うる星やつら episode 40 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 40 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Nagisa now lives with Ryuunosuke and Fujinami. He dreams he’s the loving wife to Ryuunosuke. In reality, he’s rather lazy. Ryuunosuke gets angry with how much food Nagisa consumes as a freeloader. At school, she complains about it, leading Lum and the others to wonder why Ryuunosuke hasn’t kissed Nagisa despite his girl appearance. When Ataru attempts to hit on Ryuunosuke, Nagisa shows up to put a stop to it.

Fujinami leaves for an onsen trip. He warns Ryuunosuke not to make a move on Nagisa. Ryuunosuke decides to leave, but when Nagisa accuses him of being afraid of him, she decides to fight. However, Nagisa easily defeats Ryuunosuke despite his girl-like appearance. Sakura-sensei shows up with an anti-ghost ofuda strip. This sends Nagisa running in panic. Ryuunosuke decides she has to settle things in a fight with Nagisa.

To that end, Ryuunosuke attacks, but Nagisa effortlessly avoids her blows. As Sakura-sensei, Ataru, and Lum watch, they see Nagisa’s strategy. Ryuunosuke is worn out, so Nagisa gets her in a bear hug, defeating her. This causes Ryuunosuke to cry in frustration. Nagisa counters, asking if Ryuunosuke would hit someone she had feelings for. To that end, Ryuunosuke relents and lets Nagisa stay.

Later, Ataru’s class decide to keep silent after Onsen-sensei threatens them with supplemental classes. Since they won’t enlighten Ten-chan on what that means, he terrorizes their class. However, the class remain silent with with written notes, encourage Onsen-sensei to continue the lesson.

Thoughts/Review:

Boy, another episode with Fujinami and Ten-chan. Ugh. The first story of Urusei Yatsura 40 originated from manga chapters 349 and 350. It was never adapted for the OG anime series. The second story came from manga chapter 120 (OG anime episode 56).

The Nagisa Story Continues

Since the first story of Urusei Yatsura 40 was never previously adapted as an anime, it was interesting to watch this part of the story. When Fujinami appeared on the screen, I nearly screamed in frustration though. Good grief, I despise this character so much. Thankfully, he isn’t around much as the story focused on Nagisa and Ryuunosuke.

I feel bad for Nagisa, maybe more so than I do for Ryuunosuke. Both have been mentally abused by their insane fathers (’cause that’s funny). Though Nagisa is manipulative, I do believe he has strong feelings for Ryuunosuke. It follows the trope of the child who is betrothed, thus grows up with the idea of the other person being their one and only true love.

I also felt bad for Nagisa when Sakura-sensei attacked him with her anti-ghost ofuda. I get that Nagisa died, but her soul remained on Earth and obtained a new, physical body. To that end, Nagisa needs to eat and sleep. So I’m not sure how Sakura-sensei’s magic would affect Nagisa like that. He should be pretty much a normal human, with inhuman strength, especially considering his appearance.

I did like how Ryuunosuke came to understand Nagisa a bit better by the end of the story. Unfortunately, the gag joke at the end ruined things ’cause a stupid gag joke trumps a meaningful story moment.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Urusei Yatsura 40 with some final thoughts.

• I hate Ten-chan and felt his story didn’t warrant a whole section. The only thing that would have made this episode have an enjoyable payoff is if Ten-chan took a massive beating (including electrocution by Lum) at the end for all of the crap he did.
• Why is it that leaving the “-sama” honorific properly attached to the name is lazy, but it is NOT lazy to ignore it when you can’t think of something proper? Nagisa addresses Ryuunosuke as “Ryuunosuke-sama” to not only show his deep affection for her, but to elevate her as well. So the official subs turned this into “Ryuunosuke, darling” at times. But at other times where that didn’t work, they just ignored it ’cause clearly, the Japanese are stupid to use honorifics as literary devices. And since we don’t want that <censored Japanese slur> in our pure English subtitles, well…😑

In the end, the episode’s first story was okay, mainly because it was new to me. And I feel bad for Nagisa. The second story was pure rubbish because of Ten-chan.