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.
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