“Trouble Rains Down!! / Amazed in a Maze”
What They Say:
Two’s company. Three’s a crowd. And when a FOURTH party enters the Lum/Ataru/Shinobu situation? Things get pretty scary in Ataru’s already complex love life!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While a lot of anime shows have gotten new leases on life over the years, few have been ones that I’ve been invested in previously like I was with this show. So working through that change in actors, the animation style, and even just the theme songs to what we get here took some adjusting. It’s also something where the nature of how anime adaptations of manga are made that left me a bit cool to it while appreciating what it did. Adaptations, but nature of fandom, has to be pretty close to the source material. So while we get changes in how it’s presented, it’s hitting the same beats in story and character and that has a been-there-and-done-that feeling for me. It’s just executed differently. Not better, different. And one thing this series feels like it’s doing is moving at a bit of an accelerated pace and moving things around as Mendou, if I recall, was not someone we met this quickly.
Mendou is one of my favorite characters because of the way he’s got all the money and material behind him, and has been raised well because of it, but he’s just as much a slave to Lum as most of the guys are and he has his own fears as well, such as being in the dark. With the little octopus symbol as part of his family crest, there’s just something fun in the way he’s all over the map. So seeing him parachute into school here is certainly fun and he lands directly into the overactive relationship problems that exist with Shinobu continually attacking Ataru for his being bonded with Lum, someone he at this point really doesn’t want to have anything to do with as she’s keeping him from getting with as many women as he wants. If it wasn’t her, he’d be doing the same with Shinobu in trying to keep her at a distance. Naturally, Ataru has little interest in Mendou as he can see him as potential competition or a spoiler in his own skirt-chasing interests, but Mendou’s arrival is one that, like Lum, signifies that their world is changing.
Especially since Shinobu is smitten by him and he’s just utterly charming, which impacts the boys and girls watching. And when Mendou learns that Lum is married to Ataru of all people, it just turns into a hilarious mess as he has to figure out how to try and stay on her good side while being dismissive of Ataru. And what he quickly learns is that Ataru is part of this magical field that has crept into the world with Lum’s arrival as he’s got a way of getting into trouble but not getting really punished for it. It goes so badly that Mendou actually gets ready to ritually end his life, which of course sets all the girls into a panic. Of course, it’s not going to happen but it’s fun to see that we get that kind of abrupt ending at the halfway mark as the story closes without trying to resolve it, much as the original manga and TV adaptation did. There isn’t always a need, especially in a comedy like this, to tie everything up perfectly.
The second story works more of the group dynamic, taking the three-way triangle to a four-way, and it’s fun to get the gang out for a bit in regular clothes. Even Mendou when he goes from school uniform to his dressy dudes has a particularly fun look that works. Even Ataru gets to dress things up a bit in a way that kind of surprises. It’s also fun to get Shinobu and Lum out of their usual outfits and to let the dynamic play out since there’s still so much wariness this early on in things. It’s also fun to see how Mendou’s fear of the dark is shown here and while the actor does well with it, it just doesn’t capture the panic and overreaction of the original. Which is fine, each has to be its own thing. It’s all just simply silliness but I appreciate that for this story, of which there’s little actual story, they kept it small and mostly just to these four characters.
In Summary:
Urusei Yatsura is going to be a weird beast to me for a while because of my love of the original and the manga. The differences are interesting and getting Mendou so early really does feel odd. Mendou is definitely one of the things that worked well with their introduction and spending the time messing with the dynamic that exists, but I really did want more time with Shinobu dealing with how Lum and Ataru are before bringing him into things. That said, it does all work here and the show continues to look fantastic and has a solid cast handling it well. It’s almost too polished but that’s not a proper criticism but rather just my love of the old traditional style one that I grew up with. This is definitely fun and I hope people are discovering it more with each episode.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: HIDIVE
