Here’s something I’ve not seen in a while, a “school legend” story. I don’t know whether they’ve fallen out of fashion, or if I’ve just stopped watching the sort of shows who use them to base an episode around.
This one involves the “Mysterious Red Mantle”, who apparently haunts the school like the Phantom of The Opera. When the gang browbeat Onsen-Mark into allowing them to run a school disco, he fears the Red Mantle will make an appearance as he once did at a dance that Onsen-Mark attended as a 17 year old himself. We then get a flashback to that very dance where we see the Red Mantle kidnap a classmate of Onsen-Mark’s, Yoshiko. He is worried that he will return to commit a similar crime at the disco.
His worries are well founded, however the years have not been kind to the Red Mantle. He is now obese and squeezed tightly into his old costume. Waiting to ambush students in the girls toilet, he finds himself stuck in stall due to his extreme girth.
Next he spies some “girls” changing in the light of the moon and prepares to ambush them, however it turns out to be The Stormtroopers, Ataru and Mendou who are dressed as women. Not realising who he is, they cover him in make up and drag him into the dance.
And then we get some disco dancing! And the first appearance of the song Cosmic Cycler in the show. Surprisingly the Red Mantle and Lum end up winning the disco dancing competition. When he grabs the microphone to try and inspire fear in the school, the kids just laugh at him. Then to add insult to injury, his wife and kid show up to berate him. The wife of course turning out to be Yoshiko.
Which only goes to make Onsen-Mark realise how old he is…
I remember not having that much time for this the first time round, but watching it again, it’s a really good episode. Unlike the previous two teachers, Onsen-Mark is a much more well-rounded figure, rather than a parody of tropes. He’s another example of no matter how bad the teenage years of the UY characters are, their adult life is likely to suck even more. Outside of the headmaster, who just lets life flow over him, all the adults in UY seem to have a miserable time of it to varying degrees. Despite all that Onsen-Mark generally keeps a stiff upper lip and is often genuinely concerned for his students.
The disco scene is another Masahito Yamashita animated sequence, and is a massive improvement on the dancing in the Tsubame debut story. Here it is:
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Screenwriter: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Keiji Hayakawa
Director: Keiji Hayakawa
Animation Director: Asami Endo