うる星やつら episode 05 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 05 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Sakura stars working as a nurse at Ataru’s high school. Meanwhile, some male, PE teachers bring in a pair of cursed boxing gloves for her to exorcise. The cat, Torojima, chased by Cherry, crash into Sakura-sensei’s office, causing her to throw them out as well as one of the gloves. Lum finds the glove and shows it to Ataru. He puts in on to explain what boxing gloves are, but starts affectionately touching Lum with the glove. She’s pretty happy about this, despite his protestations. But she’s not so happy when he does the same thing to other girls.

Shuutarou isn’t having it, but Ataru caressing him stops Shuutarou twice. Sakura-sensei and the coaches arrive. The other glove is put on Ataru, who attempts to punch folks with it. Lum wants more of the affection, forcing Ataru to punch himself. Sakura-sensei puts the pair in a boxing ring, where Ataru ends up beating himself while caressing Lum.

Sometime later, the guys in Ataru’s class are jealous over the amount of love letters Shuutarou gets. A group of them decide to write a love letter to Ataru as KUMINO Otoko (Male CLASSMATES) to make Shuutarou jealous. Lum finds out about the letter and runs to Shuutarou to try to make Ataru jealous. Ataru is not phased.

All the guys show up at the cafe since Ataru made a bet with Shuutarou about the date. Lum is depressed about Ataru’s actions, but decides to bail him out. She pretends to be Otoko-chan, but Ataru susses her out. She gets him to play along. Ataru is upset he owes Lum a favor, but sees her looking down. As such, he stops her from leaving and walks home with her, hand in hand.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, I really love how this 2022 version of Urusei Yatsura is playing out. And Urusei Yatsura 05 is no exception. Can’t speak for the source manga, but the stories in this episode were originally adapted in part in the OG episodes 05, 116, and 10.

Cursed Boxing Gloves

The 2022 version of Urusei Yatsura 05 gets things started with Sakura-sensei’s arrival at the high school. Unlike the OG episode 5, there’s no protracted walk to the school with Sakura-sensei wearing a cleavage-showing dress. She’s already at school in the 2022 version. As such, we have the cliched element of the boys in school inventing excuses to visit the hot school nurse.

OG episode 115 is where the boxing glove story was originally adapted. I gotta say, the OG episode was funnier, only because they added a pair of cursed boxing shorts for Megane to wear. Then Megane was forced to wrestle with Lum against his will, before he’s made to fight Ataru. (Check out that review here!)

The 2022 version is more poignant, crappy Sentai/HiDIVE subtitles not withstanding. We still have Lum happy in the classroom that Ataru beat himself up before punching her. The difference is that when the two are put into the boxing ring, Ataru continues beating himself up until the gloves come off. Lum’s happy, yet almost disbelieving stare at Ataru’s actions (where she didn’t say “Awwww!” or “How sweet!”) were a nice touch.

So while I missed some of the outrageous humor in the OG episode, I did enjoy the romantic touches in the 2022 episode. Plus, it fit with the tone of the second story.

Lum is a Woman

The second story of the 2022 Urusei Yatsura 05 features the first time Ataru truly sees Lum as an attractive woman and more. In the OG episode 10, I remember this story was the one that caused me to move Urusei Yatsura from “meh” to “Okay, now I’m somewhat interested.” The basic story between the OG and 2022 versions is the same. However, in the OG episode, it is a frustrated Megane who invents Otoko-chan in order to punish Ataru for taking Lum for granted.

I never was a fan of Lum’s Stormtroopers, and the fact that they don’t exist as a group in the 2022 anime is fine with me. As such, I rather enjoyed the premise of the 2022 anime story shifting focus to the guys wanting to take Shuutarou down a peg.

While both versions feature a depressed Lum, unhappy with Ataru’s treatment of her, the 2022 version had more impact with me. The animators cheated by making Lum cry more in the modern version. 😅 But the story setting in the OG version cheated as well. There, the setting was Christmas eve, which the Japanese view as a time for romance. The OG version of Lum and Ataru having a romantic moment was lovely with the Christmas theme.

However, that meant that in the 2022 version, Ataru seeing Lum as a woman for the first time carried more weight with me. We don’t have that notion of, “It’s Christmas, so maybe I’ll be nice” element  in the 2022 version. Thus to me, Ataru’s change of heart about Lum meant more.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of the Urusei Yatsura 05 2022 outing with some final thoughts.

• Torajima made his cameo debut in this episode. In the OG episode, the vicious cat with the eye patch was in a battle with Ten-chan. In the 2022 version, Cherry has that fight.
• Speaking of Cherry, I like how his role has been heavily downplayed in the 2022 anime. I always found him to be an annoying character in the OG anime. So when he’s removed from being the driver that gets the boxing gloves story rolling, I celebrated!

In the end, Urusei Yatsura 05 was a fun, enjoyable, and even moving episode. While some of the OG anime elements may have been funnier, the 2022 anime had more impact.