A very wacky episode. It opens with Onsen-Mark teaching English to 2-4, though all his English phrases are nonsense. When he discovers a Daikon in Ataru’s school bag he searches the rest of the class to discover they all have brought vegetables with them. The class then knock him out and tie him up, so they can prepare their Nabemono in peace. However hiding in the pile of fresh produce is Cherry, who has brought his own ingredients to the meal – Matsutake mushrooms.
Well that’s what they appear to be, however eating them has a strange effect. Actually mere act of cooking them ends up knocking the people cooking it unconscious! It ends up destroying people’s inhibitions and everyone starts to do party pieces in front the class. Albeit really mundane party pieces for the most part.
However when they run out of performances, the people eating it start to choke, so they have to start all over again. So Lum fetches Sakura, not to cure the people, but to eat the stew so they have a new performer… Then she flies out the window to fetch more people. Mr and Mrs Moroboshi show up next, then Otama, the ghost from the inn. Sakura still hasn’t eaten then mushrooms when Tsubame shows up and eats one. Next is Ryoko, then when Tsubame’s performance is a wedding to Sakura, he pops a mushroom in her mouth as they kiss…
Finally Cherry leaves them performing, glad he never actually ate on of the mushrooms himself.
As funny as the concept of the episode is, the animation is frequently apalling. Seriously, it’s like 1970’s Filmation-bad. It picks up a little in the second half after a sequence parodying ninja stories (which shows the ninja cliches in Naruto have been around decades), but too often there’s crowds of people with deformed heads.
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Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboards: Motosuke Takahashi
Director: Osamu Uemura
Animation Director: Takafumi Hayashi