Review: The Urusei Yatsura Movies

I watched Only You, the first of the Urusei Yatsura films, and it was stunning. Gave it five out of five stars on Letterboxd. This is one of two films (the other’s Beautiful Dreamer, the second one) directed by Mamaru Oshii, who would later direct Ghost In the Shell. I’d seen a lot of stuff about this first film, and I knew it included a sad Lum singing the beautiful Lum’s Ballad (sung by Fumi Hirano, the voice of Lum). Ataru is truly a bastard in this one, ignoring Lum and taking up with his ‘new bride’ Elle, who it turns out has a giant freezer full of handsome young men she hoards to herself. The scene where they’re unfrozen and start a riot during the wedding is hilarious. Some great space battle action shots that remind me of Macross: Do You Remember Love. I had such a good time with this.

I watched the Urusei Yatsura Beautiful Dreamer film. This is a celebrated film in the annals of anime.  What starts as a sort of Groundhog Day scenario where Lum and the gang experience the same day over becomes even weirder when they discover they’re inside someone’s dream made real. I love the film and particularly like the languid middle section where Lum and the gang have given in to the situation and learned to enjoy it. But I feel that when the reveal is shown and we meet the Dream Maker who granted the person their dream it goes a little awry. The Dream Maker keeps trying to trap Ataru in ever more complicated dreams which he keeps breaking out of. It’s a shift in tone that doesn’t completely work for me.

I watched the first half of the Urusei Yatsura movie Remember My Love. It seemed to me I’d seen it before, or maybe it was something I read in one of the mangas. Lum gets cursed by a witch when she is born. Ataru gets turned into a hippo by a magician who has built a mysterious circus on the outskirts of town. The opening theme song was Born To Be Free by Stephanie, which I’d just listened to on my UY soundtrack comp. I also listened to Love Is a Boomerang, the end theme song for Beautiful Dreamer.

Watched the rest of Urusei Yatsura: Remember My Love. In the second half Lum gets captured by the magician who turned Ataru into a hippo. He takes her to another dimension, where she is imprisoned. He turns out to be a young boy who has possession of the curse the witch originally placed on Lum. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Lum’s friends Benten and Ran and the rest, with Lum gone, leave the Earth. Shinobu finds she no longer has the super human strength she had when she was angry, and Ataru reverts back to his own form. It seems, with Lum and her friends gone, the magic is gone with them. There’s a perceptive line that Mendo utters at this point that really cuts through what’s happening here. He says, ‘Is this how we become adults? By the loss of our irreplaceable loved ones?’ This is definitely a storyline that Rumiko used in one of her manga stories. Thankfully, the young boy’s tutor shows up in Tomoboki and agrees to help Ataru and the others track down where Lum is and all’s well that ends well. Like the other films, I loved this. I’m having such a good time with this Urusei Yatsura movie marathon!

This time I watched the fourth Urusei Yatsura film, Lum the Forever. It was another amazing surreal piece of cinema, this time reminding me of the second film, Beautiful Dreamer. I believe it was meant to be the finale film to cap off the completion of the tv series. But two more films were made after it.

Watched Lum the Forever again because I needed to and didn’t grasp it all first time around. After reading some reviews on Letterboxd (almost all were glowing) and the rewatch I think I’ve got it. The story is basically about a magical old sakura tree that has its roots deeply connected to the town of Tomaboki, where Lum and Ataru live. It is near death, and when Ataru chops it down during a film shoot directed by Megane its ‘essence’ spills out and spreads a hallucinogenic vapour that causes the townfolk to dream. Much of the film from then on shows us some of these dreams, especially Mendo’s and Shinobu’s. Lum seems to be affected differently. She loses her horns and isn’t able to fly or project electricity (much to Ataru’s delight). She is drawn to the deep pool that was caused when the tree died and sinks down into it. At the bottom of the pool she seems to commune with the root of the old tree, which tells her it contains the memories of all the people of the town. It seems, when it lived, it housed the body of an Oni spirit just like the one Lum recently played in Megane’s film and Lum has become connected to it. It takes back its memories and Lum is restored and leaves the pool and reunites with Ataru and the townspeople. This summary leaves out so much but hopefully gives an idea of the poetry and thought that went into the film. As a farewell to the show it’s beautiful. I gave it four stars on Letterboxd, but maybe I should give it more.

I watched another Urusei Yatsura film tonight. It was The Final Chapter, the fifth film. It’s interesting and a bit annoying how the story mirrors the first film, Only You. In that one Ataru was kidnapped by aliens in order to marry a girl he’d met as a child when a childhood pact was made. In this one it’s Lum who’s kidnapped for a similar reason. I like that this one features Benten and Oyuki quite a bit as they try to rescue Lum. This was based on the final of the manga stories, as was the important sub-plot about Ataru finding and keeping Lum’s horns, which have fallen off. The animation’s a little different this time around, especially the character design. Everyone’s a little more squared off, more blocky, which I guess gives them more solidity.

I actually re-read the final chapters of the manga this film is based on. It was simply called Boy Meets Girl. The film was very faithful to the manga, with just a few details left out and at least one crucial addition. In the manga the alien Carla comes to Earth and intentionally brings her planet’s toxic mushrooms with her, which causes the potential planet-wide catastrophe of a mushroom explosion. The anime suggests it was inadvertent and that Carla was mindful of the dangers it could cause. A much better solution. It all hinges on Ataru saying ‘I love you’ to Lum, which of course he cannot do. In an earlier scene, which is in the manga and the film, he offers his address book of the numbers of all the girls he’s propositioned to Mendo in exchange for use of a spaceship to rescue Lum. Mendo declines because he doesn’t have such a space ship, but surely this is the clearest proof of Ataru’s love for Lum? Lum of course doesn’t know this, but a similar proof occurs right at the end when she discovers Ataru has been holding her fallen horns in his safe keeping. It’s a satisfying conclusion to Ataru and Lum’s love/hate relationship, and a sly way for author Rumiko to have it both ways.

I watched the sixth and final Urusei Yatsura film, Always My Darling. It’s about Lupika, an alien princess, who uses Ataru’s lustfulness to help her find a love potion that will help her bind her love with a humble tofu salesman she loves. But Ataru ends up getting zapped by it and falling in love with Lupika. This is all Lum’s fault because, in a fabulous but annoying scene, she tricks him into taking the potion with the aim of having him fall in love with her. It’s fabulous because Fumi Hirano, the voice of Lum, really conveys Lum’s determination and sneakiness in catching Ataru out, her gloating voice anticipating too soon his entrapment. It’s annoying because she reveals to him what she’s done before he looks at her, and knowing this, Ataru refuses to look at her. And then Lupika appears and Ataru sees her, and Lum’s plans are ruined. The gloating was her downfall. She is left for the rest of the film with the torture of seeing Ataru doting over Lupika, who eventually manages to secure her love with the tofu salesman. At the end, when Ataru’s feelings are restored and he goes back to his usual lusting after all girls, some lessons are supposedly learned. Lum realises it was unnatural to try to tie Ataru down to loving one person, which seems against his nature. And how satisfied would she be knowing his love for her was false? If given the chance again, would she or any of the other characters use a love potion? Amusingly, the film’s ending suggests Absolutely!

It was another good UY film, but probably the weakest of the six, lacking the poetry and wistfulness of some of the others. The animation quality was a bit variable, but there were some nice touches. Lupika’s plans to use Ataru to get the potion involves quite a few entertaining nods to the Indiana Jones films. And I especially liked how the hot bike-riding tomboy Benten, my favourite female character after Lum, was given a lot of agency, constantly egging Lum and Lupika on to expressing their true selves. I know who I’d use the love potion on.