Urusei Yatsura’s second season resumes after a week off with fresh OP and ED themes from MAISONdes and the origin story of Mendou Shuutarou’s nyctophobia and claustrophobia. Mendou is feverishly training until he literally drops, and when his friends Lum, Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke visit to check on him, he wishes he could travel back in time, and Lum tells him that he can with one of her gizmos.
The quintet ends up in the past when Mendou is just a little squirt. His younger self immediately suspects his older self and the others are intruding “hooligans” and summons his army of men in black to deal with them. They manage to give the bodyguards the slip, but Mendou proves such an entitled brat that Ataru can’t help but bop him with a plastic mallet. When an adorable Lil’ Ryouko arrives to defend her brother, she only ends up playing a number of silly pranks on him, as is her M.O.
When Mendou and Ataru are captured, it’s up to Lum, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke to rescue them, and as is always the case, they’re more than up to the task. I loved how they did the classic “steal uniforms from the enemy”, which don’t fit, only for Lum to whip out another one of her Oni gizmos to make the suits fit beautifully. That said, their hair and figures still somewhat give them away.
Ataru temporarily aligns himself with Lil’ Mendou to tag-team torture Big Mendou, assuring him he’s only doing it to buy time for their eventual escape. The three ladies come in and kick ass, but by that time, Mendou has well and truly snapped, and chases after Lil’ Mendou and Ataru, into the very room full of clay jars where, in the future, he’ll train to overcome his phobias.
This is where we learn that he himself is the reason he fears dark cramped places so much, as Lil’ Mendou has to hide from his unhinged older self stalking him with an axe. Mendou and the others return to the present without resolving his deep-seated phobias, but now we know for certain: due to a temporal paradox, he has only himself (and Lum, who sent him to the past after all) to blame for his fears.