This is parodying Antonio Inoki vs Muhammad Ali isn’t it?
Cherry has been travelling Japan, finding possessed items for Sakura to exorcise. He shows her a pair of boxing gloves, but they are interrupted by Ten and Torajima fighting. When the extra-terrestrial toddler and yakuza cat leave, Cherry is horrified to discover they’ve taken one of the gloves with them. Naturally this ends up in Ataru’s hands and he dons the glove, intending to belt Ten with it. However he is unable to, instead the glove forces his hand to give Ten a friendly rub on the head. When Lum arrives it likewise takes control of his arm, hugging her. Then as Shinobu passes by, it grabs her too. He protests his innocence, but of course, randomly grabbing girls is Ataru’s natural behaviour. It’s only when he gets to school and hugs Mendou, that they realise he’s telling the truth.
In order to explain the tale of the gloves, Cherry then goes and puts the other one on Ataru – this one making the wearer punch anyone nearby. He ends up punching Onsen-Mark and Mendou, but when he tries to punch Lum, Ataru puts his own face in the way of his fist. Sakura seals his hands, then promises to exorcise him in the morning.
When Cherry gets back to his tent, he is shocked find something or things has disappeared – cut to Megane and Mendou being visited by something unknown in their sleep.
The following day, the class have gathered to watch Sakura exorcise the gloves, in a boxing ring, when Megane appears dressed in wrestling trunks. The subtitles refer to them as boxing gear, but he is clearly parodying Antonio Inoki, from his look, to the Antonio Special he puts Lum. These are another possessed item, that found their way to Megane in his sleep. So Ataru and Megane end up having a match in the tradition of Antonio Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali (or Rocky vs. Thunderlips). Of course as fiction it can be lot more exciting than reality, and so Megane doesn’t just lie on his back and kick. And there’s one thing Inoki/Ali never had…
A third man showing up wearing cursed ballerina shoes!
Mendou, also was attacked by possessed clothing during the night, arrives at the fight, gets in the ring, and unrobes to reveal a full ballerina outfit, before dancing round the ring.
Eventually everyone just decides it’s all too silly and goes back to class, leaving the three of them in the ring. Once the three are all worn out, Sakura is able to remove the cursed clothing and when Ataru tries it on with her, belts him across the gym with a punch.
The episode of this batch with a real noticable dip in animation quality. Nothing really bad, but looks limited compared to recent eps, and the slightly different character designs accentuate it. Pretty funny story though, and some nice shots.
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A couple of new names show up here. Yumiko Suda’s big, big, big show is Chibi Maruko-Chan. I see she also did two of the episodes of this Anime Rakugo Kan OAV alongside Masaaki Yuasa (who she’d have overseen at Maruko-Chan) and Osamu Kobayashi (which one though?). This can go on my “things I want to see” list.
I can’t find anything on Kyoko Kato’s career…
Screenplay: Yoshiyuki Suga
Storyboard: Yumiko Suda
Director: Yumiko Suda
Animation Director: Kyoko Kato