When another slow-moving oxcart escorted by ninja rolled through town, I assumed it was Mendou’s mom again. It turns out to be someone who speaks loudly enough to be heard, and who makes the effort to throw a handkerchief out of the cart so it happens to land on Ataru’s face. He uses his lecher’s sense of smell to track down the owner, and is rewarded with a damn skeleton arm.
The next day, the girl arrives at school resplendent in her kimono and wowing boys and girls alike. She initially introduces herself as Mendou’s fiancée, which gets all the girls fuming and weeping. But she’s really Mendou’s little sister, Ryouko, who loves playing elaborate tricks on people for her own amusement.
She’s come to deliver her dear brother his lunch that he forgot, but he tells her he forgot that lunch five days ago. As the lunch is composed entirely of raw seafood, it is now essentially toxic waste, but that doesn’t stop Ataru, eager to get into Ryouko’s good graces, to try to eat it. When Ryouko sees how lovey-dovey Lum is, she ups the flirtation, and locks Mendou away in a dark cabinet.
Ryouko’s introduction at school is followed by her inviting Ataru to her home for a New Year’s Party, but most of the rest of the cast was invited as well, including Sakura, Oyuki and Benten. Everyone’s in their best New Year’s finery, but I personally think Lum wins for best kimono—the colors are just sublime.
Of course, this is no ordinary party. Not only is the Mendou residence ludicrously huge and complex, but the partygoers are unwitting living game pieces in an elaborate board game being played by Ryouko and her parents. This results in trap doors and hidden passages and various obstacles shifting everyone all over the place and doing all sorts of things.
We get mochi eating contests, badminton, spiked walls, 100,000 and 200,000-kg weights being dropped … it’s a little bit of everything. The chaos all serves one purpose: entertaining Ryouko, a girl with far too much money and far too much time on her hands.
By the time everyone (or most everyone) arrives in the actual party room, they’re all so exhausted from being pushed and prodded around and made to carry out various tasks they can barely sit up. But it’s still not over, as Ryouko presses a red button that sends her brother and Ataru up in a giant bamboo rocket that explodes with fireworks to ring in the new year.
It’s here where I’ll note that now that Lum is back by his side, Ataru is right back to being a lecherous ass, despite being genuinely devastated by her absence which for all he knew was caused by his neglect and constant two-timing.
It wasn’t, and Lum will probably never leave the guy’s side, and maybe I was a fool for thinking any character development would stick around for the next segment, let alone episode. That said, I enjoyed Ryouko as an unapologetic agent of chaos and general shit-stirrer.
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