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Urusei Yatsura: Always my Darling
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Title Info
- type: movie
- grade: watchable
- people: Takahashi
- made: 1991
- Review created: A while ago, i'll revise it eventually.
- mod: none
This is the sixth Urusei Yatsura movie and also the most recent, having been produced on/for the 10th anniversary. It is also one of the most hated movies by the hard core UY fans, so it was with curiosity rather than hope that I got my hands on this anime. The story concerns a space-princess who seeks the most lecherous man in the universe to carry out a mission only he could succeed in. Needless to say Ataru is soon involved and drags the rest of the UY cast into the action. Ataru has not smarted up however, any woman in a Takahashi derived anime carrying obvious weaponry should be treated with even more respect than normal. Of course this movie represents Ataru as effectively invulnerable and fearless, so a bazooka round to the chest is simply a mild discouragement.
So is it a good movie? Here's my theory, all the UY movies (with the possible exception of Beautiful dreamer) are derived from the television anime and not from the source manga. RT's original manga is rich in character and contains some madcap action and weird happenings. The television series moved closer to action, physical humor and epic special-effects but lost a lot of the character and charm of the manga. The movies continue this process, being high energy but low character action and effects flicks. The original characters are all there (although many seem included only for completeness, and have superficial roles) but the heart and personality has been lost.
Thus if you care about the UY world and atmosphere this could leave you cold. If you don't then it is a manic, but lightweight, piece of action fodder. Certainly those who collect pictures of Lum will like this film, with Lum looking far more `fleshy' than previous incarnations. However she seems to have sucked up a lot of the animation effort, with many other characters having much simpler character designs and the general animation not being amazingly impressive. However it is sufficiently complex for what is being represented. I think most of the voices are from the original cast. The general production is competent and the writing simple but workable.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:26 WST 2009