Another recurring cast introduction!
This time it’s the final of Lum’s school friends, Ran. Ran is a “burikko“, which is something I’ve not actually heard since this episode and the Scottish band Urusei Yatsura’s song “Burikko Girl”. She deliberately acts cute and girlish to appeal to men, but that is all it is – an act.
Her true personality is vengeful and vindictive, and here she interrupts the Moroboshi’s Girls Day celebrations to lure Ataru away and seduce him. This is in revenge for what she sees as Lum’s stealing of Rei from her (though we shall see in future episodes that Ran has a lot to be mad at Lum for).
Not only does she intend to seduce Ataru, she also plans to drain his youth with her kiss (this being her ET power). Both Lum and the Stormtroopers try to stop this, culminating with Megane receiving a kiss from Ran, and ageing terribly.
This, of course, doesn’t dampen Ataru’s libido one bit…
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In the second story, Ran claims she is leaving Earth and wants to spend her last night on Earth with Lum and Ataru at her “house” (actually an UFO).
The interior of Ran’s “house” is a little unusual – everything appears to be alive, from the vase to the stairs. Ran bakes some cookies, which Lum is suspicious of. Rightly so as when Ran leaves to fetch the cake, Lum feeds the vase the cookies and it falls asleep…
Lum volunteers to do the dishes so she can catch Ran trying to seduce Ataru, but it all appears to be Ataru doing the seducing. Soon however Ataru falls face first in the cake and Ran kidnaps him while Lum’s back is turned.
Lum and Ran start reminiscing together, but it turns sour when Ran remembers Lum “stealing” Rei from her. She then reveals that she has Ataru and shall beat him up as revenge. She sends Lum into some weird space full of moons, where Ataru is also. Then she pulls a fake Ataru out of the oven to trick Lum with…
Which leads us into a nice musical number where the four float around on moons chasing one another.
Ran then sends Lum home with an Ataru. However, when Ran kisses the remaining one, it turns out she got mixed up too, and the baked Ataru deflates…
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Ran was voiced by You Inoue. Other famous roles included Sayla Mass in Gundam and Kanuka Clancy in Patlabor.
Yu Yamamoto writes both stories. Mamoru Oshii directs and storyboards the first. Hayao Nobe was the animation director on that one.
Keiji Hayakawa was the storyboard/director on the second story with Asami Endo on animation director duties.
Both these were very good stories from an animation POV. These are arguably the four strongest creators in terms of animation of this first batch of episodes.