Urusei Yatsura (2022)

When aliens known as the Oni threaten to invade the Earth, they promise to leave under one condition—a randomly-chosen human must win a one-on-one game of tag against Lum, the beautiful daughter of the Oni leader. The "lucky" person selected happens to be the lustful and unlucky high schooler Ataru Moroboshi. Given 10 days to attempt to grab Lum's horns, Ataru realizes how impossible the challenge is as he is faced with Lum's extraterrestrial powers.

Motivated by a promise of marriage from his childhood friend Shinobu Miyake, Ataru manages to catch Lum off guard. He mistakenly grabs hold of her bikini top first, but he eventually achieves his true goal. Although the game is over, Lum misunderstands that she is the one whom Ataru wants to marry, and she decides to move in with him. The poor student constantly tries to shake off the clingy Lum while doing his best to reconcile with his desired fiancée. After Ataru's heroic feat results in such a disastrous outcome, it is questionable whether luck will ever be on his side.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Lum Main

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Moroboshi, Ataru Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Mendou, Shuutarou Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Ran Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Fujinami, Ryuunosuke Supporting

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Sakura Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Sakuranbou Supporting

Takagi, Wataru Japanese

Miyake, Shinobu Supporting

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Satoshi Supporting

Satou, Setsuji Japanese

Ten Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Kondou, Shuuhou Producer

Takeeda, Yoshinori Producer

Fukuda, Eishou Assistant Producer

Takahashi, Hideya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Apr 15, 2023

KANLen09

Recommended

If there is one name that's to be revered in the AniManga industry, it would be Rumiko Takahashi. The famed female mangaka that has brought us classics like Maison Ikkoku, Ranma ½ and Inuyasha to name a few, because they all got their anime adaptations to add to their name. But there is one series that stands above all: the very first work that would help elevate Takahashi to her "Hall of Fame" status that we know of today, and that is Urusei Yatsura.

A little story about this incredibly well-known series: In 1977, Rumiko Takahashi created the short story "Those Selfish Aliens", that would serve ... as the basis for creating Urusei Yatsura, which was first published a year later when Takahashi was 21 years old, with the series being her first major work, having previously only published short stories and is a combination of romantic comedy, science fiction, suburban life, and Japanese folktales. The title of the series is an untranslatable pun on the word urusai (うるさい), meaning "noisy" or "obnoxious", but written with the Chinese character for "planet"; the title can be translated roughly into English as "Those Obnoxious Aliens". This was due to the fact that she had been dreaming about the overall universe of Urusei Yatsura since she was very young, mentioning that the series "really includes everything I ever wanted to do. I love science fiction because sci-fi has tremendous flexibility. I adopted the science fiction-style for the series because then I could write any way I wanted to". To go to great lengths, she wanted the reader to be completely surprised by the next manga panel and used slapstick comedy to create a reaction in the reader and would create new characters when she ran out of ideas.

And when it came time to the 1st anime adaptation of her major hit series, it started 41 years to the very day that the modern reboot was also released: October 14, on the very same TV network that it first aired: Fuji TV. This was definitely a long time coming for fans wanting to experience Urusei Yatsura in its modern heyday, but without actually having to view the old-school filter, which don't get me wrong, the 1981 TV series has a charm on its own right. Where the 2022 version separated it from its original 41-year old counterpart, it was announced that within a 2 x 2-cour, 46-episode series, it'll show the best that Rumiko Takahashi's 34 volume long manga series has to offer, essentially defining the 2022 TV series as the "All Stars" treatment of the manga in random, shuffling order. The TL;DR is this: without having to watch the 1981 anime series, the 2022 series is about as close as good as it gets for a modern reboot and refresh, which obviously save for the fact that it's an incomplete, but the adaptation of the best-of-the-best that Urusei Yatsura has to offer.

It's pretty safe to say that Rumiko Takahashi also set the record straight for the waifu culture that we have today, all thanks to Urusei Yatsura. It all starts with a simple objective of the Earth's invasion from supernatural aliens, and all that it requires is a game of tag a.k.a the game of the Oni to determine whether Earth gets invaded or not. The challengers: the goofball womanizer Ataru Moroboshi vs. the daughter of the invader aliens, Lum. Immediately, a human and an alien, it's apparent of the winning side being the aliens, but because that Ataru is a selfless womanizer looking for love like the goofball he is to get constant rejections, save for his legit girlfriend in the form of childhood friend-cum-classmate Shinobu Miyake, ultimately won in the end, but at a cost: grabbing the horns of an alien and declaring a win over her, misinterpreting it means a marriage proposal, and this is the story that ensues between Lum, Ataru and the other characters to be seen around the series.

The characters are the beating heart of Urusei Yatsura, especially the girls, of which Lum would have the distinction of being the very first waifu character. With her flying capability and electric shocks for more than just controlling Ataru down when he's out and about trying to flirt with any girl or woman he sees, Lum is the series' beloved character who'll come to degy Urusei Yatsura as a whole. With Shinobu, she's the unequivocal girlfriend material, if not for Lum who would steal her place as Ataru's wedded. Character names often carry extra meanings used to describe a character's personality or other traits. For example, the name Ataru Moroboshi refers to being hit by a star, a reference to the aliens and other people who gather around him. The name Shinobu suggests a patient character; however, this in contrast to the character's actual personality. The others from tycoon man Shutaro Mendo and young alien baby Ten, they are all charming in their own right, especially Mendo, who has to live with Ataru's idiosyncrasies on the pursuit of becoming the ladies' man. All of them are iconic characters that have a part of their personality learnt and duplicated with so many series overtime, you'll have Rumiko Takahashi to thank of her genius minds at the time when anything goes for a manga.

Being a modern reboot, I was definitely interested to hear which studio would be the choice pick, and lo and behold, it's the veteran studio David Production. Being a studio of venerable quaity that's proven with the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure series, it pretty much is a straight 1-to-1 adaptation of the beloved hit manga series that it's based upon, so no problems since it's just trying to tell some of its greatest unlinked episodes with mini arcs in-between. Colourful, vibrant and impeccable production is what I will give to this show for being consistent all the way through.

For the music, it's all a string of artist collaborations through and through. MAISONdes has a hand on all of the OST that is produced for this 4-cour long series, and at the very least for now, I find that the 1st Cour's OST is a lot better than the 2nd Cour's selections. "AIUE" (feat. Minami and SAKURAmoti) and my absolute favourite song of the lot that is "Tokyo Shandy Rendevous" (feat. KAF, Tsumiki) are two catchy banging respective OP and ED songs respectively that kick off the show into high gear, espeically with their accompanying visuals that are a great start to the series, from the manga panels of years gone by to the whimsical ED that's a throwback. The 2nd Cour's "Aiwanamchū" (feat. asmi, Surii) and "Aitarinai" (feat. yama, Nito) are still good songs, but the visuals are disappointing to say the least, or rather, somewhere along the line, the producers got lazy with the OST portion.

At the end of the day, a reboot is a reboot, and don't go thinking that Urusei Yatsura will have the attention of something like Fruits Basket, where the reboot will elevate the source material to more greatness. To me, Urusei Yatsura in its own "All Stars" treatment is as good as it comes, packed together with its slapstick comedy moments that the famed mangaka has sucker-punched us time and time again with flawless execution. It's a little bit on the underdone side, but hey, since we're going to have Round 2 of this in the future, why not? The jokes are of more hits and less misses, the atmospheric vibes are there, and this is how I think that this show truly wants to be like.

Don't just take the word that we don't need reboots like these to ultimately waste the time and effort that the production staff team have been wanting to spearhead this for the longest time, I highly, HIGHLY recommend giving Urusei Yatsura a go if you don't want to dabble on the 1981 OG TV series.

Thank you, Rumiko Takahashi, Urusei Yatsura is an experience to be behold.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 28, 2023

rikiki109

Mixed Feelings

‟One day, 40 years ago, Rumiko Takashi made a manga, waifu was born and the rest is history”

Urusei Yatsura is a classic, a reference and a pioneer in the romcom genre, having this historic piece of japanese animation being remade in the beautiful craftsmanship of today's visuals, seiyuu and musics is a great honour for this anime, the idea of remaking a classic but way nicer is a nice way to make the new generation of anime fan enjoy grandpa anime peak, but does Urusei Yatsura (2022) fulfil this task and makes it an enjoyable watch ? Maybe, it's pretty complicated. It's sad to say, ... it had everything to be good, everything except this caveat, this thing that stuck with me the most during this watching, IT. IS. NOT. FUNNY. Before arguing, let me explain in the following paragraphs.

It is VERY important to note that comedy and what you find funny is SUBJECTIVE, everyone has their own taste in comedy, and a certain person can find something extremely hilarous while their neighbour would have a straight and apathetic face, AND THAT'S OK. If you've found Urusei Yatsura funny, it's understandable, it's made to be funny and it's filled with silly jokes. But as for myself, this was the least funniest anime that I've seen yet. I haven't been able to enjoy more than 75% of the episodes because except thinking hmm ok and maybe a smile once or twice per episode, most random comedic story is very plain and 1D. I really feel like it's because the jokes are too old, most of them are simply unfunny and sometimes just wrong or malicious (it could work in a more enjoyable anime where something somewhat offensive could be used as something to bounce of and make something good out of it, but not there). It just keeps repeating itself and never tries to make it another way, it's just the same bland thing over and over that I cannot find to enjoy, which is a bummer compared to the rest.

What's the rest ? Something quite qualitative I would say, and the reason why it's generally pretty acclaimed as something neat. Compared to the original anime adaptation that's still pretty old, it's not a question to ask if it's better now, because it obviously is, it's really like a ULTRA HD 4K HDR version of it (even though I could say that after a while the outsourcing kinda shows and that's unfortunate that David Production wasn't able to deliver fully for all 23 episodes of something that wasn't that hard to achieve) and graphics are one of the main way you can hook a random anime watcher to a certain anime, or else they will just say it looks shit/old and won't watch it, it's the most important part that they made in order for the new era of anime watchers to see this. Something that they definitively didn't cheap on are the seiyuu that they used for the characters. There is a plethora of them, and there is a pretty high likelihood and if you know a certain seiyuu, it will be featured in this anime, which is always epic to see and excite yourself about. The final thing I wanna mention that's so great about this anime are it's Openings and Ending, MAISONdes outdid themselves and literally made the best opening of 2022, it's an absolute banger and I'm very impressed by it, it's of course always secondary to the content and execution, but a very neat part of it. So yeah generally this anime is very polished and a lot of effort was put into it, which is a sign of quality.

In a way, it's hard to determine if it's a good watch or not, outside of the peak that's episode 10 (won't say anything about it to avoid spoiling), I did not find it enjoyable, but that's only on a very subjective part of the anime, so I can't really say it's bad in any way, especially how strong the other parts of this anime is. I would probably say that the comedy is hit or miss, so it'll probably be up to you to determine if after 2-3 episodes you find it comedic or not, if you do, you'll most likely have a blast, if you find it unfunny, please stop, it's the exact same mistake being repeated over and over again, and I will have told you that it's not that funny. To conclude, the reboot of Urusei Yatsura is a cool idea, having already a season 2 announced might just make a best of everything the original manga and anime has to offer, in a way that anyone can enjoy, but I won't be watching that as for myself.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 16, 2024

ArctiKFox

Not Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (19/23 eps)

I just can't with this show anymore, man. No positive character development to speak of, incredibly annoying and repetitive gags such as the electricity and every dude's constant horndogging, with predictable results from every single woman. The plots feel like the same variation on a theme every. single. episode, no real storyline that I could decipher. Don't even get me started on the dumbass baby, I hate that mf. The only redeeming factor for me are the intros and outros, they're genuinely well-animated and the music choices were fantastic. This show just wasn't for me, but I can respect if it is your thing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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