A long time coming
Perverted boy surrounded by exotic girls that fight for his undivided attention. Sound familiar? Urusei Yatsura is the ecchi harem ancestor. The first major work by Rumiko Takahashi of Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha fame that has been copied ad nauseam since its release in the early 80s.
The lead character, Lum, is an inspiration for many popular female archetypes – sexualized magical alien waifu, abusive love scorned heroine, seductive sex icon who only has eyes for an average looking dude in a sea of admirers, all came into prominence after her introduction. You may partially blame Lum for the invention of Louise from Zero No Tsukaima. Thank Lum for the invention of Lala in To Love Ru. Zero Two has fangs, bite sized horns, flowing hair, is hyper sexualized and says darling every five seconds. Who else does that? Lum thirty years prior. Perhaps the most influential female character ever created.
UY has some uncensored nudity, cute girls, a MC who is obsessed with touching said cute girls and ecchi historical significance. It is also nearly two hundred episodes long and was released in 1981. So not only is it hard to get your hands on in good condition, but you’d need be crazy enough to start a gargantuan project that may take several years to complete, if ever.
Fortunately for interested parties, I am both crazy and came across a 2oogb 960p remaster of this series. I love all things Rumiko Takahashi; making media for the show while watching for the first time was a no brainer.
The context of these episodes is often too ridiculous to bother explaining, but here’s an earnest attempt – Lum is a hot space alien who invades planet earth threatening to enslave the human race. Heroic pervert Ataru challengers her to a duel to stop her pending tyranny.
Ataru wins the competition and saves planet earth…at the sacrifice of his sanity. Lum instantly falls in love and assumes he proposed to her. Ataru’s jealous admirer looks on with scorn in the distance. This is more or less the pattern for all 200 episodes.
and so the abusive lover archetype was born. Lum will shock Ateru at every instance of irritation. It hurts. Why does he put up with it? She’s hot. Simple mathematics.
Ataru is not your usual weak willed simp MC. He openly cheats on the girls around him because his dick has no preferences. They usually repay him in tears and (lots of) pain.
Every other episode introduces a new babe that Ataru wants to screw. To the horror of his admirers.
I have no idea what the episode was about. Too mesmerized by the booty. I just know her name is Sakura and she’s a babe, albeit a violent and crazy.
These attempts at womanizing only result in pain for Ateru and he never scores. Here is Lum casually placing our MC into a figure four leg lock while pulsing his body with electricity. This show would be a rated R tragedy if physical abuse were not played for laughs.
Kurama immediately becomes best girl upon introduction in my humble biased opinion. All of the female characters are scornful angry bitches (not that Ateru deserves any better), but at least she looks the hottest.
Ataru kisses Kurama to wake her up ala sleepy beauty. Some made up cultural rules dictate that she must marry the man who awakens her with a kiss and so she tries to shape Ataru into a respectful man worthy of her hand in marriage. Yeah right. Ateru dives headfirst into those thighs.
this shot is a microcosm of the fapservice community. would even work as a background image on pattern repeat for the site.
Kurama falls for the oldest trick on the book as Ataru sneaks a kiss. Dude is a 100% a rapist, in case that wasn’t clear by now.
Kurama’s last resort to is to use alien technology to visualize Ateru’s thoughts and know where his sexual priorities lie. The outcome is predictable for a man of culture.
This concludes the review of Urusei Yatsura episodes 1-20. It will take several weeks for another batch to be published as I don’t love the show enough to marathon it. But I do like it enough to sink into my couch every other day and chuckles at a pervert trying to fuck everything that moves while being assailed by hot girls that love him blindly. If you aren’t so bothered by the lack of progression – a Rumiko special, this is one of the funnier slapstick rom coms to exist. Certainly among the most inventive.
For the fapservice community, you may enjoy UY as a connoisseur of the ecchi genre. Chances are traces of your favorite waifu exist somewhere somewhere in this show, and so may be the origin of your favorite perverted MC. Lots of history here that is rewarding to discover. You may not enjoy UY in 2020 as raw fap material given the “outdated” character designs compared to the current moe aesthetic. I happen to think Lum is sexy as fuck, but perhaps not for others in the community who are more accustomed to the bombshells that run rampant today. Perhaps sad news for the crowd who determines the value of an ecchi based upon the tightness of their scrotum. But good news for the crowd interested in the origins of their favorite ecchi tropes.
