うる星やつら episode 161 (TV anime)
Urusei Yatsura Ep. 161 review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lum and Ataru are taking a stroll through the park one summer’s day when Ataru starts eying the babes.  They end up at a white chapel, just as a married couple emerges and Lum catches the bouquet. Ataru escapes to go hit on the babes but is found by Lum. However, he gives her the slip. Meanwhile, Ten-chan is floating around and scores a free ice cream cone.  Returning to Ataru’s residence, Ten-chan discovers a scarecrow with a bunch of small, empty jars capped with corks which will make large things small. In exchange for his cone, Ten-chan receives a bottle but despite the warning to read the label, he opens the bottle anyway.  When Lum arrives, he points it at her to show her, causing her to shrink into the bottle. Destroying the bottle, Lum then reads the label and has Ten-chan go buy the reversing bottle as Ataru comes home.

Lum decides to gain some affection from Ataru by telling him her condition is due to a disease and that to get better, she needs his love. He’s not buying it but she takes advantage just the same by trying to feed him, laying on her stomach while on his shoulder or head, or just generally being close to him. One night, Ataru awakes to find Lum missing and thinks he may have crushed her. While looking for her in the darkened house, he falls down the stairs. He awakes in a strange place and find Lum, who tells him because he didn’t love her enough, she’ll be eaten by a monster boar. Sure enough, the prediction comes true and a giant boar emerges, consuming Lum before walking away, leaving Ataru with Lum’s small hat.  Ataru mourns for her and awakens to find it was a dream.

The next day, Ataru heads to school and wonders if he’s being nice enough to Lum when he discovers Lum’s secret as he overhears her talking with Kotatsu-neko. He puts her in a bird cage and goes on a girl hunt. Ten-chan manages to find the scarecrow, only to discover from a sentient turtle that the scarecrow’s destroying the bottles. Ten returns to Earth and lets Ataru know the bad news. Ataru races home, only to find the bird cage destroyed by the cat Torajima. The tiny Lum is electrocuting Torajima for daring to attack her when Ataru finds her. She doesn’t believe his story about not returning to normal, but he grabs her and Ten uses his flying scooter to race them to the scarecrow just in time as he destroys his last bottle. Lum is back to normal and Ataru is happy. However, on their next trip to the park, Lum is going to plant Ataru’s head in a birdcage for what he did to her.

Thoughts/Review:

Heh! I gotta say that this was both fun and sweet at the same time.  The patterns are pretty much the normal ones you’d expect from the series — Ataru is chasing skirts, Lum gets furious, a situation happens that causes Ataru to think that Lum might actually be taken from him in some manner, Ataru reveals he really does care for Lum, and Lum either accepts this or, as in the case in this episode, makes him pay a penalty.  Even then, the way Ataru played things by pretending to be a bird when his head was in the cage was similar to something a guy would do as a joke when he wanted to tease his woman or even just go with the flow.  Basically, it was another form of “yeah, we’re a couple” moment and I liked it.  ^_^

Lum being turned into a tiny version of herself reminded me so much of Hand Maid May, when May is a six-inches tall, especially when Ataru’s family were eating a meal together and Lum was on the table walking from dish to dish.  It made me wonder of the creators of Hand Maid May took a tiny bit of influence from Urusei Yatsura.

Ten-chan may not have taken a beating, but I did get a kick out of Torajima taking an electrical beating from Lum for attacking her while she was in the bird cage. That was good stuff as far as I’m concerned.

The one really funny moment was Ataru hitting on the yankee chick, who couldn’t believe that a guy would dare hit on her.  *lol*   Even after she’d put Ataru down and is wondering if she’s slipping as a yankee, Ataru is right back and running a finger down her back repeatedly while continuing the full court press.  *lol*  Well, Ataru is pretty opportunistic when it comes to hitting on women. ^_^;;;

One more thing — the production team tossed a nice tribute to Miyazaki-sensei’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by having Lum in front of the movie poster as Ataru yells at her. I didn’t notice it the first time I watched but the second time through, it stuck out quite a lot. ^_^;

On a related note, my age allowed me to immediately spot one of the movies Ataru was reading about — Ladyhawke.  I didn’t watch it when it came out but did see it on video when I lived in Japan.  The other movie Ataru read about was unfamiliar to me, but I did a search and discovered he was reading about the 1984 Australian horror movie, Razorback.  Yay me for finding that. ^_^

So, as I said, a fun and sweet episode with a moment of humor and goodness on the side.