Urusei Yatsura – 43 – The Great Grand-Promise

After Lum has a nightmare about being pulled into the darkness, she clings a little closer to Ataru, but all he does is hit on other girls passing by like usual, invoking her rage and electricity. Clearly Ataru is once again in a place where he’s taking Lum’s affection for him for granted.

Ataru pops by Sakura’s just as Sakura is intent on using a crystal ball to divine the future after the strap of her brand-new sandal broke. After messing with her a bit, the crystal ball finally shows her Lum being drawn into the darkness—just like she described in her dream.

Sakura warns Ataru to keep Lum away from darkness, but she’s already offworld after being summoned home by her dad to meet her great-grandfather, who had been in cold storage and, er, misplaced during their last move.

The great-grandpappy is very old and his short-term memory isn’t so hot, but he does remember that his grandson having a daughter would spell disaster. In short, he made a very silly and shortsighted deal with someone from the Darkness dimension.

However, due to the darkness man’s advanced age, he instead betrothed Lum to his great-granson, Rupa. But while Rupa has known since he was a youngin’ that he’d be marrying the lovely Lum, Lum is just now finding out about all this, and is none too happy.

Worse still, when Rupa shows up at school in his purple pig-drawn flying chariot (knocking his head not once but twice on the window frames), Ataru is clearly miffed by this revelation, such that he’s actually angry at Lum. This, despite the fact she only just learned about all this and didn’t agree to marry anyone.

When Lum can’t get the ring Rupa gave her off her finger, the rift between her and Ataru grows, as he acts aloof but won’t admit his jealousy. There’s also the matter of admitting he doesn’t like the prospect of Lum being with anyone else.

If he did that, he’d have to admit to himself he only hits on other girls because he fears genuine commitment to someone he actually cares for. And say what you want about Ataru most of the time, he does care for Lum. He just treats her terribly most of the time and has become accustomed to rarely if ever suffering any real consequences.

This episode puts the Lum-Ataru relationship at the forefront, and as Rupa ambushes, drugs, and abducts Lum, their future as a couple is now at risk. While he doesn’t have a purple pig-drawn flying chariot, I’m sure Ataru can scrounge up the people and resources to pursue Rupa.

I don’t think it’s a question of whether he’ll take action to get her back. Scumbag that he is, he’s not about to stand by and do nothing while Lum gets drugged and kidnapped by someone who intends to marry her. That said, I’m sure this won’t get resolved next week, as three episodes remain. Only thing to do is see how this plays out.

Yuru Camp△ 3 – 09 – Solo Sakura Shima

Rin is going camping with everyone soon, but that doesn’t stop her from going on a little mini solo camp to see the cherry blossoms. She picks the nearby but quiet Jikkoku Hot Spring Campite, part of the Untouched Valley Ryuzenkai. There are some unusual bridges, but she’s here to relax and enjoy the blossoms, not adventure.

The only other people camping at this site are Otani and Ogawa, a young couple who are camping out of their kei car. They assume Rin is a petite college student, and are surprised to find such an experienced camper is still in high school. The three chat over coffee after Rin finds garbage left from previous, hopefully rookie campers.

After coffee Rin whips up a delicious one-pot pasta with bacon, spinach, and tomatoes. I just happened to be making tomato confit in my oven as I watched this, and couldn’t help but sneak a few of the tasty little bastards so I didn’t have to enjoy the tomato-y goodness merely vicariously.

While Rin is off on her own (and wondering when the best time to re-invite Nadeshiko on a camping trip), Nadeshiko is eyeing a grove of cherry blossoms from her house. She considers biking there, but Sakura offers to drive them up and the sisters make a day of it. Nadeshiko’s nearly boundless energy is on full display as she races up shrine steps.

Rin caps her trip off with what else, a soothing dip in the hot springs. There she meets her new camp friend Ogawa again, who tells her the best places to view cherry blossoms based on her road cycling trip last year. While she knows Nadeshiko would likely thrive on a road bike, Rin may be too spoiled by the relative convenience of her moped—though the steep hills down to the campsite and back up were a bit of a challenge.

After two episodes in which she wasn’t featured, it was good to get a nice quick Rin solo trip in before the whole gang heads out on what I imagine will be a season-capping group trip to view more of those beautiful cherry blossoms before they all fall.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 09 – The Keys to Heaven and Hell

As Mahiru tells Kiui, she’s more than a little scared by the imposing new project Hayakawa Yukine wants to commission, but is still eager to take on the challenge, as this is an opportunity she may never see again. Kiui reminds her it’s her life to choose. But of course there’s also the Kano angle.

Mahiru isn’t going to respond to Yukine until she speaks to Kano, but wants to learn more about Yukine. Enter Mei, who gives her an unneccesarily exhaustive rundown of the producer’s career. The juicy and concerning bit Mei saves for last: that it’s believed Yukine is behind the “LookIdiot” account that leaks scandalous idol behavior—like her own daughter’s assault.

Mahiru is caught off guard when Kano suddenly calls her to praise her art, even saying it’s okay if it’s “a little skewed.” Mahiru is happy for the praise even if she thinks it’s a bit much, but uses the call to bring up the offer Yukine gave her. Kano, who is clearly upset by this development, warns Mahiru to be careful.

Mahiru asks about what went on with Kano and her mother, but realizes it’s not an appropriate thing to dump on Kano while on the phone, so tables it for now, saying she did what she wanted to do, which is tell Kano about her opportunity before she made a decision.

That decision Mahiru is so conflicted about suddenly becomes a lot more easy to make when she is absolutely showered with praise and wowed by the presentation of the project of which she’s to be an integral part. An entire public park is going to be festooned with her art via projection, while the SunDolls will perform with live 3D avatars of Mahiru’s design.

It is an offer a young and hungry artist just starting to build some confidence simply cannot refuse if they’re thinking about a future in art. Heck, Yukine even points out how Mahiru’s rough draft looked skewed, and when Mahiru  shows her a corrected draft Yukine’s eyes light up with excitement, knowing she knew true talent when she saw it. What about Kano? Yukine says this has absolutely nothing to do with her. Yukine claims to simply have been inspired by Mahiru’s art.

I’m not so sure it has “nothing” to do with it. When Yukine plugged her own socially awkward daughter who worshipped her into SunDolls as a new center who will take them to new heights, she no doubt believed she was doing her daughter a favor.

Kano, AKA Nonoka would be the tool she needed to entertain 50,000 at Tokyo Dome. Everyone agrees Kano is a beautiful singer, but the other SunDolls hate her instantly because they consider her entry into the group to be an act of nepotism.

“Silence them with your talent,” her mother advises. When Kano asks if she’s weird, Yukine brings up her crowd-of-50,000 dream, and tells her being a little weird is immaterial by comparison.

When Kano is asked to write her own lyrics, it’s Yoru’s mural that first inspires her, the words suddenly flowing out at the sight of the thing. It’s a beautiful moment of artistic ephiphany.

Then we finally learn what went down that got Kano kicked out of SunDolls. Her group mate Mero left her phone behind, Kano sees a notification, correctly guesses Mero’s password (Yukine’s birthday perhaps?), and learns that Mero is “LookIdiot.”

At this point, Kano knows that their primary rivals, the Rainbow Girls, were scandalized when footage leaked of members smoking. The fact that this is such a scandal speaks to the problematic nature of propping up ordinary human young women as paragons of perfection and purity.

But Kano is actually a valiant and morally pure idol! She thinks it sucks shit that Rainbow Girls had to be dragged through the mud so that the SunDolls could snag their big gig. So when Kano learns Mero was behind the leak, she punched the absolute shit out of that bitch.

Yukine immediately considered this a betrayal, and worse, an obstacle to achieving her dream. Her dream. Her daughter’s dreams never mattered. To her, Kano is a tool, and one that outlived its usefulness. So she gave her the same treatment as the Rainbow Girls and fired her from the group.

This is the weight Kano carries behind her bright cheery smile and boundless enthusiasm for growing JELEE. She’d been able to compartmentalize it to this point, but when Mahiru announces she’s going to take the job even thought it conflicts with JELEE’s next video, all that weight comes crashing onto Kano all over again.

She handles this poorly, but in a way one would expect, all things considered. Kiui and Mei are understanding of Mahiru’s desire to make it big, but Kano can’t be supportive in this moment. All she can think about is that Mahiru is being selfish, breaking their promise, and calls her a liar and a “jellyfish that can’t swim in the night.”

Even as she says those last words, Kano knows how badly she just hurt Mahiru, because tears well up in Mahiru’s eyes. The episode ends abruptly after this heartbreaking exchange, and we’re treated to a montage of all the best moments Kano and Mahiru had together, including almost every instance of her calling her by her other name, Yoru.

I don’t know if Yukine always intended to take something precious away from Kano in order to punish her for letting her down. But now Kano and Mahiru’s relationship is suddenly in tatters before it even had a chance to truly bloom. It’s a hard pill to swallow. I just hope there’s a way back for them.

P.S. Here’s the face Mahiru used when trying to audition for a role in the final season of Attack on Titan:

Forget dreams; this is pure nightmare fuel….