This is an interesting precursor to the Dirty Pair anime. Norio Kashima & Tsukasa Dokite would go on to pretty much establish the anime look of Haruka Takachiho’s creations in the Eighties and their work here has lots of resonance with that later series. There is little more here than just destruction, but Kashima and Dokite make it look great.
The gang of three, Sugar, Ginger and Pepper, are once again aiming on beating Lum, Benten and Oyuki (no Ran this time). In flashback we see them fail in attacking Benten and Oyuki, before they head to Earth to beat Lum. Meanwhile on Earth, Ataru has agreed to go on a date with Lum if she will control her temper for three days.
What we end up with is Sugar, Ginger and Pepper essentially trying to kill Lum, while Lum keeps getting mad at Ataru for flirting, then running somewhere and venting her anger by launching electrical attacks at the environment around her. And of course her three would be assailants along with them. Lum in fact remains ignorant of their attempts for most of the episode, with the three getting electrocuted/bonked on the head/crushed, behind her back each time.
It kind of fizzles out at the end as the script doesn’t seem to know what to do when Lum wins the bet, beyond the three confronting Lum face to face and getting electrocuted again.
However that’s fine as there’s a couple really good aspects to the episode. Firstly the destruction Lum wreaks on Tomobiki is at a scale never seen before in the show, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what got Kashima & Dokite the Dirty Pair gig. Secondly the three girls really come across as actually being younger than the rest of the cast. This is in the script, the voice acting and the animation. Here they really are the equivalent of the St Trinian’s Fourth Form, bloodthirsty, murderous terrors of girls, whereas in their first appearance the animation didn’t get that across. Here though they’ve definitely got a distinct body language that sets them apart from the other female characters.
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Notable for having both Kashima and Dokite on it as they’d both be mainstays on the Dirty Pair series.
Screenplay: Tokio Tsuchiya
Storyboard: Norio Kashima
Director: Norio Kashima
Animation Director: Tsukasa Dokite