うる星やつら episode 163 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 163 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ataru and Ten-chan are battling at breakfast when Ataru picks up the rice cooker to throw at Ten-chan. Ten-chan gets out of the way and it slams Lum, causing her to speak gibberish. At school, Lum’s storm troopers and Shuutaro hear about this and beat Ataru with rice cookers. Ataru decides to test Lum to see if she really can’t understand him by screaming his love for Sakura-sensei. Sakura-sensei comes running to give him a beating but nothing from Lum, whom Ten-chan reveals is speaking their native language, having forgotten Japanaese and English. Ataru decides it is party time and hits on every girl he can with Lum getting angrier and angrier, inflicting more punishment. She collars him with a leash, but he soon makes an escape and ties the collar to a cow. Lum returns to her ship angrily while Ataru celebrates his new found freedom into the night and then can’t sleep.

Ataru goes crazy on his “girl hunts” and porn, spending great sums of money and avoiding Lum when she comes down briefly from her UFO.  Ataru borrows money from Kotatsu-neko after his mom won’t give him more and after a few days, Shuutaro and Megane are missing Lum and getting frustrated. After a week, when a crazed Ataru pins down a girl, Shinobu and Sakura-sensei give him a beating. Ataru’s not sleeping and even eats three-day old food, but it starts catching up to him when he returns to a disco for an eighth night of partying. Crawling home, he finds Lum in his room working on a contraption but still unable to speak Japanese. The exhausted Ataru gives up, laying his head on Lum’s lap and begging her forgiveness until he passes out.  The next day, Lum has the contraption built so that when he wears it, he can understand Lum but it makes him look weird.

Thoughts/Review:

I have to say that I kinda enjoyed this episode. There were the normal hijinks with Lum’s jealousy, but it became funny to me when she lassoed a collar onto him.  Ataru has shown time and time again that when it comes to his “girl hunts,” he gains abnormal strength and speed, which Lum quickly was reminded of when he gave her the slip.  Ataru’s girl hunting for eight days and nights straight without sleep and not much food is a good allegory of any addict or junkie. Instead of drugs or booze, it was partying, girls, and sex (though only porno mags were shown to indicate the actual sexual aspects).  As usual, at the end of the day, Lum forgives all and is happy that her darling is using her lap as a pillow.  Ataru’s agreeing to wear that whacked contraption fits the pattern of his showing he cares for Lum, which lasts until the next episode.

So fun, funny in one part, and I’m off to the next episode.