Hoo boy. I have point I will be making about these post-Oshii/Ito episodes in a bit. But first, a possibly rambling synopsis.
Summer’s here and it’s beach times again. Ataru, Lum, Shinobu and Mendou run into some familiar faces at the beach. First Cherry who has been hired to catch a food stealing goblin. Then Ryuu and her father who are raising money to buy a bikini/fix their cafe by selling ice cream.
Then when out swimming Mendou and Ataru rescue a woman who appears to be drowning. She is looking for her child, who turns out to be Ryuu. Her husband seems to recognise her, but Ryuu is not so sure until she sees her punch Mr Fujiyama similar to how she would.
Later they find Ryuu’s mum gazing out sea pining for her child. They also discover she has a tail! So Ataru and Lum find Ryuu and check her for tails too. When they find that Ryuu lacks a tail, they consider telling her that the woman she thinks is her mother may not be, but decide against it as it would upset her.
However, when Mr Fujiyama playfully throws Ryuu at his newly found wife, they all discover her true form, that of a little sad goblin. Cue the locals chasing a second goblin (the one Cherry was hired to get rid of), who turns out to be the child Ryuu’s “mum” was looking for. Reunited the goblins return to the sea, and Cherry claims he’s done a great job despite doing nothing but eat the entire episode.
What I haven’t summarised there is the thick swath of sentimentality that the makers added to original manga’s plot to fill out the time. Specifically how other characters see the goblin mother as a mother figure too, the goblins human forms as they return to the sea, and everyone getting children’s toys in the final scene while crying out mother.
Now the Oshii/Ito era wasn’t free of this, but it had more bite to it. And Ito was just as likely to add more comedic business to bulk out a plot rather than do whatever this was doing. You never got the feeling the viciousness of Takahashi’s original work was getting smothered.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this is nowhere near as bad the sentimentalisation of Maison Ikkoku in that anime adaptation. It’s just a bit annoying that firstly some of these episodes aren’t as funny as ought to be, and the moods they seem to grasp for aren’t really reached.
That being said, Takafumi Hayashi was Animation Director again, and so it looked great once again.
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Hirohisa Soda makes his first UY screenwriting appearance here. He’s much better known as a writer on the Super Sentai Series.
Screenplay: Hirohisa Soda
Storyboard: Junji Nishimura
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Takafumi Hayashi