Ten has fallen in love!
With Sakura, of all people. Ataru offers him advice, but Kintaro warns Ten against it. Instead Kintaro pays Sakura a visit to tell her of Ten’s feelings. Or rather, demand that she goes on a date with Ten. She calls him an imbecile and Kentaro returns to tell Ten the bad news.
Next Lum goes to talk with Sakura, and soon Sakura rings Ten up to ask him on a date! However Ataru and Lum follow to keep an eye on him. Ataru deduces that Lum asked Sakura to take Ten out for Children’s Day, however he points out that Lum doesn’t realise that Ten’s as bad as him, and won’t accept the date for the innocent idea that Lum and Sakura think it is.
This proves to be correct a wise assessment as, after a visit to an amusement park, Ten has Kintaro kidnap Sakura to high rise construction site so that Ten can propose to her! Naturally, she rejects him, breaking his heart.
And then it goes all trippy, as Ten has Kintaro’s ET kidergarten class put on a light show of Sakura’s face in the sky, as something of an apology for how he behaved.
A fairly light episode in terms of actual story, but there’s lots of nice pieces of business throughout. The highlight is a sequence where Ataru is leaning back on a chair to eavesdrop on Ten and Sakura, and he loses his balance. Then for about 30 seconds we have him desperately trying to stop himself and the chair from falling over. Other neat gags are Ten not being able to open an automatic door because he’s flying and Ataru trying to ride Lum as if she was a horse to pursue Kintaro when Sakura is kidnapped.
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The episode is written by Shiyou Hisakazu (sp?) and Kazunori Ito. Hisakazu I’m stumped on as their career outside UY.
Storyboards are by frequent Oshii collaborator Mizuho Nishikubo, though this is the only UY storyboard he’s credited with.
Directing, unsurprisingly, is Mamoru Oshii.
And debuting as animation director is Yuichi Endo. They’d not do that much credited animation direction on the series until Oshii left, but they did work on the first UY movie in that role.