Lum-A-Day 021 – The Duel! Ataru vs. Ataru / Wake up to a Nightmare

The last episode in what can be seen as the first era of the series. It marks the last two-story episode in the series, and the following episode (a special) brings an important figure to the production team. More on that tomorrow!

When Ataru has a bad reaction to some alien candy Lum gives him, he washes the flavour away by eating a manju Cherry has.

This being UY, the manju is, of course, one that Cherry had sealed all the evil in the world into.  Needless to say, this doesn’t bode well for Ataru… he gets hiccups and splits into two!

One is polite and well mannered, the other is rough and ill-mannered. The polite one offers to stay on Earth with Shinobu and the rough one offers to go to space with Lum. While the four are happy with the situation, Mrs Moroboshi wants Cherry to fix it. Particularly after Mr Moroboshi comes home and accuses her of having a secret child.

Cherry gives her a potion to mix into their food and so she offers them a meal before Lum leaves Earth. Soon the pair get hiccups and start to merge, much to Lum and Shinobu’s dismay. The pair pull the two Atarus apart, but it has the effect of creating two now truly identical Atarus. And as neither of them now want to leave Earth they have a fight to decide who goes.

Who goes? Who knows? Because that’s the end of the story!

Another notable story now, in that it introduces two characters who will reappear in “Beautiful Dreamer”.

Ataru is asleep in class dreaming of:

and

as well as

until he runs into these two characters in this dream:

These are Baku and Mujaki. Baku eats nightmares and that’s what he’s just done to Ataru’s. Ataru demands a good dream in return, and Mujaki tries to offer Ataru dream eggs that will create specific dreams. However each one starts off good, but soon turns into a nightmare.

Eventually Ataru bullies him into giving him good dream – this being Ataru this is naturally owning a harem and having Mendou as his butler. However Ataru talks in his sleep and insults Mendou who swears to unseal his sword and use it on the sleeping Ataru.

As Lum and the Stormtroopers try to awaken him his harem dream starts going awry and Baku eats it. This gives Baku indigestion, and when Ataru awakens Baku and Mujaki are pulled into the waking world through Ataru’s open eyelid!

We leave the episode with Ataur back to sleep, Mujaki begging for a new job, and Baku eating Mendou sword…

Once more, both stories were written by Akira Nakahara. Kozima Tamiko storyboarded and directed the pair of them. Hayao Nobe was the animation director on the first story, Asami Endo on the second.