うる星やつら episode 178 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 178 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Ataru sends numerous paper plane love letters out, Lum receives a package at school during English class from an oni namahage. Since the package is marked “perishable,” she opens it up to share with the class. It is a talking frog, who asks “Lum-chan” to kiss him. Lum is annoyed and throws the frog out the window.  However, she then starts thinking back to the name “Pigmo” on the package and remembers being in kindergarten when a boy named Pigmo was turned into a frog after losing the “spell game.” Since Pigmo loved Lum the most, her kiss returned him to normal. The frog returns to the classroom, confirming he’s Pigmo and explaining how he became a frog again. Since he still loves Lum the most, Lum asks Ataru what she should do. Ataru acts offended, so Lum coyly takes Pigmo out of the classroom to kiss the frog, who has pictures proving he’s very handsome.

Shuutaro attacks Ataru for letting Lum walk out and Lum quietly is pleased that Ataru appears to be jealous. However, Ataru decides that if Lum is kissing a guy, he gets to kiss a girl and hearing Sakura-sensei’s footfalls, he leaps into action, only to have Cherry walking on stilts like Sakura’s legs. Ataru is fooled again by Cherry with Shinobu’s leg-stilts. Seeing Ataru’s efforts depresses Lum, though Pigmo still tries to get a kiss out of her. Finally, Lum has had enough and fries Ataru. Ataru leaves in a huff but when Lum is about to kiss Pigmo, he races back to knock the frog to the ground. Lum is pleased by this but seeing Pigmo on the ground, she feels sorry for him and kisses him. Pigmo returns to normal — a six-inch high guy with cat ears. Ataru decides that a kiss is a kiss and he’s free to kiss a girl, but takes a beating from Shinobu, Sakura-sensei, and Shuutaro. Lum sees this and smiles, having had a good day.

Thoughts/Review:

Because there was a fair amount of pointless filler at the start of the episode (to say nothing of the same at the end of the episode), I was thinking that this might not be a good episode. Fortunately, it turned out to be pretty amusing.

The first half of the episode sets up the comedy of the second half.  The setup is nicely done and isn’t tedious to wade through.

The second half is pretty humorous. Ataru’s efforts to go kiss a girl met with predictable results, but at the same time, it was done well (though the Cherry joke did get old).

Speaking of Cherry, I actually laughed at his actions during his second fooling of Ataru event.  That’s a rarity in and of itself. ^_^;

As to Ataru being jealous, which the episode’s title stated would be the case, it is there but not in the touching way that one might expect.

So, a fun episode, which what I like for this series.