Yuyuko Takemiya's says Urusei Yatsura has become her flesh and blood and she loves it all!
Translated by: Harley Acres
“Would you like to write about a work you loved by the time you turned 20?”When I received the request for this essay, the first thing that came to my mind was Urusei Yatsura.
- Let's write. (0.1 seconds)
- Let's write about Urusei. (0.1 seconds)
I made the decision immediately. No wavering or hesitation at all. When and how did I encounter Urusei Yatsura, and what did I love about it? I could write as much as I wanted. Considering the great influence I've received from it through my childhood, adolescence, and up to the present day, there's no other work that should be covered in this essay other than Urusei Yatsura.
Guided by this conviction, I began to write this article, but... I'm now suddenly stuck with something that I didn't anticipate and have paused in my tracks.
I love ...?
I loved, right ...?
Isn't that a past tense statement? I still love it even though I've lived twice as many years as I had since I turned 20. But that's not the point. It's more about the beginning. The basic premise.
Have I ever really thought about whether I like Urusei Yatsura? Did I really love Urusei? For example, suppose someone encounters a fruit called an apple for the first time. What would a person do to determine whether she likes apples?
I'd definitely try picking it up first, I'd take a look. I'd sniff it and then gingerly take a bite. I'd try chewing. I'd try drinking it's juice. In this way, the person would feel that the apple is sweet, that it has a nice texture, that it's red, that it's round, that it feels heavy in their hand, and so on.
Only after going through all of this, can a person make a judgment. I [like/dislike/love/hate/am indifferent to] apples.
In short, I think that deciding whether or not you like someone is the result of analyzing your own reactions to foreign objects that appear outside of your reckoning.
- I like Urusei/I dislike it/I love it/I hate it/It's average.
In the first place, has Urusei ever been a "foreign object that appeared beyond my reckoning"...?
I don't remember when I first learned to read. I don't even remember when I started being able to understand sentences fluently.
I remember that I already had Urusei Yatsura manga when I was in kindergarten. The first book I got was volume 17.
Morning, noon, and night, at home and in kindergarten, Urusei manga were always by my side. In my head, I was living in Tomobiki-cho. Even when I entered elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, all 34 volumes of manga were always lined up on the nearest bookshelf where it was easiest to access.
I've been obsessed with Urusei Yatsura since before I even realized I could read. Before I even knew the difference between myself and others, before my sense of self had taken shape, even before I recognized the structure of the real world surrounding me, I started living in the world of Urusei Yatsura.
That's why even now, high school boys fly in formation above my head, shouting "Blue Impulse!" [1]
Explosions always sound like "chudon"! [2] And when something explodes with a loud sound, and someone is blown away, they go flying with their hands having only the index and middle fingers extended.
When women hit it off, they punch each other and say, "You're a good girl!" The bathtub makes loud noises, people eat baseballs, Mr. Vase eats the flowers, and the octopi attack. If I were there, cherry blossom viewing would be held, the chest of my armor would say "maiden", the back of my school uniform would say "man", my chain would be my house key, and my eyes would go crazy during Setsubun. I love the sea! If there's a cat on the stairs, or if there's a cute girl, I'll show off my extraordinary physical abilities, pick her up quickly, seduce her, and never give up, no matter how hard she hits me or what she does to me. No matter how many times I naughtily approach her, I can never be honest with that one girl in this vast universe, and I can never say that I love her, but I will definitely be with her for the rest of my life.
If so, that's my darling.
I just can't make Oyuki-chan angry.
That's the world I live in. That's me.
...In other words, for me, there was no way, not even slightly, not even for a moment, that Urusei was "something foreign beyond my reckoning."
Do I love my eardrums? Do I love my kidneys? Do I love my molars? Do I love my red blood cells? Do I love my islets of langerhans? Do I love my right eye? Do I love Urusei? I don't understand. These things simply exist, and before you know it, they've always been there. Without them, I wouldn't be living the way I am now, they're indispensable for me to be who I am.
To say that I love Urusei Yatsura, I feel like it's too much "a part of myself" to say that I love it.
I also had a kind of rite of passage: encountering a book like this, where if you read it before you become an adult, you'll never be able to go back to who you were before. For example, I read Kenji Ohtsuki's novels and essays, which I devoured as if I were in love with them. [3] When I die, I seriously asked my father to put Kenzaburo Oe's Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (芽むしり仔撃ち/Memushiri Rikouchi) in my coffin. [4] Takashi Nemoto's work, which I passed around all night reading in my best friend's room. [5] Ryoko Yamagishi's Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun (日出処の天子/Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi), which I honestly still don't feel like I've recovered from. [6] These books that I encountered before I turned 20 changed me, and I will never be able to go back to the way I was before they changed me.
However, despite all this change, the 34 volumes of Urusei Yatsura remain with me forever.
Even though my house has changed, even though my family has changed, even though I have aged irrevocably, even though I have come a long way since I was a kindergartener, I still have Urusei Yatsura on my bookshelf.
I can always return there by reaching out my hand. Even if the feeling of being able to return somewhere is only an illusion, while I'm leafing through the pages, I'm surely returning to some warm and nostalgic place.
I'll just say that I've loved Urusei Yatsura. I've loved it. From now on, I'd like to speak without reservation.
I've loved my eardrums. I've loved kidneys. I've loved my molars. I've loved my red blood cells. I've loved my islets of langerhans. I've loved my right eye. I've loved Urusei.
I've loved the months of my life, from the time I was born into this world, to the time I grew up, to the time I was helplessly transformed, to the time I arrived here.
I loved everything, everything.
Information
Urusei Yatsura (Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, 34 volumes)
Serialized in Shonen Sunday from 1978 to 1987. A slapstick love comedy about a cheating high school student, Ataru Moroboshi, and Lum, an alien who loves him wholeheartedly, alongside a cast of unique characters. The series greedily incorporated subculture elements, including in its anime, and had a great influence on later youth culture.
Yuyuko Takemiya (竹宮ゆゆこ)
Novelist
Born in Tokyo in 1978. She debuted in 2004 with Usagi Homesick (うさぎホームシック). Her series works include Watashi no Tamura-kun (わたしたちの田村くん), Toradora! (とらドラ!), and Golden Time (ゴールデンタイム), and novels which include Listen to the Soundtrack of an Unknown Movie (知らない映画のサントラを聴く/Shiranai Eiga no Santoraku o Kiku), I'll Show You the Place Where It's Shattered (砕け散るところを見せてあげる/Kudakechiru Tokoro o Misete Ageru), Everything About You Burns Up (おまえのすべてが燃え上がる/Omae no Subete ga Moeageru), and Just Shut Up for Awhile! (いいからしばらく黙ってろ!/Ii Kara Shibaraku Damattero!) and others.
Footnotes
- [1] "Blue Impulse" is referenced in chapter 230. "Blue Impulse," is the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's flight demonstration team. These are similar to the American "Blue Angels." In the chapter a group of boys are knocked into the air and shout "Blue Impulse" as they fly away.
- [2] "Chudon" (ちゅどーん) is a sound effect particularly associated with Rumiko Takahashi. She discusses it a bit in this Twitter post. The sound effect originates from a manga named Dekin Boy (できんボーイ) by Shin Tamura. It was running in Shonen Sunday beginning in 1976.
- [3] Kenji Ohtsuki (大槻ケンヂ) is a musician, writer and actor. His novels include Stacey (ステーシー) and Gummy Chocolate Pine (グミ・チョコレート・パイン). His work is said to have been an influence on the conception of Rei Ayanami in Neon Genesis Evangelion. He has a deep affinity for manga and had originally desired to become a manga artist himself and has recorded songs and made appearances in anime such as Sayonara Zetsubo-sensei (さよなら絶望先生) and has appeared many times as a panelist on BS Manga Yawa (BS マンガ夜話).
- [4] Kenzaburo Oe (大江健三郎) won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (芽むしり仔撃ち/Memushiri Rikouchi) was published in 1958 and published in English in 1995.
- [5] Takashi Nemoto (根本敬) is an avant-garde mangaka, who's works include Solid Bonds Blues (固い絆のブルース/Katai Kizuna Burus) and To Live: Tokichi Murata's Silent Diary (生きる 村田藤吉寡黙日記/Ikiru Murata Tokichi Kamoku Nikki).
- [6] Ryoko Yamagishi (山岸凉子) is a noted shojo mangaka and a member of the "Year 24 Group" (24年組/Nijuyonen gumi), named for "Showa 24" (1949) the year in which many of these notable manga artists were born. They burst onto the scene in the early 1970s and the leading figures of the movement include Moto Hagio (萩尾望都), Yumiko Oshima (大島弓子), Keiko Takemiya (竹宮惠子), and Minori Kimura (樹村みのり). These mangaka were all working primarily in the shojo field and were introducing new topics and stylistic techniques that were not seen in manga before. Regarding Yamagishi, some of her most notable works include Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (日出処の天子) and Maihime Terpsichora (舞姫 テレプシコーラ).
好書好日
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