This is Urusei Yatsura Itself

Translation by: Jon Lyons

When people think of Urusei Yatsura, they think of Lum as being absolutely essential. What kind of role will she be playing in this production? Let's start from there.

Oshii: Well, for that, you really have to get a handle on this girl Lum.

By the way, this time around, at the beginning I eventually decided that I did not understand Lum. So, in order to write her, I had to think from my male perspective, what kind of thoughts would this girl be having, what kind of dreams would she be hoping for, etc. I think that was my limitation.

So from that perspective, thinking of drawing out the interior world, the interior drama, of a girl like Lum was the genesis of “UY2”.

Starting with the presence of Lum, right? How would you say she's tied in to the rest of the story?

Oshii: Lum herself does not actually appear that often. Instead, the world of Urusei Yatsura itself becomes Lum's world, and the setting has been crafted to be Lum's interior self. Or to be more accurate, that's something we can only represent.

Of course, even so, we don't know what a girl that age would be thinking or motivated by.

To think of it in the simplest terms, it's perhaps not about Ataru loving Lum so much as it is Lum's greatest dream being her pursuit of Ataru. So Ataru's going around flirting and their getting into trouble all day is not actually a situation that bothers Lum.

For example, when you're a kid, I feel like the thrill of a field trip was not so much the field trip itself, but the anticipation you feel the night before. So always holding onto that feeling of anticipation that tomorrow is going to be a festival is perhaps Lum's real dream, and to her, that's what the continued pursuit of Ataru is.

I thought maybe it's about holding onto that “eve”. So, in the film, the state of continual festival preparations is the manifestation of Lum's hopes.

About that – Inside the dream, since she loves him, you also had to make Ataru's dream come true, if I'm not mistaken. How did you go about that?

Oshii: Moreso than Ataru's dream, to the extent that I didn't understand what Lum was thinking, I inserted my own dream. ^[1] It's the “survival scenes” in Tomobiki.

I think everyone has thought about it at least once; a fantasy of the city becoming ruins in an instant, and only you and yours left to live in freedom. I wanted to try realizing that in a film. I think humans are definitely enchanted by ruin and finality.

In that case, with the setting created with your and the animators' dreams in mind, it must be a very trying setting for Lum and Ataru.

Oshii: Well, even trapped inside Lum's dream, they're not the type to turn to caution, right?

At base, Ataru, Megane, Mendo and the rest are characters who are not inconvenienced at all by the destruction, and they stubbornly and gleefully continue on in their lifestyles to flourish even more, since, at the core of their consciousness, is the desire to fill themselves up with food and go on dates with pretty girls. So, ironically, I wanted to emphasize that people like that who are overflowing with vitality are actually the strongest.

Lum is like the joint that holds all of them together. If she were to disappear, so would the romatic rivalries, so she's what causes them to rebound off each other and ties everything together.

So I thought Lum herself, when faced with this situation, would be the most lively of them all. After all, she never ultimately had a sense of the need for a day to day lifestyle to answer the challenge of their survival.

I certainly do think Urusei Yatsura has a strong sense of character like that. On that topic, I'd like to know about the guest character in “UY2”, Mujaki.

Oshii: First I'd like to say I really like people, like Ataru's mother, who are an embodiment of the everyday. ^[2] I think people who deal with that have a real strength at their base. In contrast, someone like Mujaki, with what he deals with, doesn't have a tie to a lifestyle or to living, he can only interact with other people's lives. In that sense, I think he is the symbol of this movie itself.

By the way, near the end of the movie, Mujaki says he wants a dream for himself. Is it right to think because of his state, he lost that to the vitality of Ataru and the rest?

Oshii: To tell the truth, I'm not particularly interested in who won and who lost. I wanted to end with showing that what a movie is, at its core, is the victory of dreams. I wanted to leave some room so there could be an excuse for both sides.

About the resemblance of movies and dreams, many film critics have brought that out as a method of inquiry. Is it right to think you had in mind taking on that film/dream comparison when you made “UY2”?

Oshii: Yes, I did have that in mind. ^[3] I've always liked stories about the world of dreams, and we've done it many times in the Urusei Yatsura TV series. It's a classical technique in the making of films, but it's used very often, and there are many films like Brunuel's Un Chien Andalou that deal with dreams. ^[4]

It's been some years now since animated films have become accepted as the equal of traditional movies and not simply stories for children, but what do you think is the role of animation in the current era?

Oshii: I think for movies like this one, that deal with this kind of subject matter, it's an extremely good platform.

When you say platform, you're viewing animation less as something you look at and more of a method?

Oshii: Yes, that is the way I think of it. Since when filming live action, I think there are many subjects that become cheap and hokey, like the parts that are essentially logic, parts made haphazardly, and parts that are incredibly sparse, which can, depending on the pictures, become part of an abstract world, and I want to try to use that advantage.

Also, I think a “dream” movie is a movie about reason. In other words, I think people who don't understand logic can't make a movie about dreams.

At base, animation is made at the level of calculation, management, and abstraction, and so I feel the image supported by the lines and the pictures, containing those attributes, is more suited to a reason-based film.

Depending on how you think about it, animation could then be said to be the most “film-like” of films, then.

Oshii: If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it's the fun of the imaginary-ness of movies themselves, but I think to express the appeal of that imaginary nature of movies, animation might be the best. Of course, I don't particularly care if anyone disagrees with me.

So, to return to the topic of "UY2", since you were working so hard on it on top of your regular work, what do you think went especially well?

Oshii: The work of a director is mostly dealing with staff, so any time I was able to get someone to do something, or make a descision. You could say we already see half our hopes for this movie.

Also, I think the casting for this production went very well.

Finally, I'd like to ask if, as both the writer and the director, if you have any statements about this film.

Oshii: I think it might leave an impression at first glance that this is a special departure even for Urusei Yatsura, but in fact that isn't the case; the result is a pretty straight treatment of Urusei Yatsura the way I think about it.

This isn't a unique example of the story, and definitely not an enigma, but surprisingly a production that directly portrays Urusei Yatsura itself.

So, I feel like we did everything we could do.

Well, thank you for all your hard, tiring work.

Oshii: Thank you. Yes, I'm tired after all. But it's not the exhaustion that comes from normal work, but a feeling of having stretched and challenged myself, so it's a good kind of tired.

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Footnotes

• [1] In 2022 Rumiko Takahashi alluded to Megane serving as part of the motivation and ideas of the anime staff and Mamoru Oshii. Readers are often curious about Takahashi's feelings about Mamoru Oshii's work on Beautiful Dreamer, and his adapatation of Urusei Yatsura. "The Time We Spoke Endlessly About the Things We Loved" and "Three-Way Interview" are two articles that are recommended so that readers can make up their own minds about her feelings in her own words. Additionally in her 35th anniversary interview with Comics Natalie she expresses her enjoyment of Oshii's work, though by contrast in her Italian interview she gave a vague answer that was more negative (though she did not name Oshii or Beautiful Dreamer explicitly).
• [2] Oshii citing Mrs. Moroboshi as being an important character is interesting. Shortly before Beautiful Dreamer was released the television series had one of its most controversial episodes, episode 78 "Pitiful! Mother of Love and Banishment!?". This episode was very divisive in Japan when it first aired given that Mamoru Oshii was severely reprimanded when the episode was submitted. Upper management had warned him that his frequent use of in jokes and references to film and other anime was overdone to such an extent that episodes became meaningless. It was said that a station refused to air this episode but relented due to having nothing else to air in place. The concept of this episode would go on to be an important influence for the second Urusei Yatsura film, Beautiful Dreamer. While many critics disliked the episode many others consider it a masterpiece.
• [3] Viewing the victory of Beautiful Dreamer as a win for the act of filmmaking is interesting. When this interview was given the film had not attained its importance as one of the most critically acclaimed anime films. Interestingly a live action adaptation of the film, that is mostly about the act of trying to make a film (in some way mirroring aspects of the fourth Urusei Yatsura film) was made in 2020.
• [4] Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) is the 1929 surrealist art film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The film consists of a number of juxtaposed scenes without a traditional narrative.

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