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Urusei Yatsura Volume 5

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By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

For those following along with Viz (as you should be), this whole volume can be found in the collection The Return of Lum*Urusei Yatsura Vol. 2: Lum in the Sun, as chapters 3-13.

Generally speaking it’s hard to review the gag humor of a Takahashi manga. Describing most of the gags tends to ruin them for the potential reader, and a lot of them also depend on humor that makes no sense out of context, or that is already adapted from impossible-to-translate Japanese into an English equivalent. Suffice it to say that this is a very funny volume of UY. The characters are now all settled into their roles, and react just the way that we expect them to. Ataru is lustful, Mendo is egotistical, Lum is happy / angry (delete where applicable), and Shinobu is melancholy / angry (delete where applicable). We do see Shinobu’s super strength debut here, as she lifts a boat (including the people in it) to hit Mendou over the head after he slights her. The manga never bothered to explain it, though the 3rd movie hinted it was due to Lum’s continued presence, sort of a leaking of superpowers.

This volume can essentially be divided into two parts. The first half takes place at the school, and involves a new school nurse: Sakura, who now debuts as a full-fledged regular after occasional appearances in previous volumes. Her eccentricity comes up a few times – at first Ataru wants nothing to do with her, knowing that she tends to cause him bad luck – but after a while she settles into your standard young woman fending off sexist teenagers with her fists while occasionally using her spiritual powers to battle the insane maladies that crop up at the school. Her temper’s also far worse than it was before – on par with the other women now – most likely due to being treated like a sex object all the time by Ataru and his friends.

We also meet Tobimaro Mizunokoji for the first time, Mendou’s childhood friend and rival – well, OK, just rival. Tobimaro is obsessed with baseball, and determined to win a game over his longtime adversary, even after the previous 11 years have ended in 11 draws. He’s pretty much a big goof, thinking only of baseball and living out in the mountains, sort of Tarzan-like. His other big notable trait is that he’s one of the only male cast members not obsessed with women – he thinks of baseball as a man’s challenge, and resents Lum for being part of Mendou’s team. (Lum soon lets him know what she thinks of that opinion – violently.) Notably, when we see him in the other story in this volume, he has a bodyguard squad composed entirely of hot young women – whom he treats like… a bodyguard squad. Mendou would never be trusted with such a thing – his bodyguards are notably male. In any case, Tobimaro will pop up throughout the series, usually either in a baseball context or, later on, involving his insane family. He’s generally more sympathetic than Mendou – though not here, where he’s just a pure dumb goofball, stealing Lum’s bikinis as, well, the plot requires it.

The second half of the manga moves from the school into summer vacation, and takes place entirely on the beach. This not only allows the girls in the cast to wear gorgeous swimsuits (Mendou notes that Lum’s one-piece is incredibly sexy, likely as it’s a change from her usual bikini – this is what prompts Shinobu, wearing a cute bikini herself, to try to hit him with a boat), but gives us some plotlines that wouldn’t really work in classes, such as Cherry getting mistaken for a swimsuit-lovin’ octopus, or Cherry teaching Ataru and Mendou how to surf, or Cherry teaching everyone yoga so that they can lose weight after sitting around the beach eating all vacation. Oh, did I mention Cherry’s also a regular now? Yes, with Sakura’s arrival comes Cherry, everyone’s least-favorite Buddhist monk, who had also made occasional appearances but shows up far more often now. The series would be far less funny and far less annoying without him, so it balances out well.

Highlights of this volume include the baseball match (especially Mendou’s bodyguards, who really test the limits of “how stupid can they be” here), Ataru accidentally getting combined with Mendou’s physics notes, the whole ludicrous chase after Tobimaro and his bodyguards to rescue Lum’s “only good clothes”, and possibly the best of all, Ataru, Cherry and Sakura participating in an all-you-can-eat competition. Ataru drops out pretty early, and Cherry a bit after that, but Sakura not only eats the entire hotel out of every single bit of food they have – including an entire roast COW – but still looks slim and gorgeous. Of course, as we find when she tries to lay on a float device in the hotel pool, looks can be deceiving. Sakura’s bottomless appetite will come up a few times in the future.

Having settled into her basic premise, Takahashi is now moving the pieces around, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Hence Sakura and Cherry’s appearances becoming more frequent. Tobimaro is also a refreshing change of pace (his constant obsession with rivalry may remind Ranma readers of Ryouga Hibiki), though she wouldn’t really get a good handle on him till later. Most of all, though, she’s really getting the hang of a constant stream of gags, developing into outright chaos until everything collapses right at the last page. There’s only one or two chapters here that aren’t as funny as they could be (the legend of the “Red Cloak” needed far more room than just 16 pages to be really good). That’s a high average for a harem comedy. And next time, in Volume 6, we’ll see another regular character debut – possibly the first “yandere” in all of manga and anime.

Because It’s Funny: Rumiko Takahashi and Characterization

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I can’t find a copy of the interview in question, but someone once asked Rumiko Takahashi why Nabiki Tendou, a girl who in the first couple of chapters of Ranma 1/2 seemed to be a fairly normal Japanese girl, turned into a money-loving shark who would gladly sell out her family and friends and seemed to have no conscience or soul. Takahashi’s answer was “because it’s funny.”

I was reminded of this while reading Stefan’s post yesterday. Much of what I tend to think of as Ranma, including many characterizations that are almost thought of as canon these days, was never actually used by Rumiko Takahashi in the canon material. It was stuff invented by fans for their fanfics in order to make the characters easier to write, give a third dimension to, or just make more bearable. So we got ‘fanon’: Nabiki uses the money she extorts to finance repairs to the dojo, for example, or Kasumi being far more savvy than she lets on and using her yamato nadesico persona as a front. And yes, it could go the other direction as well: Akane hits Ranma because she is mentally unstable and needs psychiatric care.

See, Takahashi gave us, in both Urusei Yatsura and Ranma, great characters who it’s easy to love. We want to see them succeed, we want to laugh at their stupidity. But they are not fleshed out. They aren’t three-dimensional. They don’t feel real. They feel like characters in a goofy shonen manga that will do anything for a laugh. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Comedy is not pretty. It’s simply funnier to watch people be horrible to each other, and much easier to do so if they all can fall into basic patterns of behavior. Akane will jump to conclusions and hit Ranma. Ranma will say something insulting and thoughtless. Lum will get jealous and zap Ataru. These are the cornerstones of the series. And over the course of the series, while there is slight forward progress, if it has to be sacrificed so that we can see a huge pile of cast members screaming and hitting each other? So be it.

Of course, both UY and Ranma were turned into successful anime. Like all anime, they had to find ways of expanding the source material: if you animate 16-page chapters for a series, you’ll run out of material far quicker than you’d anticipate. Some of the ways they did this involved the characterization: the characters were softened, and didn’t seem to be such moral vacuums. At the same time, their traits were exaggerated for the comic effect that animation can provide. So you have Akane hitting Ranma even MORE. And it’s the anime, more than the manga, that fans are familiar with. As a result, these characterization seemed to stick more than the manga ones, even if they’re sort of once removed.

The same thing happened with Urusei Yatsura, where Mamoru Oshii, the series director for several seasons, had several battles with Takahashi about the direction of the series. And indeed, if you watch the UY anime Ataru, Lum, and the others get several ‘Awww, they’re really sweet after all!’ moments that just aren’t in the manga itself. Not to say the manga never had those moments. But they were much less common, and I think Takahashi preferred her characters to be petty, vindictive, and spiteful in the long run. That made plotting and comedy easy.

Comedy’s hard to write. Much easier to be dramatic. As a result, when you take series that give you some fun and fascinating characters, but then don’t do anything with them (no one reads UY or Ranma for the plot), and throw in an anime that sometimes exaggerates or softens said characters depending on the director or episode… well, you’ve got a recipe for fandom controversy. Bashing and Ship Wars didn’t start with Bleach, after all. Writing realism into Ranma and UY became a common theme in the mid to late 90s, and continues on a smaller level to this day. And if you try to realistically write a girl who habitually punches a man so hard he flies several city blocks… well, you’re going to have issues.

(On a side note, this is one reason why, much as I love it, I have some problems with Maison Ikkoku. Takahashi essentially did the same thing as Ranma fanfic writers, which is taking her wacky characters and placing them in a setting with far more realism, and realistic leads. Godai and Kyoko, however, despite their faults, were no Ataru and Lum. They were sympathetic people we really wanted to root for. As a result, when Mrs. Ichinose, Akemi, and especially Yotsuya messed with them for the lulz, I got a lot more irritated then I would at UY or Ranma characters. It just felt like it hurt more.)

I was unfamiliar with the concept of ‘bashing’ till I got into Ranma fandom. I didn’t see it quite as much with UY (though it was there), mostly as most fans liked the pairing of Ataru and Lum, and there were never any realistic rivals presented for the fans to argue over. Ranma, though, with the introduction of Shampoo and especially Ukyou, had alternatives. Both were harem series, but Ranma is a harem series in the modern definition: nothing ever gets decided, and the fans argue about who the lead guy will end up with till it dissolves into a screaming match. UY and Ranma both had ‘semi-open’ endings, where Takahashi implied that the couple would eventually get together… but didn’t actually show it. Therefore there is, in the mind of many, no canon pairing: Ranma and Akane did not get together in the end, therefore they are NOT together.

And yes, other characters got bashed as well. When you take a series about a bunch of insane goofy teenage martial-artists seriously, you suddenly realize “Hey, she’s a psychopath!” or “Hey, his motivations are guided by a misplaced hatred!”. Psychoanalyzing to death is the order of the day. It can make for good drama – hell, I did it myself back when I wrote Ranma fanfics. But it can also have some unfortunate consequences. There’s a line running from Ranma through Love Hina right to Harry Potter, a line which has fanfics whose basic plot can be described as ‘Lead male gets a backbone, decides to man up and shows the girls who’ve been tormenting him what for’. Part of this is a side consequence of weak male leads, which at least Ranma does not have to deal with. But it gets a bit unrealistic when the cast starts behaving in ways that are not remotely close to the source material. And much of it is driven more by ‘I hate Angry Girl X’ and shipping than anything else.

In the end, I started to ask myself, is it okay that Ranma and UY are essentially two-dimensional? They don’t have depth of characterization, even though they have great characters. There is no hero’s journey. Ryouko Mendou is hurling grenades and laughing like a loon in the final volumes, just as she did in her first appearance. But it’s still funny. And there is a wide variety of plots, especially in UY, where it seems that Takahashi could never stop thinking of insane material that made me impressed at her twisted mind. (A robot alien teacher shaped like a chalkboard eraser?) It’s a question of what one wants out of the material. Do you want wacky, Osaka-style comedy shenanigans? Well, you are the reason Takahashi is one of the richest manga authors in Japan. If you’re watching or reading Ranma or UY for the romance, or to see Akane come to terms with the fact that Ranma isn’t a pervert and she should stop leaping to conclusions… then she must be a very, very frustrating author for you. Perhaps you should write a fanfic about it?

Urusei Yatsura Volume 4

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By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

This volume of UY was published by Viz in the 2nd Lum collection, The Return of Lum, though the last 2 chapter began the 3rd collection, Lum in the Sun. This is also the last Japanese tankobon that has a ‘missing story’, at least till Viz drops the series. Well, it’s half missing. The first chapter of the volume, ‘Eat Drink Man Alien’, was put out by Viz in Animerica. However, when the collections came out, it wasn’t there.

It’s an interesting chapter, though also the weakest in the book, which may be why Viz dropped it. Ataru has Megane and company (in their final appearance in the manga) over to study, but all the other boys want to do is study Lum. Meanwhile, a drunken alien fox spirit crashes near our heroes, and promptly possesses Ataru, who begins to act like a drunken salaryman. He even kisses Lum full-on several times, leaving her dazed. It’s rather startling to see, given I don’t think they ever kissed in the series while Ataru was not possessed. Things spiral out of control as the fox spirit’s wife shows up and starts possessing various women to yell at her husband – including a 6-year-old girl, leaving the town thinking Ataru is a pedophile. Naturally, it ends in chaos and violence, with Ataru in the hospital being threatened by at least two dozen angry townspeople.

The rest of the volume continues to establish Mendou as Ataru’s comic foil and rival, and begins to see the establishment of the ‘Core Four’, which is to say that when a UY chapter begins and we need four people to begin the action, it will almost always be Ataru, Lum, Shinobu and Mendou. Things are actually quite even-handed here, as for every chapter where Ataru acts like a lecherous idiot and gets what’s coming to him, there’s another chapter with Mendou acting like an egotistical spoiled rich brat and getting what’s coming to him. The chapter where Mendou ends up with an alien baby, right after everyone’s talking about a boy who got expelled for getting a girl from another school pregnant, is hilarious, and shows us that when Ataru’s not in girl-hunt mode he can be quite clever – devious, even.

There are a few chapters here that seem very ‘Japanese culture’, but unlike previous volumes Viz just rolls with it and translates them as best they can. (Cultural endnotes? Are you kidding? These came out back when it was a 32-page pamphlet comic!) One in particular may seem very familiar to fans of the UY movies – Ataru falls asleep and meets Mujaki, along with his tapir who eats nightmares. Naturally he’s trying to get Ataru to have a few more terrifying dreams, while Ataru only wants a harem. (Interestingly, his harem INCLUDES Lum.) Mamoru Oshii would take this chapter and expand it into what is generally considered the best UY movie, Beautiful Dreamer.

In terms of characterization, there is still some, although I note that here, as with Ranma, if characterization stands in the way of a funny gag, the gag wins every time. Lum’s temper is still highly variable – sometimes she’s trusting and snuggly with Ataru, sometimes she’s madly jealous and electrifying him, and sometimes she’s merely exhausted and drained at having to watch him mack on everything that moves. Things really get interesting with three chapters towards the end of the book, all of which help to show us that this is about where Takahashi made up her mind to make the main couple Lum and Ataru – and how the manga is better for it.

In the first, the biology club is raising caterpillars, and one of them is more gluttonous than the others. Naturally, they named it Ataru. They’re going to get rid of it, but Ataru takes it instead, feeling sympathy for the caterpillar being blamed for things out of its control. Unfortunately, the caterpillar then escapes and eats Mendou’s lunch – Mendou, who hates ‘ugly things’. What follows is an epic chase, with Lum helping Ataru to try to escape the rest of the class, all of whom have come to the opinion that the caterpillar has to go. They get up onto the roof, and the caterpillar surprises them all by transforming, not into a butterfly, but a fairy. A gorgeous fairy, because she thrived as Ataru believes that she’d be beautiful. This chapter shows us a softer side of Ataru the lech we really hadn’t seen before, as well as how well he and Lum work together.

The second was made into an anime episode, and the episode was voted the best ever by Japanese fans. The chapter is simpler but just as nice. Ataru is macking away at girls at school as usual, but Lum isn’t jealous, merely sewing a doll of herself to give to Ataru. After he shoos her away (Lum’s not attending classes at this point), she turns and says “bye-bye” sweetly, then takes off. When Ataru gets home, he finds the doll she had sewn on his desk, and no sign of her. When she’s not at school the following day, he panics, at first thinking Mendou made off with her, then admitting glumly that she’s disappeared. After the Mendou servants spend most of the day searching (though their search tactics are fairly questionable) Ataru goes to bed, upset and crying that Lum would simply abandon him like that. Of course Lum has done nothing of the sort, and is merely getting her passport renewed. The doll; holds a microphone so that she can make sure he’s not unfaithful. When instead it shows his despair at her absence, the expression on her face is lovely to see. Naturally, when she returns Ataru tries to remain uncaring, but it’s not fooling her at all.

The last sweet chapter involves Lum once again pestering Ataru for a date, and he actually agrees – provided she dress up as a normal human girl, and not use her powers. He certainly knows Lum well, as while she manages the first part, the second is much harder, given her powers are a natural part of her. So she tries diving from the high board at the pool, only to chicken out and fly away – Ataru has to drag her into the water and pretend it’s ‘stunt diving’. She gets hit on by several teens at the pool – so she electrifies the entire thing, knocking them all unconscious. (Ataru is “used to it”.) They even hook up with Ataru’s friend Kosuke and his girlfriend for lunch, only to find Kosuke’s girlfriend eats like a horse and terrifies all three of them with her voracious appetite. Finally, Ataru takes Lum through a haunted house, hoping to impress her with his bravery, only to end up terrified himself. Lum is great here – I love her fake “eek!” pose when she realizes Ataru wants her to be scared and snuggle – and it’s just nice seeing them on a date, even if Ataru spends most of it on edge. He and Lum are getting closer and closer, and the audience is now clearly meant to root for them.

A good solid volume of UY here. Some stories weren’t quite as good as others (though they did provide us with things like the Devil riding a Vespa with a cart of chow-chows behind him watching television, something that makes you wonder how Takahashi’s brain works exactly), but overall things have settled down and we’ve started to do what UY does best – take the core cast, have some weird situation happen, and watch them react. And in three of the stories, we almost get, dare I say it, heartwarming. Folks who want to see what early Takahashi was like, and who don’t mind the art (still finding its feet) should really find Viz’s Return of Lum graphic novel, which despite being the second in the series is probably the best starting place for a casual fan.