うる星やつら episode 187 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 187 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ataru is ditching a date with Lum and sleeping on a bench, dreaming of Shinobu when he’s rudely awoken by being tossed into the trash by an annoyed Shinobu, who’s accompanied by Ryuunosuke. Ataru wants to hook up with her, so she tells him that if he achieves top score in one subject, she’ll go out with him. Ataru is fired up and races home to study, though the fire quickly fades. The next day at school, Ataru blackmails Shuutaro into giving him his physics notes, which are extensive. Lum says she can copy them, so Ataru goes with her to her ship, but she accidentally makes a copy of Ataru with the real one stuck in Shuutaro’s notes. The next day at school, Ataru, with Lum’s help, sells copies of his note-covered clones for ¥100 each.

That evening, Ataru struggles over studying when his mom comes in with a charm from the Dazai-fu Shrine for luck. Ataru thanks his mom and at school the next day, is relaxing as everyone panics with last-second studying. Megane and company think he’s going to cheat and want in, though Ataru denies it. When Onsen-sensei passes out the English tests, Ataru brings out the charm, but when it speaks, he is vocally shocked, causing Onsen-sensei to come over to try to find a cheat sheet. There is none, so Ataru escapes and discovers a small spirit-deity named SUGAWARA Michizane, who says he’s there to help. Unfortunately, the entity doesn’t know English, nor much else, so Ataru fails two tests. He attacks Michizane and gets electrocuted as a result. Further, Onsen-sensei and another teacher tell Ataru that they will help him study for the makeup tests.

Thoughts/Review:

This was one of those episodes that had funny moments, but failed to deliver in the end.  I say this because it would have been funny if Ataru had passed and forced Shinobu to go out with him, leading to Lum becoming jealous, or if Shinobu had gotten a laugh at Ataru’s expense. Neither happened.

The funniest moment was Onsen-sensei discovering that the note-covered Ataru peeled off like sheets of paper every time he was struck.  Then, Ataru selling copies of the notes on his cloned self, which conveniently peel off like a sheet of paper.

Ataru dressing up as a girl to try to con Shuutaro out of his physics notes was also pretty funny.

One thing I noticed was Ataru’s “I’m on fire” saying, which seemed almost identical to Natsu’s in Fairy Tail whenever Natsu becomes enthused about something.  I don’t know if the saying is just a Japanese one, or if Mashima-sensei did it as a tribute to Urusei Yatsura.

In the end, the episode was more interesting and funny in the first half, then started dragging by the end.