UY spends a decent chunk offworld this week as we check in on Benten, who gets knocked out by mushroom gas and has the chain she wears like a sash stolen. After getting a bath at Lums (with Ataru nowhere in sight), the two head to Oyuki’s on Neptune, where she has a package for Oyuki.
It’s a VHS tape of all things, with what amounts to a diss track from three middle schoolers who aspire to be as cool and badass as Benten, Lum, and Oyuki. They are Ginger, Sugar, and Snake, and if nothing else they have decent video production and choreography skills. When Lum and Oyuki bristle at the idea they’re “punksters”, Benten reminds them they always followed her into trouble.
Benten races off (without the map to the duel), and is followed by Lum, who is there for her friend, and Oyuki, who wants to be compensated for the VCR and projector Benten smashed out of rage. They end up meeting the three little twerps in a popular cafe on Earth of all places. They produce Benten’s chain, run off, and basically tell their senpais to come and take it.
In the ensuing chase, we learn Sugar can turn invisible, Ginger can play dead, and Snake can shed her skin. But none of these things are enough against Lum’s flight and electricity, not to mention Benten’s brawn and Oyuki’s…well, Oyuki is just kind of along for the ride!
The chill’uns end up luring Benten, Lum, and Oyuki to a vacant lot where their “computer” SALT #1, a giant metal Big Boy mascot that computed their duel strategy, lands right on top of its targets, who are lucky to have been right below a pitfall. SALT #1 then runs out of juice, and when it is replenished with veggie oil, barfs up hundreds of seemingly identical chains and launches back into space.
But before it does, Benten, Lum, and Oyuki are stuck under its foot in very close quarters. In the heat of the battle, Lum melted Benten’s chain into ash, and while she’s guilty about it, she’s not about to own up to it, lest Benten in her fury take her most prized possession: Darling. So she electrocutes Benten, asking her what’s more important, her stupid chain, or her friends?
While Oyuki comes up with a beautiful and romantic theory about a fellow biker dude giving Benten the chain as a memento, the truth is far more mundane: the chain is the key to Benten’s house. This is why Benten was locked out of her home for ten days and had to bathe at Lum’s—she didn’t have a spare.
To add insult to injury, she unknowingly left her back door open, which allowed the brats to break in, produce another chain, and dare their senpais to give chase once more. But at this point Benten is home and happy, Lum is stewing in her underwhelm-ment, and Oyuki is sippin’ tea. Playtime’s over, punks! Go back to school!
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 