Ultimately, there’s one thing more than any other that colors my reaction to this reboot of Urusei Yatsura, and it’s this. I didn’t find the original all that funny. Don’t get me wrong, it had its moments. As a pure gag anime and a relic of its time, it’s perfectly tolerable. But it’s not my favorite Rumiko by a long shot – that would be her somewhat more serious Inuyasha (the original, not the trash sequel) – and even in hard comedy mode I preferred Ranma 1/2. I think she got better as a writer, as indeed most long-tenured mangaka do, and Urusei is just not that great.
As such, I found this premiere to be just so-so. I don’t think it’s anything the remake does wrong, especially, so much as a function of not being that nuts for the material itself. There are some things I would change – starting with the casting of Kamiya Hiroshi as Ataru. It’s ironic that David Productions cast the seiyuu who played Ataru and Lum in the original as their parents this time (a nice move), but cast a guy almost (well, almost almost) as old as Ataru. I never much liked Kamiya’s camp persona and he doesn’t work at all for me here. The rest of the casting, including Uesaka Sumire as Lum, is perfectly fine.
That’s the thing. Pretty much everything here is fine – the visuals, the pacing, the BGM. I don’t remember the original that well but I feel like this is more or less on par with it as an adaptation so far. It’s just a matter of not being a fan of what’s being adapted. And there’s gonna be four cours of it too (split down the middle), hogging a year’s worth of NoitaminA schedule space. From the beginning I’ve never really understood why this series specifically was chosen for a long reboot – there certainly didn’t seem to be a clamor for it – and if I was hoping the premiere would remind me, it really didn’t. But there are plenty of old series I would like to see revived, so I’ll still be rooting for Urusei Yatsura to succeed commercially.
Joshua
October 14, 2022 at 8:37 pmThe omission of Lum no Love Song is a sore spot for me.
Also, the four cour length of this series was done to adapt the entire manga apparently (or at the very least adapt the stories near the end of the manga which the ’81 adaptation didn’t get to).
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2022 at 8:41 pmRumiko said it was going to be a “best of” series that depicts the best chapters – and that she had no say over which chapters those are.
Joshua
October 14, 2022 at 10:57 pmWell that doesn’t remind me of that Kino’s Journey reboot at all, except that one had its chapters decided based on fan votes. Which is not exactly an accurate barometer on which are the *best* stories in the series. And it showed.
Spoon
October 14, 2022 at 11:04 pmLum no Love Song was used as BGM, where Lum jumps into Ataru’s arms at his house, at about the 13:50 time mark.
Z
October 22, 2022 at 6:00 amThankyou. I needed to read this
Kinai
October 15, 2022 at 7:50 pmI would love a remake the Ranma 1/2 that continue until the end too. The same as they did with Dragon Quest 2020.
Christian
October 19, 2022 at 5:58 amRanma 1/2 is definitely a product of his time, so it will definitely be a challenge to adapt it. And with a transexual mc, it will definitely going to get backlash, even it got some backlash at his time.
Ignaz
October 31, 2022 at 9:20 pmRanma isn’t transsexual. Ranma is a guy, that was cursed through a cursed spring, and his physical appearance changes to a feminine form whenever he gets in contact with cold water.
Kim
October 15, 2022 at 11:45 pmI never watched the original anime but I do enjoy the manga. Except I HATE Ataru. Absolutely Takahashi’s worse male lead.
Like I understand all of the characters in UY are a bit flawed to a degree but there is nothing likable about Ataru at all. I don’t even find him funny just annoying.
Christian
October 19, 2022 at 6:00 amA question for you, is it worse male lead than Kazuya from KanoKari?
DP
October 16, 2022 at 12:13 pmI quite enjoyed it. I’d seen a few episodes of the original series and one or two movies, and read the first two volumes of the manga. Collectively, all were a bit hit or miss, and Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku I liked more, but I appreciated the humor and the satire, but whether it can sustain my interest for two seasons is another matter; I was never compelled to watch all of the original series, though partly that was for financial reasons; seeing it streaming is a lot more affordable than buying 15+ volumes on VHS tape used to be! So my first reaction was “yay! I can final afford to watch it a series instead of scattered OAVs or episodes! (As for other shows.. Rumic World was interesting and at times quite funny, Mermaid Forest and Inu Yasha never clicked with me, perhaps because I was used to her work being more grounded in modern-day Japan, or maybe because they were more serious.)
Joshua
October 28, 2022 at 9:52 pmI think the core of what made the original 1981 adaptation work so well, was that Mamoru Oshii and his team took the manga and made a lot of smart choices when adapting them for the screen, getting real creative to fit them within the episode limits and adding some additional bits of comedy to the mix. That’s probably why this version doesn’t exactly work for me, because apart from the production values, it adds nothing else of value in its adaptation apart from trying to be more “faithful” to the manga chapters that it’s adapting (and being more convenient), but it’s not as effective as what I saw of the corresponding stories adapted in the classic version.