Ways in which you can tell that Mamoru Oshii wrote this episode:
1) Torajima, the boss cat from episode 43 appears. Only Oshii seems to reuse him. Did he have some sort of love of ginger tomcats his famous beagle obsession?
2) Gratuitous references to Ashita no Joe and Star of the Giants.
This is an awesome episode in terms of animation. It’s pretty wild throughout, starting with a Tiger Mask parody (the debut of the character as an actual gimmick in New Japan was the year before) and continuing with the constant battling between Ten and Ataru. No boring sticking to character model sheets here, extreme reaction shots abound while still being recognisable as the characters.
The plot is fairly simple.
After continually getting shown by Ataru in the first half of the episode, Ten challenges Ataru to a duel. We don’t see the outcome, but the next day, Ataru arrives at school with a huge bandage on his arm.
He refuses to say what happened, until we get the final pay off with it revealed that Ten has bitten him on his arm and refuses to let go.
Possibly a top 10 episode for me so far. Based on this and the Summer Xmas episode, Uemura and Hayashi work with a far looser style than I think Oshii, or say Nobe or Mami, would have had working from Oshii’s boards, and it’s pretty refreshing. Not necessarily better, but it’s good to see it mixed up in this way.
—
Screenplay: Mamoru Oshii
Storyboard: Mamoru Oshii
Director: Osamu Uemura
Animation Director: Takafumi Hayashi