Trying to Explic the Inexplicable

In honor of the movie’s U.S. blu-ray release on the 28th of June (2022) . . .

The anime series Urusei Yatsura (colloquially translated as something like “Buncha Alien Jerks” or “Those Obnoxious Aliens”), based on the manga by Rumiko Takahashi, has more than its share of weirdness, to put it mildly. Viewers of the show were treated to quite a lot of absurdity, oddness, nonsense, and unfamiliar imagery. Nowadays UY is likely best known through the second movie, Beautiful Dreamer, but probably nothing in the entire animated franchise is more surreal and unreal than the fourth movie, Lum the Forever.

It deals with supernatural themes and mysterious disappearances. It doesn’t explain things that happen. It shows things that don’t seem logical even within the story. Was it badly written? Was it sloppy film-making? Was the director being deliberately incomprehensible to thumb his nose at the world? Did we the viewers simply miss things by not paying attention?

I won’t claim to understand everything about Lum the Forever, but here are some thoughts I wrote down the last time I watched it, a few years back (with a tiny bit added here and there).

• This movie is aimed at people with a passionate knowledge of the regular TV series, made by hardcore fans for hardcore fans. The kind of people who can catch a subtle reference to a single episode that aired three years earlier and say to themselves, “Oh yeah! I remember that!” From Sakura’s yokai friends to the air-breathing capsule to Megane’s armor to the reason Kotatsu-Neko might disappear, there are a host of things new viewers or casual viewers would simply be baffled by. And the movie already has more than enough to be confused by without people asking why on earth Ataru would stuff a pickled plum in Lum’s mouth.

It’s practically a given that a movie based on a TV series will reward (or pander to) the fanbase by throwing in little treats—character cameos, inside jokes, a significant object sitting in the background. What’s different in Lum the Forever is that those insider treats are actually relevant within the plot, and the filmmakers still made no effort to explain them.

• Just before she enters the water in one scene, Lum puts something in her mouth—not a single thing is said about it, but it must be one of the air-breathing tablets shown in the episode where the group visits Mendou’s aquarium and tries to bring the “pool ghoul” back together with his true love. Which explains how Lum can breathe while she’s stuck underwater all that time.

• It’s useful to recall that Kotatsu-Neko is not just a giant cat who drinks tea at a kotatsu, he’s a giant ghost cat who drinks tea at a kotatsu.

• They never do tell us the original ending of the “Legend of the Oni Princess.” This is a significant shortcoming in the film. The movie shows Ataru, Mendou, and Megane going to visit Mendou’s grandfather, but we never actually see him. Surely there was meant to be a scene with the grandfather outlining the whole legend, but it must have been cut, resulting in the absence of a crucial piece of the story. 

Perhaps in the legend the Oni princess gave birth (literally or figuratively) to the next demon-confining tree: one tree dies, but the Oni births the next tree, and thus the evil spirits are controlled once more. It could be that she died and was buried and became the next tree. Did the legend say something about the Oni princess becoming a companion to the area’s guardian spirit and thus placating that spirit? Could it be that the Oni became the wife of the guardian spirit and they were together parents to the new tree?

• The “Battle Champion Mendou” dream is much too long. For this we lost a segment explaining that legend?

• Mendou’s words at the town assembly might lead one to believe that Tomobiki town wants to get rid of Lum, to expel her from itself, because she is a “foreign particle” (like an infection). However, it seems instead that Tomobiki wants Lum as a friend. (Or lover?) Everyone else is essentially part of Tomobiki and only Lum, as something other than Tomobiki, is a suitable companion. (This is the sense behind the answer to Ran’s remark that she’s also an alien: yes, Ran is also foreign to the town, but she’s just not worth talking to.) The question then becomes why Tomobiki would make everyone else forget Lum, but apparently this is a way of making sure Tomobiki can keep Lum to itself (if people in the town missed Lum and felt a longing for her, that might awaken her and pull her away).

• Mendou starts the war with the Mizunikojis believing that if life becomes horrible enough, everyone in Tomobiki will be unified in the single desire to have things go back to the way they used to be. Mendou expects that this will somehow make the consciousness of Tomobiki release them from the dream world they’re trapped in, presumably by waking up that consciousness. Apparently this is what occurs, combined, however, with Ataru waking up Lum through his desire to see her again (Lum and Tomobiki are shaken from their dream communion at the same moment and therefore the “spell” around the town is broken).

• This movie does a poignant job suggesting that everyone would have been better off if Lum had never been around.

A good site for learning more about Urusei Yatsura is http://www.furinkan.com/uy/index.html. (I have no affiliation with them; it’s just an honest recommendation.)