Ryuunosuke continues to provide fresh material for the show.
In this we get hints about Ryuunosuke’s mother, who we, like her, have been told is deceased. When Ryuu has a meal with the Moroboshis, she starts to feel sad that she can’t remember her mother. This is made much worse by Mrs Moroboshi doting on Ryuu because she actually appreciates her cooking rather than inhaling it like Ataru does, or sit reading the newspaper at the table like her husband.
When she returns home, she demands that her father tell her about her mother, which he agrees to.
However, his tale is incredibly inaccurate. The name of his wife changes three times during the telling, not to mention her job, and the location that they lived in (Florida, Chile and Japan!). In fact he manages to get the entire history of the 20th century mangled during the telling of the story. Nicely the actual appearance of his wife changes throughout the story too.
When she calls him on all this nonsense they get into a fight, then after blaming Ryuu for making him remember his dead wife, he goes on TV asking her to come home. It turns out the memory that was so distressing to him was that she wasn’t dead, but had left him!
After the break, we find Ryuu’s dad calling his wife’s name, Masako, in his sleep. The next day Ataru and Lum convince Ryuu that her dad might have a photo album with a photo of her mother in it. They search the school shop and eventually find such an album.
However, it is filled with a variety of women photographed with a young Ryuu (including a few from Maison Ikkoku!). And her father’s skills at excising bad memories means that he’s forgotten which of the women was his wife!
We end with Ryuu’s dad on the missing persons show once again, though this time he’s begging Ryuu to come home (who we see staying at the Moroboshi house for a few days).
The issue of Ryuu’s mother certainly comes again the manga, if it’s in the anime too I’ve not seen it before. A good episode, though you can begin to see the effect of Asami Endo leaving. The character designs are really beginning to shift more towards the sort of proportions we’d see in later Takahashi adaptations. It’s particularly noticable in some faces, where the mouths are smaller, less expressive, with more emotion put into the eyes. There’s also a subtle change in the shape of some character’s heads too. It’s not quite as obviously the work of Moriyama as episode 76, but his influence can definitely be seen here.
Oh and there was this neat shout out to Xabungle too.
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Screenplay: Kazunori Ito
Storyboard: Mamoru Oshii
Director: Osamu Uemura
Animation Director: Yuji Moriyama