Urusei Yatsura

Episode 4

I never thought that an anime based on a manga series from 1979 would end an episode with a message about questioning tradition and having a woman walk off into the distance saying that she's going to raise her standards for marrying men. I brought this up a bit before when talking about the characterization of Lum, who sort of rides that line between being a darling wife and an aggressive opportunist, but I'm definitely seeing more examples of why Urusei Yatsura was considered groundbreaking by so many at the time of its original release. However, even without that cultural context, I do think the message was delivered in a rather funny and well-built manner, sticking to the tropes that were established beforehand and sort of using our characters in a way that tells the audience that this is not how you should act in everyday life.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that the show is attempting a commentary on masculinity or sexism here, almost every character that has gotten introduced so far is either cruel, malicious, self-serving and/or stubborn for all the wrong reasons. Even characters that got a lot of sympathy from me at the beginning like Shinobu are revealing more of their hypocrisy with each passing episode. I initially thought Shinobu's attraction to Shutaro was just sort of a way of getting back at Ataru, but as time goes on, she's arguably just as shallow as him—she's just not as open about it. If anything, it's funny that the running gag with Ataru is that he's sort of this shameless and dumb goofball because everybody is kind of a different shade of that. The difference is that Lum and Ataru are the only ones who are the most upfront about it, and this episode is probably the first one where Ataru just directly owns it. Don't get me wrong, he is absolutely a sleaze and deserves a lot of the stuff that happens to him, but if he's going to get in the way of other people or try to tear other people down to get what he wants, it's at least a little justified when those other characters are just as bad. Even in this episode, a lot of the characters have pointed out that Shutaro is not so different in his sleazy intentions; he's just very privileged and trained himself to hide that aspect of himself very well. He was even willing to lie just for the sake of sex but mask it under the veneer of doing someone else a favor. It really does make you wonder which is better: someone who is upfront about all of their flaws, or someone who tries to conceal them with the best version of themselves?

While I sort of know what to expect with Ataru, I'm continued to be surprised by everybody else, and I think that helps keep the humor fresh. My favorite part of this episode is probably just the crows in general, who definitely felt like they were ripped straight from Inuyasha. Their constant complaints about being overworked and not getting paid for it was something that I empathize with deeply, and their commentary was pretty much on the same level as the classmates from last week's episode.

Really my only complaint with the show so far is that despite being the poster child for the entire series, we haven't really seen that much of Lum outside of the first episode and a half. She definitely makes her presence known, but so far she's been more of a complementary piece to a lot of the bigger schemes and story skits that are happening rather than being a main focus. I wonder if that was always supposed to be her role or if these are just the chapters that the show is starting with. Either way, I would like to see more of her specifically and what her thought process is like moving forward.

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Urusei Yatsura is currently streaming on HIDIVE.