Urusei Yatsura

As a TV series, this is pretty good. Not Great, but not Really bad either. I Guess the reason I'm so jaded is due to the fact that the first time I saw this, it was 1992, and the convention I was at screened a Pilot episode for this (With incredibly bad dubbing) under the title "Lamu the invader girl". Luckily, the Japanese version is much better, but let's not forget that it was originally intended for Japanese Grade-schoolers, so don't expect too much (maybe with the exception of movie no.4) Anyway, this is an alright series, with typical early 80's production values, and a charming cast of characters that you won't soon forget.

No doubt about it, Urusei Yatsura was one of the best anime series of the 80's. This tale of an alien princess, Lum, in love with the world's biggest lecher, Ataru, could only come from the wild mind of Rumiko Takahashi.

This fantastic comedy/sci-fi/romance is full of memorable characters like Ten, Sakura, Mendo, Shinobu, Ryunosuke, Ran, Cherry and a lot of others. The stories will have you busting out laughing and the animation is pretty good by 80's standards. The voice actors are all first rate, but a special round of applause must be given to Fumi Hirano for her portrayal of Lum. It's just to perfect for words.

So if you're an anime fan, your collection isn't complete without some UY in it. Da'cha!

"Urusei Yatsura", also called "Those Obnoxious Aliens", is a classic Comedy-Romance-Anime originally broadcast on Japanese TV 1981-1986. It is based on the comic by Rumiko Takahashi and runs for 195 episodes + 2 TV-specials.

Basic plot: The unlucky high school student Ataru Moroboshi become the chosen one to play the game of tag, where he has to grab the horns of an Oni (an alien race) within one week, or the Earth is to be taken over by the aliens anyway. Wishing for his marriage with the lovely girl Shinobu Miyake, he happens to grab the horns of the cute alien girl named Lum Invader right on the final day of the competition. Lum misinterprets the marriage wish to be a proposal to her by Ataru, but falls in love with him and moves into his house anyway. And this is just the beginning of the series where one unexpected event comes after another.

However, Ataru basically has little to nothing more than girls on his mind, and goes on with his constant flirting with a bunch of pretty girls, only to get punished by Lum with her electric shock.

As I have seen all of the episodes, as well as all of their movies and OVAs, I just have to confirm the entire "Urusei Yatsura" franchise as one of the best anime I've seen when it comes to humorous anime. Compared to the newer Comedy-Romance-Anime being made in Japan in the last ten years, this one actually made me laugh pretty often. Even in the supposedly serious episodes, you just can't take these episodes too seriously, because something funny and unexpected always has to happen at the end.

Pretty much happens in the series than just Ataru running after girls and Lum giving him electro shock. We also get stuff like; Ghouls and ghosts, evil spirits, slapstick violence, horror stories which often end comically, and not at least vulgar/perverted humor.

Also, we get unforgettable characters like: Lum's infant cousin Ten, Shutaro Mendou, Benten, Ran, Ryuunosuke, Oyuki, Sakura and her monk uncle Sakuramboo/Cherry, and even a little fox.

Unlike most long-running series like "Naruto" and "Bleach", this one basically goes episodic, meaning most of the episodes mainly don't have any connection to previous episodes. Should you happen to miss out at least one episode or more...no big deal.

Pretty thanks to the entire anime franchise, I actually happened to be a little fan of the character Lum. As if that wasn't enough, I also happened to get a figurine of her, which I bought during my summer vacation at Amsterdam 2014.

Are you a fan of anime in general, this one is highly recommended and should not be missed. A truly humorous classic which I want to give a total rating of 10/10.

This is a comedy ahead of its time, and perhaps had it aired decades earlier it would have aired in English on adult swim and no one would have been able to tell a difference in the comedy. It is certainly that absurdist kind of parody you find so often nowadays, but its got its own charm to it, its all parodies of the Japanese attitude and culture, samurai swords and seppuku, duels over ridiculous things or and really really overdramatic sense of sentiment or honor. Basically the entire series is about a guy who is basically just really really horny and perverted who is just unlucky enough to be chosen to save the human race from an alien invasion by playing a game of tag with a sexy alien girl, only to accidentally propose to that alien girl, and have her fall obsessively in love with him and try to move in with him and bring just a whole shitstorm of crazy alien shenanigans to rain down upon his life and the lives of everyone around him. He is often chasing other women, who often violently hit him with blunt objects and then he gets electrocuted by his fiancé, often within the context of some other crazy stuff going down like a giant penguin attacking the city or dinosaurs being pulled through a rip in time or a romanic couple of mind melding pear which possess the body of two dudes and constantly tries to express their passionate love through them. Or a sentient flower who threatens to kill himself. The comedy potential for this show is limitless, and thats not even the best part, which is the ridiculous supporting characters, from the handsome, self obsessed samurai who is in denial about how much of a pervert and a coward he is, to the shy yet violent man hating shinobu, to the troublemaker flying imp baby who always manipulates girls with his cuteness to the bipolar paranoid nutjob who can suck peoples youth out through a kiss but always feigns innocent.

And as someone who is not especially into anime, or love stories, this is one of my favorite for both. Because over the course of the show it becomes clear that Ataru actually feels something for Lum but he always denies it and she is always super clingy and trying to get him to admit it and its pretty adorable, but also hilarious.

I wish Rumiko Takahashi will show this again in TV Series soon