Lum-A-Day 075 – And Then There Were None

This episode is a pastiche of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None“. You can tell that by the way it has the same name!

Eleven of our regular characters are invited via music box to a mysterious island. However, arrangements for the visitors seem to be set up to suggest only 10 were invited.

Then after eating a meal that had been laid out for them, one by one, the gang are murdered. Each murder being a reference to a line of Who Killed Cock Robin (“And then there were none” made similar reference to a nursery rhyme).

Cherry is killed first, found clutching arrows. Then Megane, Perm, Chibi and Kakugari are found each with a reference to the Fly, the Fish, the Beetle and the Owl.

Yes, this is a rather odd episode.

Next to go is Sakura, impaled on a tree in a bird/cross-like pose (a reference to the rook being the parson). Then Mendou and Shinobu are killed in reference to the Linnet and the Kite (the Lark and Dove seem to have been missed out!).

That leaves just Onsen-Mark, Ataru and Lum. Later that night, Ataru finds Lum, dead in the bath and has nervous breakdown, smashing up the mansion.  The next morning he hears a gunshot and finds Onsen-Mark dead in bed, leaving him alone on the island. Climbing the island’s bell tower he finds the murder, however the mystery man refuses to kill Ataru, because HE IS ATARU!

Finally a helicopter arrives and the pilot finds a traumatised Ataru sitting in a corner. We then cut to all the “victims” having to explain to a doctor that it had all been a elaborate trick to try and stop Ataru’s womanising (the 11th guest being Lum, who had to be clued into their plan once on the island). The doctor tells them it will be hard for him to recover, however we soon find Ataru chasing nurses like he was Sid James in a medically themed Carry On film!

Despite being low on laughs, the episode whizzes by quite well, and the pay-off gag is well executed. The doctor’s shaking of his head turning from one of negative reply to despair at Ataru’s lecherous behaviour was a really nice touch.

It’s worth mentioning that “Who Killed Cock Robin” had another role in anime a few years before this episode. A version of it had been the ending theme to the later episodes of Patalliro!

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Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Kazuo Yamazaki