Transformers, No. 1 - The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

It is every film blogger’s occasional joy to run across a complete blind spot. Given my age, interests, and the never-ending rants of the ever-expanding nerds I went to college with, I am somehow a deeply lesser human being for having never seen The Transformers: The Movie – to go by the nerds’ wizened jabberings, the single greatest animated film conceivable.

Actually, I had next to nothing to do with the Transformers brand growing up, except for a few toys I think I must’ve burgled from somebody. But do not weep for a childhood that never happened, because every young boy has two possible career options: be a giant truck, or a dinosaur. I was a dinosaur. My hosannas then and now go out to the almighty Turtles – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the layman. That’s when I wasn’t intentionally wrecking my childhood with R-rated junk instead (e.g. RoboCop), so a single cartoon utterance of “Oh shit!” probably wouldn’t have even phased me.


Time to do my penance for pop cultural ignorance, and probe this Transformers trend…

It all began as a toy! In an eternal tale of inspiration, in 1984 Hasbro proved Orwell right and acquired preexisting molds from Japan (MicroChange, which spun-off from Diaclone, which spun-off from Microman, which spun-off from G.I. Joe). The toys: robots which could transform. Hasbro’s witty contribution was to call said transformers “Transmorphers” – er, no, “Transformers.”

Largish robots that can turn into cars, and vice versa – it’s a truck enthusiast’s automotive wet dream. To fuel and overwrite children’s playtime fantasies, Hasbro commissioned a story for their semi-Japanese-ish car-bot-itrons. These guys were involved: Jim Shooter, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Budiansky. (Through advance research, it seems I am a worthless scrap of meat for not knowing that a priori.) Thus there are two robot factions, the Autobots and the Decepticons, who battle each other…over energy resources. Despite seemingly interchangeable tactics, one side is good and angelic, and the other side as evil as Pazuzu. The Decepticons, because their innate ancestral name sounds like the English Earth word “deceive,” are the “bad” ones. And…let the hyperactive schoolboys choose their allegiances!


The toy line lead swiftly to a TV show, “The Transformers” (“Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer” in Japan, which is an infinitely cooler name). Plus, such publicity leads to more toys purchased, which a cynic without a childhood to rape (i.e. me) would point to as the ultimate goal. For this great mid-‘80s renaissance of product promotional programming, we can thank regulators for lifting a previous ban on such glorious capitalism. (Thanks to “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,” because you cannot oppose crass marketing in light of such patriotism!)

The show, by all evidence, explores the war twixt Autobots and Decepticons over the planet Cybertron. It is contemporarily set, with scant Earth humans from the Witwicky family in there not to be further toys (though who really knows), but to entice those weirdos not auto(bot)matically interested in robots. Robo-wise, the cast is massive, to reflect each and every toy available for purchase at your local participating toy emporium: Optimus Prime, Brawn, Bluestreak, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Gears, Hound, Huffer, Ironhide, Jazz, Mirage, Prowl, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Wheeljack, Windcharger, Hauler, and those are only the good guys, and only from the pilot.


Imagine now, as we artlessly jump ahead to 1986’s big damn theatrical The Transformers: The Movie, an uninformed viewer suddenly plunged into a universe more overloaded than the one outlined above. This is the effect of attempting to watch The Movie now without proper grounding. As animated by Japan’s Toei (though an English-language American release), the Transformers characters are…difficult to tell apart. The movie makes no appeals to newbies, no effort at introductions or explanations. It is mostly by color that I can pick out at least the most important characters (Optimus, Megatron, Hot Rod, Starscream)…though one could complain similarly about the Turtles, I suppose.

The voice cast is really show-offy – among others, Peter Cullen, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Frank Welker, Eric Idle – in perhaps an effort to create some personality distinction. For whatever reason, the DVD’s vocal synch doesn’t work, so this one is screwed up – with hilarious results! Plus, stiff robot faces aren’t the most expressive, so it’s hard sometimes to know which head is yakking anyway.

I feel rather like Stan in “South Park’s” recent “You’re Getting Old” – exposed to entertainment so clearly not meant for me, as it’s both juvenile and instantly time-stamped. Everything throughout feels like the same bombastic visual and aural noise (no, I’m not yet reviewing the Michael Bay efforts). The Movie is no doubt designed for those consumers already initiated in the “Transformers” world – the “Generation 1” world specifically, though they didn’t know that at the time.


The animation is the perfect representative of “Super Robot Seizure Happy Time Hour” – flashing lights and visual dissonance, done with admittedly some budget for a mid-level Japanese 1986 production, but wholly cluttered to behold.

The soundtrack is inundated with period power ballads, and assorted sub-New Wave synth what-have-you. “The Touch,” Stan Bush’s central tune (originally meant, amusingly, for Stallone’s Cobra), is the sort of inspirational pap Daniel La Russo wouldn’t be caught dead training to. Plus, it’s sorta awesome. The entirety of every scene is pumped to full volume with it and similar noise, forever overpowering the hard efforts of the voice cast. (To say nothing of including “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Dare to be Stupid,” which I like – because it’s “Weird Al” – but is wholly out-of-place near the climax of a self-serious American mecha monstrosity.)

Individually, the story works just like the songs or the visuals – that is, at 11, independently trying to overwhelm the senses with so much spectacle and event and detail that one is never able to get a grasp of what exactly is happening. Or at any rate, my laid back adult mind cannot do this – The whole of The Movie plays like the fever sugar rush babbling of an explosion-happy six-year-old, which no doubt explains its appeal to those who were that age in that year…a limited, niche audience, to be sure.


Here’s what I could figure out: The always-hungry, planet-devouring Unicron (voiced by the similarly omnivorous Orson Welles, who then died) threatens to destroy the peaceful tranquility of the Autobot-Decepticon war. It is also the distant future year of 2005 now, allowing for a heady combination of robots and hoverboards and prophetic Bush satire (okay, only the first two).

Meanwhile…okay, I think it’s all action sequences from here on out. Anyway, assorted cartoon robots launch special effects towards each other, eventually Unicron is turned into something else all explodey, and…a whole shitload of main characters die!


Okay, The Movie is famous for decimating the “Transformers” lineup, in a cruel act of attrition which utterly devastated many ‘80s boys – Imagine if you first learned about death through the passing of Optimus Prime. Seen in isolation, and with recourse to other period anime features with more decidedly mature tones, one (myself) barely grasps the gravity of all this. Part of it is…I sometimes cannot tell if someone is dying. Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with my brain, that the boundless, uncontrolled energy of The Movie is more confusing than the zanier efforts of a Lynch or a Cronenberg.

Besides, going in I already understood the true motive behind animated mass murder: TOYS! The Transformers: The Movie was put out in the summer between the second and third seasons of the TV show, which is a familiar pattern for – yes – the era’s anime films. (See, e.g., “InuYasha.”) The Movie is subservient to the show, which is subservient to the toy line – and toy lines must renew themselves with time, lest the eternal capitalist impulse dry up without new products. So while artistically the show might’ve wished to continue developing its established cast, each new toy means a new character, and it demands the removal of an old character.


So The Movie is really a filmed product announcement, one you have to pay to see. Only no child heading into theaters knew this – they simply knew they’d be seeing their favorite soulless robot heroes in a glorified adventure. Who’da thunk the freedoms of cinema (over kid-vid Saturday morning TV) meant mecha mortality.

And here are the new toys (er, characters) The Movie establishes: Hot Rod, Kup, Bluur, Arcee, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Wreck-Gar, Wheely, Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject, Rewind, the Sharkticons. (God, these names!) I get all this info from outside research, because there’s nothing in the film which makes it remotely that clear. Plus, certain former characters aren’t quite killed, but rather “promoted” into “new” consumer-dictated figurines: Megatron becomes Galvatron, and some other misspellings change as well.

And there’s something called the Matrix of Leadership, and I’m sure it makes sense if I could parse out its exposition over the cock rock. As it is, that just sounds like some phraseology from a business retreat.


“More than meets the eye.” “Robots in disguise.” The central concept of “Transformers” isn’t anathema to something a little less batshit nutsazoid. Robots hidden among us…this opens up a rich fantasy reverie, and is obviously the engine behind the ongoing franchise. Too bad the facts of toy production dictate continuous elaboration, which turns – in no time flat! – into lunacy. To capture a new market share, Hasbro invented new sub-lines of Transformers such as the Insecticons or the…er, the Dinosauriconobotics. (Sorry, “Dinobots.”) Also the Constructicons, and probably something called the Comiconitrons.

So…giant robots morphing into giant dinosaurs. It’s cool, in that reductive, maniac sort of way, but these ideas do rather undercut believability. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this overstuffed world was/is the appeal. Maybe it’s more fun to see gigantic robots on alien planets, where their scale is equivalent to the local architecture, as opposed to on Earth where they look massive. All these things which alienate me, which make me hear farting noises, could be what’s fun about the brand.

And moving on briefly beyond The Movie…“The Transformers” continued on TV for two more seasons. Assorted spinoffs then emerged in Japan, but we expect the Japanese to do silly things to begin with. The line bifurcated within the U.S. as well, creating numerous new animated shows and toy lines and comic book continuities, all distinct from each other, except when they’re not. To wit, there’s “Beast Wars,” “Robots in Disguise,” “Armada,” “Energon,” “Cyberton,” and something simply called “Transformers: Animated,” even though all of those are animated. And those are just – I think – the shows. All hail Hasbro, which develops ideas like tumors! Each new line is a chance for new customers – renewing a fan base is one approach, unlike most series which try to maintain a single audience long term.

And then there’s the live action franchise, which is a separate bag of bolts…

Transformers, No. 1 - The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

It is every film blogger’s occasional joy to run across a complete blind spot. Given my age, interests, and the never-ending rants of the ever-expanding nerds I went to college with, I am somehow a deeply lesser human being for having never seen The Transformers: The Movie – to go by the nerds’ wizened jabberings, the single greatest animated film conceivable.

Actually, I had next to nothing to do with the Transformers brand growing up, except for a few toys I think I must’ve burgled from somebody. But do not weep for a childhood that never happened, because every young boy has two possible career options: be a giant truck, or a dinosaur. I was a dinosaur. My hosannas then and now go out to the almighty Turtles – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the layman. That’s when I wasn’t intentionally wrecking my childhood with R-rated junk instead (e.g. RoboCop), so a single cartoon utterance of “Oh shit!” probably wouldn’t have even phased me.


Time to do my penance for pop cultural ignorance, and probe this Transformers trend…

It all began as a toy! In an eternal tale of inspiration, in 1984 Hasbro proved Orwell right and acquired preexisting molds from Japan (MicroChange, which spun-off from Diaclone, which spun-off from Microman, which spun-off from G.I. Joe). The toys: robots which could transform. Hasbro’s witty contribution was to call said transformers “Transmorphers” – er, no, “Transformers.”

Largish robots that can turn into cars, and vice versa – it’s a truck enthusiast’s automotive wet dream. To fuel and overwrite children’s playtime fantasies, Hasbro commissioned a story for their semi-Japanese-ish car-bot-itrons. These guys were involved: Jim Shooter, Dennis O’Neil, Bob Budiansky. (Through advance research, it seems I am a worthless scrap of meat for not knowing that a priori.) Thus there are two robot factions, the Autobots and the Decepticons, who battle each other…over energy resources. Despite seemingly interchangeable tactics, one side is good and angelic, and the other side as evil as Pazuzu. The Decepticons, because their innate ancestral name sounds like the English Earth word “deceive,” are the “bad” ones. And…let the hyperactive schoolboys choose their allegiances!


The toy line lead swiftly to a TV show, “The Transformers” (“Fight! Super Robot Life Form Transformer” in Japan, which is an infinitely cooler name). Plus, such publicity leads to more toys purchased, which a cynic without a childhood to rape (i.e. me) would point to as the ultimate goal. For this great mid-‘80s renaissance of product promotional programming, we can thank regulators for lifting a previous ban on such glorious capitalism. (Thanks to “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,” because you cannot oppose crass marketing in light of such patriotism!)

The show, by all evidence, explores the war twixt Autobots and Decepticons over the planet Cybertron. It is contemporarily set, with scant Earth humans from the Witwicky family in there not to be further toys (though who really knows), but to entice those weirdos not auto(bot)matically interested in robots. Robo-wise, the cast is massive, to reflect each and every toy available for purchase at your local participating toy emporium: Optimus Prime, Brawn, Bluestreak, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Gears, Hound, Huffer, Ironhide, Jazz, Mirage, Prowl, Ratchet, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Wheeljack, Windcharger, Hauler, and those are only the good guys, and only from the pilot.


Imagine now, as we artlessly jump ahead to 1986’s big damn theatrical The Transformers: The Movie, an uninformed viewer suddenly plunged into a universe more overloaded than the one outlined above. This is the effect of attempting to watch The Movie now without proper grounding. As animated by Japan’s Toei (though an English-language American release), the Transformers characters are…difficult to tell apart. The movie makes no appeals to newbies, no effort at introductions or explanations. It is mostly by color that I can pick out at least the most important characters (Optimus, Megatron, Hot Rod, Starscream)…though one could complain similarly about the Turtles, I suppose.

The voice cast is really show-offy – among others, Peter Cullen, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Frank Welker, Eric Idle – in perhaps an effort to create some personality distinction. For whatever reason, the DVD’s vocal synch doesn’t work, so this one is screwed up – with hilarious results! Plus, stiff robot faces aren’t the most expressive, so it’s hard sometimes to know which head is yakking anyway.

I feel rather like Stan in “South Park’s” recent “You’re Getting Old” – exposed to entertainment so clearly not meant for me, as it’s both juvenile and instantly time-stamped. Everything throughout feels like the same bombastic visual and aural noise (no, I’m not yet reviewing the Michael Bay efforts). The Movie is no doubt designed for those consumers already initiated in the “Transformers” world – the “Generation 1” world specifically, though they didn’t know that at the time.


The animation is the perfect representative of “Super Robot Seizure Happy Time Hour” – flashing lights and visual dissonance, done with admittedly some budget for a mid-level Japanese 1986 production, but wholly cluttered to behold.

The soundtrack is inundated with period power ballads, and assorted sub-New Wave synth what-have-you. “The Touch,” Stan Bush’s central tune (originally meant, amusingly, for Stallone’s Cobra), is the sort of inspirational pap Daniel La Russo wouldn’t be caught dead training to. Plus, it’s sorta awesome. The entirety of every scene is pumped to full volume with it and similar noise, forever overpowering the hard efforts of the voice cast. (To say nothing of including “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Dare to be Stupid,” which I like – because it’s “Weird Al” – but is wholly out-of-place near the climax of a self-serious American mecha monstrosity.)

Individually, the story works just like the songs or the visuals – that is, at 11, independently trying to overwhelm the senses with so much spectacle and event and detail that one is never able to get a grasp of what exactly is happening. Or at any rate, my laid back adult mind cannot do this – The whole of The Movie plays like the fever sugar rush babbling of an explosion-happy six-year-old, which no doubt explains its appeal to those who were that age in that year…a limited, niche audience, to be sure.


Here’s what I could figure out: The always-hungry, planet-devouring Unicron (voiced by the similarly omnivorous Orson Welles, who then died) threatens to destroy the peaceful tranquility of the Autobot-Decepticon war. It is also the distant future year of 2005 now, allowing for a heady combination of robots and hoverboards and prophetic Bush satire (okay, only the first two).

Meanwhile…okay, I think it’s all action sequences from here on out. Anyway, assorted cartoon robots launch special effects towards each other, eventually Unicron is turned into something else all explodey, and…a whole shitload of main characters die!


Okay, The Movie is famous for decimating the “Transformers” lineup, in a cruel act of attrition which utterly devastated many ‘80s boys – Imagine if you first learned about death through the passing of Optimus Prime. Seen in isolation, and with recourse to other period anime features with more decidedly mature tones, one (myself) barely grasps the gravity of all this. Part of it is…I sometimes cannot tell if someone is dying. Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with my brain, that the boundless, uncontrolled energy of The Movie is more confusing than the zanier efforts of a Lynch or a Cronenberg.

Besides, going in I already understood the true motive behind animated mass murder: TOYS! The Transformers: The Movie was put out in the summer between the second and third seasons of the TV show, which is a familiar pattern for – yes – the era’s anime films. (See, e.g., “InuYasha.”) The Movie is subservient to the show, which is subservient to the toy line – and toy lines must renew themselves with time, lest the eternal capitalist impulse dry up without new products. So while artistically the show might’ve wished to continue developing its established cast, each new toy means a new character, and it demands the removal of an old character.


So The Movie is really a filmed product announcement, one you have to pay to see. Only no child heading into theaters knew this – they simply knew they’d be seeing their favorite soulless robot heroes in a glorified adventure. Who’da thunk the freedoms of cinema (over kid-vid Saturday morning TV) meant mecha mortality.

And here are the new toys (er, characters) The Movie establishes: Hot Rod, Kup, Bluur, Arcee, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Wreck-Gar, Wheely, Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject, Rewind, the Sharkticons. (God, these names!) I get all this info from outside research, because there’s nothing in the film which makes it remotely that clear. Plus, certain former characters aren’t quite killed, but rather “promoted” into “new” consumer-dictated figurines: Megatron becomes Galvatron, and some other misspellings change as well.

And there’s something called the Matrix of Leadership, and I’m sure it makes sense if I could parse out its exposition over the cock rock. As it is, that just sounds like some phraseology from a business retreat.


“More than meets the eye.” “Robots in disguise.” The central concept of “Transformers” isn’t anathema to something a little less batshit nutsazoid. Robots hidden among us…this opens up a rich fantasy reverie, and is obviously the engine behind the ongoing franchise. Too bad the facts of toy production dictate continuous elaboration, which turns – in no time flat! – into lunacy. To capture a new market share, Hasbro invented new sub-lines of Transformers such as the Insecticons or the…er, the Dinosauriconobotics. (Sorry, “Dinobots.”) Also the Constructicons, and probably something called the Comiconitrons.

So…giant robots morphing into giant dinosaurs. It’s cool, in that reductive, maniac sort of way, but these ideas do rather undercut believability. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this overstuffed world was/is the appeal. Maybe it’s more fun to see gigantic robots on alien planets, where their scale is equivalent to the local architecture, as opposed to on Earth where they look massive. All these things which alienate me, which make me hear farting noises, could be what’s fun about the brand.

And moving on briefly beyond The Movie…“The Transformers” continued on TV for two more seasons. Assorted spinoffs then emerged in Japan, but we expect the Japanese to do silly things to begin with. The line bifurcated within the U.S. as well, creating numerous new animated shows and toy lines and comic book continuities, all distinct from each other, except when they’re not. To wit, there’s “Beast Wars,” “Robots in Disguise,” “Armada,” “Energon,” “Cyberton,” and something simply called “Transformers: Animated,” even though all of those are animated. And those are just – I think – the shows. All hail Hasbro, which develops ideas like tumors! Each new line is a chance for new customers – renewing a fan base is one approach, unlike most series which try to maintain a single audience long term.

And then there’s the live action franchise, which is a separate bag of bolts…

Urusei Yatsura, No. 6 - Urusei Yatsura 6: Always My Darling (1991)

The various “Urusei Yatsura” media ended from the mid- to late-‘80s, and not all at once. And not due to unpopularity or unprofitability or any of those series-killing notions. Nope, they ended simply because the series was over.

Recall, Rumiko Takahashi created “Urusei Yatsura” as a manga, and brought it to a definite conclusion in 1987 – as definite as any endlessly-perpetuating story without a decisive arc can have. While the TV show had already ended in ‘86 – having dried up the existing manga stories to date – the animation crew reconvened to churn out the theatrical Final Chapter…thus ending the film series as well. With this film doubling as a series finale for the TV show, every facet of “Urusei” enjoyed a thematically whole conclusion, with a story coming full circle by paralleling the first entry.


But demand still existed – this is that sort of crazy, devoted fandom Kazuo Yamazaki railed against so incomprehensibly in Lum the Forever. Hence, in a strange post-franchise purgatory, animation continued, flooding the market with “Urusei Yatsura” OVAs (Original Video Animations). These sated audience interest, and better yet, could turn a pretty profit. Good on Japanese fandom for supporting direct-to-video even in the 1980s! Under the guidance of Satoshi Dezaki, director of The Final Chapter, the “Urusei” OVAs are as follows:

• “Ryoko’s September Tea Party” (1985)
• “Memorial Album” (1986)
• “Inaba the Dreammaker” (1987)
• “Raging Sherbet” (1988)
• “Nagisa’s Fiancé” (1988)
• “The Electric Household Guard” (1989)
• “I Howl at the Moon” (1989)
• “Goat and Cheese” (1989)
• “Catch the Heart” (1990)
• “Date with a Spirit” (1990)

(This ignores a completely atypical outlier, 2008’s “The Obstacle Course Swim Meet.”)

Each of these so-called OVAs received limited theatrical release prior to home purchase (to improve their word-of-mouth, no doubt), making them not genuine OVAs. By many of my franchise definitions, this’d qualify them for series consideration, however…however the Japanese fandom doesn’t consider them official entries, so I’m saved from a week’s worth of mediocre movie watching.


Rather, the one last official theatrical Urusei Yatsura, Part Six, came about in 1991 as a capstone to the OVA “series.” Always My Darling thus invalidates The Final Chapter’s finality, except...except it seems Japanese audiences again have a slightly different conception of how these things work. Though it’s No. 6, and The Final Chapter is No. 5, The Final Chapter is still somehow the final entry. By this they mean it remains, in the Urusei timeline, the last story chronologically, making Always My Darling an awkward, awkward interquel, an original story wedged into a continuity it never previously existed in.


There’s a few problems here: Urusei Yatsura hasn’t enough of a continuous arc (like in the sense of the Star Wars trilogies) for a timeline to even matter. Ataru and Lum, the series’ central couple, are always together, are always seventeen-years-old. It’s like trying to force a later season “Simpsons” episode earlier into the timeline – none of that really matters in such an episodic series. The Final Chapter’s finality has mostly to do that, in our timeline, it was the last! It was thematically conclusive, whatever your opinion of it, causing any attempted follow-up to be a greedy, unwanted addition – by definition.

Always My Darling tries to get around this accusation of pointlessness by a technicality. See, it isn’t a sequel, or whatever, it’s a “ten year anniversary special.” Buh?! (That’s ten years since the show, not the manga.) Now…I’m not sure what a proper cinematic “anniversary special” would look like – the best I can come up with is some damned variety stage show, or something that’d be nowadays relegated to a DVD extra (something the OVAs could surely have accommodated) – but Always My Darling certainly ain’t it. It’s actually just another damned Urusei Yatsura story, with nothing in it of any importance.


This is actually a very generic Urusei effort, the most obviously formulaic of the bunch. Fans often call it the worst of the theatrical series, owing largely to the problems of its very existence. Otherwise, it’s the worst just because it’s thoroughly without zest. It’s boring! We lose the satire of Only You and Remember My Love, or the auteurist lunacy of Beautiful Dreamer or Lum the Forever, and without those grace notes, it’s amazingly only by Part Six, the actual final entry, that the Urusei Yatsura formula becomes inescapable:

It all revolves around a Love Triangle of the Day. Some never-before-heard-of humanoid space alien takes romantic claim of Ataru and/or Lum, forcing a rescue mission. In every instance, resolution comes from finding this newbie alien his/her own lover closer to home, at which point Ataru and Lum can reunite and live happily ever after, until the next photocopied incident of the same.


The specifics of Always My Darling are thus merely fill-in-the-blanks. And here they are.

The meddling interloper: Princess Lupika, Royal Princess of the Universe (this designation serves no purpose).

The target: Ataru, seeing as the villainess is female.

The interloper’s actual, film-ending love interest: Leo, the tofu salesman. Yes, this profession is as arbitrary as it sounds.

And really, that’s it. What other wrinkles My Darling possesses come from Lupika’s motivations, which aren’t simply matrimony to Ataru (it’s already pretty damn hard to credit that a universe’s worth of comely teenaged space-babes would take a liking to that tactless letch). Rather, Lupika seeks a love potion (#9), with which to win over Leo. Actually, she and Leo both already know they’re in love; it’s only Lupika’s royal title which keeps them apart, making the film’s ultimate conclusion stupid and inevitable and obvious.


Now, Ataru alone can obtain this Love Potion, held in the Crystal Jar, guarded by the Universe’s God of Lust, held upon Planet Holy Temple. Yeah. This is because he, Ataru, is the most lustful creature in the universe – “This guy possesses awe-inspiring lust.” This is the lone interesting idea My Darling possesses, a new exaggeration on Ataru’s eternal horniness (which manifested itself in Part One, Only You, as a desire for a harem made of every woman in existence, leaving them with nowhere much to go). Too bad this horny superpower is good only for getting Ataru through a pastiche of Indy-tech traps stolen from Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade (that one most blatantly, with the same damn invisible bridge Mr. Jones once crossed).

Then Ataru accidently guzzles the Love Potion, and falls helplessly in love…with Lupika. This, around halfway point, transforms Ataru (the series’ most interesting character) into a mere plot device, a complete imbecile capable of nothing more than rolling around and screaming “Lupiiiiiiiiiiiiika!” in a tone which rivals Jerry Lewis.

The rest of the story, about Lum’s quest to find a love antidote, isn’t even worth recounting.


Director Katsuhisa Yamada (“Gatchaman,” “Marzinger Z,” “Devil Hunter Yohko”) has no apparent interest in the material. This is an issue which has come up before, as the Urusei helmers are often at odds with the satirical intent behind Takahashi’s manga. Mamoru Oshii was in similar straits, for instance, yet he was able to effectively make the series work for him as a personalized canvas. Such a possibility doesn’t exist for Yamada, because there is no apparent intent to move any further with Urusei Yatsura after Always My Darling (“always” indeed!). This is apparently just a one-off, a cash-grab, with no greater relevance to the series as a whole, and no relevance even to its double bill partner, Ranma ½ (another adaptation of a Takahashi manga – yeesh these things are getting incestuous!).

The “Urusei Yatsura” characters were never terribly deep or multi-faceted. This is not a problem. They were founded as arch exaggerations of lechery (Ataru) and devotion (Lum), meant to deconstruct Japanese gender politics in general. Such a premise doesn’t lend itself to eternal franchising, like say the two-dimensional characters of “The Simpsons” – that program can respond endlessly to changing culture. It’s outward looking, while “Urusei Yatsura” is inward looking, with a much more specific target, and thus with a limited lifespan. And it had satisfied that lifespan, with all (or most) creative members moving on to new projects long before Always My Darling got farted out.

Urusei Yatsura, No. 6 - Urusei Yatsura 6: Always My Darling (1991)

The various “Urusei Yatsura” media ended from the mid- to late-‘80s, and not all at once. And not due to unpopularity or unprofitability or any of those series-killing notions. Nope, they ended simply because the series was over.

Recall, Rumiko Takahashi created “Urusei Yatsura” as a manga, and brought it to a definite conclusion in 1987 – as definite as any endlessly-perpetuating story without a decisive arc can have. While the TV show had already ended in ‘86 – having dried up the existing manga stories to date – the animation crew reconvened to churn out the theatrical Final Chapter…thus ending the film series as well. With this film doubling as a series finale for the TV show, every facet of “Urusei” enjoyed a thematically whole conclusion, with a story coming full circle by paralleling the first entry.


But demand still existed – this is that sort of crazy, devoted fandom Kazuo Yamazaki railed against so incomprehensibly in Lum the Forever. Hence, in a strange post-franchise purgatory, animation continued, flooding the market with “Urusei Yatsura” OVAs (Original Video Animations). These sated audience interest, and better yet, could turn a pretty profit. Good on Japanese fandom for supporting direct-to-video even in the 1980s! Under the guidance of Satoshi Dezaki, director of The Final Chapter, the “Urusei” OVAs are as follows:

• “Ryoko’s September Tea Party” (1985)
• “Memorial Album” (1986)
• “Inaba the Dreammaker” (1987)
• “Raging Sherbet” (1988)
• “Nagisa’s Fiancé” (1988)
• “The Electric Household Guard” (1989)
• “I Howl at the Moon” (1989)
• “Goat and Cheese” (1989)
• “Catch the Heart” (1990)
• “Date with a Spirit” (1990)

(This ignores a completely atypical outlier, 2008’s “The Obstacle Course Swim Meet.”)

Each of these so-called OVAs received limited theatrical release prior to home purchase (to improve their word-of-mouth, no doubt), making them not genuine OVAs. By many of my franchise definitions, this’d qualify them for series consideration, however…however the Japanese fandom doesn’t consider them official entries, so I’m saved from a week’s worth of mediocre movie watching.


Rather, the one last official theatrical Urusei Yatsura, Part Six, came about in 1991 as a capstone to the OVA “series.” Always My Darling thus invalidates The Final Chapter’s finality, except...except it seems Japanese audiences again have a slightly different conception of how these things work. Though it’s No. 6, and The Final Chapter is No. 5, The Final Chapter is still somehow the final entry. By this they mean it remains, in the Urusei timeline, the last story chronologically, making Always My Darling an awkward, awkward interquel, an original story wedged into a continuity it never previously existed in.


There’s a few problems here: Urusei Yatsura hasn’t enough of a continuous arc (like in the sense of the Star Wars trilogies) for a timeline to even matter. Ataru and Lum, the series’ central couple, are always together, are always seventeen-years-old. It’s like trying to force a later season “Simpsons” episode earlier into the timeline – none of that really matters in such an episodic series. The Final Chapter’s finality has mostly to do that, in our timeline, it was the last! It was thematically conclusive, whatever your opinion of it, causing any attempted follow-up to be a greedy, unwanted addition – by definition.

Always My Darling tries to get around this accusation of pointlessness by a technicality. See, it isn’t a sequel, or whatever, it’s a “ten year anniversary special.” Buh?! (That’s ten years since the show, not the manga.) Now…I’m not sure what a proper cinematic “anniversary special” would look like – the best I can come up with is some damned variety stage show, or something that’d be nowadays relegated to a DVD extra (something the OVAs could surely have accommodated) – but Always My Darling certainly ain’t it. It’s actually just another damned Urusei Yatsura story, with nothing in it of any importance.


This is actually a very generic Urusei effort, the most obviously formulaic of the bunch. Fans often call it the worst of the theatrical series, owing largely to the problems of its very existence. Otherwise, it’s the worst just because it’s thoroughly without zest. It’s boring! We lose the satire of Only You and Remember My Love, or the auteurist lunacy of Beautiful Dreamer or Lum the Forever, and without those grace notes, it’s amazingly only by Part Six, the actual final entry, that the Urusei Yatsura formula becomes inescapable:

It all revolves around a Love Triangle of the Day. Some never-before-heard-of humanoid space alien takes romantic claim of Ataru and/or Lum, forcing a rescue mission. In every instance, resolution comes from finding this newbie alien his/her own lover closer to home, at which point Ataru and Lum can reunite and live happily ever after, until the next photocopied incident of the same.


The specifics of Always My Darling are thus merely fill-in-the-blanks. And here they are.

The meddling interloper: Princess Lupika, Royal Princess of the Universe (this designation serves no purpose).

The target: Ataru, seeing as the villainess is female.

The interloper’s actual, film-ending love interest: Leo, the tofu salesman. Yes, this profession is as arbitrary as it sounds.

And really, that’s it. What other wrinkles My Darling possesses come from Lupika’s motivations, which aren’t simply matrimony to Ataru (it’s already pretty damn hard to credit that a universe’s worth of comely teenaged space-babes would take a liking to that tactless letch). Rather, Lupika seeks a love potion (#9), with which to win over Leo. Actually, she and Leo both already know they’re in love; it’s only Lupika’s royal title which keeps them apart, making the film’s ultimate conclusion stupid and inevitable and obvious.


Now, Ataru alone can obtain this Love Potion, held in the Crystal Jar, guarded by the Universe’s God of Lust, held upon Planet Holy Temple. Yeah. This is because he, Ataru, is the most lustful creature in the universe – “This guy possesses awe-inspiring lust.” This is the lone interesting idea My Darling possesses, a new exaggeration on Ataru’s eternal horniness (which manifested itself in Part One, Only You, as a desire for a harem made of every woman in existence, leaving them with nowhere much to go). Too bad this horny superpower is good only for getting Ataru through a pastiche of Indy-tech traps stolen from Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade (that one most blatantly, with the same damn invisible bridge Mr. Jones once crossed).

Then Ataru accidently guzzles the Love Potion, and falls helplessly in love…with Lupika. This, around halfway point, transforms Ataru (the series’ most interesting character) into a mere plot device, a complete imbecile capable of nothing more than rolling around and screaming “Lupiiiiiiiiiiiiika!” in a tone which rivals Jerry Lewis.

The rest of the story, about Lum’s quest to find a love antidote, isn’t even worth recounting.


Director Katsuhisa Yamada (“Gatchaman,” “Marzinger Z,” “Devil Hunter Yohko”) has no apparent interest in the material. This is an issue which has come up before, as the Urusei helmers are often at odds with the satirical intent behind Takahashi’s manga. Mamoru Oshii was in similar straits, for instance, yet he was able to effectively make the series work for him as a personalized canvas. Such a possibility doesn’t exist for Yamada, because there is no apparent intent to move any further with Urusei Yatsura after Always My Darling (“always” indeed!). This is apparently just a one-off, a cash-grab, with no greater relevance to the series as a whole, and no relevance even to its double bill partner, Ranma ½ (another adaptation of a Takahashi manga – yeesh these things are getting incestuous!).

The “Urusei Yatsura” characters were never terribly deep or multi-faceted. This is not a problem. They were founded as arch exaggerations of lechery (Ataru) and devotion (Lum), meant to deconstruct Japanese gender politics in general. Such a premise doesn’t lend itself to eternal franchising, like say the two-dimensional characters of “The Simpsons” – that program can respond endlessly to changing culture. It’s outward looking, while “Urusei Yatsura” is inward looking, with a much more specific target, and thus with a limited lifespan. And it had satisfied that lifespan, with all (or most) creative members moving on to new projects long before Always My Darling got farted out.

Urusei Yatsura, No. 5 - Urusei Yatsura 5: The Final Chapter (1988)

Going into the fifth Urusei Yatsura movie, expecting the unexpected, what I got was indeed the last thing I expected following film after film of franchise-challenging craziness: A perfectly normal, nay boring, entry.

Oh, there’s a very good reason for how staid and basic Part Five is, and that can be found in its title: The Final Chapter. The TV show itself ceased production two years earlier, in 1986, alongside the insane and off-putting Lum the Forever. This was premature, as Rumiko Takahashi’s manga fueling the show persisted until 1987 – a solid decade run. And the manga ended with a definitive final story, so for the first time in Urusei theatrical films, Kitty Films adapts an actual Takahashi tale, rather than devising something whole cloth. Thus The Final Chapter misses out on the bizarre auteurist flights of fancy which fueled its theatrical predecessors. On the flipside, it lacks a certain inspiration, as director Satoshi Dezaki presents perfectly competent visuals without the edge of surrealism that has come to define the franchise.

More than any other movie, The Final Chapter is a part of the TV show – which I haven’t exposed myself to at all. Think of it as the series finale, at feature length.


It’s a simple story, by Urusei Yatsura standards, and one we’ve seen variations on before. Basically, one half of the Ataru, Lum romantic partnering gets mixed up with an outside suitor, love is tested, and the duo remains together by story’s end. Familiarity isn’t an issue, as the joy to be had here – more than in any entry other than Part One, Only You – is simply spending time with the characters. This is more the focus than ever, in fact, with this being the last story. Without ever overwhelming you or being excessively impressive, The Final Chapter gives Lum, Ataru and their multitudes of friends each a final, decisive moment.

Like a variation on Only You, conflict comes of a marriage arrangement made long in the past…only this one concerns anime ultra-babe Lum instead of horndog screw-up Ataru. Actually, it isn’t even her fault – a clear contrast with Ataru indeed! Rather, Lum’s great-grandfather essentially betroved her away 120 years ago…well, betroved his first female descendant, at any rate, and due to some strange alien genetic deficiencies, it took four generations to get there. But the time has come, and Lum is claimed by Inaba, ruler of the World of Darkness. Yes, that’s the villain.


Well, Inaba was the guy gramps first made his deal with. With so much time past now, he’s in no position to marry some superpowered space chick. That’ll be his distant descendant as well, Rupa. Rupa, like all from his race (oh, right, like all sci-fi anime, Urusei Yatsura concerns planet-wide races that are strangely compatible), is dark skinned and dresses like a Bedouin. Yeah, they’re basically Arabs, these villains, and I’m not about to explore the implications there, because I’m not sure how it’d play in Japan.

What follows is, for a good long while, so standard, this summary is gonna be even swifter. Ataru joins up with Lum’s fellow Oni space pals, and the group heads out to the World of Darkness to prevent a wedding. It’s so very much of a piece with Only You, only somehow less engaging – Could be because Ataru makes for a more interesting groom/victim than Lum does a bride/hostage. Could also be a reduction in satiric intent, making The Final Chapter a rather more straight story, but still filled with the degree of comic, fantastical nonsense you’d come to expect from a Japanese cartoon.


Actually, there are further minor details which indicate what’s unique here. For one thing, I feel bad having called the…Darians, I guess they’re called…I feel bad having called them villains, for they aren’t really. Rupa, despite a lifelong infatuation with Lum (which he shares with literally every male in this franchise, frankly) is rather more conflicted and soulful than your standard “wedding-crazed princess kidnapper.” For one thing, he has his own Lummish counterpart here in the World of Darkness – that’d be Carla, another Space Arab, who feels betrayed by Rupa. The plot’s resolution hinges upon these two coming to love each other again, thus releasing Lum so she and Ataru can reconnect.

Not too interesting, huh? I mean, it says nothing of our central characters, except as a parallel. Naturally, then, a love quadrangle rises up along the way, with both Ataru and Lum falling for a Space Arab – Carla and Rupa, respectively. Though in Lum’s case that was just a robot clone, so she remains unblemished as an ideal.

Still, the whole Rupa plot more or less resolves itself around halfway, but with a major effect: Seeing his latest flirtations with Carla, Lum now doubts Ataru’s love for her (Lum). Okay, that’s no big deal – it’s as minor really as whenever it seems Homer and Marge might break up. Ain’t gonna happen!


But here comes that which makes The Final Chapter truly conclusive! Events transpire as fallout from this latest romantic schism, events which create a nice parallel for the very first episode! Having done at least some research into the wider franchise, and having seen some flashbacks embedded in the other movies, I know what that original scenario was: Lum’s alien race attempted to invade Earth, but the invasion was called off when Ataru challenged Lum to a game of tag, and won by grabbing onto her horns. (Look, just go with it.) So what better way to end a story like this than by creating a similar predicament, a new game of tag, to ultimately resolve the duo’s relationship?

Cause and effect wise, the scenario comes courtesy of the World of Darkness. At some stage during the earlier kidnapping plot, Carla visits Earth, scoping out what being Ataru’s wife just might be like (she isn’t intrigued further). (In)conveniently, she has some stray mushrooms in her pocket at the time – the chief flora of the World of Darkness (so much that the Space Arabs even dress their spaceships up to look like shrooms – not sure what sort of racial commentary is goin’ on here. And Carla’s mushrooms get out of hand, like in a good ‘50s B-movie, growing quicker than a pubescent male, until all of the Earth is destined to be covered in tasty fungi.


Rupa alone holds the solution, that being his pack of ravenous, mushroom-hungry pigs. (It’s amazing that all these plot developments come across as perfectly sane while watching – and compared to the rest of the franchise, they are sane!) Lum still holds sway over Rupa, so it’s she who ultimately decides if Earth is to be de-shroomified.

As per her strange arbitrary space culture, that decision is to be made in a ten-day-long game of tag. Her opponent? Ataru. Actually, this seems like a lot of narrative work to randomly insert a round of Olympic-level tag into the finale, but thus is how these things go.

We’re assured, given Lum’s increased omnipotence this time out, that there’s no way Ataru’s gonna win this game and touch her horns – not sure now if “horns” in this sense have anything to do with ancient notions of “cuckoldry.” But Lum gives Ataru an “out.” She’ll let him win, if he can do one simple thing…

He must say “I love you.”


Oh geez, this is that same stupid “character arc” which made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen slightly stupider still than it already was. Though actually it’s a lot more pertinent to Ataru – who, to no one’s surprise, is thoroughly unable to say this simple phrase, the nearest The Final Chapter comes to romantic satire. This is the ultimate test to see if he’s progressed at all as a character in the years we’ve known him.

Naturally, Ataru will succeed in the end, leaving the story to conceivably continue ad infinitum, even while we’ve reached the thematic end. There was never really any suspense that they’d actually end his partnership with Lum, though they do toy with what exactly that might mean.


The Reset Button is played with pretty heavily, mostly as a gag. And they mean a complete Reset Button, as Lum’s parents – for random, arbitrary motivations, from what I recall – decide that should Ataru fail in his three-syllable utterance, they’re use this big honking Memory Machine to erase all of the Earth’s memories of Lum. That means, essentially, it’ll be like the series had never happened – never mind the cosmic passage of time (time as a force holds little power in this series), and also never mind, I suppose, the mass of mushrooms now choking away all life on this planet.

Anyway, the point is, they’re really playing around with the implications of finality here.


Would that there was more to comment upon with The Final Chapter, but it doesn’t do a whole lot that’s specifically interesting. It’s curious, I suppose, how it plays with the conditions of the series as a whole, but these movies have previously been far more playful with their own fictionality. (Given their strangeness, Lum the Forever and Beautiful Dreamer are much more experimental in how they regard Urusei Yatsura.)

I guess it’s telling that, though this derives directly from Takahashi’s work, she still calls Only You (an original work for theaters) the movie closest to her tone. That tone is strangely, anemically absent from The Final Chapter. That tone is a little more archly playful, more satirical and slapstick and removed, without ever being even remotely cynical (not in a series which traffics in lovey-dovey imagery).

And it’s an unstated rule of film franchises that no movie called The Final Chapter ever is. I mean, look at Friday the 13th, look at Shrek. Indeed, this isn’t the end of Urusei Yatsura.

Urusei Yatsura, No. 5 - Urusei Yatsura 5: The Final Chapter (1988)

Going into the fifth Urusei Yatsura movie, expecting the unexpected, what I got was indeed the last thing I expected following film after film of franchise-challenging craziness: A perfectly normal, nay boring, entry.

Oh, there’s a very good reason for how staid and basic Part Five is, and that can be found in its title: The Final Chapter. The TV show itself ceased production two years earlier, in 1986, alongside the insane and off-putting Lum the Forever. This was premature, as Rumiko Takahashi’s manga fueling the show persisted until 1987 – a solid decade run. And the manga ended with a definitive final story, so for the first time in Urusei theatrical films, Kitty Films adapts an actual Takahashi tale, rather than devising something whole cloth. Thus The Final Chapter misses out on the bizarre auteurist flights of fancy which fueled its theatrical predecessors. On the flipside, it lacks a certain inspiration, as director Satoshi Dezaki presents perfectly competent visuals without the edge of surrealism that has come to define the franchise.

More than any other movie, The Final Chapter is a part of the TV show – which I haven’t exposed myself to at all. Think of it as the series finale, at feature length.


It’s a simple story, by Urusei Yatsura standards, and one we’ve seen variations on before. Basically, one half of the Ataru, Lum romantic partnering gets mixed up with an outside suitor, love is tested, and the duo remains together by story’s end. Familiarity isn’t an issue, as the joy to be had here – more than in any entry other than Part One, Only You – is simply spending time with the characters. This is more the focus than ever, in fact, with this being the last story. Without ever overwhelming you or being excessively impressive, The Final Chapter gives Lum, Ataru and their multitudes of friends each a final, decisive moment.

Like a variation on Only You, conflict comes of a marriage arrangement made long in the past…only this one concerns anime ultra-babe Lum instead of horndog screw-up Ataru. Actually, it isn’t even her fault – a clear contrast with Ataru indeed! Rather, Lum’s great-grandfather essentially betroved her away 120 years ago…well, betroved his first female descendant, at any rate, and due to some strange alien genetic deficiencies, it took four generations to get there. But the time has come, and Lum is claimed by Inaba, ruler of the World of Darkness. Yes, that’s the villain.


Well, Inaba was the guy gramps first made his deal with. With so much time past now, he’s in no position to marry some superpowered space chick. That’ll be his distant descendant as well, Rupa. Rupa, like all from his race (oh, right, like all sci-fi anime, Urusei Yatsura concerns planet-wide races that are strangely compatible), is dark skinned and dresses like a Bedouin. Yeah, they’re basically Arabs, these villains, and I’m not about to explore the implications there, because I’m not sure how it’d play in Japan.

What follows is, for a good long while, so standard, this summary is gonna be even swifter. Ataru joins up with Lum’s fellow Oni space pals, and the group heads out to the World of Darkness to prevent a wedding. It’s so very much of a piece with Only You, only somehow less engaging – Could be because Ataru makes for a more interesting groom/victim than Lum does a bride/hostage. Could also be a reduction in satiric intent, making The Final Chapter a rather more straight story, but still filled with the degree of comic, fantastical nonsense you’d come to expect from a Japanese cartoon.


Actually, there are further minor details which indicate what’s unique here. For one thing, I feel bad having called the…Darians, I guess they’re called…I feel bad having called them villains, for they aren’t really. Rupa, despite a lifelong infatuation with Lum (which he shares with literally every male in this franchise, frankly) is rather more conflicted and soulful than your standard “wedding-crazed princess kidnapper.” For one thing, he has his own Lummish counterpart here in the World of Darkness – that’d be Carla, another Space Arab, who feels betrayed by Rupa. The plot’s resolution hinges upon these two coming to love each other again, thus releasing Lum so she and Ataru can reconnect.

Not too interesting, huh? I mean, it says nothing of our central characters, except as a parallel. Naturally, then, a love quadrangle rises up along the way, with both Ataru and Lum falling for a Space Arab – Carla and Rupa, respectively. Though in Lum’s case that was just a robot clone, so she remains unblemished as an ideal.

Still, the whole Rupa plot more or less resolves itself around halfway, but with a major effect: Seeing his latest flirtations with Carla, Lum now doubts Ataru’s love for her (Lum). Okay, that’s no big deal – it’s as minor really as whenever it seems Homer and Marge might break up. Ain’t gonna happen!


But here comes that which makes The Final Chapter truly conclusive! Events transpire as fallout from this latest romantic schism, events which create a nice parallel for the very first episode! Having done at least some research into the wider franchise, and having seen some flashbacks embedded in the other movies, I know what that original scenario was: Lum’s alien race attempted to invade Earth, but the invasion was called off when Ataru challenged Lum to a game of tag, and won by grabbing onto her horns. (Look, just go with it.) So what better way to end a story like this than by creating a similar predicament, a new game of tag, to ultimately resolve the duo’s relationship?

Cause and effect wise, the scenario comes courtesy of the World of Darkness. At some stage during the earlier kidnapping plot, Carla visits Earth, scoping out what being Ataru’s wife just might be like (she isn’t intrigued further). (In)conveniently, she has some stray mushrooms in her pocket at the time – the chief flora of the World of Darkness (so much that the Space Arabs even dress their spaceships up to look like shrooms – not sure what sort of racial commentary is goin’ on here. And Carla’s mushrooms get out of hand, like in a good ‘50s B-movie, growing quicker than a pubescent male, until all of the Earth is destined to be covered in tasty fungi.


Rupa alone holds the solution, that being his pack of ravenous, mushroom-hungry pigs. (It’s amazing that all these plot developments come across as perfectly sane while watching – and compared to the rest of the franchise, they are sane!) Lum still holds sway over Rupa, so it’s she who ultimately decides if Earth is to be de-shroomified.

As per her strange arbitrary space culture, that decision is to be made in a ten-day-long game of tag. Her opponent? Ataru. Actually, this seems like a lot of narrative work to randomly insert a round of Olympic-level tag into the finale, but thus is how these things go.

We’re assured, given Lum’s increased omnipotence this time out, that there’s no way Ataru’s gonna win this game and touch her horns – not sure now if “horns” in this sense have anything to do with ancient notions of “cuckoldry.” But Lum gives Ataru an “out.” She’ll let him win, if he can do one simple thing…

He must say “I love you.”


Oh geez, this is that same stupid “character arc” which made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen slightly stupider still than it already was. Though actually it’s a lot more pertinent to Ataru – who, to no one’s surprise, is thoroughly unable to say this simple phrase, the nearest The Final Chapter comes to romantic satire. This is the ultimate test to see if he’s progressed at all as a character in the years we’ve known him.

Naturally, Ataru will succeed in the end, leaving the story to conceivably continue ad infinitum, even while we’ve reached the thematic end. There was never really any suspense that they’d actually end his partnership with Lum, though they do toy with what exactly that might mean.


The Reset Button is played with pretty heavily, mostly as a gag. And they mean a complete Reset Button, as Lum’s parents – for random, arbitrary motivations, from what I recall – decide that should Ataru fail in his three-syllable utterance, they’re use this big honking Memory Machine to erase all of the Earth’s memories of Lum. That means, essentially, it’ll be like the series had never happened – never mind the cosmic passage of time (time as a force holds little power in this series), and also never mind, I suppose, the mass of mushrooms now choking away all life on this planet.

Anyway, the point is, they’re really playing around with the implications of finality here.


Would that there was more to comment upon with The Final Chapter, but it doesn’t do a whole lot that’s specifically interesting. It’s curious, I suppose, how it plays with the conditions of the series as a whole, but these movies have previously been far more playful with their own fictionality. (Given their strangeness, Lum the Forever and Beautiful Dreamer are much more experimental in how they regard Urusei Yatsura.)

I guess it’s telling that, though this derives directly from Takahashi’s work, she still calls Only You (an original work for theaters) the movie closest to her tone. That tone is strangely, anemically absent from The Final Chapter. That tone is a little more archly playful, more satirical and slapstick and removed, without ever being even remotely cynical (not in a series which traffics in lovey-dovey imagery).

And it’s an unstated rule of film franchises that no movie called The Final Chapter ever is. I mean, look at Friday the 13th, look at Shrek. Indeed, this isn’t the end of Urusei Yatsura.