うる星やつら episode 25 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 25 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ryuunosuke finds Ten-chan sleeping in a tree. She returns him to Ataru’s home. As a reward, Ataru’s mom makes dinner for Ryuunosuke. She’s so flattered by Ryuunosuke’s praise, she gives Ryuunosuke the food intended for Ataru’s father. When Ryuunosuke returns home, she demands her father tell her about her mother. As a result, Fujinami spews various tales, all lies.

Ryuunosuke leaves and meets up with Ataru and Lum. Fujinami returns with a plausible reason for lying. However, the following day, Fujinami is on a TV show, pleading for his wife Masako to come back home. Ryuunosuke dreams about her mother, but it turns out to be her father in drag. When she awakes, she discovers her dad mumbling about Masako. When he awakes, he starts chasing Ryuunosuke, as if she were Masako.

The next day at school, and exhausted Ryuunosuke is fed up with the antics of her perverted father. She’s determined to find out what her mom looked like. To that end, Ryuunosuke, Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Shuutarou head to the school supply room where Fujinami and Ryuunosuke also live. When Ryuunosuke finally finds the album, her father warns her she won’t like it. Inside, Ryuunosuke finds photos of numerous women acting as a mother to the infant Ryuunosuke, meaning Fujinami foiled her once again.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, I forgot how much I despised Fujinami. The 2022 Urusei Yatsura 25 made sure to remind me. That aside, the episode is originally taken from manga chapters 176, 177, and 298. The later chapter is Onsen-sensei’s house visit. In the OG anime adaptation, episode 81 covered the majority of the story. Episode 189 covered the Onsen-sensei visit.

The Tragedy of Ryuunosuke

The Urusei Yatsura series is full of just despicable characters. The worst of the lot has to be Fujinami. Not only has he forced Ryuunosuke to live as a male, but he does everything to thwart her from doing anything that might get her on her own path. Urusei Yatsura 25 really helps bring out all of Fujinami’s hideousness.

I don’t know why Takahashi-sensei thought this abuse of Ryuunosuke was funny. Clearly, these stories are written to be comical. However, they aren’t funny. The battles between Ryuunosuke and her father aren’t slapstick humor. They are events where you want Ryuunosuke to murder her father after making him suffer in horrible ways.

Yet for the sake of a joke that isn’t funny, Ryuunosuke is denied seeing what her mother looked like. As a character, I feel bad for her. And yet she doesn’t have the strength to break away from her father. She runs away for a bit in this episode, but that’s it.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I need to get to bed, so let me wrap up my review with some final thoughts.

• Onsen-sensei’s home visits were much more extensive in the OG anime adaptation. From what I understand, it was that way in the original manga. So clearly, all of the visits were cut, sans the one to the Fujinami residence at the school.
• I despise the official subtitles for Urusei Yatsura. Seriously, “localization” sucks. An accurate but readable adaptation is what we needed. Alas, that’s not what we get.

In the end, Urusei Yatsura 25 sucks because it is an episode centered around Fujinami and his mental abuse of Ryuunosuke.