In relative terms it was still pretty good, but I thought last week’s ep of Uchuujin MuuMuu was a bit of a stumble. Certainly the weakest in a good while. But talk about a comeback. This was among my favorite episodes of the series for multiple reasons, not least the way it incorporated the Kuricorder soundtrack as a character in its own right. Their music really pops in slice-of-life interludes – it acts as a sort of connectve tissue to give events a particularly appealing flow. MuuMuu can do many sorts of material well, but this style may be its very best face.

We got two stories this week, each ridiculously appealing in different ways. First off we find Sakurako getting hooked on an AR game called “Nekopon Quest” – or “NekoQue” for short. I’m not well-versed on AR games but to my eyes this looked pretty much like a cat version of Pokemon Go. I don’t know how I feel about punching cats even in augmented reality, but on the surface it seems harmless enough, fresh air and all that. And Sakurako is elite too – under the username “Cherry” (obvious enough to me but Miwa’s guess as to its source made me ROFL) she’s become a legend in the local “NekoQue” community.

As always with these things, moderation is the key. Sakurako gets so addicted to “NekoQue” that she starts carrying around a giant power brick for all her devices, displacing MuuMuu from his usual perch in her backpack. She even snaps at him for getting in the way of her AR image. Why, things get so bad that the cat lovers in the neighborhood stop feeding the actual neighborhood cats, causing them to go feral and start rummaging the garbage crow-style. This all ends with a truly hilarious scene of an apologetic Sakurako walking in on a morose cat party with MuuMuu, Decimaru, and Siberia watching an old movie and gorging themselves.

This will tie into the B story very cleverly. Having realized the error of her ways, Sakurako gives MuuMuu a big cat hug – and notes that he stinks. The reason is obvious enough – he hasn’t taken a bath in ages. But he refuses, no matter how hard she pushes the subject. She even gets him to pull down her zipper to plant the idea that he could just wash his… whatever it is. But that doesn’t take, either. The whole cat zipper thing is kind of the elephant in the room with this show, but we’re no closer to knowing what the actual deal with that is.

This is where things start to get seriously zany. Sakurako notices MuuMuu is disappearing at night and naturally gets curious. First she sneaks a GPS onto him while he’s asleep – OK, fair enough. This however tells her nothing except that he walks around a lot. Then, hilariously, a GoPro on a ninja-style hoodie. Again, he doesn’t notice and she enjoys some fun cat’s-eye view footage. But the camera runs out of juice (Tenkubashi-san warned her), so she now straps a battery to a sleeping MuuMuu – which requires putting a jumpsuit on him. Even she internally exclaims when he still doesn’t notice.

As it turns out MuuMuu has his eye on a special lady (so special she trumps the cam’s image stabilization), who we caught a glimpse of in an earlier preview. He’s even getting into fights over her, it seems. Sakurako assumes he’s scent-marking territory, thus the refusal to bathe – though when he finally catches her out he denies he could be involved in such beastlike behavior. The footage reveals a heartbreaking truth – the apple of his eye has children. But worse, the neighborhood nampa cats are aiming to take them out so Kokoro-neko will go back on the market. While he claims a lack of interest, in the end MuuMuu steps in and defends “Madonna” and her kittens, before walking away in heartbreak. A space genius like him could never tie himself down with a mere Earth feline.

What really gilds the lily beautifully is that this is all tied up in a “Tora-san” parody, as in the Otoko wa Tsurai yo (“It’s Tough Being a Man”) series, with MuuMuu stepping into the role of the star-crossed Shibamata salesman. It’s hard to overstate how massively popular this franchise – TV drama, movies (fifty!), anime – is in Japan. “Tora-san” is a vibe, and MuuMuu definitely nails the vibe. If you ever get the chance to visit Shibamata (which is a lot of fun), you’ll get the gist of it. It provides a perfect ending for basically a perfect episode.