| I'd recommend watching the series first, but I suppose you can watch the movie first, it's an episodic series so you're not missing out on anything important. Why not start with the first movie if anything? |
╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭ |
| Watched without seeing any other Urusei Yatsura...it's perfectly fine as a standalone, but I can't help but wonder if I'd enjoyed it more if I were familiar with all the characters. |
| "No, son, you may not have your body pillow at the dinner table!" |
| The OP has already watched it (and rated it 9/10) now, but for other posters: Nope, it's fine to go into it largely ignorant of the series. I watched UY2 recently without watching barely anything else and loved it. If you've seen other Oshii films, you'll feel right at home. You could watch the first movie as an introduction like I did but Oshii's best works such as this and Patlabor 2 typically take his favourite aspects/characters and focus on original themes/plots that work as standalone films. The heroine for much of UY2, Sakura, is a supporting character in the main series. And UY TV is mainly episodic silliness without progression. |
| I was wondering the same thing since it's the only title in a series that's available on Amazon Prime. Guess I'll just go for it. |
 |
| For anyone wondering about this in the future. The series is almost exclusively episodic but knowing some characters beforehand helps to appreciate the movie more. And perhaps not only the characters but the normal tone you get from the series. UY has a large cast of both humans and aliens, but this movie largely focus in the human cast. So a comprehensive list of episodes to know most of the characters involved would be: Episode 1 - Lum, Ataru, Ataru parents, Mr. Invader, Shinobu, Cherry, Megane, Perm, Chibi, Kakugari Episode 2 - Ten Episode 5 - Sakura Episode 14 - Shutaro Episode 33 - The Principal Episode 36 - Onsen-Mark Episode 63 - Ryuunosuke, Mr. Fujinami Also other relevant information: First 23 episodes of the series are split in two segments, so it's like they're twice as episodic. An exception is episode 10, which is largely considered as one of the best of the series. For reference I'd recommend watching it as well. Episode 78 is often referred as a very Oshi-esque episode and almost the spiritual predecessor to this movie (it was one of the 6 episodes he scripted). He was the chief director for 106 episodes and the episode director for 26, but I'd argue scripting plays an even larger role in a series with so varied and random content as this one. In conclusion, if you don't want to watch the entire 99 episodes that came before this movie, you'd be quite good by watching 1,2,5,14,33,36 and 63 and I'd recommend throwing in 10 and 78 for being two clear highlights of the series. Also if you want to watch the first movie for comparison as well you'd probably need a few other episodes I've removed because that one includes a lot of alien characters, at least like ~5 more eps (3,8,15,18,22 at least, perhaps missing some). |
 |
| Thanks Unowen, your suggestion is perfect. |
| Beautiful Dreamer can work as a stand-alone story. But it's better if you don't watch it as an introductory story for the TV series as most of it is nothing like the movie. So you may get the wrong impression of Urusei Yatsura watching this movie. Although the first hour or so of the movie works really well as a stand-alone thing, the remaining part, especially the ending, won't make much sense to people who are not familiar with the main characters of the series, Ataru and Lum. The impact of the ending will be all but lost. The movie doesn't do a great job of introducing all the characters for first-time viewers. That's clearly because the movie was meant for people who were already a fan of the series. If you've already seen the movie first and THEN watched the series, then I think you should give it a rewatch after finishing the TV series and Movie 5 The Final Chapter. You might like it more. If you don't have the patience to sit through 99 episodes of the series to reach the movie in proper release order, then Unowen's comment is already very helpful in introducing you to the main characters and the story of Urusei Yatsura. But I will always tell people to watch the whole series, no matter how long it takes for them to finish it. |
Reply to Unowen
For anyone wondering about this in the future. The series is almost exclusively episodic but knowing some characters beforehand helps to appreciate the movie more. And perhaps not only the characters but the normal tone you get from the series.
UY has a large cast of both humans and aliens, but this movie largely focus in the human cast. So a comprehensive list of episodes to know most of the characters involved would be:
Episode 1 - Lum, Ataru, Ataru parents, Mr. Invader, Shinobu, Cherry, Megane, Perm, Chibi, Kakugari
Episode 2 - Ten
Episode 5 - Sakura
Episode 14 - Shutaro
Episode 33 - The Principal
Episode 36 - Onsen-Mark
Episode 63 - Ryuunosuke, Mr. Fujinami
Also other relevant information: First 23 episodes of the series are split in two segments, so it's like they're twice as episodic. An exception is episode 10, which is largely considered as one of the best of the series. For reference I'd recommend watching it as well.
Episode 78 is often referred as a very Oshi-esque episode and almost the spiritual predecessor to this movie (it was one of the 6 episodes he scripted). He was the chief director for 106 episodes and the episode director for 26, but I'd argue scripting plays an even larger role in a series with so varied and random content as this one.
In conclusion, if you don't want to watch the entire 99 episodes that came before this movie, you'd be quite good by watching 1,2,5,14,33,36 and 63 and I'd recommend throwing in 10 and 78 for being two clear highlights of the series.
Also if you want to watch the first movie for comparison as well you'd probably need a few other episodes I've removed because that one includes a lot of alien characters, at least like ~5 more eps (3,8,15,18,22 at least, perhaps missing some).
UY has a large cast of both humans and aliens, but this movie largely focus in the human cast. So a comprehensive list of episodes to know most of the characters involved would be:
Episode 1 - Lum, Ataru, Ataru parents, Mr. Invader, Shinobu, Cherry, Megane, Perm, Chibi, Kakugari
Episode 2 - Ten
Episode 5 - Sakura
Episode 14 - Shutaro
Episode 33 - The Principal
Episode 36 - Onsen-Mark
Episode 63 - Ryuunosuke, Mr. Fujinami
Also other relevant information: First 23 episodes of the series are split in two segments, so it's like they're twice as episodic. An exception is episode 10, which is largely considered as one of the best of the series. For reference I'd recommend watching it as well.
Episode 78 is often referred as a very Oshi-esque episode and almost the spiritual predecessor to this movie (it was one of the 6 episodes he scripted). He was the chief director for 106 episodes and the episode director for 26, but I'd argue scripting plays an even larger role in a series with so varied and random content as this one.
In conclusion, if you don't want to watch the entire 99 episodes that came before this movie, you'd be quite good by watching 1,2,5,14,33,36 and 63 and I'd recommend throwing in 10 and 78 for being two clear highlights of the series.
Also if you want to watch the first movie for comparison as well you'd probably need a few other episodes I've removed because that one includes a lot of alien characters, at least like ~5 more eps (3,8,15,18,22 at least, perhaps missing some).
| @Unowen Amazin answer 5 years later 💙 |
| ✈️ |
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