Urusei Yatsura (2022) – Season 1 Episode 23 Recap & Review

Title Match!! The Tomo-1 Queen Contest

Episode 23 of Urusei Yatsura (2022) begins with Ataru announcing that the finalists for the Tomo-1 Queen Contest will be engaging in a fierce battle soon. Remember, the finalists are Ran, Ryonosuke, Shinobu, Sakura, and Lum. Ataru reminds the audience that the winner will receive 150 thousand yen as a reward.

All of them are raring to go and compete in two challenges, and Ryonosuke and Lum claim victory in both. However, Ryonosuke gets more points since she defeats Lum both time-wise.

Sakura manages to pull through in the eating contest and wins. Ataru tells them to prepare for the main event, which will have them compete in a fighting event. The girls show up in wrestling-themed outfits and get ready to compete. Ran knows she’s the weakest one, so she smooches all the girls to drain them of their energy. Ataru announces they’ll be teaming up to fight five animals, surprising Lum and Ran. Ataru signals for the match to begin. Lum successfully defeats a Tiger with her Thunderbolt Chomp attack and earns some points. She tags in Sakura, who goes one on one with an anaconda.

Sakura gets squeezed to death by the Anaconda, and the judges give her a heap of points due to her evoking sensual aura. Suddenly, the lion and gorilla interfere with the one versus one match and knock out Ataru with a chair. They gang up on Sakura, so Shinobu enters the ring to assist her.

Unfortunately, the animals overwhelm Shinobu. Infuriated, Mendo leaps into the ring, dressed up like a masked luchador, and tries helping them out. However, his skills are useless against the animal’s might, and they toss him out of the ring. Ryunosuke gets some pep talk from her father and tries assisting her teammates, but it doesn’t work out.

Ran tries fleeing the match, but the lion puts her in a submission hold. Ran entices Ataru to help her, so he wacks the lion with a mallet. Ran uses this opportunity to give Shinobu, Ryunosuke, and Sakura their strength back. With their strength returned, our female team dishes out one more fatal blow to win the match. Ataru crowns them all the winner, confusing them.

The principal explains that due to their muscles and techniques–the judges got distracted and couldn’t keep track of the scores. Ataru informs the girls that they’ll each receive 30,000 yen a piece. However, it turns out to be 150,000 taiyaki waffles provided to them by their sponsor, Ebiya.

Everyone from the series starts to show up, and chaos ensues. Afterward, Ataru flaunts the cash he earned from kickbacks. Lum grabs the cash from Ataru. He trips and lands in front of Lum, and they stare at each other in a dramatic fashion. Lum asks Ataru if she became the queen of his heart, but before Ataru could reply, Sakura and Shinobu chase after him. The season concludes with Lum joining in on the fun.

The Episode Review

And with that, we conclude on a full-fledged comedic note with a drop of romantic tension between Lum and Ataru. The episode was pure and utter chaos from beginning to end.

We have our female contestants competing in all types of activities from guessing games to a full-fledged no-holds-barred wrestling competition. The animation looked stunning.

It fits with the chaotic and action-packed tone David Productions is known for with their other works like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. There were some comedic bits people may not find appealing, but most of its jokes and slapstick will entice people to laugh hysterically. This was a nice episode to solidify what Urusei Yatsura is mainly about.

On the other hand, it was nice seeing Ataru and Lum share some intimacy with each other toward the end. Although Urusei Yatsura leans into its comedy heavily, it’s not afraid to focus on serious drama between our cast. It’s a shame that it didn’t tap into that a bit more in this episode, but with season two on the way, there’s always room for it too.

Overall, this was a fun finale for the anime. With it being the final episode, it made sense for its staff to go all out to give its first season a laughable and memorable conclusion. Hopefully, Urusei Yatsura season two can center its sights on areas the anime can improve upon like its drama, romance, and fleshing out its cast instead of introducing new ones every so often.