CXV: "Urusei Yatsura"

I mentioned this in my last post, and thought I covered this long ago in my first blog. Urusei Yatsura is a title made by Rumiko Takahashi, the same person who made Mermaid Forest, Inuyasha, and Ranma 1/2. This title is the first one she made, gaining the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981, the same year it became animated.

Urusei Yatsura has a pretty silly beginning, as the alien race called Oni show up on Earth with the intention of invading it. The invasion concept isn't uncommon in media involving aliens, but the Oni gives humans a rather strange fighting chance: instead of by force, a competition is held similar to the game of tag, in which a human player grabs the horns of the Oni player, the time limit being a week. The human player chosen is Ataru Moroboshi, who is reluctant at first. This changes when he meets the Oni player Lum, who is the daughter of the leader behind this invasion. A typical high school student, Ataru is lecherous, and uses this trait as an advantage when he claims victory: stealing Lum's top to have her cover her modesty instead of the horns. The romantic comedy starts after a misinterpretation. Prior to the competition, Shinobu Miyake pledges maqrriage to him should he win. As he gets excited over this, she misunderstood it as a proposal to her, accepting it live on TV. From then on, Lum falls in love with Ataru, in spite of him constantly rejecting her.

As it is Takahashi's first work, the animation style is quite old, though it more or less stands as the foundation of the art style seen in her later works. The anime lasted for 195 episodes, licensed by AnimeEigo. It is said that this series would go out of print later this year. In addition, 11 OVAs and 6 theatrical films were also made. The origin behind this anime was Takahashi's Those Selfish Aliens, a wacky boy meets alien romantic comedy made in 1977. The manga series, created a year later, is pretty much played from this, containing similar concepts. This title is known in the US roughly translated as Those Obnoxious Aliens, similar to the work it was based from. Ataru has 3 different English voice actors: Michael Sinterniklaas in the TV anime, and Steve Rassin and Vinnie Penna for the movies. Lum has 4 voice actresses, as Martha Ellen Senseney voiced her in the TV anime, while Larissa Murray dubbed her in BBC Choice's Lum the Invader Girl (their dubbing of Urusei Yatsura), and Shannon Settlemyer and Roxanne Beck for the movies.

Urusei Yatsura is old, but still a goodie, getting 7.9 of 10.