Urusei Yatsura

Episode 27

I think Lum's face says it all about how I felt during the first half of this episode. What happens when you have a romantic tug-of-war with some of the most obnoxious people in the entire cast? You get a skit that is OK at best where the main running joke seems to be "what on earth is going through Rei's head throughout all of this"? The dude barely has a personality and I'm not sure if he is just supposed to fulfill that “dumb hot guy” archetype. He only cares about food to the point where I feel bad for Ran because she genuinely likes him outside of his hotness and is willing to bend over backward for him but there are not a lot of examples of him showing that he cares to a similar extent. The climax of the first half of this episode was him saving her instead of saving the food that she cooked but it's over so quickly it doesn't really have a resolution. Also, Ataru did not need to be in the first half of this episode at all, which is ironic because I liked how he was integrated into the second part of the episode despite it arguably being a lot lazier.

It's nice to have an episode that just focuses on the guys. They are a lot more similar to each other than they give themselves credit for. It makes their frustrations with each other all the more interesting because there's a little bit of projection going on with the lack of self-awareness. I like how Ataru just appears the minute that talk of a cute girl comes up even when there is no reason why he should even be in the area. Ataru has more to do in this skit compared to the first one. If you're going to forcefully involve him in a situation unrelated to him, you could at least make it funny which I thought the second half of the episode did wonderfully. It is mostly set up for next week but it presented an interesting bit of funny drama. Having a secret sibling that doesn't even know what a guy is can be funny and I'm waiting for the explanation to come out. Plus, when you have three of the most prominent guy characters in the entire series present, it makes me wonder how their interactions with each other are going to affect this new character's perspective on men moving forward. There's a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing where it goes next week.

Rating:

Urusei Yatsura is currently streaming on HIDIVE.