Yuru Camp△ 3 – 10 – The Road We Took

Rin arrives at Lake Yagiha Park and finds more than pleasant vistas of cherry blossoms and Fujiyama: she also finds a whole job-lot of cats. Mind you, these cats don’t like having their picture taken, and can also possibly tell Rin prefers dogs.

One golden retriever of a girl Rin happens to be very fond of is still out with her sister, having lunch under more lovely cherry blossoms. Sakura is as quiet and chill as Nadeshiko is lively. When Nadeshiko suggests they go on a drive like this more, Sakura brings up the fact Nadeshiko will be in college soon. When Nadeshiko asks Sakura what she’ll do after college, Sakura doesn’t quite have an answer. Nadeshiko’s new love of retro trains also continues to grow.

When Ena takes Chikuwa to the park and both have a nap on a bench, they are drawn by Ema, a new character who likes drawing on an inexpensive tablet-phone combo that I would personally find maddeningly hard to draw on (I need to see the strokes where my pen/pencil is). It’s also disappointing that Ema isn’t left-handed. As both she and her friend Mei are looking for a club, I suspect they’ll soon be the new Outclub members.

Having just about completed a full loop around the Kofu Basin, Rin gets out and notices a familiar vista. Suddenly she’s transported back to the back seat of her parents’ car as they’re driving at night and she sees the town lights glittering in the distance. While Rin & Co. have seen a lot of new places and things, sometimes it’s nice to stumble upon something you’ve already seen, causing a fond memory to surface.

Chiaki arrives at the campsite a day early for a mini-solo camp. After setting up, she uses her aluminum stove to make a spicy Dry Saratoga Cooler mocktail (that sounds like it would be great with gin) then whips up a quick and easy but tasty snack of sausages and potatoes.

The smell attracts a cute black cat she assumes to be a stray, but later learns it lives at the nearby hot springs. As she takes a dip and relaxes, she hears someone else get in: Aoi has come to join her after all. So ends an episode with almost everyone in it plus some new faces, packed with pleasant moments, sights, and tastes.

Urusei Yatsura – 44 – Dark Side of the ‘Shroom

Once a VHS tape is delivered to Lum’s parents announcing her impending nuptuals, her Dad musters his entire army (this is when I remember Lum is basically the daughter of a Great House), only for them to fall victim to a mushroom bomb that halts their advance. Ataru has a more basic problem: Lum is now off-world and he’s very much on-world. Thankfully once Lum’s planet goes radio silent Benten and Oyuki head straight to Earth.

Ataru fills them (and Shuu) in on the current situation, and Benten and Oyuki commandeer Ran’s spaceship while she’s feeding Rei as usual. Because Lum has been dragged into the Dark Dimension (just as Sakura’s crystal ball warned), they need to perform a warp jump in darkness—and the dark side of the moon does just fine.

Lum, joined by Ten who stowed away, are holding their own against Rupa, but it isn’t long before their hosts lose their patience and fit them with ball-and-chains. Rupa’s great-gramps also uses a “Copy-shroom” to create a more pliable copy of Lum for the wedding ceremony, just in case she decides to make a big scene. Both Rupa and Upa are trash—I wish Ten’s flames burned hotter.

Upon arriving in the Dark Dimension, Ran’s ship immediately collides with another, which happens to be that of Carla, who claims to be Rupa’s one true love. She heard he was getting hitched to “some harlot” and was on her way to stop the wedding. That makes her and Ataru (the only member of the rescue party not to be captured) natural temporary allies.

Carla has Ataru sign a marriage license that they’ll use to gain access to the “Shadescraper”, the towering wedding venue where Rupa and Lum are located. When that doesn’t work she simply blasts her way in. Lum is delighted to see her Darling has arrived, but when Carla opens fire and creates a huge smoke cloud, Rupa uses that opportunity to swap Lum out with her doppelganger, who tells Ataru to go pound sand.

When Rupa who only told Carla he liked her because she held a gun to his face when they were kids, tells her he actually hates her, it causes Carla (Minase Freakin’ Inori in her Urusei debut!) to suddenly cry and go on a rampage with her giant space gun. This inadvertently blows the hatch where the real Lum was being held.

Unfortunately for her, Ataru believes she betrayed him when it was her double. Also unfortunately, there isn’t time for her to explain this, even if she knew what went on in the last five minutes. Instead, both Rupa and Ataru run from Carla as fast as they can to avoid her arsenal, while Lum runs beside Carla wanting to reunite with her Darling.

As my rating below indicates, this was a damn fine episode of Urusei Yatsura, blending and balancing fun, exciting action and world-building, comedy (both slapstick and surreal), and legitimately compelling character drama. That’s a tough combo to pull off, but Urusei makes it look easy and, like Rei, makes me hungry for more.