A date between Shuutarou and his androphobic betrothed Asuka was never going to stay normal for long, but it’s impressive just how quickly things go off the rails. While making Shuu tea, Asuka’s whisking turns the cup into a pile of clay dust, to which she adds hot tea and fashions a new cup. Shuu’s incredibly forced-polite reaction is perfect.
When one of his bodyguards interrupts, a frightened Asuka gloms onto Shuutarou tight and like the teacup, his ribs are turned to dust. Ataru, disguised as one of Ryouko’s ninjas, uses this as an opportunity to get closer to Asuka by manipulating the KO’d Shuu in a Weekend at Bernie’s-type situation. The puppet sound effects are exquisite.
Once Lum reveals Ataru’s disguise, Asuka sends him and Shuu flying, and Shuu regains consciousness (and his ribs miraculously reconstitue) in mid-air. They watch in the distance as Asuka, essentially trapped on an island, launches every bodyguard she encounters into the air.
Lum lends another helping hand, showing Asuka a tank in the Mendou family’s possession. Rather than hop in, she tears the tank to pieces with her bare hands and fashions a new suit of armor to protect her from scary men. Ataru and Shuu secretly watch this quirky, steampunk twist on the “changing scene” with disappointment.
Ryouko, who is determined to keep her brother away from Asuka, lures her to her room and prepares to fill her head with nonsense, which is Ryouko’s specialty. When Shuu comes in with Ataru still attached to his back, Asuka smashes them both into a wall, but then her mother arrives, and despite her face locked in a placid smile, she’s not happy.
Convinced Asuka isn’t taking this date seriously, her mom (who, again, is one of anime’s all-time worst moms for what she did to Asuka) decides that Asuka will go on a date with Ataru. If she can survive such a repellant man, she can survive any man. The logic is sound, and of course Ataru is game.
When Asuka resists and threatens to fight her mom, we see where she got her superhuman strength. She’s no match for her mom, who effortlessly places her in a hold, chains her to Ataru, and then brings in her brother Tobimaro as a hostage: if she breaks the chain, Ton dies. This family sucks!
Even if Asuka wanted to obey her mother, her instincts and body act all on their own. Despite being connected to Ataru, she still tries to run from him, and nothing—not wood, bricks, mortar, or ballistic steel—can stop her. She cuts through all of them like butter, causing untold millions in damage to the Mendou household.
Asuka’s mom meets them on a bridge with a final warning, but Asuka still isn’t willing to relent, repurposing Ataru as a chain weapon and attacking her mom, who uses the bound Ton as a shield. Yes, a mother and daughter are fighting using her son and forced date, respectively, as weapons.
Just when you thought we’d reached the height of resourceful absurdity, Asuka starts spinning Ataru around so fast he becomes a helicopter rotor, then nabs Ton and starts to float away. Asuka’s mom asks Lum, who doesn’t want her darling taken away, to intervene, so she flies up and cuts the chain.
Asuka falls in the drink, and when she emerges, all she can do is prostrate herself before her awful, victorious mother and beg forgiveness. But of course, all of this was for naught. Asuka is no less afraid of men than she was at the beginning of this fiasco of a “date”, and the next morning she’s right back in Ton’s bed. No progress was made, and no lessons were learned. In other words, it was classic Urusei Yatsura!
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