sidzero:
I've made a decision. I've been stuck on the scriptwriting my retelling of UY for far too long, so I figured I would get a little input and see if I can't work out what I need to do with the story. First I should probably say a little about what I'm planning to do with the story so some of you guys (whether or not you're agreeing with what I'm doing) can get a better idea of what's going on with it. If you don't want things spoiled for you (not that you all don't already know what the main story is, but it could spoil how I got things planned out), then just skip to the last paragraph everything between the *begin spoilers* and *end spoilers* and get straight to the question. Otherwise, just highlight everything between *begin spoilers* and *end spoilers* and you can read pretty much most of what I've got going on for this story read on (yeah I know it's a lot but you don't HAVE to read it, you know ;)).
*begin spoilers*
First of all, I'm calling it Urusei Yatsura Remix. Part of the whole idea of the thing is that I'm trying to get away from the "gag of the week" format that most of the original UY followed. Another big part of the idea is that I want it to be a little more focused on the drama and action aspects of the story and less on the comedy. No, I'm not trying to make it so serious that it's unfunny. The humor is still gonna be there, but it's going to be a little toned down. Also, no, I'm not going to drag out any action scenes so that they take 5 or 6 chapters to show one action scene that'd take like 4 or 5 minutes in a normal movie or anime, like certain other popular manga out there today (like Bleach and Naruto, especially... I hate that part about them).
One of the things I'm planning on doing with it is making it so that, unlike the original, time actually flows normally, instead of in some kind of infinite time loop where no matter how many years seem to pass, the cast never gets out of their second year of high school. Now, because of this, I have to change a few minor things in regards to story and characters. One of the biggest and most noticeable changes, perhaps, is that instead of the characters starting at some undesignated point in their second year, I've turned back the clocks and made the characters a little younger, and in the september of their first year. There is good reason for this, but I don't want to give EVERYTHING away.
Another big fact that gets changed in my version of the story is WHEN it takes place. Instead of being at some unknown time in the 80s like the original, my version takes place in the not-to-distant future. The reason for THIS, I will say, and it's because of the simple fact of Ataru's birthday. Now, originally, Ataru was born on the 13th of April, which fell on both Butsumetsu and Friday the 13th. Part of the reason I pushed the story into the future is because in recent history, such a coincidence has only happened twice. Once in 1959, and again in 2001 (and it won't happen again until the 2040's sometime). This was a fact I checked and double checked. It created a conflict in the original story. For Ataru to be 17, that means the story would have to have taken place in either 1976 or 2018, but since I made the characters a little younger (Ataru starts out as 15) it would take place in either 1974 or 2016. Considering I don't really want to write it in the 70's, I chose to have it in 2016. Simple, right? This fact doesn't really change much other than very minor things.
Now, before anyone goes crying about how much I'm going to change their favorite characters, I just want to state the fact that the only big thing about the characters that change is their ages. Ataru will still be the same Ataru. Lum will still be the same Lum. Mendo and Shinobu will be the same Mendo and Shinobu, etc. There may be a little more into why they are the way they are, and they may do things slightly differently, but not enough for the change to really matter.
Now, storywise is probably where you'll see the most changes. Because of the way I'm expanding the stories, I've decided it would be best to simply reduce the sheer number of stories. I'm going to keep what I consider to be the best and most important stories to the overall storyline. I'm going to be taking small artistic licenses and adding a little bit to pad out the stories and make them flow together a little better in addition to the fact that the stories are going to be based mostly on the manga (but of course, I'm going to be adding aspects from the anime that I think flush them out a little better, so the anime fans won't be too displeased). Considering I'm taking the first and third chapters of the manga (which add up to the first episode of anime) and my writing has ended up turning into 5 chapters altogether (which is going to be the first story arc), you might understand a bit about why I have to trim it down some. All the major players are staying, but some of the filler stories (at least what seem like filler to me) are gone. IE: You're not gonna be meeting the little buck-toothed devil from the second chapter in my story, or the aliens with the remote control war, nor other useless characters like the pool monster, or the alien spirit-foxes, etc. Now, I'm not cutting out ALL the minor characters. Kaede the ninja girl is still gonna be there, for example. However, I may have to rearrange the stories a little to make the overall flow better. IE: Oyuki is going to be introduced a few chapters earlier, and I want to put off Ten as long as I possibly can (he shows up way too early in the anime, in the manga he doesn't show up until after Ran, and I like it that way). I also want to include a few stories from the anime series that didn't appear in the manga, most notably the whole story of Elle from the first movie (which I think was the best story of all the movies).
Anyway, here's where I tell you what I've got done so far. For starters, I got the whole skeleton of the story structured out all the way up until the first appearance of Mendo (which is pretty far, and as far as I'm going with that until I get a little further in the scripts). As for the scripts (which I need to mention that I'm not really paying attention to how many pages each chapter has, as long as it feels like more than 15 pages, and doesn't drag out to more than 40 pages, I'm ok with the length), I've got the entire first chapter and about 1/3 of the second chapter done. Keeping in mind the fact that the first arc is five chapters, that doesn't really seem like a lot, does it?
The first chapter covers Ataru's day the day before the tag match. It's the day he finds out he's the chosen champion of Earth, and first meets Lum and Cherry. It also establishes his half-assed relationship with Shinobu. The way I've managed to tell the story in the first chapter, in my opinion, is pretty good, as it's pretty much told through a flashback from Ataru's diary (since we all know he keeps one). Now the second chapter covers the whole beginning of the tag match, starting from the first day and going all the way up until the 9th day. I'm going to have this chapter end with Shinobu's marriage proposal to Ataru (great cliffhanger, if you ask me, cause the response isn't until the 3rd chapter). Since the story's going to be based more on the manga than the anime, I've decided to include when Cherry meets with Ataru's parents to discuss why he's got such bad luck (which is going to be a little different than the series of unfortunate events that the manga originally suggests, and will play out much better over the course of the series), as well as Ataru snagging Lum's bikini on the 8th day and her coming to fight with Ataru to try and get it back that night. The third chapter covers the conclusion of Shinobu's marriage proposal, the final day of the tag match and Lum's well known misunderstanding of everything before leaving with her father back to her planet to take care of things, and the last part of it is going to pretty much be an original segment to flesh out the story a little. It's going to tell how Shinobu and Ataru make up after the misunderstanding (it has to be done because it just doesn't seem right to me that they're just suddenly OK with each other at the start of the next story in both the anime AND the manga), and it's going to show how Megane (who is the ONLY of the 4 stormtroopers that I'm bringing into my version of the story, because the stormtroopers didn't last long in the manga, but I think having at least one of them could really help the story at points, and will be needed in some of the stories, and believe me, I have my ways of replacing the missing ones when they're needed) descends into his mad obsession with Lum, and his plotting and scheming a way to bring her back to Earth. The fourth chapter covers pretty much the first half of the Taxi Ride/Oil Crisis story. Megane recruiting some others into helping him kidnap Ataru and try and summon Lum's UFO and it turning out to be the Intergalactic Taxi service. The taxi ride that costs intergalactic funds that Ataru could never pay, and (as a change from the original story, and much more fun in my book) instead of it costing all the oil on Earth, it costs the very earth itself! Of course, Ataru can't pay and now the Intergalactic Taxi Driver's Union has come to take over the world. The chapter ends with Lum making her return appearance. The fifth chapter and final chapter of the first arc is pretty much gonna finish out the Taxi Ride/Oil crisis story with Lum making her offer to pay the fare in exchange for being able to live at the Moroboshi house, Ataru refusing and finally getting his ass kicked until he accepts, and Lum paying it off. To me, the last chapter seemed like it would just be a little too short so I decided I want to add a bit of filler so that it flows into the next story (where he runs away from home to get away from Lum and ends up meeting Sakura), but I haven't quite figured out what and how much to add.
Anyway, that's where I'm at and what's going on. The place I'm stuck right now is in the second chapter. As I said, it tells the tale of the first 9 days of the race. Right now I'm at the end of the first day. What I need is some help coming up with some of the schemes Ataru would try to try and win that tag race before he snags Lum's bra on the 8th day.
*end spoilers*
My question is, if you were Ataru, during the first tag match, and you just found out that your opponent, Lum, could fly. What would you think of if you were trying to come up with ways to beat her. Obviously, just trying to run and catch her wouldn't work. I've got two offhand: the first being one that was featured in the anime... using a jetpack to fly (as we all know, the jetpack ended up exploding before he even got off the ground, and we'll even ignore trying to figure out HOW he managed to get his hands on a jetpack), the second being trying to use a big fishing net to try and hold her down (which also wouldn't work because even if he could catch her with it, it's not like she wouldn't be able to fly with it anyway, and she could either throw it off, or maybe burn it off with her lightning). I need somewhere like 3, 4 or 5 more ideas that Ataru might try when trying to catch Lum during this tag match.
Suggestions?
UruseiNeo:
I think you should do what they did in the manga where Ataru caught Lum's bra on I think the 8th day and then Lum came after him during the night to get it back only to find he was wearing it. The race was still won on the 10th day the same way in the anime only he already had the bra.
Also I'm not really sure whether she's allowed to use her lightning during the racing.
Something else he could do is try jumping off a building with a home-made wing set or something like that. He could try a grappling hook to grab her leg or something.
He could try using some sort of blinding ray only to end up blinding himself.
DarkDevil:
I thought it was on the 10th day.
UruseiNeo:
--- Quote from: DarkDevil on February 27, 2008, 04:56:30 PM ---I thought it was on the 10th day.