Urusei Yatsura
Lum*Urusei Yatsura

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A classic comedy series with entertaining shitbag characters and silly shenanigans.

Mangaka Rumiko Takahashi manages to sell Urusei Yatsura's premise. As the title suggests, everyone in this manga is some kind of faulty person. However, none of it is taken particularly seriously. There is no need to get upset over someone being an asshole here, given that it has little overall consequence on the next chapters, or that the characters themselves may kind of deserve it. The result is that the author manages to pull of lots of gags with them, helped by the scenario's she puts them in. These are often rather silly takes ... on Japanese mythology mixed in with bizarre alien tech or cultures.

On top of that, she seems to be slowly working on a long-term story thread, building the characters relationships. Ataru, a shameless womanizer of a main character, strongly dislikes Lum, the attractive alien girl who was the OG waifu from the 80s, who doesn't always adapt to Earth's customs easily, and who is also infatuated with him. But this guy would much rather go after any hot girl that he stumbles upon, instead of recognizing that he already has what he says he wants, and keeps hooking up with a girlfriend Shinobu who in reality, has long given up on him, except not really. With 34 volumes, it is bound to be a slow journey, but one that takes place in the background of a solid comedy manga.

What Urusei Yatsura ends up as is a fairly entertaining manga with each chapter containing some good gags, but that needs to not be taken too seriously. Only for one to realise some kind of investment when there are genuinely romantic moments involving character development, however slightly.

Most if not all cliches you would see in a romance anime/manga of current times have some sort of origin to Urusei Yatsura.

A lot of things that I have read here have been deeply explored in other works by different authors who likely grew up with this manga, even the girls who weren't Lum clearly were the favorites of many as I could recognize exactly which modern-ish girls are basically just copies of Oyuki, Ryuunosuke, Shinobu, Sakura, Ran, Asuka or even Benten. Hell, even Kurama, the worst girl, had so many traits which I could instantly recognize.

Yes, it went on to inspire many great ... works...despite honestly being just ok from an overall view.

Look I like it, I rate it a 7 on personal preference, but this manga has a major flaw, cast bloat. There are so many side characters, main characters, one off characters, it never ends. The ending honestly makes me so mad because there are still so many loose threads left and so many things that could've happened instead of what we got.

So many chapters will focus on someone who will either never show up again or show up so late that you forget who they even were. It doesn't matter who you like, if they aren't Ataru, Lum, Mendo or Ryuunosuke you will rarely see them in the spotlight. Even Shinobu who at first was a genuine rival and threat to Lum basically fades to the background for a large chunk of chapters.

It isn't until way later where the cast veterans get actually used more.

This leads to you either not caring about or straight up not liking many characters because they are about as deep as a puddle.

I like it, but it leaves a sour taste in your mouth the longer you read it. It's up to you wheter you enjoy the taste or not.