うる星やつら episode 162 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 162 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ataru sits outside the ruins of his school and ponders the beginnings of the Eight Days of Fire. It started when Megane and company decides to skip Onsen-sensei’s English class for a trip to a ramen establishment. Then Lum skips class when her giant “thing” she ordered falls from the sky, spilling the Principal’s tea. He gets angry and authorizes Onsen-sensei and the others to use corporal punishment to instill some discipline in the school, something Shuutaro heartily approves of and joins his cause.  The following day when Lum again is responsible for the Principal’s tea being spilled, there’s hell to pay with the school turning more Nazi-like. With the falling to Earth of each giant item Lum has purchased, the Principal increases the punishment. With Shuutaro supporting the teachers, Megane decides they need Lum, but Ataru says she’s been busy and hasn’t talked to her much lately.

In fact, Lum has been building Daimajin robot and has it marched to school to show it off. She claims it is a personal assistant robot but it insists it is a fighting robot, which makes Megane very happy.  Daimajin agrees to help the teachers dig a pit for the students if they can get him into a fight. They agree but after the students are trapped, Lum demands to know why it is fighting for the teachers. As the teachers and students square off, the students having their precious treasures destroyed, Daimajin encourages the students to fight and the battle begins. Shuutaro brings his computerized tank force, which charges in.  However, the remote control breaks and and the tanks smash into the school where Megane is. Using mag tape, the tanks lift the wounded hero Megane up to the sky and Lum reveals that Dainajin was a cheerleading robot designed to encourage competition.

Thoughts/Review:

You know, this would have been a really sucky episode except for the fact that it was partly a parody of the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind anime.  I suspected this might be the case because the use of the phrase “Eight Days of Fire” is just a one-off from the “Seven Days of Fire” in both the Nausicaä anime and manga.  However, when Lum showed up on a mehve, complete with breathing mask, I knew this would be the case. Having Megane then take the role of Nausicaä toward the end of the episode was rather silly, but enjoyable just the same.  I was amused by Shuutaro’s tanks taking on the role of the Ohmu charging and Megane then becoming the slain Nausicaä before being raised up as Nausicaä was.  So kudos to the production team for this rather nice tribute, complete with the growing plant at the end.

The other major parody was for the movie Daimajin.  I’ve not watched any of those movies and actually, I’m surprised that the giant statue (mecha) was mentioned by name. Were I to have watched those movies, I’m guessing I would have liked this episode even more.

I will say that as of now, I’m officially placing the Principal into the “worthless and annoying” character category.  Actually, he should have been there ages ago.  He’s more boring than annoying, but here, I was just annoyed because he had a larger role again rather than the normal filler.

So, the Nausicaä parodies (and I’ll include the Daimajin parodies) were a win in what otherwise would have been a dreadful episode.