October 11th, 2012 
AstroNerdBoy うる星やつら OVA episode 09 (OAV anime)
Urusei Yatsura OVA Ep. 09 review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Ran is going through the forest to see Rei when a weird (alien?) candy merchant has some special candies for sale, which when consumed, cause a heart to appear above the head of the consumer. A person taking said heart then causes the consumer to fall in love with them. Ran hears this and immediately buys a bag, where she then proceeds to feed the candy to Rei on their date in a tree. However, Rei keeps eating the heart above his head, frustrating Ran to no end. Meanwhile, Lum is hunting down Ataru when she spots the angry Ran walking down the street. Ran tells Lum off and tosses the candy bag at her before storming off.
The next day, Lum and Ataru head to school where Ataru questions why a heart is over her head. When Ataru takes it, Lum becomes even more in love with Ataru and expresses that love via a massive jolt of electricity, causing Ataru to let go of the heart. Lum returns to normal, so Ataru takes the heart again and gets it even worse this time. As such, Ataru decides to have some fun in class and tries to con Shuutaro into taking the heart. Shuutaro isn’t buying it as the class watches their hijinx with amusement. Megane, standing next to Lum, sees the heart over her head, but when he takes it, Ataru is surprised to see Lum quickly write Megane a love letter, going so far as to put a stamp on it. Megane is so happy, he races with a megaphone to the bell tower to shout it to the world.
When Megane returns to class and tries to kiss the willing Lum, he passes out. The heart returns to Lum, who returns to normal. Ataru takes the heart and tosses it to Shuutaro. Lum immediately falls for him, going to far as to rapidly knit a sweater with too many arms. Shuutaro is very happy by this, but Ataru takes the heart and traps Shuutaro in a giant bell. However, this causes Lum to lovingly electrocute Ataru. The rest of the guys in the class realize how awesome Lum’s heart is and immediately go for it, but it disappears. Lum plans to have Ataru eat the candy and take his heart, but Ataru has other plans, namely in using the candy to build the harem he’s been dreaming of. He starts by popping a candy in Shinobu’s mouth and taking the heart so that Shinobu falls for hi. Lum fries him again, causing Shinobu to then take out her wrath on Ataru.
Ataru flees with the candy, hotly pursued by Lum. Shuutaro summons his military, including animal forces, to get Lum’s heart. Ataru finds Sakura-sensei, but Cherry intercepts the candy intended for her, then offers his heart to the revolted Lum. Ataru flees again and is intercepted by Lum’s Troopers, whom with the revived Megane, strike a deal with Ataru so that they can get Lum’s heart. As such, Ataru allows Lum to find him, then tricks her by consuming one of the candies and offering his heart in exchange for hers. After Lum finally gives in, Megane and company try to get her heart, but get fried instead by an angry Lum. Lum chases Ataru again, finding Ryuunosuke fending off her father’s desperate advances, not realizing that her holding his heart is the cause. Lum finds many other such forbidden love things going on, thanks to Ataru.
Shuutaro has his guard spring into action, but since Lum falls for each guard that holds her heart, they end up making a mistake, allowing Lum to get her heart back, where she then fries them all. Lum chases Ataru again, where he runs into Shuutaro and his remaining forces. Hiding behind Shuutaro, Ataru tries to shield himself from Lum’s next blast, but to no avail. The ruckus causes Onsen-sensei to emerge from the toilet, where he finds Shuutaro, who’s just accidentally consumed some candy. Onsen-sensei takes the heart that appears above Shuutaro, causing Shuutaro to fall for Onsen-sensei. Meanwhile, Lum has Ataru’s heart, but before she can get a kiss, Onsen-sensei arrives, chased by Shuutaro and his forces. Ataru’s heart returns to him, so he grabs the candies and flees, causing Lum to give chase again.
Thoughts/Review:
This was one of the awesome episodes, providing me with some of the best laughs of the entire franchise.
Initially, I was worried that this would be a Ran episode, but fortunately, after her initial (and hilarious) date with Rei, she’s gone until the end of the episode. So that was a good thing.
While Lum’s and Ataru’s trip to school was amusing, it wasn’t until Megane got Lum’s heart that the belly laughs started. Lum’s writing the love letter was funny enough, but then she takes the time to put a postage stamp on it. I did not expect Megane to grab a bullhorn and race to the bell tower to loudly proclaim how the last seventeen years of his life weren’t in vain now that he has a love letter from Lum. *lol* I was hoping that he’d get a kiss before passing out, but oh well.
Shuutaro’s heart time was pretty funny too, mainly because I didn’t expect Lum to knit him a sweater. *lol* His calling his military was to be expected, but here too, I laughed out loud seeing hoards of animals also responding to Shuutaro’s call, and that was funny.
The brief Fujinami cameo with Ryuunosuke was very wrong but still somewhat funny despite my irritation with the Fujinami character.
The funniest moment was Onsen-sensei found himself the object of affection for Shuutaro, then doing everything to try to elude Shuutaro (without success).
As I’ve mentioned during my reviews of the TV series, the “chase” episodes were the ones that tended to be the funniest to me. Since this episode falls into that category, the tradition continues. For me, the reason an episode like this is so funny is that one never knows exactly what’s going to happen, and even when you see the joke coming, thus these unexpected things that happen become very funny, no matter how outlandish.
So for me, this was an awesome episode for the good laughs it provided.
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Solid review. But the only thing I didn’t like about this OVA was the characterization of Ataru and Cherry. Ataru was more than happy to let other men (the troopers) have Lum’s heart, despite such a thing being something Ataru would never allow. Sure he would do anything to have some girl hunting time, but he would never give up Lum. Ditch her? Yes. Trap her? Yes. Trick her? Yes. But flat out giving her away forever to male suitors? Absolutely not. He’s always been shown as being extremely jealous and that’s something he would not let fly. Although something he would let fly (and which would’ve added additional laughs) would be to have tied her heart to a cat or dog’s collar (or maybe even tie it to Kotatsuneko) and have Lum chase Neko until Ataru can form up a proper harem (which would eventually backfire once the heart returns to Lum’s possession). Cherry’s character was off in that he seemed to be similar to Happosai from Ranma 1/2 in wanting Lum to have his heart and having a disturbed lustful look in his eyes, despite Cherry being a strict celibate throughout the series due to his monk-ly training. Otherwise the episode was mostly hilarious, but the manga ending would’ve made a better conclusion as Onsen confiscates every heart in school rather than just Mendo’s. The whole thing could’ve ended with some disastrous yet confusing result where everyone in Tomobiki somehow ends up in love with Onsen. Still a solid OVA with very solid animation.
Thank you Astro, wherever you may be.
It has been so long since I watched the episode, I can’t remember exactly how Ataru acted. As I read my summary, it seems Ataru was allowing the other guys to get the heart just so Lum would fry them in the way he’d been fried when he try to take her heart. But I just don’t remember him trying to get rid of her forever, but as I said, it has been a long time since I watched the episode. Did the same thing happen in the manga? I ask ’cause you later reference the manga’s ending.
You’re welcome! 😀
This is the only Urusei Yatsura episode that I hate.
Had it been anything else than UY, funny episode. I just don’t like what they do with the main characters.
Lum: she literally cucks Ataru here, and Ataru doesn’t mind because he doesn’t realize yet what’s going on.
I know the series is mostly silliness and we shouldn’t take anything that happens in it seriously, but since there are a few meaningful and tear-jerking episodes here and there I don’t know what to think. I wanna laugh and be entertained, but also believe in this universe despite the negative continuity. So far all the previous directors and scriptwriters have carefully avoided doing this sort of thing with Lum. We’ve seen a lot of stuff (cupid’s arrows, love lockets, potions and candies, brainwashing episodes, etc). None of these ended up affecting her or having her try to embrace someone else than Ataru, because writers until now understood that Lum’s loyalty to Ataru is pretty much the show’s pillar. It’s all over the place up to the theme songs. And they made it clear that Lum trying to kiss anyone is in fact, quite significant (they don’t even do that in Mendo’s many “dream scenes” and there’s an episode exploring the damage a simple kiss to a frog would do to her relationship). A lot of care has been put towards this aspect of her character.
For the record, the manga version of this OVA is rather tame. Lum gives a love letter to Kosuke, knits a sweater for Mendo and that’s it.
I think it would have been more respectful of her, and even funnier, if Megane just faceplanted from overexcitement as he came down the bell tower and dropped the heart at that moment. It would have let the viewer presume that the heart simply makes the person go kawaii but not ultimately in a physical or sexual way, and so Lum is not necessarily showing weakness for being unable to resist it.
Stormtroopers: when they take Ataru to the room and chat with him, they really look like a bunch of sadists who’ve found a way to drug Lum and abuse her. The expression on their faces at the end, and the overall mood. Again, I hate it.
Ataru: pretty much what Megane3000 said in the other comment. He leaves Lum at the mercy of the troopers who’ve been lusting over her for years, so he can have free time to go girl hunting. Nothing can go wrong here…
Anyway. Sorry for the negative review. At least you enjoyed the episode back in the day.
You have a great website btw, keep up the good work.
Haha! No problem. Everyone has the things they like and don’t like. I appreciate how you articulated why the episode didn’t work for you. I’m guessing that if I had been versed in the source manga, I wouldn’t have liked it as much. I’m a big proponent of faithful adaptations and it seems this wasn’t that faithful from what you said.
Thanks! And thanks for writing!