Topic: Urusei Yatsura Copied???

[UruseiNeo]

Are Are any of you familiar with the anime called "Inukami!" ? I just found it a few days ago.

Well, the main male character, Keita, and the main female character, Youko, are EXACTLY like Ataru and Lum! ???

Plot is different.

Keita has brown hair, is perverted, runs from Youko, in the first episode after lying to Youko about where he was going he began a sort of girl-hunt.

Youko has GREEN HAIR  , can FLY, shoots fire (instead of lightning), chases Keita around and considering him her husband, goes nuts when he goes after other girls and thus uses her powers to stop him.

If you watch the first episode you will find them quite similar. http://youtube.com/watch?v=2YsEEp853Gg

Don't let the first scene and intro fool you, starting a little after the opening is where you begin to see it.

I had my suspicions at first but once I got to the scene at around 6:20-8:20 I was convinced they stole Ataru and Lum

[GiovaneDinamitardo]

I think that this saga is a plagiary of Urusei Yatsura !!!

[sidzero]

Interesting. It's almost like a cross of UY and Inuyasha.

[cata]

I'm so pissed right now, after watching Inukami... It's a 100% copy of UY with a tail, fire instead of electricity and saving the World from evil.

[Forgotten_Lum]

i wasn't mad at all with Inukami being so similar, i found it a refreshing twist, anyway the only thing i was disappointed with was the movie, i thought it would continue the story

[UruseiNeo]

I like it too. Because they are so similar to Lum and Ataru, it's almost like getting more OAVs.

I mean it's not like they are all that insulting, if they were meant to be copying Lum+Ataru then I think they did it satisfactory-Good

[sidzero]

I'm so pissed right now, after watching Inukami... It's a 100% copy of UY with a tail, fire instead of electricity and saving the World from evil.

If there are that many changes, it wouldn't be 100%, now would it?

[cata]

[If there are that many changes, it wouldn't be 100%, now would it?

I think you don't understand me at all.
UY ----> Lum & Ataru; Inukami ---->  Youko & Keita

Let's compare:

Lum / Youko:

Fly/Fly
Horns and fangs/ Tail (ok... if it were everything copied it would be much easily noticed)
Green hair/ Green hair
Electricity/ Fire (ok... if it were everything copied it would be much easily noticed)
Loving issues/ Loving issues
She insists in calling Ataru as her husband / She insists in calling Keita her husband.



Ataru / Keita:

Perv mind / Perv mind
Brown hair / Brown hair
Flirt / Flirt
Loving issues / Loving issues
He keeps running away from Lum / He insists in running away from Youko.


Relevant Differences: Fighting evil and they have to work together to do it.


Now, why do I dislike this Anime? Simple: "Be real be yourself". I don't like seeing people copying other people. I like to see people being creative and comming up with new things. If you want to do something good, then don't copy something already successful.

[sidzero]

Now now, no need to get upset. Also, I don't know if you noticed it or not, but originality is something that barely exists anymore. Everything out there is either taking an old idea and changing it a little, or combining pieces and parts of multiple old ideas. And this doesn't just go for the manga/anime industry, but for almost every single "creative" industry out there. From Hollywood to the music industry. The forced capitalization of creativity has caused those of us who call ourselves artists to have pretty much already done everything worth doing. The thing that makes it worse is that for those of us who want to actually make money at what we're making, we have to really break down our pitches to the people who will be paying us for our work into what basically becomes "here's my great idea... in under a minute!" The bad thing (for us artists) about it is that these people don't care how creative the idea may or may not be, they only care about what they can sell. And what they like to hear is usually "well it's like <insert so and so popular story> except for <insert whatever minor changes have been made>." They like this because they know ripoffs can sell.

Besides. Originality is overrated. The only things left that are truly original will be written off as "too weird" even by the fans, more often than not. Welcome to the corporatization result of the globalization of the world.


Don't believe me? Then you come up with something original. Then we'll go hunt down whatever it will be seen as a ripoff of. (This challenge goes out to everyone.)

[UruseiNeo]

Believe it or not, this is actually a technique in story writing. I can't remember what the name of the term is but I'll look at my English notes today and get back to you on that.

I would, however, like to take that challenge. I created a character...

His name is Drake. He wears sandals, gray pants, blue long sleeve shirt, and a brown fishing vest. He was raised as a fisher. After coming back to his village one day from fishing, he finds his village destroyed. However, after meeting a dragon named Kimikocha (this dragon is mostly gold scaled, wingless, and comes from the sun), he makes friends with Kimikocha and learns the art of Dragon Armor.

Dragon Armor is a technique where a dragon fuses its body with a humanoid. This creates armor on the humanoid and gives them magnificent powers. In Drake's case, he gets gold armor, gloves, boots and black sleeves and pants. His abilities are as follows:

Dragon's Claws: Hand-to-hand slash attack
Dragon's Speed: Temporary speed increase
Sun Blast: Shoots a flaming energy blast
Sun Bomb: Ultimate-Creates a large ball of sun energy, resembling a sun though obviously not as big, and launches it at his opponent.
Shining Burst Mode: Increases all abilities but slowly wares out the user.
One more complicated ability not gonna be explained.

I'll tell you I made this character a few years ago. Now... tell me where I got him from. Or at least, try to tell me where I got parts of this from.

[Cosmic King]

To me,Inukami seems more like a homage to Urusei Yatsura.It is good to see it had a huge influence over the anime universe

[UruseiNeo]

Okay here are the notes I had on this topic in English 12:

Post Modernism

-Bricolage: pieces from other works. Mixes to create a new story.

-Doesn't create new, creates something based on existing traditions. Rearranging. Retouching.

-Parody or satire (don't think that was important)

-Speaking to the reader-- okay this is where we have officially changed topics.

---------------------

So basically taking something old and using it to make something new is actually a technique.

sidzero, still waiting for you to track down my character idea (which I've already used in my non-UY fanfic)

[sidzero]

Both of the main ideas of the story are quite familiar. The idea of befriending magical beasts (in this case a dragon) and having him/her/it help the character do "great deeds" (whether good or bad) is an age-old concept. It's been told in myths and legends and fairy tales since ancient times. The idea of being able to fuse with such a creature (to my knowledge at least) is a more modern idea. Though I can't name names off the top of my head (and frankly at this very moment I don't have time to look such things up, maybe later), I know it's been done before a few times, at least. I'll come back to find where it was later when I have time.

[UruseiNeo]

Okay, not that I'm complaining about Inukami! being like UY. I just wanted to show 2 more similarities.

First, I think I found Inukami Megane. First thing you see in episode 8 before the intro. He could have the same voice actor!

Second, http://youtube.com/watch?v=gbFcQFvkbQc&feature=related 1:58 looks a lot like the move Lum was using on Ataru in the valentine's day episode with the Ten+Mako thing.

For some reason I like this series. I think it's because it reminds me so much of Urusei Yatsura.

[sidzero]

See, I never really understood the whole liking something because it reminds you of something else thing. It may be the way things are done out in the professional world, but the more something reminds me of something else, the more that fact annoys me. I try and find things about a story that make it stand on it's own, and when I like those things, they make me like the story more. But that's just me.