Kazuo Yamazaki takes the Chief Director seat, and production now includes Studio Deen. And it seems, a lot bigger budget. Given how Kitty Films, the overall producer of this and other subsequent Takahashi series ended up, this may have not been a good idea in the long run. Especially if the statement on wikipedia about them using money from another division to fund this one is true.
However, at least they got to make animation that for the most part stood head and shoulders above the TV fare of the time. Not to mention above a lot of what Studio Deen is producing in the present day.
The set up here relies on remembering a tiny bit of continuity from an earlier episode, a rare thing for UY so far. Way, way back in an episode I can’t recall the number of, Ran used a tree as a dimensional portal. Well here Ataru pulls a branch off a tree and disappears in front of Lum. She goes in search of him and finds him flirting with Ryuu. She flies off with him and bumps into Shinobu and Mendou. It soon becomes clear that it wasn’t Ataru who disappeared, it was Lum. She is now in a parallel world where Ataru failed to win the game of tag, Lum’s race conquered the Earth and Ataru never became her “Darling”.
She finds the portal and makes her way back to her world. However, yet again she’s made a wrong turn. On this, Mendou is married to Lum.
Next is a world where everyone’s genders are reversed, and we meet a female version of the Stormtroopers, who appear to fall in love with Lums whatever the gender. We also meet a crossdressing male Ryuu and her bullying mother.
Going through another portal, she finds Ataru once more. But this one is too perfect, too in love with Lum alone and she realises she’s in the wrong world once more.
Finally she’s finds one more world, where the Ataru won’t admit he loves her, and so she knows she’s back in her world…
The leap in budget is visible from the get go, looking a lot more like Beautiful Dreamer visually than the previous TV episodes. Yuji Moriyama’s work is clearly identifiable now, put it alongside Project A-Ko and you’d tell the same animator was involved. I wrote way, way back in Episode 53 how the second half resembles later adaptations, well that visual style is heavily visible here, along with a similar return to the nudity of the very early episodes (the tag fight gets animated again here).
On the basis of this (and the next episode) I can definitely see the appeal of this run over Oshii’s for those who came to this after seeing later Takahashi adaptations. I may be a rarity in that Urusei Yatsura was the first of the adaptations I saw (indeed one of the first subbed anime I saw), and so I do have a preference for that wilder, earlier run.
After the sheer unevenness of the last 20+ episodes though, I really appreciated the quality on display in this episode, and parallel worlds stories are one of my favourite sci-fi ideas. Good stuff.
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Is this Yumi Asano the same one as this one with the underwritten/whelming credit list on ANN?
Screenplay: Yumi Asano
Storyboard: Kazuo Yamazaki
Director: Kazuo Yamazaki
Animation Director: Yuji Moriyama
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One thing remains constant however – Koji Nanke Openings and Endings. And there’s new ones starting here. The opening is distinctly Nanke, with its excellent use of collage.
“Pajama Jama da!” by Kanako Narikiyo
“Koi no Mobius” by Rittsu