Urusei Yatsura (2022) 2nd Season Episode 23 Discussion

The final episode just proves that Lum is such a manipulative bitch, she was the one who misunderstood Ataru's confession at the beginning of the series and started following him around everywhere and zapping him even though Ataru flirting with anyone is none of her business and now bitch tries to manipulate him using the future of the Earth at stake to get him to say that he loves her. Ataru must be a real masochist to love an abusive bitch like her. I bet she is only popular because she dresses like a slut and men want such a girl to follow them around.

I wish there were more episodes focusing on Asuka though, at least that was funny.

The Urusei Yatsura Remake has finally ended. I love the Remake but I think it has 3 major flaws.

First off is the delivery of the jokes. Urusei Yatsura 2022 weirdly feels both fast-paced in the wrong ways and slow-paced in the wrong ways. Let me explain. The slow pace is usually within the jokes and the slapstick scenes. There are too many freeze frames that I think just lower the impact of the slapstick violence. Impacts (that are also rarely shown because of censorship) don't feel as good since what should be a frame or two sometimes lasts a few seconds. Additionally, in the original anime, there were a lot of scenes where there was no BGM and the jokes were delivered purely by the voice acting, the animation, and the sound effects. In the Remake, I don't think the BGM and the sound effects are very good and they're sometimes so loud that they make the jokes less funny as a result. Honestly, I would've preferred it if they just rearranged or remixed the original anime's OST and used them instead. It's hard to beat 80's anime music, especially the ones that came from OG Urusei Yatsura. But I suppose those who only watched the Remake won't understand what I'm talking about. It's a difficult thing to describe.

The second issue I have is the fast-pacedness of the Remake. Ig it mainly comes down to the episode count which is not a lot to cover the entire manga. Tbf they did say that it was only going to be an adaptation of the "best" chapters of the manga. But due to the limited number of episodes, they really crammed as many chapters in the Remake as they could which led to a lot of the stories feeling rushed with almost no room to let the show breathe. In only 46 episodes they adapted around 130 chapters out of a manga that had 366 chapters. Even the OG anime stopped making episodes that adapted 2 chapters per episode after the first season. And when the series switched from segmented episodes to one story per episode the quality of the show went up. A similar thing happened in the Remake because I'd say some of the best episodes of the Remake were just single stories. I feel like limiting the Remake to just 46 episodes was a terrible decision which resulted in lots of fan-favorite stories and scenes being cut and they just rushed to the ending. Lum goes from being a bad alien to a cute waifu in like the first episode, Shinobu breaks up with Ataru in 3 and Ataru just falls in love with Lum in 5, etc. Everything happens so fast and all the stories in between are basically skipped. And many of the recurring jokes and character traits don't feel like recurring since they were so underutilized. And many interesting characters were just reduced to cameos. It's ironic that OG UY had cameos and references to characters from other series while in the Remake UY characters themselves became cameos.

The previous issue also brings me to my final issue with the Remake. If the goal of Urusei Yatsura AllStars was to only adapt the best chapters of the manga, then I don't think they did a very good job. I don't think it's impossible to make an Urusei Yatsura series with only 46 episodes. If it was up to me, I'd probably only focus on Ataru and Lum and 46 episodes would've been enough to do the job. Sure, the series isn't called "Ataru and Lum Show" but by trying to give attention to both the main characters and the side characters I feel like neither was given the appropriate time that they deserved. Some of the chapters that they chose to adapt were just confusing. It almost felt like they didn't know the series would only get 46 episodes so the directors just casually adapted what they liked and the episode count was finalized afterwards. Why did they give Asuka 4 episodes instead of focusing more on the alien characters? Why did they make an episode about the Pool Goblin out of all things when they could've adapted far more interesting stories with supernatural entities? I also missed the episodes where the cast would go on trips to various locations. Those episodes kept things fresh and they're sadly missing here. Overall, I'd say they adapted far more mediocre chapters than they should've. They also had the opportunity to adapt more unadapted chapters of the manga and differentiate themselves from the OG anime instead of making worse versions of already-adapted stories but for some reason, they didn't focus on that. They did adapt some unadapted stories and also properly adapted previously poorly adapted stories like the Miss Tomobiki episode but overall they could've done more.

Overall, the anime was very safe and they didn't try to do anything new or unique like what made the 1980's Urusei Yatsura so special. I also recently found out that the chief producer of the Urusei Yatsura Remake is also the same guy who was the chief producer for The Promised Neverland Season 2. Idk how involved he was with the chapter selection but he was likely one of the people who decided on it having 4 cours. Of course, UY 2022 is definitely not a disaster like TPN S2 was but it doesn't really surprise me that the producer of TPN S2 was also involved with this.

I kinda wish it got at least one more season as that definitely would've helped clear a lot of the problems that I mentioned here. And even though they already adapted the final arc, it wouldn't be unprecedented for Urusei Yatsura to continue beyond it. Like, even after Movie 5 The Final Chapter came out in 1988 they still kept making Urusei Yatsura anime in the form of OVAs and it even got a 6th movie in 1991. I really think they could make something like Horimiya The Missing Pieces and continue the anime that way. But it's very unlikely to happen. And even if it doesn't happen, I suppose it's fine. We're lucky that we even got 46 episodes of an old classic. Sumire Uesaka seemed eager to continue voicing Lum in the new interview. Who knows, we might still get something new in 2028, the series' 50th anniversary.


Tl;dr- Out of the manga, the OG anime, and this, I think the Remake is probably the least interesting way to experience Urusei Yatsura for the first time for new fans. For old fans, aside from the adaptation of a few unadapted stories, there's not a lot to offer here.

I don't hate the Remake. Watching it was a very interesting experience. I enjoyed it and appreciate it for existing as I described in my other comment. I never really expected the Remake to be better than the original anime but it's clear there were tons of missed opportunities. They didn't take the opportunity to correct some plotholes and inconsistencies in the manga. And they left out a lot of great stories in favor of adapting some very mediocre or forgettable stories. I don't know if Ranma 1/2 will get a remake or not but I hope it gets better treatment than this since it has far more manga chapters that were left unadapted, including the ending.

But despite the gripes, I'm still glad the Remake exists. Hopefully, it won't be long before we get more Urusei Yatsura.

@0451 I've never watched the original anime, but watching the remake felt like I was back in the show I watched 40-50 years ago in my non-existent childhood, lmao. Overall, I enjoyed the show, although I must admit that the anime's recent arcs seem to have increased the dose of dark humor and toxic romance several times over. For example, when they began to risk the fate of the planet and other people and aliens because of their own expenses. And only at the very end did he realize that Ataru’s confession costs nothing, since due to the conditions set, he can also easily lie.

Alsoo, you mentioned the film several times. Is this also a manga adaptation, or something original? If you refer to certain quotes from it. By the way, judging by the illustration from the commercial break, they cut quite a lot of side characters from the remake. Unless I forgot the episodes about them.

@RobertBobert Movie 5 The Final Chapter is the only "canon" movie. It adapts the final 11 chapters of the manga. The rest of the movies are anime-original.

Of course, you don't remember the characters from the eyecatch. The Remake only adapts like 35% of the manga so more than half of the manga are missing here. Urusei Yatsura has a huge cast of characters and a majority of them got cut. Mostly one-shot characters who only appeared in one or two stories. But a lot of good characters and side-character chapters sadly got cut too. What I still don't understand is why Asuka got like 4 episodes when she's probably the worst and most annoying female character of the series and other great characters didn't get as much screentime but oh well.

If you truly want to feel like going back to the 80s and feel nostalgia for a time when you weren't even alive then watch the original Urusei Yatsura. The music alone will make it worth your while.

@0451 Perhaps sometime in the future, I want to finally close my gestalts with Maison Ikkoku and Ranma first. Especially before the remake of the latter.

So they basically just bundled the movie remake into the series remake to give the new show a full conclusion? I didn't know this because when I previously read about Benten's line about Earthlings and speculation based on it, I thought it was an easter egg to the original content and not the original material. Or was the communication between Lum’s friends and earthlings much broader in the manga?

Original films? If the remake was successful, then perhaps we could see some new original films and OVAs?

@RobertBobert
I don't get what you mean by this. The OG anime adapted the Boy Meets Girl arc as a movie. The Remake adapted it as the last 4 episodes of the Remake TV series.


No, the conversation was the same. No lines were cut to my knowledge. Benten is referring to the time she spent with Earthlings like Ataru, Ryunosuke, and others. From stories that didn't make it into the remake for some reason.

It's why I and many other OG Urusei Yatsura fans got pissed that Lum's alien friends Benten and Oyuki didn't get a single episode in Season 2 and seemingly got "replaced" by already-adapted mediocre Asuka episodes.

For some reason, the Remake kept some lines of the manga that refer to events that weren't in the Remake instead of rewriting them. Which created some weird plotholes or inconsistencies. Benten saying she likes humans is one of those lines.

I suggest continuing this conversation on my profile. Wouldn't want to get our comments deleted like last time.

Wow
Peak ending
I'm sad that it's not ended with marriage like when they ín the future,I wanted that it Will end with marriage
If i'm not watch the after credit part than its a perfect ending

Ataru remained a dumbass tsundere till the end which was fxking annoying. I wanted atleast an I love you moment at the end of anime bruh. Literally progress went to 0 again lol. The comedy was peak for sure so giving 8/10, would have been a 10 if a proper romantic moment would have been there at end with a kiss at least.