Here’s one of the first episodes where they kind of forgot they were writing a comedy.
We’ve had a few episodes before where the focus was more on the romance between Lum and Ataru, but they wisely let Megane shoulder the gags in the past. In theory they go for that formula again here, but it all kind of falls flat. Not to mention they reign in their wildest animator too.
Lum forgets Ataru’s birthday, they have a tiff. Ataru gets a strop on. Lum gets a strop on. Megane thinks Lum’s leaving so he decides to torture Ataru in a beat that never pays off. Sakura tries to sort it all out as school counsellor. And in the end Lum and Ataru make up. THE END.
Oddly they have Masahito Yamashita animate some talking head scenes rather than the hyper-kinetic, extreme angled scenes typical of his work on the series so far. So by the end he’s drawing a telephone booth with same aesthetic he would a jet fighter. It’s not terrible, but it seems a waste of his talents.
More Takahashi cross-over abounds in this episode. There’s lots of references to the first Urusei Yatsura movie, “Only You” in the background, but more notably Lum goes to the cinema to see a film based on Takahashi’s story “Laughing Target” (4 years before the OAV). We actually see some sections of the story animated.
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First Norio Kashima episode. Kashima’s notable for working the Dirty Pair TV series.
Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kozima Tamiko
Director: Norio Kashima
Animation Director: Asami Endo