A return of sorts to the old two story episodes.
The gang are at Mendou’s aquarium/resort and enjoying the summer once again. Also there, and not enjoying himself is the goblin who was living at the bottom of Mendou’s swimming pool way back in episode 34. But more on him in the second half, all we get here is his pining for a “Kimiko”.
Firstly we have Lum’s insane methods teaching Ten to swim. Including tieing a weights to him and having him chased by piranhas. She then tries to attach a machine that swims in the opposite direction to him, but it ends up attached to Ataru instead. It will only fall off if he swims 200m, so he tries to do this while flirting with various women in the pool. A lot of comedy buisness in this half and little plot. Which is great.
In the second half, we see Lum, Ataru, Mendou and Shinobu help out the lovelorn goblin. Having run away from after falling in love with Kimiko, a puffer fish, he is living in the aquarium. However he has a problem with a shark stealing away his girl. Lum and Shinobu get dressed as mermaids to distract the shark while the boys rescue the puffer fish. Meanwhile the boy who adopted the goblin is returning with a fish tank – his parents say they can keep the puffer fish at home. And so we leave the boys fist fighting the shark while the goblin gets his big romantic ending.
This episode works really well, cramming in so many gags at the start got the ball rolling before the we got to the slightly meatier plot with the pool goblin. And once again it all looks great.
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Tomokazu Kougo shows up here as director for the first time. Next no credits on ANN, but he seems to be still active as I can find storyboard credits on KenIchi the Mightiest Disciple DVD listings on Japanese sites.
Screenplay: Tokio Tsuchiya
Storyboard: Tomokazu Kougo
Director: Tomokazu Kougo
Animation Director: Kyoko Kato