うる星やつら episode 15 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 15 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lum spots Ran getting some taiyaki. Ran gets angry when Lum inquires about Rei, thinking it is a ploy. She then visits Rei with her taiyaki. Rei “kisses” Ran’s cheek to get some taiyaki crumbs. However, Ran is happy about the kiss and so invites Lum over for tea to celebrate. Lum is happy for Ran, but when she comes home to Ataru, she finds Rei there for her. Ran shows up and rage-eats some taiyaki. However, when Rei “kisses” her, she’s happy again.

Later, Ran and Rei have dessert at a cafe. Ran keeps remembering how in their childhood, she got blamed for the many misdeeds Lum did, like wetting the bed. Even when Lum attempted to own up once, Ran still got punished. This depresses Lum who leaves the cafe. Ran feels satisfied until she realizes she’s been left with the bill.

Another day, Lum and Shinobu happen by Sakura-sensei’s residence. They see her cooking a newt for potion purposes. When they learn she can make a love potion, they want one. To that end, Sakura-sensei starts her work. Cherry pops in to state that this is how Sakura got her boyfriend. After giving him a beating, Sakura-sensei produces the potion in the form of a hard candy.

Lum cons Ataru into eating it, whereupon he professes his love for her. He takes her on a date, where they meet a man on the way. Ataru concocts and elaborate story that the people the man seeks are dead. He then tells his mother that he’s not her son. Finally, Ataru starts hitting on Shinobu. Lum and Shinobu go to Sakura-sensei about this. She discovers that she made the wrong medicine that makes the person a prevaricator.

Thoughts/Review:

Oof! I’m remembering just how much I disliked Ran stories in the 2022 version of Urusei Yatsura 15.

Ran is Not Fun

The gag for Ran is that she’s so massively bipolar, one moment she’s all dere, and the next, she’s a rage monster. Sadly, we got two of those stories in Urusei Yatsura 15. The first one makes Ran so pathetic as a character. Rei “kisses” her to not let crumbs go to waste. Ran just assumes that it was a legitimate kiss and that’s that. So for me, none of this was funny, just sad. I remember it played out somewhat similar in the OG episode 109.

The only humor came from Ran beating Ataru from time to time, and Lum doing the same to Rei. I checked my old review and this was something I found humorous there.

The second Ran story was worse. I remembered this from the OG anime as well (episode 103, if I’m not mistaken). We get to see all of these moments from Ran’s past, whereby Lum got Ran into trouble. By the time Lum felt bad enough to start confessing, Ran still got punished. Again, this wasn’t funny, even though it was supposed to be. (And it wasn’t funny to me in the OG anime as I didn’t even bother to write thoughts about it.)

Love Potion Fail

The third story of Urusei Yatsura 15 was a bit more enjoyable to me. For a start, Cherry gets knocked out, and that’s never a bad thing. I did look back at OG episode 188 (which I also have reviewed). Initially, both episodes start out in a similar fashion. However, I like the shift from randomly encountering Sakura-sensei in the woods (OG) to seeing her in front of her home in the 2022 version. Never made sense to encounter characters in the woods.

That aside, the OG epiosde saw Shuutarou ingest one of the candies, whereas the 2022 version does not. The OG anime got kinda tedious with some of these tall tales that Ataru and Shuutarou told. So I appreciate that the 2022 version kept things to a minimum and mostly focused on Ataru’s strange behavior.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Urusei Yatsura 15 is a mixed bag for me. The first two episodes, complete with a cameo from Kotatsu-neko, are misses for me despite some limited comedy moments. However, the love potion story amused and entertained me more. But the subtitles are the usual garbage.