Urusei Yatsura (2022) – Season 1 Episode 19 Recap & Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50Mvp76Fuc

Magic Realm! Jungle of Terror / Pickled

Episode 19 of Urusei Yatsura begins with Mendo, Ataru, Lum, Shinobu, Ryonosuke, and others arriving at his family’s mansion. He introduces them to his family’s octopus habitat and explains that they represent the family’s symbol of happiness.

Ataru isn’t impressed, so Mendo takes him and the others to his family’s freezer room to meet the Artic Octopuses, his family’s greatest treasure. The Artiic Octopus (Matsuchiyo) jumps out of the water, but Ataru and his male classmates aren’t impressed. Mendo and Ataru get into an argument after Ataru insults Matsuchiyo. Matsuchiyo runs away during their banter, and Mendo calls for a hunt. Ataru and his friends aren’t interested in helping until Mendo says he’d grant them anything they want if they assist him. Therefore, they all head to the jungle room to look for Matsuchiyo. Suddenly, animals start attacking everyone but Mendo.

Lum electrocutes the animals to scare them off, while Mendo apologizes for not telling them about the creatures. Suddenly, a creature grabs Ataru’s friend Kosuke and drags him into its habitat. Ataru and the others split up to find him. Lum and her group find Kosuke but get ambushed by the creature. Meanwhile, Ataru and his group plan to find a fake Matsuchiyo in the jungle to give to Mendo. They grab a few monkeys and hear Shinobu screaming. They head to an open area of the jungle and see Matsuchiyo holding Lum, Shinobu, and Ryonosuke hostage. Ataru and the others are shocked that Matsuchiyo is bigger than normal.

Mendo arrives and explains that Matsuchiyo’s kind grows larger when exposed to high temperatures. Ataru and his friends rush Matsuchiyo with wooden mallets but get caught. Matsuchiyo starts getting touchy with the girls, so Lum bites and electrocutes him. Matsuchiyo lets everyone go, and Mendo approaches him with open arms. The segment concludes with Mendo getting crushed by Matsuchiyo’s grasp. The next set piece starts with Ataru eating his lunch in class. Ten shows up and nags Ataru about his food. Ataru feeds him a pickled plum from his dish. Ten starts feeling strange as Shinobu realizes Ataru fed him something with beer ingredients.

Ataru asks his friend to hand him his food to prove he didn’t feed Ten booze. He lets Lum try a pickled plum, and she undergoes a drunken tangent. She demands all the boys to give her some pickled plums. She eats them and departs. Mendo and a few boys look for Lum while Ataru looks for Ten. Mendo finds Lum and tells her that Ataru’s looking for Ten, upsetting her. Onsen-Mark, Ataru’s homeroom teacher, stumbles upon Lum, Mendo, and the others and sees her acting drunk. He tells Mendo and the others that he’ll be searching through their belongings to see who brought alcohol on campus. Mendo and Onsen-Mark get into an argument. He tells Onsen-Mark, if he finds any booze in their belongings, they’ll dance at school naked.

Ataru and his friends stumble upon Ten, who lets out a giant flame. Sakura finds them lying around and Ten notices her. Ataru and his friends protect Sakura from Ten’s flames. Cherry arrives at the school with booze, and Sakura drinks it. Ataru flirts with Sakura, upsetting Lum. She electrocutes Ataru and leaves with Cherry’s booze. At the same time, Onsen-Mark looks through the boy’s desks and doesn’t find anything. However, Lum flies into the same classroom with the booze, proving Onsen-Mark’s theory. Pure chaos erupts in the classroom from Lum shocking Ataru to some males trying to get Mendo unclothed. The episode concludes with three space girls plotting to attack Benten, Lum, and Oyuki.

The Episode Review

Urusei Yatsura delivers another comedy-driven episode. Besides the humor, not much development happens for our characters. We get minor bits of intel regarding Mendo’s family’s attachment to Octopuses and pickled plums being terrible food to give to space beings like Lum and Ten. Otherwise, it’s another humor-focused chapter that lacks significance.

Furthermore, both set pieces felt too similar in premise. Both involved our characters needing to retrieve and locate specific individuals due to Ataru’s rudeness and naivety.

The previous chapter at least gave us two set pieces that were mildly different from each other. While seeing Ten and Lum run rampant in the school was amusing, it would’ve been better if we received an episode featuring a character who hasn’t gotten a lot of screen time like Oyuki or Benten.

On that note, the cliffhanger may give fans some hope that things will start getting serious. Unless something catastrophic happens between these strange girls, Lum, and her friends, I can’t see the anime concluding on a powerful note. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to discovering what will happen in the next episode since it’s been a while since we last saw Benten and Oyuki’s characters. Overall, this was an okay episode of Urusei Yatsura.

The comedy is entertaining and the characters are charming, but I want there to be more drama on par with the show’s best chapters. Hopefully, the cliffhanger in this episode hints at heavier material coming our way.