Urusei Yatsura (2022)

Urusei is the last anime I thought I'd like yet it made it's way into my heart.

Now I don't care about presenting you the anime let's just get onto why I love it and why I didn't think I would.

I thought Urusei Yatsura was a "pervert/voyeur" anime.

And by pervert I don't mean it as "ohhh no, fanservice, boobs I can't watch this anymore, it ruined my whole experience !" I mean it as a delusional phantasm with mere palliative effects for it's viewers. The whole point of these stories is to make it's viewers virtually obtain something they can't have in real life, trapping them into being comforted in their miserable state and using their emotions and lust for the sake of selling. It's malicious and that's what I mean by pervert anime. (third time I talk about this in a review lmao)

With this paragraph you can tell how far I was from liking this anime. I expected it to be about some random waifu who completely and absolutely love a nobody despite him not deserving it. And after watching the first few episodes well... My worries were pretty much confirmed except for Ataru (mc boy) actually having a personnality which kinda invalidated the perverted self-insert story theory.
I was also pissed off with the Ataru/Shinobu romance b#llshit that made no sense.

And after few other episodes, I realized how utterly wrong I was. To me, this anime is nothing perverted, if anything it's full of love and good intentions for it's viewers.

Ataru's archetype is basically that bratty kid who'd really to feel a breast or two (doryoku mirai...). I expected good ol personnality-less mc-kun so it was a good surprise honestly. And what's good is that his attitude isn't an excuse for the author to make it a one sided gender slander thing like "oh look how men are beasts that only care about sex". Shinobu (who's a female) is comically seen as shallow as she was the inital love interest of Ataru but she shifted to the "school prince" because of his looks and status. Ataru wants the dude dead but he ain't even mad at Shinobu.

Who would prefer a pathetic dude with no future to an intelligent dude from a good family who holds one ? Though, the contrary could also be said. What kind of fool would only search for looks and material things in their partner ? That's basically the anime. It mocks boys and girls or men and women for their habits of falling in love with anyone for stupid reasons : looks or status. It isn't seen as something illogical but it's still being made fun of even though it's natural and comprehensive behaviour.

It isn't a one gender slander thing or a perverted anime. Urusei Yatsura is also not another waifu oblige anime where all the main girls are just perfect and the guy is the only the dense worthless dude with flaws. No character is put on a pedestal for "husbando" or "waifu" sake. They're all being made fun of, they're all ridicule and in that sense, they're all equal.

It's a wholesome anime with relatable stuff, as much as it is exaggerated for comedic purpose, it's episodic and self-aware and Idk it's just good man.

To conclude, I find Ataru and Lum's romance interesting. As I said earlier, all the teens in the story "fall in love" for dumb reasons : grudges, status, looks, jealousy, lust etc but Lum is the only character who romantically like Ataru for who he is, not for societal titles and Ataru, despite being attracted to Lum, hates her but slowly falls for her, not for her looks but for the genuine loving and caring person she is. It's an unrealistic yet sweet version of love that reminds you what you really want in your partner. There's a huge difference between that and the destructive self insert I described earlier. Some people probably found it unfuny, boring, trash or embarassing but I don't care, I enjoyed it, it has a meaning and from my perspective it perfectly is what it's trying to be and it's all that matters.