When Lum catches a cold from her dad, she wears a face mask to school to stop herself from passing it on. Ataru shows no sympathy until the Stormtroopers offer to buy the mask from him. So he then convinces her to take the mask off as the best way to get rid of cold is to pass it on.
The collected perverts of Tomobiki High are eager to get a second hand kiss from Lum via the mask and so take turns putting it on. Meanwhile Lum carresses Ataru’s forehead to see if he’s caught the cold yet, but his temperature is normal.
However it turns out that an alien cold has a different effect on humans, turning the skin that comes into contact with the germs into green and red stripes. Now faced with tell-tale skin blemishes that show their perversion, they start wearing masks themselves (and Ataru, a glove covering his forehead).
When Lum goes home early, they are left to visit Sakura for a cure and very little sympathy. However when she tries a cure on Cherry it just turns the stripes into a checkerboard pattern.
That avenue closed, they set a trap for Ten and ask him to fetch a medicine from Lum’s UFO. Unfortunately the medicine instructions are too complicated for a three year old Oni alien and he fetches the wrong one, leading to their whole bodies being covered in stripes (apart from the originally effected area).
SHINY HAIR MENDOU makes his second appearance in the series with this episode. Still not keen on that design choice for him, the highlighting just makes him look like his hair’s greying. It’s certainly not as good as the tones they use on Lum’s hair. Apart from that quibble, it’s a good episode. The animation isn’t flashy, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of in there.
Scriptwise, the story follows the manga fairly faithfully. The only padding is a subplot involving Mr Moroboshi having the mumps and the scene where Sakura tries to find a cure herself, and neither of them disrupt the flow of the story.
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New director time! Osamu Sekita has worked as episode director on a lot of Gundam projects from the original series through to SEED. He’s also popped in on Keroro Gunso, which is, in many ways, a hybrid of UY and Gundam.
Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kozima Tamiko
Director: Osamu Sekita
Animation Director: Noboru Furuse
