REVIEW: ‘Urusei Yatsura’ Episode 12 – “Ten is Here”

Urusei Yatsura Episode 12 opens with a New Year’s celebration at the Moroboshi household. Lum is being doted on by Ataru’s parents as they take photos of Lum in her kimono dress. Ataru grows jealous of the attention Lum’s receiving from them and heads outside. Ataru notices a small child stuffed inside his mailbox and takes him out. The small child is named Ten and happens to be Lum’s little cousin, who mailed himself to her for a visit. Later, Ten develops a crush on Sakura, the nurse from Ataru’s school. Annoyed and jealous of Ten, Ataru tries to sabotage the date. 

Urusei Yatsura is produced by David Production and directed by Hideya Takahashi and Yasuhiro Kimura, with scripts written by Yūko Kakihara and character design and illustration by Naoyuki Asano. Takahiro Komei serves as series director, and Masaru Yokoyama composes the music. The leading voice cast consists of Summer Uesaka as Invader Lum, Hiroshi Kamiya as Ataru Moroboshi, Maaya Uchida as Shinobu, and Mamoru Miyano as Shutaro Mendo.

Following a brief break for the holidays, Urusei Yatsura returns with a highly entertaining episode. Urusei Yatsura Episode 12 ushers in new opening and ending themes. I especially loved the dance choreography of the characters showcased in the opening theme. Granted, while the opening theme uses a lot of dynamic imagery, the ending theme goes in the opposite direction and uses one static image while the credits play. Overall, both themes are perfect for the new batch of upcoming episodes, accompanied by great music and filled with a variety of eye-catching animation styles.

Urusei Yatsura Episode 12 introduces Lum’s baby cousin, Ten, an adorable alien child who is very protective of his big cousin. Overall, I enjoyed Ten as a character and am glad he is finally in the cast. In the original Urusei Yatsura series, Ten and Ataru’s rivalry relationship was a big part of the show’s humor. Ten came to earth mainly to inspect his cousin’s new fiancé. Similarly to the original series, it does not take Ten long to see Ataru’s true sleazy flirtatious nature. The Urusei Yatsura reboot keeps the tradition of Ten and Ataru’s hilarious rivalry going in the rebooted series.

It is ridiculous to say that Ataru’s greatest rival in the show may very well be an alien child, but that is the case in Urusei Yatsura. I enjoy Ataru and Ten’s cat-and-mouse relationship. Each of them tries to defeat the other by tricking or egging the other into making a mistake to get the advantage over them. However, in Ataru’s case, his tricks typically unintentionally end up putting Ten in a better situation. Urusei Yatsura Episode 12 gives the audience a peek at the shenanigans we can expect to see from Ataru and Ten in the future.

Initially, I was curious to see how Ten’s addition to the cast as the youngest character may affect some of the humor in Urusei Yatsura. Granted, Urusei Yatsura is not an explicit or MA-rated anime. However, some of the jokes are tailored for an older audience. The writers used meta-humor in certain scenes to address the need for censorship in this episode when a child was present. For example, in some scenes, they bleep out mature words whenever Ten is present. I did not feel censoring diminished the humor; it was a great way to address the need to edit some language. 

Additionally, the use of sexual innuendos in Episode 12 got a lot of laughs for me. For example, when Ten takes Sakura to the movies and suggests a film that looks too mature for children. The film turns out not to be as obscene as Sakura expected. Instead of a mature adult film, the movie is full of sexual innuendos, but instead of performing sexual acts, the characters are doing the words they are saying literally. This scene was a great example of how the writers can make adult jokes that older audiences will understand the meaning of while still censoring the scenes for younger audiences in and outside of the show. 

Urusei Yatsura Episode 12 makes a hilarious return after a brief holiday break. I was pleased to see that the reboot upheld the cat-and-mouse rivalry between Ten and Ataru. I look forward to seeing how much more of a role we can expect from Ten, as Ataru’s latest rival, in the upcoming episodes. Using meta-humor was a great way to balance censorship without demising adult humor. However, the episode also tailored the comedy to older audiences with sexual innuendos towards the end. 

Urusei Yatsura streams exclusively on HIDIVE weekly.