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Urusei Yatsura

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|- ! colspan="2" style="background: #ccf; text-align: center;" | Movies |- | style="background: #e6e9ff;" colspan="2" |

|} , also known as Lamu, the Invader Girl and Alien Musibat, is a well-known late 70s through the 80s manga (1978-1987) and anime (1981-1986) series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The English translation of the manga, published by Viz Communications, is titled Lum: Urusei Yatsura, after the main character. The more recent volumes published by Viz are titled The Return of Lum: Urusei Yatsura.

The animated version spanned six films, 195 half hour shows (comprising 218 separate stories, as the first season's episodes consisted of two fifteen-minute segments) which, according to [Absolute Anime], were broadcast on PBS beginning in 1998, and ten OVAs. The North American distributor is AnimEigo (except for the second movie, which is distributed by Central Park Media). There was also a one of batch of around half a dozen episodes translated for BBC 3 under the title Lum the Invader Girl shortly after its launch. The anime series was also translated, dubbed and broadcast into English and other languages by the anime television network, Animax, who broadcast the series under the titles Lamu, the Invader Girl [Animax East Asia's profile page for Lamu, the Invader Girl] and Alien Musibat [Animax South Asia's profile page for Urusei Yatsura]'', in whose dubs the main character was named Lamu, and which was broadcast in its respective networks in East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

Contents

Title explanation

The title is a Japanese pun, and roughly translates as "those obnoxious aliens". The word urusei is a crude way of saying urusai (which means "noisy" or "obnoxious", and is also a slang phrase for "shut up!" (As in, "You're being obnoxious, so...") In this case, the kanji sei (星, meaning "star" or "planet") was inserted into the word urusai, changing the pronunciation to urusei and creating a made-up compound word. The second word in the title, yatsura, is the plural form of "yatsu" (奴), the low-respect pronoun for "the person over there" and carrying the connotation of a hooligan or jerk.

Characters

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story

The series is very light-hearted in nature and often quite bizarre. It concerns the adventures of a group of teenagers who live in Tomobiki, an area of the Nerima ward of Tokyo on a slightly fantastical and often ridiculously surreal version of Earth. The story centers around an extremely lecherous and very unlucky high-school boy, Ataru Moroboshi, and bikini clad alien princess Lum. Lum is in love with Ataru because he accidentally proposed to her, even though he chases after every humanoid female other than Lum. (It's not that she's ugly, it's just that he lost interest in her as soon as she started chasing him). The series is mainly episodic, with only occasional plots spanning more than one chapter/episode. Each chapter/episode usually concerns Ataru's ill-luck, his lechery (and Lum's jealousy thereof), or the wide variety of weird humans and aliens who love, hate, or simply meddle with Lum and Ataru.

Differences between manga and anime

There are a few differences between the manga and anime stories. The most noticeable is how some of the later stories and characters in the manga (such as Shingo, Inabe and Nagisa) are not part of the regular series, only appearing on the OVAs. Additionally, the anime officially ends with the fifth movie; the sixth was only an anniversary special, and whilst some fans think that it is not considered strictly canon technically it can be fit anywhere in the series before the fifth movie.

Also missing from the anime is Kosuke, one of the students of classroom 2-4 and the only one outside the main cast who is reasonably developed. His character, in stories that called for Kosuke, is usually replaced by Perm. Further, Lum's Stormtroopers in general, who were dropped early from the cast of regulars in favor of more dimensional characters (such as Kosuke) became major regulars and were used in many cases when it was necessary for Ataru and (especially) Lum to interact with school chums. Finally, some stories are slightly altered (mostly by adding or removing plot detail) to better suit the anime format.

Theme songs

Openings
  1. Lum no Love Song (ep.1-77)
  2. Dancing Star (ep.78-106)
  3. Pajama Jama da (ep.107-127)
  4. Chance on Love (ep.128-149)
  5. Rock the Planet (ep.150-165)
  6. Tonogata Gomen Asobase (ep.166-195)
Endings
  1. Uchū ha Taihen da! (ep.1-21)
  2. Kokoro Bosoi na (ep.22-43)
  3. Cosmic Cycling (ep.44-54)
  4. I, I, You and Ai (ep.55-77)
  5. Yume ha Love Me More (ep.78-106)
  6. Koi no Möbius (ep.107-127)
  7. Open Invitation (ep.128-149)
  8. Every Day (ep.150-165)
  9. Good Luck: Towa yori Ai wo Komete (ep.166-195)

Movies

Urusei Yatsura also has a number of direct-to-market video releases which include stories not covered in the TV series or movies. All but one of these were released after the ending of the series, so popularity may have also been a factor in the continued release of new animation. Following is a list of these OVAs, official English title in bold, followed by the original Japanese, (a rōmaji transliteration in parentheses), and the original Japanese release date (also in parentheses):

Games

A number of video games based on the Urusei Yatsura manga and anime were produced in Japan over the past twenty years:
The CD cover of UY game Dear My Friends.
Enlarge
The CD cover of UY game Dear My Friends.

Name Vendor System Type Release Date
Urusei Yatsura Micro Cabin MSX2 PUZZY 1987
Lum no Wedding Bell JALECO Famicom AVG 1986
Dear My Friends Game Arts Sega CD AVG 1993
Urusei Yatsura Nintendo Game Boy AVG Unknown
Stay With You Hudson PC Engine AVG 1992
Endless Summer Marvelous Nintendo DS AVG 2005

References

External links

  • [AnimEigo] - United States distributor of the Urusei Yatsura anime.
  • [Project ILM] Industrial Lum and Manga—Urusei Yatsura manga translations.
  • [Tomobiki-Cho] - Complete site with information of the manga, anime and characters.

 

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