Lum-A-Day 006 – Black Hole Love Triangle / It’s a Lovesick Little Demon!

The first story is another example of the early, meaner, more spiteful Lum characterisation.

Ataru tries to make a date with Shinobu, but Ten eavesdrops and tells Lum.

Lum interupts them and tells Shinonu that “We’re going to make a baby on Saturday night”. Ataru yells at Lum and she runs away (though not before electrocuting him and Ten setting him on fire).

Ataru tries to call Shinobu again, but Lum keeps interupting their calls from her spaceship. However the triangle between Ataru, Shinobu and Lum’s phones has become a Bermuda Triangle-style black hole where things are disappearing. This is all helpfully deduced and explained by a Sumo commentator, in another use of TV presenters being used to advance the plot.

It ends when Lum tries to crash her spaceship into Shinobu and Ataru in a “lovers suicide”. In the smoke Ataru mistakenly embraces Lum, thinking she is Shinobu. This leads to a beating from Shinobu, and then a subsequent beating from Tomobiki residents for all the damage caused in the episode so far.

The next story expands on Ataru’s supernaturally bad luck and brings Cherry into the story more for the first time.

Ataru accidentally summons a devil when he holds a mirror up to a window at midnight on Friday 13th. The devil, a little blue chap remeniscent of a Blue Meanie, instantly falls for Lum, declaring her “just his type”. This makes Lum run away, so Ataru lets him stay.

However the next morning, it becomes clear that any woman is his type, as he hits on Ataru’s mother, much to her delight (what does it say about his father that she’s happy about this proposition?). Then when Shinobu comes round, he declares her his type too.

When Lum sees Shinobu has visited Ataru she returns to the Moroboshi household. After throwing some more lies around to upset Shinobu, the pair beat up Ataru. Finding his father in the garden, similarly beaten up, the Mr Moroboshi & Son decide to call upon Cherry’s services to exorcise the little demon.

However Cherry’s Buddhist techniques fail, as he’s dealing with a Western devil. And rather than send him back, he ends up summoning an infinite amount of devils.

And that’s it. No resolution, no order restored. It just ends in chaos. Marvellous.

The first story is written by Takao Koyama (the main writer on the Dragonball Z anime), storyboard & direction by Masuji Harada, once again with Yuji Yatabe on animation direction.

The second story is written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, storyboard & direction by Keiji Hayakawa and Hayao Nobe animation direction.