It all starts when a certain oni/alien invades Earth with his entire army but to reduce casualties, they challenge humanity to a "battle" by randomly selecting one human to one oni. This random human, happens to be a perverted high school boy named "Ataru Moroboshi", this oni-alien happens to be the pretty princess, tiger-stripped beauty named "Lum", and this 'battle' happens to be the good-old fashioned "Onigokko (Game of Tag)". After a lot of hurdles, Ataru wins the game by stripping her bare naked while their battle is being telecasted to both races. Though Ataru is now recognized as the scum he is, Lum, however forms a deep love with him. And so starts the oddity called "Urusei Yatsura".
Now if that doesn't interest you, something else might do, but I think it's definitely worth checking out.
The basic format of the show is pretty simple.
Here is a group of odd characters. Here is a group of odd situations. Now let's throw them together and see what chaos will happen.
That's it. I know I said this earlier but I just can't unsee the similarities to this and Doreamon.
Ataru is Nobita if he's more perverted, Lum is a mix of Doreamon & Pikachu in waifu form, Shinobu is Shizuka if she happens to love wrestling, Mendo is Suniyo except he actually looks good, Ataru parents are much like Nobita parents except they're more open about their son's failure, and Dakisugi... I guess we don't have someone as sane as him in this Anime.
And of course, since this is a harem we have a lot of female characters; the shrine maiden, the tomboy, the school nurse, the female friends of Lum, their mothers...
But what's a bit surprising is how much it avoided the stereotypes. For instance, Shinobu could've been the easy childhood tsundere with a good heart but she doesn't mind dating even another girl if it's for money (she can also be a bit bitchy at times), Ran could've been an easy Yandere but she doesn't question their friendship - she just holds a grudge, Sakura could've easily been the Ara Ara one-saan but she actually has a boyfriend and the list can go on. Though, not everyone got that treatment, like Ryuunosuke, who's still the stereotypical tomboy who wants to be more girly.
The show embraces its character flaws into its oddities which makes for a bizarre and comedic ride. Though, you may have to take occasional breaks on this trip.
There are two reasons why I don't recommend slapstick comedies to binge.
Urusei Yatsura falls into both these flaws but one more serious flaw would be:
Having no overall plot: Compare this to something like Konosuba or Grand Blue, which are also Slapstick/surreal/harem humor, are more engaging because they at least have mini arcs to know where it's going. Urusei Yatsura is a completely episodic Anime, there's something new in every episode but most of these episodes are disjointed from every other episode, so it lacks that extra hook to be engaging.
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