Urusei Yatsura

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Lamu, Lum, Those Obnoxious Aliens

Japanese: うる星やつら

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 195

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 14, 1981 to Mar 19, 1986

Premiered: Fall 1981

Broadcast: Wednesdays at 19:30 (JST)

Producers: Kitty Films, Fuji TV

Licensors: AnimEigo

Studios: Studio Pierrot, Studio Deen

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

Duration: 25 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.70¹ (scored by 15,204 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1099²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2172

Members: 70,537

Favorites: 922

External Links

Official Site, AnimeDB, AnimeNewsNetwork, Wikipedia

7.70

Ranked #1099Popularity #2172Members 70,537

Fall 1981TVStudio Pierrot, Studio Deen

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Episodes: /195

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Synopsis

Not much is notable about the lecherous Ataru Moroboshi, but his extraordinary bad luck sticks out like the horns in an alien's head. When Earth is threatened by a fleet of alien invaders known as the Oni, Ataru is selected to represent humanity in a duel against one of them. It's a stroke of rare luck for Ataru that the duel is in fact a game of tag, and that his opponent is Lum, daughter of the Oni's leader, who places her personal dignity above victory—as Ataru finds out by seizing Lum's bikini top and with it, victory.

However, misfortune kicks in again when Lum mistakes Ataru's promise to marry his girlfriend, Shinobu Miyake, as the desire to wed Lum herself, and decides she rather likes the idea. Wielding her influence as an alien princess, she moves in with him. Forced to deal with the consequences of his womanizing ways, Ataru must balance his crumbling relationship with Shinobu while keeping Lum happy, all the while flirting with every woman he meets.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Urusei Yatsura
Side story:	Urusei Yatsura: Haru da, Tobidase!, Urusei Yatsura OVA, Urusei Yatsura Movie 1: Only You, Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love, Urusei Yatsura Movie 4: Lum The Forever, Urusei Yatsura: The Shougaibutsu Suieitaikai
Sequel:	Urusei Yatsura Movie 5: Kanketsu-hen, Urusei Yatsura Movie 6: Itsudatte My Darling
Alternative version:	Urusei Yatsura (2022)

Sugiyama, Kazuko
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Oshii, Mamoru

Co-Director, Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard

Nunokawa, Yuuji

Producer

Yamazaki, Kazuo

Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Key Animation, Animation Director

Moriwaki, Makoto

Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

	1: "Lum no Love Song" by Hiroko Matsuya (eps 001-077)
	2: "Dancing Star" by Izumi Kobayashi (eps 078-106)
	3: "Pajama Jama da!" by Kanako Narikiyo (eps 107-127)
	4: "Chance on Love" by Cindy (eps 128-149)
	5: "Rock the Planet" by Steffanie (eps 150-165)
	6: "Tonogata Gomen Asobase" by Shoko Minami (eps 166-195)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Uchuu wa Taihen da!" by Hiroko Matsuya (eps 001-021)
	2: "Kokorobosoi na" by Helen Sasano (eps 022-043)
	3: "Hoshizora Cycling" by Virgin VS (eps 044-054,065-077)
	4: "I, I, You and Ai" by Izumi Kobayashi (eps 055-064)
	5: "Yume wa Love Me More" by Izumi Kobayashi (eps 078-106)
	6: "Koi no Mobius" by Rittsu (eps 107-127)
	7: "Open Invitation" by Cindy (eps 128-149)
	8: "Every Day" by Steffanie (eps 150-165)
	9: "Good Luck" by Shoko Minami (eps 166-195)

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Reviews

Oct 23, 2011

195 of 195 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

Skadi (All reviews)

265 people found this review helpful

As a general rule, people usually forget what has come before. For anime fans, particularly those who aren’t Japanese, this is all too often the case as new shows are hailed as the best ever, groundbreaking, or original while completely ignoring what influenced them in the first place. Urusei Yatsura may not be (it's not) the greatest series in the history of anime but it ranks right up there in the top five most influential of all time.

Urusei Yatsura is the first of Rumiko Takahashi's work to receive an anime adaptation. It centers on what is today a tried and true anime concept, a beautiful alien girl, Lum, falls in love with a rather ordinary and none to bright boy, Ataru. While this may or may not have been the first time this had ever been put to film, you can be sure this was the first time it was done so successfully and thus spawning decades of future imitators. Add in a cast of gorgeous girls and other zany and outrageous characters and a memorably stupid and lecherous leading man, you have the framework for an amusing series.

However for modern fans a few things that are missing from the show will likely effect their overall enjoyment. For starters, Urusei is almost a completely episodic anime with absolutely nothing in regards to an overriding storyline. Once characters have been introduced into the series canon they change little if at all. Because of the nature of this format it makes many of the episodes completely predictable and annoyingly repetitive. A basic episode revolves around Ataru chasing girls, Lum becoming angry, followed by Lum electrocuting him. Additionally quite a few characters are nauseatingly annoying or generally grate on your nerves and outstay their welcome.

All that being said, when Urusei Yatsura is good, it’s REALLY good. But any viewer determined to take the leap into this series would be wise to savor it slowly over time. Over the several years I spent watching this series I found a few episodes at a time was the best I could manage in any given sitting. I would suggest that pace for anyone as well. If you are interested at all in the history of anime, UY should be near the top of your list. While most fans may not be familiar with most if not all of its characters, everyone is familiar with them as they live on today after being pioneered in this series.

The alien girl Lum remains today even thirty years later as one of the most iconic figures of anime. It’s pretty much impossible to dislike Lum. Most people think of her as a tsundere type character but she’s not. Lum is honest with her feelings and incredibly jealous. Add her electrocuting powers, she makes for a girl I don’t think any man with a brain would dare defy or cheat on. Since Ataru is an idiot he doesn't ever learn though. Despite her jealousy and frequent use of her power she never comes across as a bully or a bitch. More often than not you find yourself feeling a little sorry for her that she has fallen for such an unfaithful and idiotic man. Love is blind they say...

For Ataru, he is an unrepentant louse and womanizer in addition to being a complete idiot. You might think that because of his personality that he would not be a likable character either but that’s not the case at all. Despite his odious character defects he remains a charming and likable character throughout the series. Whether you just like his antics or like watching him in pain or being punished. While it becomes obvious that Ataru really does care for Lum, his womanizing and rejection of Lum's advances seem to be out of a desire to not be tied down or in liking being chased. Even though he is completely and totally unsuccessful in wooing any woman other than Lum he never seems to give up.

The supporting cast is enormous, as one would expect from a series of this length. The results are mixed. Because many characters have extreme personalities I often found that they became annoying if they were featured too often. Shinobu starts as Ataru's girlfriend and vies for his affections in the early parts of the series. She is one of the rare exceptions to change over the course of the series. I was glad to see her not pine over Ataru for the entire series though she took a rather strange turn from being an ordinary Japanese girl to being a super strong girl. Mendou also shines as the super rich boy who is adored by all the girls, except the one he most wants (Lum). But in actuality he is just as much of a womanizer as Ataru is. He makes for an excellent foil. Others like Jariten, Ran, and Megane are generally amusing but tend to get on your nerves if they get too much screen time. Cherry and Ryuunosuke's father are ALWAYS annoying and generally made me swing from the desire to punch a hole through my television and projectile vomiting.

From an artistic standpoint, due to its success it’s likely to have influenced character designs for an entire generation and eventually lead to what we have today. I think you can probably trace the origins of "moe" back to at least this series as the thin, lanky, and elegant body types of the 70's give way to younger, chubbier, and cuter looking ones. Despite its age though and the peculiarities of animation from this era its still looks fabulous. The characters are extremely expressive and have enough dissimilarity that they are easily distinguishable from each other, with only a few exceptions.

The seiyuu performances are first rate and each brings out their characters to perfection. Whether it be Lum's anger or Ataru's perverted giggling you can’t help but be drawn into Urusei's universe. The series features many different OP/ED themes that vary from your standard J-Poppy tunes that wouldn't be that out of place today and the very dated engrish disco tracks. It’s old enough now that you may just have some 80s nostalgia.

I my opinion everyone should give this series a watch. While it certainly isn't an easy viewing experience, getting through it will give you an appreciation for the history of animation in Japan and an insight on Japanese pop culture. Not to mention it's also pretty damn funny.

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Nov 26, 2006

195 of 195 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

MeitanteiShakura (All reviews)

158 people found this review helpful

Back in my "Maison Ikkoku" review, I mentioned that it seems that fans have a tendency to neglect some of the old classics that made the creators they love big in the first place. Either that or they turn a blind eye to them, seeing as they're "old". I'll probably get some flack for all that, but it's just so prominent in today's anime fandom that the latest things out there are "the best anime ever" one day, and when "one year later" rolls its way by and/or when the series ends, it would be a thing of the past.

And the cycle read more

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Dec 14, 2014

195 of 195 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

Sorrow (All reviews)

54 people found this review helpful

Urusei Yatsura (Those obnoxious aliens) was an extremely popular manga and anime series that ran in Japan in the early 80s. Lately, people have been forgetting about these wonderful classics, and so I figured I'd write a review on one that I really enjoyed watching years and years ago, Urusei Yatsura. Urusei Yatsura is Rumiko Takahashi's first work to receive an anime adaptation (ahead of other classics such as Maison Ikkoku, Ranma and Inuyasha). Needless to say, Urusei Yatsura is a true classic that opened the way for future rom-com anime, and all the meanwhile is a wonderful-highly enjoyable story.

The basic outline of the story will seem really stupid, childish, cheesy, boring and "unorignal" at first. But if you take into account that this story was written over 30 years ago, then you'll realize that it was the birthmark of similar stories. And if you compare the anime solely to modern-day shows, then perhaps it won't be one of the best shows you've come across, but Urusei Yatsura set the stone down for these new shows that you enjoy to be created.

Urusei Yatsura is the comedic story of the tumultuous relationship between the Beautiful tigerskin-bikini-clad alien princess, Lum, and the Earth's most lecherous boy, Ataru Moroboshi. Ataru is a pervert whose constantly trying to chase other girls around and Lum has to continuously bring him back into line with her raging jealous temper and tremendous jolts of electricity. But the story goes far beyond that. Urusei Yatsura covers nearly all genres, from romance to science fiction to comedy to parody to Japanese mythology to psychological. Urusei Yatsura incorporates it all into a wonderful, enjoyable story. The outline of the story is basically: The alien race is about to take over Earth, but in order to save the human race, a deal was made between the aliens and the humans. In a race, if a human [Ataru] can touch the Alien representative's horn in a race, then Earth will be saved. At first Ataru doesn't want to do the deal, and would rather have the human race extinct than actually do something he doesn't want to do... But that all changes when he sees that the Alien representative is a beautiful girl - Lum. With the idea of actually being encouraged to grab and grope the beautiful alien to reach her horns, Ataru eagerly does the race and succeeds - thanks to Shinabu, Ataru's one true love who promise to marry Ataru if he succeeded. Upon touching Lum's horns, Ataru yells in glory "I can get married", which causes Lum to misunderstand - thinking Ataru wants to marry her, and so the entire 175 episodes of the story begins.

If you're looking to watch a series that intertwines many side events into one large main event, and the story is connected, then this isn't exactly the place to look. The episodes are episodic, and it jumps around all over the place. The story is honestly really random, and at times makes absolutely no sense. But so what? It was always enjoyable and hilarious to watch Ataru try to run away from Lum, Lum chase him down and a whole load of bizarre events unfold. I've seen people compare this show to the Simpsons in terms of how weird and unorderly the story is, but I'd say they have nearly nothing alike. 175 episodes of 1980s comedy-romance, how lovely right?

The show can be characterized as character-driven, because there is no real plot. There is only characters that create a story each episode because of their love/hatred/annoyance/misunderstanding of each other. The characters are the epitome of your average stereotypical characters. Ataru being the super annoying pervert that he is. Lum being that jealous girl who doesn't want any other girl to be near the guy she loves. And blah blah blah, a whole buttload of other side characters who take their part in the large scheme of things, and then suddenly leave/disappear at some random time because the writers can do that kind of stuff. Throughout the long course of 175 episodes, Ataru and Lum's characters develop a lot-lot, and the audience starts to adjust to their characters, and instead of having a feeling of annoyance towards the characters, the audience develops a sense of bond-love-friendship-understanding with the characters which keeps the entire story not only funny, but captivating and memorable. Sure, Ataru is a pervert who is running away from a innocent, beautiful girl who purely/solely loves him. At first the audience wants him to love Lum back because Lum is so beautiful and innocent, but from Ataru's perverted point of view, why should he love someone if he doesn't actually love her? And Lum... Oh Lum, why must you always shock the poor boy just because he doesn't love you back? It's all just a misunderstanding. Stop stalking Ataru. But over the longass time of 175 episodes, all those thoughts suddenly change-evolve into something like: I love you all. All characters in Urusei Yatsura are annoying at times (like really annoying), but that helps develop their characters into characters that the audience can relate with and like - learn from their annoyance/mistakes. 175 is a lot of episodes. Yes, there are some filler-episodes that help define a character, and yes they can be quite boring at times, but that's the 1980's - long-running series for you. If the load of episodes, turns you off from the show, then poor you, that's your loss. Urusei Yatsura has a quite cast of characters throughout the 175 episodes that you should definitely watch.

The sound and art of the show was composed/drawn in the 1980s, so it's unfair to compare it to romance-comedy-supernatural stories of today. But compare to other shows of it's time, Urusei Yatsura's art is spectacular, and the music isn't great, but isn't bad either. The music of Urusei Yatsura is more of the cute-innocent girly girl yet has a supernatural-alien pinch of sauce style. Especially the opening which is basically a high-pitched girl's voice squeaking, but it's not like an annoying squeaking sound, but more of a cute love sound. There aren't many times in the show (despite being 175 episodes) where music, soundtrack is being played during the show. The character's voicings were wondrous, I loved them, and normally I'm not a big fan of character's voices in romance stories. The character's designs were drawn up by the great, Akemi Takada who also drew the character's for the great Maison Ikkoku. It's no surprise that Lum is considered one of the most beautiful, and greatly drawn characters in anime history. Lum is in her own way unique and beautiful, and she is like a mother-figure to modern-day beautiful super-natural females. The overall art (cities, animals/aliens, characters) is really old-fashioned (reminder: 1980s) but it really added to the livliness of the entire story.

All in all, Urusei Yatsura isn't perfect, and it most definitely isn't the greatest classic out there. But Urusei Yatsura is a trailblazer in anime history, and it remains as a mother-figure show for modern-day romance-comedies, and for those of you that have a lot of time on your hands and want to check out a true classic rom-com anime, then Urusei Yatsura is definitely the one to check out.

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Jul 13, 2020

195 of 195 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 10

KirbyDragons (All reviews)

26 people found this review helpful

Lum was technically one of the first anime characters I ever saw. Back when I was hardly into anime, I saw some Dragon Ball fan animation that had Lum as a cameo. I was intrigued, so I looked up who it was. Despite this, I didn't show any interest in watching her show until years later. I watched the first twelve episodes, and although I was addicted, I was turned off by how adult it got. I stopped watching it for a long time, but there were times when I missed it. Surely enough, I couldn't stay away from it, so I started it again from the thirteenth episode, and watched the whole series over the course of six months, including the movies and OVAs.

So many things about this anime made it memorable and enjoyable. The episodes had different feels from each other, but each one had something to like about it. Some of the episodes are crazy, nonsensical shenanigans, and others are serious with touching drama or romance. This is a universe where virtually anything can happen, so there's no limit to the stories they could tell. It could be fooling with alien technology, or meeting mythical creatures such as ghosts or vampires. Not only are the situations unpredictable, but the way the characters interact with the situations is too, so there are lots of surprises. And the characters being as good as they are makes the situations even more enjoyable.

The side characters all have different roles in the story, as well as different relationships with Ataru and Lum. Lum is generally favored by them, whereas Ataru is generally disfavored. This leads to many different character interactions that are always entertaining. The side characters all have their own situations going on, that make you care about them. This means you can be invested in an episode regardless of who's in the forefront.

Ataru, the true protagonist of the show, is one of the most entertaining ones I've seen. His main interest is girls, but his persistence and determination make him more memorable than all the other pervert and semi-pervert protagonists. He's constantly hitting on girls and being punished for it, but he never ceases to go after them. He'll often use trickery to get away from Lum, and shrug off any hits from girls who reject him. He's also not afraid to tell Lum off.

Lum seems like she'd be a Mary Sue, being a beautiful superpowered alien who all the boys love. However, her flaws are very clearly there, and become more apparent over time. She has a short temper, she's sometimes loopy or clueless, and she can be just as vulnerable as any of the other characters. Her strongest trait is easily her attraction to Ataru. It never goes away, regardless of what he does, or what happens. Her main wish is for Ataru to love her and only her, and to be with him forever. She'll go to great lengths to do it, never giving up hope. She cares about Ataru very much, only attacking him when he angers her.

The relationship between these two is the most compelling thing about this anime. We know how Lum feels about Ataru, but Ataru's feelings are never 100% clear. Based on the situation, he either likes or hates her. The interactions between these two are something to look forward to. They might get angry at each other, or they might have a meaningful romantic moment. Their relationship could make or break at any moment, but never permanently.

There's an overall sense of tension between many of the characters that leads to a lot of slapstick. This slapstick gets repetitive, especially in the second half of the show. Yet, the episode plots differ from each other greatly, so the show overall isn't repetitive.

Background music is a surprisingly important part of the anime. There are all kinds of different tracks it uses. Some of the tracks even have a fittingly extraterrestrial theme to them. There is background music playing a lot of the time, and it is always appropriate to the situation. There is casual music, epic music, romantic music, silly music, suspenseful music, and so on.

If I were to assign this anime to genres, I'd say slice of life, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, and romance, which is ordered from most to least prevalent. It's harder to narrow it down, since the anime does all kinds of things. And given how long it is, it certainly can afford doing what it wants.

I can just imagine all the Japanese kids in the 80's watching new episodes of this anime every week, and it being their favorite thing. It gives you a lot in each episode, and even references other popular properties at the time, whether they be Japanese or American. There are multiple story arcs involving different characters, and also quick callbacks to previous episodes. It always tries its best, and it strives to be something you'll never forget. So much love was put into the anime from the beginning, that made it everything that it is.

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