Urusei Yatsura Big Research

Translated by: Dylan Acres
Thanks to Mitchell for scans and transcriptions.

Urusei Yatsura is about to start on October 14th, with the cry of "Let's overtake Dr. Slump." ^[1] The popular work from Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday has been made into an anime, and it's also the first work in collaboration with a record company. ^[2] There's been a lot of excitement around the show even before it airs. Now, let's see what kind of work it will be and learn of the much talked about Lum-chan...

1: What the heck is CITY・SF?

The drawing by Akemi Takada and Tatsuo Imamura is just that!

Isn't your first impression of the picture above that "The universe is warm, and it makes you feel happy and refreshed, somehow?" That impression is the essence of the `CITY・SF Anime.' That's what we think at Animage. If we were to explain it in words, we would say, "Lum-chan's sex appeal is not obscene," and "the gags are slapstick." But those are just words. This is a stylish work that will turn the kind of girl who loves tennis and surfing, yet says, "I don't like anime..." into the kind of girl who says "This is the only thing I need to watch." That is "CITY・SF Anime."

A few words from Takada-san (character design) and Imamura-san (art director): "This work has a strong image of flight, so I immediately came up with this composition." (Takada) "It's a work that has a different quality to it. That's why I painted the space in colors that I don't normally use." (Imamura)

2: Why was our anime created?

Urusei Yatsura has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday since September 1978, with Urusei Yatsura appearing regularly in the magazine since September 1981. ^[3] Since then, seven volumes have been published. The number of copies of the book in print is already approaching 2 million. What's more, the manga won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981, which is a bonus. With such an original story, there have been many talks about making the series into an anime. Urusei Yatsura is finally being made into an anime by Studio Pierrot, and its attracting attention from both the anime and television worlds. The original author, Rumiko Takahashi, is a 24-year-old budding mangaka who graduated from the history department at Japan Women's University (日本女子大学/Nihon Joshi Daigaku). As mentioned when she won the Shogakukan Manga Award, Takahashi is said to have an "excellent sense of nonsense and an superb ability to depict the subtleties of the psychology of adolescent boys and girls." She is also the writer of the manga. Makoto Oshima, who works closely with Takahashi and is in charge of Urusei Yatsura in the editorial department of Weekly Shonen Sunday, says about the series: "The appeal of this work is the good tempo and uniqueness of the dialogue. She has something unique about the characters and their reactions (to other characters and the actions around them). That's probably her greatest talent. Therefore, when making it into an anime, I don't want the flow of their conversations and the rhythms of the characters to be compromised at all." But what kind of work will Urusei Yatsura be? Producer Yuji Nunokawa (布川ゆうじ) explains, "The original work has a wide range of fans, from elementary school students to university students, but in the anime, it has been arranged so that even younger children will become familiar with it. Therefore, we decided to introduce the cute side-character, Ten-chan, in a much earlier episode than in the original.”

3: Who is going to work on our anime? Wow, beautiful women!

By the way, when you look at the main staff involved in actually producing this work, there are a lot of young women, but when I first asked Nunokawa-san about the circumstances, he said, "If you look at the original work, it's surprisingly suggestive and risqué, and we didn't want to change anything. I think this is because the author is a woman, so even if she draws some suggestive parts, she can draw them smoothly and without any unpleasantness. If this work were to be animated by a male staff, the animation would simply express the flavor of the work just as directly moving images. As a result, I thought that it might be hard to draw it properly in that sense... However, we mainly selected staff members who had read the original work and wanted to try working on the series. That's why we have a lot of very young staff, and I hope their vitality will come out on the screen." As if in response to his words, episode director Tamiko Kojima (小島多美子), says the following "I draw the storyboards myself, and when I'm drawing I have so much fun that I burst out laughing. I think it'll be a success if that sense of fun comes through on screen."

Good luck young staff, create something for the new era!! (A comment from Hiroshi Sasagawa)

"The last director I directly supervised was (Mamoru) Oshii. ^[4] He always had something different from others, and he always gave each work his own Oshii style. Even in making a single gag, he had a way of making it through calculation and logic. He is now 30 years old... I think it's great that someone from a new era is creating something with a new sensibility. I think it's a great thing, and I hope that people will not be satisfied with themselves, but will serve their customers to the best of their ability."

4: Will you be able to show the speed of the alien invader Lum's movements?

The greatest feature of this work is said to be its fast-paced movement. It has a great sense of speed. How is the sharp movement of Lum in the original work actually expressed? What exactly is the technique of omission? When I asked Oshii-san, the director, he gave me the following reply, "It's very difficult to fully express the sharpness of Lum's movements and the fun of the original story in an 11 minute episode (2 episodes are aired over 30 minutes) using conventional methods. The tempo of a typical gag anime would have been too much. Therefore, we decided to cut out unnecessary images and depict only the parts that we wanted to show first. This is the technique of omission. So, even cuts that were originally thought to be unconnected in animation were connected, and we were prepared to take a few risks." This technique is very effective in using the short time, and it is also very effective in making the movement more sharp and speedy. This means that there are no explanatory cuts, such as the moment when a character falls to the ground, or the scene where he is dressing his wound. In terms of drawing, there are about two scenes in each episode that will use omission techniques. These are said to be the crowd scenes and the speedy scenes of Lum's. "One more characteristic of this work is that it's thoroughly a gag series. In conventional gag animation, when you make a mess, you always have to clean it up at the end. However, this work is based on a nonsense gag series, so there's no need to take responsibility for the gag you created. For example, in the previous episode, the earth explodes, but in the next episode, people are living as if nothing had happened. Thats fine. The question remains, however, to what extent viewers will be able to follow the story." This is an interesting point.

5: How is Darling portrayed? Is he a cheater after all?

Oshii-san's favorite character is Ataru. Oshii-san stated, "I think that Ataru is all about how much you can portray an unfaithful person, in other words, how unprincipled you can be. But I think that in its own way, a flirtatious character must have consistency and presence as a human being. I think that Ataru himself may not have realized this essence of human nature." Furthermore, Oshii-san says that the world of science fiction is the situation, or the stage, in which Ataru and other characters can move freely. "Sci-fi is, of course, an important element. However, this work is strictly a nonsense gag series, and what I want to show is the individuality of the characters. In order to create a freedom that is not bound by the setting, I wanted to create gags that show the relationship between people, rather than showing the sense of space between them as in conventional gag animation. What's a normal, serious thing for the people involved can seem very cocky if there is a slight difference between people. This is what I learned after graduating from my training course." This is the directing policy of Oshii-san, a young director who has a unique background in pursuing this path. One feels like they'll be able to watch a show that will make them feel even more daring than Lum if you watch it with an open mind. The music for this production is by Kitty Music, which includes popular fusion guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka and pioneering singer-songwriter Kei Ogura. In that sense, the soundtrack will be something to look forward to as well. It's a must-listen, must-see program.

That's how the scene with her chest was born!

Anyway, this is a work that has great expectations from those around it. What will happen to the adored Lum-chan in Urusei Yatsura? Before it airs, take a look at the highlight scene of episode 1...

Episode Summaries by Yuji Nunokawa

"Let's talk about the ending of Urusei Yatsura which will appear every Wednesday starting October 14. The ending animation was drawn by Koji Nanke (南家こうじ), a commercial animator. In the picture, Lum dances a samba. However, Nanke-san asked me if I knew anyone who could dance the samba correctly because he did not know the steps, and I asked around. Finally, an acquaintance introduced me to a woman from Costa Rica who was studying abroad. I asked her to come to my office and dance the samba while playing a record. As she danced the samba to the rhythm we filmed her, capturing her in live-action footage. After a lot of hard work, the ending animation was completed. How do you like it? Isn't Lum's samba kick-ass?"

★Highlights★

Episode 1 - I'm Lum the Notorious!

As Ataru is walking aimlessly on the bank of the river, he is taken away by a black limousine. Aliens have come from beyond the galaxy to invade the earth, Ataru has been chosen as the Earthling to fight the Invaders, and his opponent is the glamorous Lum-chan. Ataru and Lum begin to play tag with the fate of the human race at stake.

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Footnotes

• [1] Dr. Slump is the popular anime based on the manga by Akira Toriyama. Urusei Yatsura actually originally aired after Dr. Slump on TV Tokyo, Wednesday nights.
• [2] Kitty Enterprises began as a record company, and Urusei Yatsura is indeed the first its first anime production. For more information on Kitty Enterprises, which would later become Kitty Films, please see our article.
• [3] Urusei Yatsura's early publication history was fairly non-traditional. After the first five chapters were published weekly from August through September of 1978 the sixth chapter was then published in a special issue of Shonen Sunday in October or November. Takahashi then returned in February to continue Urusei Yatsura for approximately ten chapters. This was because Takahashi was still in college at this point in her life. She then returned to Urusei Yatsura through April 1979 before stopping and publishing the five chapter monthly mini-series Dust Spot!! in a special edition of Shonen Sunday. After Dust Spot!! she returned to Urusei Yatsura sporadically until March of 1980 when its continual, regular weekly publication began in earnest. Looking at the publication dates of the chapters in the first two volumes helps clarify this as well as shows that some of the chapters were rearranged from their original publication order.
• [4] Mamoru Oshii got his start as a director on Urusei Yatsura but would go on to direct numerous famous anime films and series. We have numerous interviews archived with him here at the website.

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