うる星やつら episode 42 (2002)
Urusei Yatsura 42 (2022) review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lum makes a muffler (scarf) for Ataru. When she goes to deliver it, Ten-chan accidentally destroys it. Ataru takes advantage of the situation to have “righteous anger” at Ten-chan. To that end, Ten-chan flees and seeks advice from Cherry on how to apologize. Failing to learn anything there, he goes to Shuutarou. That fails, so Ten-chan witnesses Ryuunosuke feigning dogeza to her father before attacking him. Finally, Sakura-sensei gives Ten-chan advice. To that end, Ten-chan writes his apology on Ataru’s shirt while he sleeps.

Ran buys some special candy that causes a heart to appear over the one who consumes it. The person who takes said heart makes them fall in love with the taker. She attempts this on Rei, who just eats the hearts. Ran leaves and in her anger, throws the candy at Lum, who eats one. The next day, Ataru sees the heart over her head and takes it. She electrocutes him (in love) every time. As such, Ataru decides to give the heart to Shuutarou. Another guy gets the heart, so she writes him a love letter.

When Shuutarou gets the heart, Lum knits him a sweater. Lum gives a candy to Ataru, but he refuses to let her have his heart. Instead, he gives the candies to all the guys in the class. Onsen-sensei confiscates the hearts, causing all the guys to fall in love with him.

Meanwhile, Lum’s father finds an old oni in a stasis pod in their house. On Earth, Lum purchases a pair of matching, Japanese coats. She attempts to put one on Ataru, but fails. Ran shows up and reveals that the coats cause the wearers to fall in love. Ataru steals the coats and tries to put one on Sakura-sensei. Elsewhere in space, an dark figure has a locket of young Lum.

Thoughts/Review:

Urusei Yatsura 42 is a mixed bag to be sure. The first story is taken from manga chapter 166,and adapted by OG episode 88. The second story comes from manga chapter 354, which became OG anime OVA 9. The epilogue story came from manga chapters 356 (Final Chapter movie) and 320 (never adapted).

Annoying Characters

The first story in Urusei Yatsura 42 has pretty much all of the most annoying characters in the franchise. We start of with Ten-chan, who annoys me to no end. It doesn’t matter that I enjoyed seeing Ataru beat him, I just don’t want the character on the screen. Naturally, the first person Ten-chan goes to see for advice is Cherry, a very irritating character. And to complete the trifecta, Ten-chan gets to observe Fujinami dealing with his daughter. I wanted to vomit.

Beyond the horrible characters, the story was just boring. No wonder the 2022 anime team put it way back like the did.

The OVA Was Better

For the second story in Urusei Yatsura 42, the OG OVA episode was better and funnier. That’s not to say I didn’t get laughs out of this 2022 version. But I missed Shuutarou chasing Onsen-sensei around as depicted in the OVA. Having all the males in the class waiting for Onsen-sensei to show up so they can give him gifts and confess just wasn’t as funny to me (even if it is manga-accurate, which I cannot verify).

Blending of Two

The final story of the 2022 Urusei Yatsura 42 blended two, unrelated stories to get the events of the Final Chapter movie going. I think this will pretty much bring the series to an end, unless for some reason, another season is ordered. That aside, the story with the coats was new to me, but basically, mostly the same as the heart story from earlier. Mixing in the “dark” stuff from the final story in the manga just gets that aspect going.

The only thing I clearly remember about the last story of the OG anime (movie) is that Ataru is a mule head, as usual, and that another couple come in to mix things up. But the OG movie (and I believe the manga as well) have to real resolution, which is typical of Takahashi-sensei.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Urusei Yatsura 42 starts terrible, has a humorous middle, then sets the table  so that everyone can exit, stage right.