When the Moroboshis win a holiday, Ataru has to face staying at home alone with Lum. When informed of this, his classmates (and Ten) assume that Ataru and Lum will end up having sex (though carefully tip toeing around it in the actual script). In fact, everyone except Ataru and Lum seem to think this will be the end result of this situation. Here we see the clear change in Lum’s character from the early stories, where she was aggressively trying to get Ataru into bed.
The Stormtoopers and Mendou naturally want to stop what they imagine will happen from happening. Their efforts, however, only end up making Ataru appreciate the nature of the situation he and Lum are in. Of course this is after they get electrocuted for ruining the meal Lum made.
So it is that Ataru finally comes to the conclusion that Lum is going electrocute him if chases after other women whether or not they are sleeping together, so he might as well sleep with her.
Of course, they can’t actually have sex as that wouldn’t be funny, so we get first Ataru nervously trying to make excuses to delay the inevitable, before we see the lights go out and the Stormtroopers and Mendou hearing Ataru making strange noises from his bedroom.
Finally, cut to the bedroom, where we see that Lum literally only wants to sleep with Ataru and has made Ataru sleep in all over body armour to protect him from nocturnal electrocution.
Ito’s scripts have really hit their stride in this production batch, really packing in the gags onto the ones already from the manga. One of the best is early on when Ataru, his mum and dad are having a three-way conversation where none of them are listening to the others.
Animation-wise, it’s still lacking the consistency of earlier episodes, but there’s some great sequences. The highlight maybe where the Stormtroopers and Mendou have a mental breakdown when Lum tells them her body belongs to Ataru. It’s depicted by a rapidfire series of Return of the Jedi parodies (it had just come out that year), including what may be the earliest sighting of using “IT’S A TRAP” as a gag in and of itself (it’s the only bit of RotJ dialogue they reproduce).
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Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Kozima Tamiko
Director: Osamu Uemura
Animation Director: Noboru Furuse
Ha! Finally, the Internet can rest at ease: the earliest publicized use of “It’s a trap!” has been found. Well done.
It’s a trap!!!!! ame este episodio.