This is taken from Tomobiki-cho: The Urusei Yatsura Web Site
Written by Mason Proulx (mson@ottawa.net)

Lum is a girl who's irrevocably in love with that lecherous and luckless lout Ataru Moroboshi. One could argue that no one normal could love such a man but then again, Lum is not your ordinary teenage girl.

Lum is an alien princess (for lack of a better explanation), and more specifically an Oni. In ancient Japanese mythology, oni were evil demons which were a product of mankind's bad karma. Lum's race is an alien version of the same demons. Lum can usually be seen wearing her tiger-striped bikini outfit which always turns heads, especially in a conservative Japanese society. She has the power to fly and can produce high-voltage electricity. She uses these alien powers to keep Ataru from flirting. But that is always a vain attempt.

She is a vivacious and uninhibited extraterrestrial. She's full of sex-appeal, glamour and feminine charm. An honest and caring girl who isn't afraid to show her feelings. A firm believer in standing by your man (even if her man hardly ever stands by her). But she has another more frightening side to her. Lum has a very bad temper, and an extremely jealous nature. Her response to these feelings of anger are usually in the form of a massive electrical zapping (or even huge wooden hammers). Also Lum is very stubborn. When she sets her mind on something, she doesn't let it go. Even though Lum is quick to anger, she never stays like that for long. Most of the time she's very vibrant and carefree.

With her exotic alien beauty and cute pop-idol attitude, she's really popular with the boys. Any one of her male classmates would kill for a date with her. Even so, she is completely devoted to Ataru. She thinks of him as her husband and refers to him only as "Darling". Lum follows Ataru everywhere he goes. Soon Lum wanted to be with Ataru as much as possible so she enrolled herself as a student at Tomobiki High School in the same class as Ataru. Her Darling keeps running from her Lum knows that deep down, he really does love her.

Being of an advanced alien race, Lum is always bringing out peculiar alien technology. Shrinking rays, time traveling machines, portal openers, cloning guns and much more. Many more absurd gadgets she keeps in her bikini top. Lum's UFO which hovers over earth is filled with technological wonders which are often more troublesome than they are beneficial to earth culture. Often Lum will use her advatages in technology to try to control Ataru or make him more faithful to her, but it usually ends up causing more damage than good.

Lum is very intelligent but still very naive to earth's customs. Therefore she often misunderstands what people say, always with catastrophic results. One consequence of this was that she thought that Ataru proposed to her, when he never did. Also she thought it meant instant marriage. It wasn't until later when she realized that she would have to have a proper ceremony. But often Ataru has found that he could exploit her naivete as well as her love for him to suit his purposes.

The one thing Lum is not, is a good cook. Not only because she has a penchant for extraordinarily spicy food but mostly because her strange alien food doesn't go over too well with earth creatures. Often her Oni cuisine has disfiguring effects. This is something Ataru has learned the hard way.

It is often speculated that Lum's mere presence in Tomobiki has warped and altered the the town and that's why weird things keep happening there. Because of this, the fates of the people and situations that occur daily in Tomobiki seem intertwined with her existance. If she was ever to leave, all of the weirdness would stop. It would just be normal. But that's no fun.

As an additional note Lum constantly uses an unusual dialect. She says "uchi" when referring to herself and almost always uses "tcha" as a verb ending (listen for it, it comes up A LOT). Her speech is patterned after a very cute saccarine-laden style used in Japan by young girls who are trying to be cute, almost sickeningly so.

Notes about the name

Mostly Lum's name, character and...ahem, proportions were based upon a supermodel who was popular in the early 1970's named Agnes Lum. She was well known as a spokesperson appearing in many TV commercials usually wearing bikinis. Note: It had been said that Agnes Lum was a pop-singer from Hong Kong which seems to be incorrect. Chances are that they were mistaking her for Agnes Chan.

It has also been noted in articles about Miss Takahashi that a nickname she had while growing up was "Rum" or "Lum" due to the interchangeability of the letters "R" and "L" to the Japanese ear. It has been noted that Takahashi sees Lum as her alter-ego. So in a way the character of Lum is also based somewhat on Rumiko herself.

Seiyuu Information

Lum's voice is done by Fumi Hirano, who is very good at what she does. She can sound cute and sweet yet she is equally good with a nagging or angry voice. She's the perfect voice for Lum. Fumi hasn't done too many other famous anime, the only ones that you might know are Outlanders and Final Fantasy.