うる星やつら episode 166 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 166 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

At the Mendou estate, the security forces head to a Japanese-style tower’s basement to feed something there, which has escaped. Shuutaro is notified of Akamaru’s escape and an intensive search begins since Akamaru loves adventure and cannot live off of the Mendou estate. Shuutaro goes to bed and falls asleep, only to hear the cries of one afraid of the dark and is attacked.  He’s absent from school for a week, leading Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Ten-chan to pay him a visit.  Shuutaro doesn’t want to see them, but they sneak into his room anyway, where they find Shuutaro sitting alone in the near-dark.  Shuutaro is lamenting not seeing Lum or Shinobu but is glad at not seeing Ataru, leading Ataru to give him a whack. The group convinces him to let them in on what’s wrong with him, so he opens the curtains and the light reveals a giant octopus on his head with a floral patterned skin.

When asked, Shuutaro recounts the events of a week ago and how he awoke with a heavy head. It was Ryoko who discovered the invisible octopus on Shuutaro’s head and painted it the color it is now.  However, while Akamaru’s weight is felt by Shuutaro, Akamaru’s physical body is not present. This, combined with the nightly cries of Akamaru about being trapped in a dark, cramped place leads Shuutaro to feel that Akamaru might be dead, thus he has his people scouring the estate looking for a body.  Sakura-sensei, dressed in her miko outfit, and Cherry arrive to reveal that Akamaru isn’t dead as this is a living ghost. Shuutaro is impressed that Sakura-sensei could sense his predicament, but she confesses that she and Cherry heard about it from Ten-chan, who spread the news of the flower octopus on Shuutaro’s head all over town.

Akamaru starts making faces, causing everyone to laugh. This makes Shuutaro get angry, thinking they are laughing at him. Sakura-sensei has Cherry attempt to communicate with Akamaru, but they end up in a face-making stare contest, irritating her and Ataru. Because Ataru whacked Shuutaro, Shuutaro gives chase with his katana, but Ataru deftly avoids it all, even mocking the exhausted Shuutaro by getting into his bed. Shuutaro attempts to slice Ataru but Ataru defends with Shuutaro’s pillow. The slice reveals an unconscious Akamaru, who revives upon being splashed with water, causing the ghost to disappear from Shuutaro’s head. Akamaru’s actions are deemed to be his adventurous nature.  This nature leads to him becoming a living ghost again.

Thoughts/Review:

As is normal for these kinds of episodes, there is a TON of wasted time.  For starters, the introduction to the episode is a classic example of time-wasting with lots and lots and lots of time spent attempting to set up some horror situation that we all know isn’t going to happen.  Then when the episode is over, the writers still have minutes to kill and have to come up with yet another horror situation so that Akamaru can again be a living ghost.  Yeah, whatever.

The meat of the story was OK in terms of comedy. The fights between Ataru and Shuutaro were predictable as was Ataru going after Sakura-sensei and being thwarted. Basically, the episode is a good example of a waste of time.

There were new OP and ED theme songs with this episode. They still manage to capture the 80’s feel (understandable) though not in the same way as the previous ones did, simply because the previous songs felt more like American ones than Japanese ones.

So, a mediocre episode to be had here. Not the worst I’ve seen, but massive amounts of filler and predictable humor don’t make for a good viewing experience.

On to the next episode.