More fuel for 1984’s boys love dojinshi market!
Class 2-4 are cleaning out the school swimming pool, with the boys given the job of scrubbing the inside of the pool. Bored, Ten shows up and continually aggravates them. Eventually they have enough and try to attack him, leading to him using his flame breath on them. To teach Ten a lesson, Lum fills the pool with water. Unfortunately, Ten had some alien candy with him, and if you remember episode 2, this has a strange effect on Earth creatures. Sure enough the class are soon under attack by giant protozoa!
Ataru grabs Ten and uses him as a flamethrower to burn the attackers. This appears to defeat them, but he ends up fusing three into a mega-protozoa that eats Ataru and Mendou. The pair find them falling through a vortex and into the past (the protozoa’s ancestral memory we are told). There they meet dinosaurs, Adam and Eve (hitting on Eve of course), and fall through a freezer into the Ice Age.
Meanwhile Lum continually feeds the protozoa sake to try and get it to throw Ataru up. It eventually has the desired effect, only instead of throwing up Ataru and Mendou, it throws up Adam and Eve. The boys and girls of 2-4 are instantly smitten by their beauty and drop to their knees in worship. Meanwhile, Mendou and Ataru are sucked back out the Ice Age and back into Paradise. With Adam and Eve gone, they are taking their place, with Mendou turning into a woman. The episode ends with a lascivious Ataru leaping at Mendou telling him he’s always loved him.
Lots of great animation again (particularly facial expressions) with a plot that ceases to make any sense after the commercial break. I appreciated the return to a story that has no neat ending and ends on a gag that will have to be completely ignored continuity wise next episode. I’m also getting the feeling I should find out more about Takafumi Hayashi as they seem to be a common element in lots of the recent episodes I’ve liked.
I am curious if the fandom at the time had created some sort of Ataru x Mendou romantic relationship in their heads, because in the last 20 episodes or so, the series has been deliberately throwing gags in that direction, with this episode having the pair both tell each other they’ve always been in love with them.
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Screenwriter: Toshiki Inoue
Storyboard: Iku Suzuki
Director: Iku Suzuki
Animation Director: Takafumi Hayashi