うる星やつら episode 35 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 35 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Ran makes cupcakes and heads off to deliver them. Ataru spots her, but she disappears, accidentally leaving a cupcake behind. He takes a bite and passes out. Lum finds him and the cupcake, and assumes Ran tried to kill Ataru. She takes Ataru home and hooks him up to monitoring devices after the robot doctor fails. Cherry agrees to watch him while Lum hunts for Ran in another realm.

Cherry accidentally kills the power to the monitoring machine, so Lum thinks he died. Ran is angry about Lum showing up, but calms down when she sees Lum in tears. Rei, Ran, and Lum return to Earth, where Ataru just wakes up. When Ran learns that he took a bite of the cupcake, she goes off on the pair of them since they were specially designed for Rei, thus one cupcake has the density of 100s.

Kitsune looks for Shinobu to give her tsukushi to eat. According to legend, this will cause Shinobu to become a fox for the night. However, he has difficulties getting to Shinobu, including getting attacked by dogs. Kotatsu-neko sends the dogs running, so Kitsune continues. He finds Lum and Ataru, who take him to see Shinobu. However, Kitsune is horrified that he lost his tsukushi (horsetail shoots).

Shinobu agrees to help him look for the tsukushi, along with Lum and Ataru. As night deepens, they have no luck. The group comes upon Cherry’s camp with Kotatsu-neko. Cherry gives Kitsune some of his soup. Ataru, Shinobu, and Lum also join in. Since the soup had tsukushi in it, everyone turns into foxes, so Kitsune is happy to be with Shinobu as a kitsune.

Thoughts/Review:

Another 2-story episode in the 2022 adaptation of Urusei Yatsura 35. The first story came from source manga chapter 162. The OG anime adaptation became episode 77. For the second story, this originated from chapter 222, and originally adapted in episode 134. And of course, OG episode 189 covered the Onsen-sensei visit, which originally came from chapter 298. I think this one FINALLY ends this tediousness.

Cupcakes

The first story of Urusei Yatsura 35 isn’t horrible, but it has Cherry in it, so that’s a negative. That aside, I think it is a pretty forgettable episode ’cause I didn’t remember it at all from when I watched the OG anime adaptation. What makes these stories forgettable is that there’s never a change in the status quo. So even though we’ve seen stories where Ataru proves he does care about Lum, in this episode, she’s not sure until he calls out her name while unconscious.

Obviously, Lum cares about Ataru despite his girl hunting ways. So her believing Ataru to be dead doesn’t evoke any kind of emotion in me. At the same time, the comedy elements of Ran going off on Lum don’t effect me either. Its just a bunch of “going through the motions” rubbish.

Another Kitsune Story

I never liked the stories that featured Kitsune. However, the little fox is featured in the second story of Urusei Yatsura 35. Thankfully, this one isn’t bad, even though Cherry is a part of this episode as well. I only vaguely remembered the story from the OG anime. However, the story is kinda cute, and Cherry isn’t that big of a presence.

That said, the modern adaptation doesn’t have the padding the OG episode had. This also means that some of the nods are gone as well. Not that the 2022 series has featured those. But I did remember the OG adaptation having a door with Return of the Jedi graffiti on it.

Onsen-sensei

I suppose if the Onsen-sensei home visit story had been in a single episode, it would have worked better. Unfortunately, by cutting up the story into segments to pad out other episodes, it loses any kind of punch it might have had. But I think it is finally over, which is a relief.

 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Urusei Yatsura 35 is a mostly forgettable episode. The cupcake story is easily forgotten, and the only thing to remember about the Kitsune story is that it is a bit adorable. The details kinda get lost in the memory.