うる星やつら episode 154 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 154 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Cherry observes Sakura-sensei in martial arts training and heads to the high school after her, where he finds all of the males students and male teachers, save Ataru, engaged in physical exercise or training. Turns out, the principle is allowing the students to have psychological counseling with Sakura-sensei.  Onsen-sensei warns the students they visit Sakura-sensei at their own peril as he and the other male teachers vow to protect her.  Meanwhile, as Lum discovers that Ataru appears depressed, Shinobu speaks with Ami on the terrace. Ami appears troubled so Shinobu inquires to learn more. Ami tells a tale of late night studying when her handsome “oniichan” comes in with a pot of tea and kind words.  Since the story seems romantic, Shinobu is stunned when she learns that romance isn’t what’s troubling Ami, but the fact that Ami’s older brother spiked the tea with brandy and now Ami has a hangover.

The moment school is out, the males race to the nurses station, where Onsen-sensei and other male teacher wait with shinai.  Sakura-sensei knows that her defenders are outnumbered and won’t last long and soon, several males make it through. When she asks them what is wrong, they are unprepared until Perm says they are ill.  When a battered Onsen-sensei arrives to fight some more, Sakura-sensei throws out the male students for wasting her time.  Fujinami arrives to discuss his “son” Ryuunosuke, but she comes in and knocks him out the window. As such, Sakura-sensei decides to give Ryuunosuke counseling but is interrupted when Shuutaro arrives for counseling on what to do about all the women who love him. He produces tons of love letters but when Ryuunosuke produces an even greater amount from girls who love her, Shuutaro is defeated. Sakura-sensei finds the depressed Ataru in bed, tended to by Lum but soon discovers what ails him is his inability to be alone with Sakura-sensei, which gets him ejected.

This brings in Gongo Dodan, the head of the Kento-ji temple.  He needs to have the giant bell tolled 1000 times in honor of the previous and now deceased temple head. Sakura-sensei enlists Lum, Ryuunosuke, Shinobu, and Shuutaro for the task. Ataru joins, as he wishes to express his love for Sakura-sensei.  The temple is at the top of an insane flight of steps and when they reach the temple bell, Ataru and Shuutaro discover that with no ringer, they have to ring the bell with their body. The promise of money (kane) gets them motivated. Lum carries Shinobu so she can use her strength to punch the bell. Ryuunosuke simply leaps up repeatedly and rapid-punches it on the way down. Shuutaro stands on a step ladder inside the bell and flails.  Ataru is on the short end of the stick, getting a ring when he grabs Sakura-sensei. The 1000-rings done, the group finds that their reward is actually bells (kane) and they take it out on the monk.

Thoughts/Review:

This was actually two stories blended into a single story, as I see it.  For the first story, I was amused at how the males were training save for Ataru.  There was nothing particularly funny about any of it though it was still amusing and the various ejections by Sakura-sensei were all expected.  Ataru’s depression was one of the better bits because I just knew he was up to something but exactly what he’d say, I couldn’t guess.  The interlude with Shinobu taking with Ami, who’s never been mentioned before as far as I can tell, was the other humorous bit, though it was more like a long, time-filler joke.  Fortunately, it was inserted into the story in such a way so as not to really derail things and the payoff was pretty funny.  Actually, I give a +1 to that interlude and the “oniichan” story/joke since the payoff was unexpected and thus funny.

The second story with the monk and the 1000 tolls of the temple bell was OK.  The stair joke was funny up to a point but once they finally reached the plateau and showed the second stage of the stairs, the gag became too long and thus lost the humorous effect it had previously enjoyed.  I always enjoy it when there’s collateral damage from a jealous Lum electrocuting Ataru.  Shinobu took the damage this time, but what was great was that despite an initial anger by Lum and Shinobu at each other, they quickly realized that as a team, they’d get the job done.  The “kani” homonym joke wasn’t handled that well by AnimEigo because they didn’t reference the word “kani” when they translated it to “money.”  They were forced to at the end because the joke wouldn’t make sense otherwise.  I knew what “kani” meant already in terms of money and maybe AnimEigo assumed most people would.

So an OK and mostly entertaining episode, which is better than a bad episode any day.  ^_^