Lum makes Ataru a scarf, then Ten incinerates it. In order to get Lum annoyed at Ten, Ataru over-reacts to the attack. Wondering how to make it up to Lum, Ten seeks out the advice of other characters. First Cherry, who is incoherent. Then Mendou, who tries to teach Ten how to apologise, but it’s akin to Fonzie saying he was wr…wr…wrong, it’s not something that comes naturally to him. However, Mendou assures him that his terrible way of apologising is correct, after all Mendous have been doing it for ages.
So Ten attacks the Stormtroopers in order to try out this apologising technique. It does not go down well. He then spies on Ryuu and her father, however their apologies are just means to make sneak attacks on one another. He finally decides on another technique after seeing Shinobu knock over a lot of bicycles, but it fails to convince the Stormtroopers when he sets them on fire again. Shame-faced, Ten returns home, where Ataru convinces him that Lum is really angry with him. Lum meanwhile is pondering how to discipline Ten, so practices telling Ten off. Which happens to be just when Ten walks in, and so he mistakes it for actual anger at him. And so he runs away from home, only to be found by Sakura. She convinces him to return home and if he’s too frightened to face Lum to apologise in writing.
Which he does on the back of Ataru’s jumper…
Apart from a few ropey poses and expressions this is a decent enough episode. However it does seem that episodes are more variable within the actual episodes themselves this production cycle than previously. Given that we get a bunch of clip shows later in the cycle, it suggests there was time and budget pressure at work here. In fact looking over it all, it seems that Osamu Uemura handles an arguably excessive amount of the directorial workload over this period, which may have played part of it too.
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Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboards: Motosuke Takahashi
Director: Osamu Uemura
Animation Director: Motosuke Takahashi