うる星やつら episode 32 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 32 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, and Inaba go to a dystopian future where Ataru is a gang ruler. Inaba shows them how to make doorknobs that will lead them to their dream fantasy. Inaba’s coworkers cause Shinobu to lose hers while sending Inaba falling. So she goes after him. Likewise, they cause Lum to lose her doorknob.

Ataru manages to get a door open with his doorknob. He discovers he has his harm, but is poor as a result. Further, Lum has left him due to Ataru forcing her to work to pay for the harem. Meanwhile, Shinobu finds her doorknob and flees with Inaba through a door. There, the future has everyone older, yet have not progressed. Shinobu thought she wanted this future, but learns she doesn’t like it. Inaba likes how everyone goofs around together.

Back in limbo, the rabbits decide to destroy all doors. Ataru manages to get into a door, where he discovers he is his wedding day. Lum watches from a distance, since the future Ataru and Lum get married. As such, Ataru exits and tries to save the door. Shinobu and Inaba join them as the rabbits chase them. Inaba gets Shinobu, Ataru, and Lum to their own time, then sacrifices himself to save them.

The next day, Inaba shows up, so he has a beverage with the trio. The fiasco caused his coworkers to pile a ton of work on Inaba. But he’s just happy to spend time with Shinobu, who’s secretly pleased as well.

Thoughts/Review:

I guess Urusei Yatsura 32 wraps up all of the time traveling stuff, unless there’s more in the manga. As before, the story comes from source manga chapters 329, 330, and 331. This story was adapted in anime form as Urusei Yatsura OVA Ep. 03: Inaba the Dream Maker. Also, OG episode 189 covered the Onsen-sensei visit, which originally came from chapter 298.

Be Careful What You Wish For, You May Just Get It

I didn’t find any humor in Urusei Yatsura 32, but I did find it more interesting than the first part of the story. For Shinobu’s fantasy future, she wanted to keep the life she had in high school. So even though she, Ataru, Lum, and Shuutarou are adults, everyone still acts like kids. Thus she discovers that what initially seemed like a good idea ended up being terrible. And yet, through this, she discovered that Inaba might be the one for her.

In a similar vein, Ataru got to see his harm. To be honest, the modern adaptation hasn’t focused on Ataru’s harem desires. I seem to recall this coming up often in the OG adaptation. Nevertheless, Ataru got to see that his dream of a harem didn’t work quite as well as he’d hoped, more so with Lum not in it. So end the end, when he saw the future where he marries Lum, he decides to try to save that future, even though there was no harem. I loved all of these beats.

Finally, there’s Onsen-sensei’s visit to Shinobu’s home. Frankly, this is the fail of splitting up his visit story over multiple episodes ’cause by now, it makes no sense that he’d be so tattered and bruised. Regardless, Onsen-sensei thinks that he’ll get a welcome respite at Shinobu’s home, only to get the opposite ’cause “reasons”. I didn’t laugh.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I’m insanely behind, so let me wrap up my review of Urusei Yatsura 32 with some final thoughts.

• While I didn’t laugh, I did like the Mad Max parody in the first future world the gang visited. Which reminds me, I need to finish the Mad Max game and get those uploaded to YouTube. 😅
• The subs are garbage, as usual.

In the end, I enjoyed this episode immensely, even though the comedy elements didn’t make me laugh. Its just a shame that even though Ataru comes to appreciate Lum yet again, it all gets reset back to naught. Well, unless the anime writers do something different.