices they are being peeped on and the commotion causes Shuutaro to arrive to attack Ataru.  Facing the flying pufferfish, Shuutaro attempts to attack and is stunned when Ataru really shows up.  However, the fish attacks Shuutaro, stunning him with the poison.

Shinobu and the girls emerge and accuse Ataru of peeping on them, which the downed Shuutaro agrees with.  Giving chase, Ataru flees as Cherry and Kotatso-neko arrive at the school to nab the fugu.  The girls catch up to Ataru and the fugu, which they find cute and thus don’t believe it was the peeper.  They chase Ataru again as Megane and Perm see the flying pufferfish again.  When Perm calls it ugly, it attacks them both again.  Meanwhile, Ataru trips and the girls catch up to him.  After taking out Shuutaro again, Fujinami comes in and attempts to take out the fugu but instead slices the straps of Kotatsu-neko’s stir-fry pan as well as his whiskers, causing the cat to take out Fujinami.  The fugu leaves with Ten-chan and then leaves Earth while Ten-chan ponders in the night.

Thoughts/Review:

I think I find these chase episodes to be the funniest of the Urusei Yatsura lot as this was a pretty amusing episode that had me laughing at times.  Of course, any episode where Ten-chan and Fujinami get punished is pretty good stuff.  ^_^

For starters, I found Ataru’s haggling with the shop owner over the price of the pufferfish to be amusing.  I may be being influenced a bit there by watching the British comedy Open All Hours before going to sleep every night but even without that, Ataru’s determination to score a bargain just made me chuckle.  Of course, his reasons for wanting the fish so he could eat some fugu made it funnier in the end.

After that, the episode was devoted to the chase of the pufferfish once it became fully grown and could swim in the air.  When you consider how that a few people a year dying from eating fugu doesn’t stop people from consuming this delicacy, it is easy to understand why so many of the characters were desperate to snag the fish for themselves.

Anyway, it was funny seeing characters see the fish for the first time and then change their countenance as they attempted to grab the fish for their own consumption.

While I’ve said this was a “chase” episode, there were modifications to that theme.  The second time Perm and Megane encountered the fish, they certainly didn’t give chase but were attacked for calling it ugly.  *lol*  Instead of chasing girls, Ataru is twice fleeing for his life from Shinobu and a group of other girls.  I actually expected him to decide to turn around and head into the girls to reverse the chase but that didn’t happen (and I’m glad it didn’t).