OK, a little later than intended. The fever I had yesterday kind of scuppered things somewhat. Still a teensy bit high in the old body temperature stakes but I think I can rustle something up today.
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Here’s a great example of the strength of Ryunosuke as a character. She’s excellent for mixing up with a lot of the other extended cast. In this case, Lum’s borderline psychotic childhood friend, Ran.
After getting into another fight with her dad (who has poisoned her in order to make her wear her boys school uniform), Ryu is spotted by Ran and gives her a hankerchief to clean her wounds.
Ran ponders the hankerchief’s excessively girly nature and wants to find Ran in order to learn how to be more feminine. However the boys mistake this interest for love, as does Ran when Ryu pens an incredibly clumsy note which Ran mistakes for a love letter. Not knowing that Ryu is a girl (indeed refusing to believe Lum when she tells her), Ran goes on what she thinks is a date with her.
Ryu however just wants lessons in being feminine, or as she unfortunately puts it “teach me a lot of stuff about girls”. We also get a glimpse into Ryu’s father’s stinginess as we learn he claimed parfaits (along with cake and Christmas) were only for girls. I think we get more of that explained in a later episode about Ryu’s mother.
Then the script just sort of runs out of episode, and we are left with Ryu pondering that girls are kind of weird (based on Ran’s excessively burriko nature).
The way the episode just sort of fizzles out with no big punchline doesn’t detract too much from the fact that visually the show is really hitting it’s stride now. There’s lots of really nice scenes here, Ran’s dream at the start, the argument between Ran and Lum in the middle and the penultimate scene with Ataru in the water all stand out.
Also, this episode has probably the most 1980’s-y outfits so far:
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Oddly this had Keiji Hayakawa, who up until now had been directing/storyboarding, on scriptwriting duties only.
Screenplay: Keiji Hayakawa
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Kazuo Yamazaki
