Urusei Yatsura

Episodes 24-25

This was unexpected! I originally covered the first season of the reboot of Urusei Yatsura last year, but only for the first season's worth of episodes since the series reviews were cut off for the following season. This is the first time a show's second season has made it into the weekly review bracket with the first season only partially covered. For most other shows, I would be burdened with the responsibility of getting people up to speed, but thankfully, there's not a lot of difference in tone, structure, or narrative progression in Urusei Yatsura from episode to episode. Outside of a couple of recurring characters appearing beyond their initial introduction, most episodes are pretty self-contained. While I might need to go back and reference things from season one from time to time, I can pretty much judge most of these episodes as they are for better and for worse.

When it comes to the worst, because of the general downsides to overtly episodic series, the quality of each episode will vary depending on that specific episode's overall intention. When Urusei Yatsura attempts to introduce emotional character growth, the audience has to accept that it will only exist within one episode and will probably carry over until the creators decide to do another emotionally charged episode amongst a handful of primarily comedic ones. This was my problem with the second half of the first episode, which highlighted the relationship dynamic between Ataru and Lum. It ended on a sweet note, but it doesn't matter much since we're returning to the same song and dance in the following episode.

Urusei Yatsura is at its best when it's wacky and inventive. So far, of these two episodes, my favorite skit started at the beginning of episode 24 with the chewing gum. It involved most of the school cast and had a good payoff with the shadow clones created via the space chewing gum. Just writing that sentence feels bizarre in a good way. While this series came out decades ago, the fact that it still feels creatively rich is a testament to why the show is still considered a classic. The skit was also relatively short, which I cannot say about the joke presented in episode two.

The running Ryunosuke gag is that she's a tomboy. It is the typical "girl that was raised as a boy by an idiot father" trope, and now she is caught between people constantly mistaking her for a boy and Ataru constantly hitting on her. I'm glad we don't focus on the tomboy jokes much in this episode and instead focus on something more emotional. Ryu grew up without a mother, and this episode had a solid setup to establish why she suddenly became curious about who her mother was. Clashing with her father over that information was funny initially, and I liked some of the subversions that came with the setup. My favorite bit was probably the one with the photo album because I was reacting to the photos in real-time with the characters. I liked many of the more subtle jokes here, but ironically, when we got to the more wacky slapstick, I quickly got bored. The problem is that the jokes go on way too long and repeat too often throughout the episode. I don't mind that the show didn't go in the dramatic direction it set up, but if you're going to take the more nonsensical route, at least be more creative and funny about it. Overall, Urusei Yatsura has a bit of a mixed start to the season, but I'm curious to see what other parts will be adapted moving forward.

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Urusei Yatsura is currently streaming on HIDIVE.