Topic: Theory regarding the 'ending' as we loosely call it

[Seiryu]

- Perm definitely had the most independence. He was definitely my favorite of that group. I liked that group of 4 in general though cause they added a nice dynamic to the anime gang since they faded out of existence in the manga outside of Kyousuke, who is the person Perm replaced. Megane will always remain the creepiest among them. Like he was legit a lot worse than Ataru. Regardless, only member of the four I can't see people liking is Kakugari, who didn't really have much of a personality or stand out as much as the others.

- Agreed with you there. I'm way to use to their original voices, not to mention their original voices fit quite well. I couldn't ever imagine anyone else voicing Ataru or Lum other than Toshio and Fumi.

- Mendou's problem was highlighted in that episode where Cherry straight up told him why he's inferior to Ataru, and why he'll never get Lum. He thinks he's better than everyone else (which he obviously isn't) and believes because of how wealthy and good looking he is, everything great should come to him. It leaves Mendou baffled when you've got "an incompetent and ugly" guy like Ataru Moroboshi who tends to not only get the better of him 95% of the time, but also has the girl Mendou wants. Mendou is somewhat similar to Ranma in that regard. They love one person (Mendou loves Lum and Ranma loves Akane), but they love the fact that other girls love them. Mendou seems to get along with Asuka enough, one of only two guys she can function correctly around. Of course when you've got a fiance like Asuka, a rival in Ton, and a sister in Ryoko, Mendou's life is almost as lively as Ataru's.

- That's true about Onsen. He definitely wasn't telling Ataru to lie. I'm thankful Ataru didn't either. Loved how just about everyone else (including Lum) all were fine with him lying, but Ataru refuses to do that. Pretty much because when he does say the words she wants to hear, he wants her to know it's genuine.

- Wasn't there a person who did like short little mini comics of what they envision as a continuation? Of course it was all in Japanese? About that "Lum gets Grounded" one. You got a source for that? It sounds interesting.

- Does Always My Darling take place after The Final Chapter? If so, that's pretty dissatisfying. Thankfully most fans tend to disregard that film in general.

[Oldfan]

Perm's best showing, when Rei showed up at the school thanks to Ten and started eating all the lunches when the class had a study hall period. When he finally lost his cool and went to challenge Rei was great. Of course, he needs to eat a lot more beefbowl because he looked skeletal, but he's pretty tall so it fits him.

Kakugari's best showing I think was in Beautiful Dreamer, when he imitated Onsen Mark who had a severe departure in his artwork for that movie. Otherwise, he's basically Megane's lackey and he carries Chibi everywhere. Chibi and he were my least favorites, by far, with Megane only slightly better because sometimes his speeches were amusing. I did enjoy seeing him in the boxing gloves episode when Ataru basically sent him (Megane) flying, probably because other than when Lum zapped him, he never took much of any hits.

I don't know if the videos are still on YouTube, but there was one of Fumi and Toshio from Dallas Animefest 2016, they did a reading from Beautiful Dreamer and after all that time they still sounded spot on. I give them credit because they've both done so much since then (well, Toshio more than Fumi by far) and the last time they did Lum and Ataru was the 2008 OVA. Fumi also dyed her hair green and sang the original opening song for UY for the crowd too, had to admit, I know now Japan adored her for a very long time.

I like to think of Mendou as 'What if Ataru was rich?' because he's basically the same, if not worse in some ways than Ataru. They have most all the same traits, but Mendou is more of a jerk because he will play off the adoration of the girls just to get his attention. I can't say Ataru wouldn't, but he didn't basically jerk around Shinobu like Mendou did in that he used her to be in the group for all those four person adventures.

Also, I really didn't consider Ataru to be ugly, but having a serious face and a goofy face make for very different looks. Ataru proved more than once when he had a serious face on, he was actually a good looking kid. When Kurama took him back to learn from her 'papa' and Ataru did that serious face (before his nerves exploded) even she was stunned by his looks. Ataru and Lum and then Shinobu I think had the overall biggest artwork changes as time went on. The two girls were pretty skinny at the beginning and they filled out as the show and movies went on. Lum's biggest changes came in the last 40 or so episodes and in The Final Chapter, and by the end Ataru was actually a pretty solid looking kid as well. He definitely looked the best in The Electric Jungle and The Final Chapter.

That whole movie was pretty much Ataru growing up, fast. Considering he wasn't above lying to anyone else, the fact he refused to lie to Lum was probably his best point. It's actually ironic, I discovered this (after all this time) about a week ago, but the sequence where Ataru is taking jump after jump to catch Lum and it's basically a trumpet song, just before Mendou and the others are shown watching from a monitor in a tent, the song is called Ataru No Bolero. I used to wonder why they used a spanish name for a song, but Bolero means Dance, or Jacket. It has an adjective form though too and me with 35 years of Spanish fluency under my belt missed it until I gave it thought.

Bolero as an adjective means Lie, or To Lie as the case may be. Ataru no Bolero -- Ataru Won't Lie. I had to admit I was way more impressed with the music composer after that one, even though it's one of the best soundtracks for a UY movie.

Oh I know who you're referring to now, I posted in the graphics section about it - Genta Heyshi, he did a lot of artwork and continued the story as he felt it should go. He's the reason why I started trying to learn enough Japanese to translate it. I wrote to him via his site which is still up but nothing came back, he disappeared a few years ago, from the looks of it he was having some health issues. I went through his site and basically copied all the artwork and having been plucking away at a translation since - https://postimg.org/gallery/1xhg6vbha/.

Here's the link to Lum Gets Grounded - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4118620/1/Lum-Gets-Grounded - aside from some typos, it's overall a nice read, and I'm not usually a fanfic type.

With Always My Darling, I really HOPE it's not after The Final Chapter, if it is, now I know why Rumiko hated it. As a story, it's not bad, but as a movie following the canon ending, it's very disappointing. The character resets for the gang were horrible - and I can't see Ataru being like that right after basically saying he loves Lum without saying it.

The only reason why it comes late in the overall timeline is because of that brief appearance by Inaba. But I reconcile it in my head is that it can really come anytime after Inaba, but before the second Inaba manga story as that was way more serious in tone.

Someone likely had an idea to try and cash in on the 10th anniversary of UY but likely didn't pay attention to what had been done already. As just a movie, it's alright, but it basically milked the premise of Only You with story changes to make it different. Another alien princess comes for Ataru, not because she's attached to him, but it's a princess in love with a commoner (Lum/Ataru) motif.

[Seiryu]

Perm's best showing, when Rei showed up at the school thanks to Ten and started eating all the lunches when the class had a study hall period. When he finally lost his cool and went to challenge Rei was great. Of course, he needs to eat a lot more beefbowl because he looked skeletal, but he's pretty tall so it fits him.

Kakugari's best showing I think was in Beautiful Dreamer, when he imitated Onsen Mark who had a severe departure in his artwork for that movie. Otherwise, he's basically Megane's lackey and he carries Chibi everywhere. Chibi and he were my least favorites, by far, with Megane only slightly better because sometimes his speeches were amusing. I did enjoy seeing him in the boxing gloves episode when Ataru basically sent him (Megane) flying, probably because other than when Lum zapped him, he never took much of any hits.

I don't know if the videos are still on YouTube, but there was one of Fumi and Toshio from Dallas Animefest 2016, they did a reading from Beautiful Dreamer and after all that time they still sounded spot on. I give them credit because they've both done so much since then (well, Toshio more than Fumi by far) and the last time they did Lum and Ataru was the 2008 OVA. Fumi also dyed her hair green and sang the original opening song for UY for the crowd too, had to admit, I know now Japan adored her for a very long time.

I like to think of Mendou as 'What if Ataru was rich?' because he's basically the same, if not worse in some ways than Ataru. They have most all the same traits, but Mendou is more of a jerk because he will play off the adoration of the girls just to get his attention. I can't say Ataru wouldn't, but he didn't basically jerk around Shinobu like Mendou did in that he used her to be in the group for all those four person adventures.

Also, I really didn't consider Ataru to be ugly, but having a serious face and a goofy face make for very different looks. Ataru proved more than once when he had a serious face on, he was actually a good looking kid. When Kurama took him back to learn from her 'papa' and Ataru did that serious face (before his nerves exploded) even she was stunned by his looks. Ataru and Lum and then Shinobu I think had the overall biggest artwork changes as time went on. The two girls were pretty skinny at the beginning and they filled out as the show and movies went on. Lum's biggest changes came in the last 40 or so episodes and in The Final Chapter, and by the end Ataru was actually a pretty solid looking kid as well. He definitely looked the best in The Electric Jungle and The Final Chapter.

That whole movie was pretty much Ataru growing up, fast. Considering he wasn't above lying to anyone else, the fact he refused to lie to Lum was probably his best point. It's actually ironic, I discovered this (after all this time) about a week ago, but the sequence where Ataru is taking jump after jump to catch Lum and it's basically a trumpet song, just before Mendou and the others are shown watching from a monitor in a tent, the song is called Ataru No Bolero. I used to wonder why they used a spanish name for a song, but Bolero means Dance, or Jacket. It has an adjective form though too and me with 35 years of Spanish fluency under my belt missed it until I gave it thought.

Bolero as an adjective means Lie, or To Lie as the case may be. Ataru no Bolero -- Ataru Won't Lie. I had to admit I was way more impressed with the music composer after that one, even though it's one of the best soundtracks for a UY movie.

Oh I know who you're referring to now, I posted in the graphics section about it - Genta Heyshi, he did a lot of artwork and continued the story as he felt it should go. He's the reason why I started trying to learn enough Japanese to translate it. I wrote to him via his site which is still up but nothing came back, he disappeared a few years ago, from the looks of it he was having some health issues. I went through his site and basically copied all the artwork and having been plucking away at a translation since - https://postimg.org/gallery/1xhg6vbha/.

Here's the link to Lum Gets Grounded - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4118620/1/Lum-Gets-Grounded - aside from some typos, it's overall a nice read, and I'm not usually a fanfic type.

With Always My Darling, I really HOPE it's not after The Final Chapter, if it is, now I know why Rumiko hated it. As a story, it's not bad, but as a movie following the canon ending, it's very disappointing. The character resets for the gang were horrible - and I can't see Ataru being like that right after basically saying he loves Lum without saying it.

The only reason why it comes late in the overall timeline is because of that brief appearance by Inaba. But I reconcile it in my head is that it can really come anytime after Inaba, but before the second Inaba manga story as that was way more serious in tone.

Someone likely had an idea to try and cash in on the 10th anniversary of UY but likely didn't pay attention to what had been done already. As just a movie, it's alright, but it basically milked the premise of Only You with story changes to make it different. Another alien princess comes for Ataru, not because she's attached to him, but it's a princess in love with a commoner (Lum/Ataru) motif.

- I remember that moment. Dunno about Perm, in a series where most characters display superhuman strength, he might just be one of the few exceptions.

- Chibi I always felt was hit or miss with people. Though I definitely like him more than Kakugari who wasn't really all that memorable compared to the other three. As I mentioned before, Perm was my favorite and he seems to be your favorite among the four as well.

- Megan did have funny speeches at times. I think my favorite moment of his was the episode where Ataru and Lum were spending the night alone without his parents. Lum tells all the others that her body belongs to Ataru and Megane just freezes up. Even more hilarious is when Ataru and Lum go to bed and when the others are kicked out of the house, Megane was just left on the living room floor frozen solid because he thought Ataru was going to deflower her.

- Funny enough. While anime Ataru is more open to Lum than Manga Ataru, both versions seem fine with having sex with Lum in contrast to him not even daring to consider that earlier in the series. I just find it funny how he's open to the idea of doing it, and was fully under the impression that's what Lum wanted to do as well. She probably would have had he brought the topic up directly. Makes it even funnier as I re-watched episode 161 and Ataru accidentally presses his face into Lum's chest, and she proceeds to grab him and force him into her bosom.

- That is some nice talent. Speaking of the 2008 OVA, you'd think there's a chance we'll get another eventually? I definitely want some stories from the manga to be adapted into the anime. Of course I don't expect anything like that to happen anytime soon.

- All of them had ulterior motives in those four gang groups. Only difference is, Lum is the only one who wasn't really trying to use someone else to get to Ataru. Something else that makes Ataru better than the other boys in his school is the fact that he doesn't bother hiding the fact that he's a lecherous teen. I can perfectly understand why the other boys do hide that fact, but they end up becoming hypocritical when they get on Ataru's case when they're really just as bad as him. They're only saving grace is that they can control it better (until Lum comes into the picture).

- In universe, he's considered ugly by everyone who isn't himself and Lum (who finds him cute looking). Truth be told, Ataru really isn't ugly, and as you said he just comes off looking more goofy looking than anything. Agreed. Those three definitely saw the biggest changes. Ataru in particular I loved how they made him look older in both the "I Howl at the Moon OVA" and The Final Chapter. Artwork for both look pretty much the same. Something I enjoyed about both. By extension it made everyone look a bit older.

- Really? Interesting. I was aware of the song, but not the background of it. The song was fitting. Took me a long time to find the soundtracks for The Final Chapter. The soundtrack of that movie was fantastic. It was definitely his strongest point as a character in that film. That film was largely one big trial for Ataru (and Lum).

- Had no idea that person was sick. That's very unfortunate. That's awesome that you've been translating it. How much more do you have left? I've been on his sight once before and it seems like you did a large majority of it. Very impressive.

- Understandable and I agree. I feel Always My Darling would have been better received had it been like an OVA, or just a regular episode somewhere in like the early-middle part of the series. It's the fact that it's a film that comes out post-Final Chapter where we had just gotten through a beautiful finale to a series and we got to see how many of these characters (especially Ataru and Lum) develop throughout the series. It makes no sense to have Ataru acting that way and especially to that degree anymore. It's partly why I feel if Takahashi did make even just a small comic of UY post-Boy Meets Girl, she probably wouldn't portray Ataru the way he for a bulk of the series, and he'd probably be more in line with how he is in the last storyline (more mature, more open in general to Lum, and not really all that perverted anymore.

- You're right it did just feel like it was just to cash in on UY's massive popularity around that time. I do believe why Takahashi wanted anything anime related with UY to stop after that and I too can't blame her.

[Oldfan]

- I remember that moment. Dunno about Perm, in a series where most characters display superhuman strength, he might just be one of the few exceptions.

- Chibi I always felt was hit or miss with people. Though I definitely like him more than Kakugari who wasn't really all that memorable compared to the other three. As I mentioned before, Perm was my favorite and he seems to be your favorite among the four as well.

- Megan did have funny speeches at times. I think my favorite moment of his was the episode where Ataru and Lum were spending the night alone without his parents. Lum tells all the others that her body belongs to Ataru and Megane just freezes up. Even more hilarious is when Ataru and Lum go to bed and when the others are kicked out of the house, Megane was just left on the living room floor frozen solid because he thought Ataru was going to deflower her.

- Funny enough. While anime Ataru is more open to Lum than Manga Ataru, both versions seem fine with having sex with Lum in contrast to him not even daring to consider that earlier in the series. I just find it funny how he's open to the idea of doing it, and was fully under the impression that's what Lum wanted to do as well. She probably would have had he brought the topic up directly. Makes it even funnier as I re-watched episode 161 and Ataru accidentally presses his face into Lum's chest, and she proceeds to grab him and force him into her bosom.

- That is some nice talent. Speaking of the 2008 OVA, you'd think there's a chance we'll get another eventually? I definitely want some stories from the manga to be adapted into the anime. Of course I don't expect anything like that to happen anytime soon.

- All of them had ulterior motives in those four gang groups. Only difference is, Lum is the only one who wasn't really trying to use someone else to get to Ataru. Something else that makes Ataru better than the other boys in his school is the fact that he doesn't bother hiding the fact that he's a lecherous teen. I can perfectly understand why the other boys do hide that fact, but they end up becoming hypocritical when they get on Ataru's case when they're really just as bad as him. They're only saving grace is that they can control it better (until Lum comes into the picture).

- In universe, he's considered ugly by everyone who isn't himself and Lum (who finds him cute looking). Truth be told, Ataru really isn't ugly, and as you said he just comes off looking more goofy looking than anything. Agreed. Those three definitely saw the biggest changes. Ataru in particular I loved how they made him look older in both the "I Howl at the Moon OVA" and The Final Chapter. Artwork for both look pretty much the same. Something I enjoyed about both. By extension it made everyone look a bit older.

- Really? Interesting. I was aware of the song, but not the background of it. The song was fitting. Took me a long time to find the soundtracks for The Final Chapter. The soundtrack of that movie was fantastic. It was definitely his strongest point as a character in that film. That film was largely one big trial for Ataru (and Lum).

- Had no idea that person was sick. That's very unfortunate. That's awesome that you've been translating it. How much more do you have left? I've been on his sight once before and it seems like you did a large majority of it. Very impressive.

- Understandable and I agree. I feel Always My Darling would have been better received had it been like an OVA, or just a regular episode somewhere in like the early-middle part of the series. It's the fact that it's a film that comes out post-Final Chapter where we had just gotten through a beautiful finale to a series and we got to see how many of these characters (especially Ataru and Lum) develop throughout the series. It makes no sense to have Ataru acting that way and especially to that degree anymore. It's partly why I feel if Takahashi did make even just a small comic of UY post-Boy Meets Girl, she probably wouldn't portray Ataru the way he for a bulk of the series, and he'd probably be more in line with how he is in the last storyline (more mature, more open in general to Lum, and not really all that perverted anymore.

- You're right it did just feel like it was just to cash in on UY's massive popularity around that time. I do believe why Takahashi wanted anything anime related with UY to stop after that and I too can't blame her.

Perm was probably the most normal of all the males in the show, period. No powers, no weirdness (another than the summer date episode when he daydreamed of shoving his date off a cliff to have Lum), and he was overall the most friendly to Ataru.

Chibi seemed like the mascot honestly, but overall the group was pretty disturbing. They should have been called "Those who are obsessed with Lum, but have no chance at all with her".

Megane I think couldn't fathom why Lum chose Ataru. The Christmas episode when Lum took the place of the girl they got to humiliate Ataru leaving Megane with the white hair was great too - his stark disbelief leaving him like that was funny. But the home alone episode also stands out as it's the one time that Ataru came to realize whether he's with Lum or he's not, the end result is the same so why not just go for it. I liked how they worked in tandem to eject everyone from the house and that Lum actually lost her cool with the others.

In the beginning there's the episode in the anime when Lum is waving her top at Ataru and obviously flashing him and he gets flustered instantly, not the sign of someone that's a real lecher. But overall, I imagine Lum is as virginal as Ataru is, she just would do anything she could for his attention. There was also the one Kurama episode when she sends him into that other dimension to break him from how he acts and he's scared of Lum and Shinobu when he returns. Once they convince him it wasn't real, he shoved his face into Lum's chest and both Lum and Shinobu were fine with it. Yet when Rei appeared and Lum decided to say she was pregnant, Shinobu pretty much creamed Ataru.

I think if we get another OVA, we'd be lucky at this point, but Fumi stated she still works with her voice coaches to keep in the range for Lum - she doesn't want to disappoint her fans. Toshio does Ataru's voice every time he appears at an anime con, but he's just turned 72, so if they do decide on something, I hope it's soon. And for a story to adapt, Love and Valor - the other Inaba story. It's a really good story for Shinobu, and also it's where Ataru is forced to realize someone else actually really loves her and so he finally 'steps aside'. Another one to adapt, when Ataru gets the bat like wings - that was pretty good in the manga.

With the groups, the ulterior motives were getting to be like a laundry list of issues. The Stormtroopers wanted Lum, Mendou wanted Lum or Sakura, and sometimes I wonder which desire was the greater, Shinobu went from Ataru, to Mendou to Inaba. Ataru wanted any female his lust zoned in on, but in the end, he was realizing he was centering on Lum. Sakura had Tsubame (by the way, his name means Swallow, which I found odd), Onsen-Mark wanted Sakura, Ran wanted Rei, Rei wanted Lum but settled for Ran. And Lum was the only consistent one, she just wanted Ataru.

All previous songs from soundtracks are pretty indicative of what they are, but I recall when I listened to the soundtrack for The Final Chapter and remarking that sounded more spanish in influence. So while listening I looked at the title and started doing the math.

Those translations we have so far are being doing by another member of the forum, Horus - he's native Japanese. I just decided that one way to learn it is to do it myself, and it's not easy. Took me like 15 mins to realize that Darling is a literal use of our language for Lum's term for Ataru. There's words for Darling, but they don't have that ring to it, so to write Darling in Japanese it basically sounds like Da-rin. But I saw the creator was sick from using Google Chrome to translate his blog - I hope he's okay, his artwork is superb.

[Seiryu]

- I remember that moment. Dunno about Perm, in a series where most characters display superhuman strength, he might just be one of the few exceptions.

- Chibi I always felt was hit or miss with people. Though I definitely like him more than Kakugari who wasn't really all that memorable compared to the other three. As I mentioned before, Perm was my favorite and he seems to be your favorite among the four as well.

- Megan did have funny speeches at times. I think my favorite moment of his was the episode where Ataru and Lum were spending the night alone without his parents. Lum tells all the others that her body belongs to Ataru and Megane just freezes up. Even more hilarious is when Ataru and Lum go to bed and when the others are kicked out of the house, Megane was just left on the living room floor frozen solid because he thought Ataru was going to deflower her.

- Funny enough. While anime Ataru is more open to Lum than Manga Ataru, both versions seem fine with having sex with Lum in contrast to him not even daring to consider that earlier in the series. I just find it funny how he's open to the idea of doing it, and was fully under the impression that's what Lum wanted to do as well. She probably would have had he brought the topic up directly. Makes it even funnier as I re-watched episode 161 and Ataru accidentally presses his face into Lum's chest, and she proceeds to grab him and force him into her bosom.

- That is some nice talent. Speaking of the 2008 OVA, you'd think there's a chance we'll get another eventually? I definitely want some stories from the manga to be adapted into the anime. Of course I don't expect anything like that to happen anytime soon.

- All of them had ulterior motives in those four gang groups. Only difference is, Lum is the only one who wasn't really trying to use someone else to get to Ataru. Something else that makes Ataru better than the other boys in his school is the fact that he doesn't bother hiding the fact that he's a lecherous teen. I can perfectly understand why the other boys do hide that fact, but they end up becoming hypocritical when they get on Ataru's case when they're really just as bad as him. They're only saving grace is that they can control it better (until Lum comes into the picture).

- In universe, he's considered ugly by everyone who isn't himself and Lum (who finds him cute looking). Truth be told, Ataru really isn't ugly, and as you said he just comes off looking more goofy looking than anything. Agreed. Those three definitely saw the biggest changes. Ataru in particular I loved how they made him look older in both the "I Howl at the Moon OVA" and The Final Chapter. Artwork for both look pretty much the same. Something I enjoyed about both. By extension it made everyone look a bit older.

- Really? Interesting. I was aware of the song, but not the background of it. The song was fitting. Took me a long time to find the soundtracks for The Final Chapter. The soundtrack of that movie was fantastic. It was definitely his strongest point as a character in that film. That film was largely one big trial for Ataru (and Lum).

- Had no idea that person was sick. That's very unfortunate. That's awesome that you've been translating it. How much more do you have left? I've been on his sight once before and it seems like you did a large majority of it. Very impressive.

- Understandable and I agree. I feel Always My Darling would have been better received had it been like an OVA, or just a regular episode somewhere in like the early-middle part of the series. It's the fact that it's a film that comes out post-Final Chapter where we had just gotten through a beautiful finale to a series and we got to see how many of these characters (especially Ataru and Lum) develop throughout the series. It makes no sense to have Ataru acting that way and especially to that degree anymore. It's partly why I feel if Takahashi did make even just a small comic of UY post-Boy Meets Girl, she probably wouldn't portray Ataru the way he for a bulk of the series, and he'd probably be more in line with how he is in the last storyline (more mature, more open in general to Lum, and not really all that perverted anymore.

- You're right it did just feel like it was just to cash in on UY's massive popularity around that time. I do believe why Takahashi wanted anything anime related with UY to stop after that and I too can't blame her.

Perm was probably the most normal of all the males in the show, period. No powers, no weirdness (another than the summer date episode when he daydreamed of shoving his date off a cliff to have Lum), and he was overall the most friendly to Ataru.

Chibi seemed like the mascot honestly, but overall the group was pretty disturbing. They should have been called "Those who are obsessed with Lum, but have no chance at all with her".

Megane I think couldn't fathom why Lum chose Ataru. The Christmas episode when Lum took the place of the girl they got to humiliate Ataru leaving Megane with the white hair was great too - his stark disbelief leaving him like that was funny. But the home alone episode also stands out as it's the one time that Ataru came to realize whether he's with Lum or he's not, the end result is the same so why not just go for it. I liked how they worked in tandem to eject everyone from the house and that Lum actually lost her cool with the others.

In the beginning there's the episode in the anime when Lum is waving her top at Ataru and obviously flashing him and he gets flustered instantly, not the sign of someone that's a real lecher. But overall, I imagine Lum is as virginal as Ataru is, she just would do anything she could for his attention. There was also the one Kurama episode when she sends him into that other dimension to break him from how he acts and he's scared of Lum and Shinobu when he returns. Once they convince him it wasn't real, he shoved his face into Lum's chest and both Lum and Shinobu were fine with it. Yet when Rei appeared and Lum decided to say she was pregnant, Shinobu pretty much creamed Ataru.

I think if we get another OVA, we'd be lucky at this point, but Fumi stated she still works with her voice coaches to keep in the range for Lum - she doesn't want to disappoint her fans. Toshio does Ataru's voice every time he appears at an anime con, but he's just turned 72, so if they do decide on something, I hope it's soon. And for a story to adapt, Love and Valor - the other Inaba story. It's a really good story for Shinobu, and also it's where Ataru is forced to realize someone else actually really loves her and so he finally 'steps aside'. Another one to adapt, when Ataru gets the bat like wings - that was pretty good in the manga.

With the groups, the ulterior motives were getting to be like a laundry list of issues. The Stormtroopers wanted Lum, Mendou wanted Lum or Sakura, and sometimes I wonder which desire was the greater, Shinobu went from Ataru, to Mendou to Inaba. Ataru wanted any female his lust zoned in on, but in the end, he was realizing he was centering on Lum. Sakura had Tsubame (by the way, his name means Swallow, which I found odd), Onsen-Mark wanted Sakura, Ran wanted Rei, Rei wanted Lum but settled for Ran. And Lum was the only consistent one, she just wanted Ataru.

All previous songs from soundtracks are pretty indicative of what they are, but I recall when I listened to the soundtrack for The Final Chapter and remarking that sounded more spanish in influence. So while listening I looked at the title and started doing the math.

Those translations we have so far are being doing by another member of the forum, Horus - he's native Japanese. I just decided that one way to learn it is to do it myself, and it's not easy. Took me like 15 mins to realize that Darling is a literal use of our language for Lum's term for Ataru. There's words for Darling, but they don't have that ring to it, so to write Darling in Japanese it basically sounds like Da-rin. But I saw the creator was sick from using Google Chrome to translate his blog - I hope he's okay, his artwork is superb.

- Perm was a pretty ok guy tbh and the one who had the best chance of ending up a good person in their adulthood among the four. Megane seemed like he was screwed because of how crazy he is lol.

- Hey, they prefer to be called Stormtroopers or Lum's bodyguards, because that's a much, much milder way of putting that they don't have a chance in the world with her.

- You'd think he wouldn't be that arrogant. Megane was aware that Shinobu loved Ataru beforehand. Heck, Ataru despite getting beaten by women a lot has actually had great luck with alien women whether the ended up liking him or not. He got to kiss Kurama not once but twice, he got to kiss Ran without losing his youth, he nearly got to kiss Benten who had no problem kissing him when they first met, and he was going to get it on with Oyuki when they first met too (even better that Oyuki wondered why he stopped when he ran away), and of course there was Elle).

- Yeah, all those guys learned the hard way that Lum is completely devoted to him. It took only one line for them to understand. Another funny moment was as you mentioned Ataru knew the end result was the same. He put legit thought into wondering if he should "go all the way" with Lum that night.

- It's always funny when Ataru places his face into Lum's chest in the anime, especially since he's probably the only dude who can do that to a female in most manga and not get beaten for doing it (of course that's because the woman he does it to is madly in love with him and wants him to show as much attention to her as possible). Ataru is a lucky man.

- I'd love for Love and Valor to be adapted. Great conclusion for Shinobu and Inaba. Ataru as well got a good deal that storyline when he officially recognized that Shinobu would truly be happy with Inaba and it was nice seeing him officially give up on her. I always did believe Ataru knew Mendou was terrible for her, even if he wasn't entirely noble in his efforts to stop her from getting with him.

- Makes you realize a few things: a) Ataru is better than many of these other characters and really isn't all that bad compared to them and b) Lum is pretty much a saint compared to everyone else. What makes Lum great is that she's had one person she's been after since day one and she's usually just trying to (initially) get him to reciprocate those feelings. Eventually she realizes and finds out he feels the same way and is grateful for that. However, she definitely wishes Ataru would express his love for her more often than he does (he definitely treats her more like a best friend later in the manga and anime which is a massive improvement from how he treated her for like the first third of the manga). Of course as we know, Ataru fears commitment and believes if he does acknowledge his love for Lum he'd have to actually settle down with just her, something he ain't ready to do just yet.

- Translating seems like such a pain. The artwork is very nice I agree. I tend to look at the gallery every once in awhile.

[Oldfan]

- Perm was a pretty ok guy tbh and the one who had the best chance of ending up a good person in their adulthood among the four. Megane seemed like he was screwed because of how crazy he is lol.

- Hey, they prefer to be called Stormtroopers or Lum's bodyguards, because that's a much, much milder way of putting that they don't have a chance in the world with her.

- You'd think he wouldn't be that arrogant. Megane was aware that Shinobu loved Ataru beforehand. Heck, Ataru despite getting beaten by women a lot has actually had great luck with alien women whether the ended up liking him or not. He got to kiss Kurama not once but twice, he got to kiss Ran without losing his youth, he nearly got to kiss Benten who had no problem kissing him when they first met, and he was going to get it on with Oyuki when they first met too (even better that Oyuki wondered why he stopped when he ran away), and of course there was Elle).

- Yeah, all those guys learned the hard way that Lum is completely devoted to him. It took only one line for them to understand. Another funny moment was as you mentioned Ataru knew the end result was the same. He put legit thought into wondering if he should "go all the way" with Lum that night.

- It's always funny when Ataru places his face into Lum's chest in the anime, especially since he's probably the only dude who can do that to a female in most manga and not get beaten for doing it (of course that's because the woman he does it to is madly in love with him and wants him to show as much attention to her as possible). Ataru is a lucky man.

- I'd love for Love and Valor to be adapted. Great conclusion for Shinobu and Inaba. Ataru as well got a good deal that storyline when he officially recognized that Shinobu would truly be happy with Inaba and it was nice seeing him officially give up on her. I always did believe Ataru knew Mendou was terrible for her, even if he wasn't entirely noble in his efforts to stop her from getting with him.

- Makes you realize a few things: a) Ataru is better than many of these other characters and really isn't all that bad compared to them and b) Lum is pretty much a saint compared to everyone else. What makes Lum great is that she's had one person she's been after since day one and she's usually just trying to (initially) get him to reciprocate those feelings. Eventually she realizes and finds out he feels the same way and is grateful for that. However, she definitely wishes Ataru would express his love for her more often than he does (he definitely treats her more like a best friend later in the manga and anime which is a massive improvement from how he treated her for like the first third of the manga). Of course as we know, Ataru fears commitment and believes if he does acknowledge his love for Lum he'd have to actually settle down with just her, something he ain't ready to do just yet.

- Translating seems like such a pain. The artwork is very nice I agree. I tend to look at the gallery every once in awhile.

I actually see Megane as being arrested in the future, stalking or some other crime. He and Mendou had the most sinister of intents when it came to doing whatever was needed to get Lum away from Ataru. Megane would be the serial killer, Mendou would have his private army do it - though to Ataru's credit, he proved in Ep 106 that they are horrible at shooting. Despite anyone else's special abilities, Ataru to this day is the only one that ran around machine gun fire and had a tank shell explode in close proximity to him and he was fine. Sometimes I wondered at first if he was really human, or fully human as the case may be. I mean we know he is, but it would have been a funny twist if he had some other blood in him.

Whichever nickname we use for that quartet, they weren't very good at it. If they had guns, they'd be like star wars stormtroopers for sure, couldn't hit anything.

Poor Ataru, can't get very far with Earth women, throw alien women in the mix and he's almost king. I think Elle was the unique one, overall, his and Mendou's initial reactions when they all first met here were the coolest. They all had their mouths open, but those two had the most normal reactions. I was also surprised that while Ataru was playful with her at first, he seemed to cool off towards her fairly quick. I'd imagine that Lum was on his mind already by that time as we know what happens the night before the wedding. Oyuki's reaction with her encounter was priceless, and Lum's was also. I would imagine if the men are always shoveling snow there on Neptune and along comes a really hot-blooded guy, the attention would be pretty welcome.

I give credit for Inaba being more fleshed out in Love and Valor as being probably the only 100% really nice guy, innocent, kind, and really devoted. He's perfectly suited for Shinobu and the fact that he's handsome (the one annoying trait I found among the girls of UY - save for Lum, a guy had to be handsome) gave her what she was looking for. In Ataru's case, I had to wonder if he recognized his own traits in Mendou and that's why he was so much of a thorn in his side. Until Mendou came along, Ataru was the king of lechery, but Mendou's 'noble' intentions pretty much served as a mask for a snake.

Not counting Inaba, Ataru was the only male that showed any compassion for anything. The caterpillar episode, as he and Lum defend it, Mendou and the others are basically trying to kill it. When Ten missed his mother for giving her a flower, while Ataru's method of getting him to his mother was iffy, he appeared immediately when Ten started crying and sent him flying to get to her. Ataru shows intense levels of being introspective and sentimental on more than one occasion.

Lum, for her part, as an alien was more human than anyone else in the show overall, Shinobu being a close second. Though Shinobu did grow up towards the end, Lum's worst trait was she wanted Ataru all to herself and was willing to say/do anything to ensure it. The slightest sad moment could set Lum off to having tears in her eyes, and when Ataru showed his compassion, she loved him all the more for it. Examples being the caterpillar episode again, as well as the girl that fell in love with Ataru when she was sick/dying in the hospital. Lum was basically guilty of falling so in love she didn't really know how to handle it as it's obvious the way Oni do things is different. I'd wager that since Lum is Ataru's age, her mother is only twice her age. We've seen two Oni women aside from Lum, her mother and her aunt and they're both really good looking as well and aside from Rei and Ten, Oni men are kinda silly looking. (As an aside from that, I did find it interesting that Lum's mother has blue eyes like her, and her aunt has red eyes, but Ten has blue eyes.)

Ataru is the epitome of the 17 year old boy, he wants to have as much fun as he can until he can't anymore. Eat, flirt, chase girls, and live for the moment, his problem as you say is commitment, and Lum is the personification of that problem. Until she came along, he was who he was. In both manga and anime, despite having Shinobu as a girlfriend, he had no issues staring at women or flirting and showed no signs of dropping that trait. Once things started moving more between him and Lum, his actions with others reflected it - she became his best friend that he was falling for. I think the movies emphasized that more than the TV Eps, though they had their moments too. With him settling down, it's why I see it as he has a moment where he realizes if it's a choice between a hurt Lum and his freedom, he'd rather Lum be happy. He DID try to save the future where they get married after all.

The translating isn't SO bad, it's just much more literal than we'd expect. The use of the kanji and kana make it like that, since each one has a literal meaning or meanings as the case may be.

[Seiryu]

- Perm was a pretty ok guy tbh and the one who had the best chance of ending up a good person in their adulthood among the four. Megane seemed like he was screwed because of how crazy he is lol.

- Hey, they prefer to be called Stormtroopers or Lum's bodyguards, because that's a much, much milder way of putting that they don't have a chance in the world with her.

- You'd think he wouldn't be that arrogant. Megane was aware that Shinobu loved Ataru beforehand. Heck, Ataru despite getting beaten by women a lot has actually had great luck with alien women whether the ended up liking him or not. He got to kiss Kurama not once but twice, he got to kiss Ran without losing his youth, he nearly got to kiss Benten who had no problem kissing him when they first met, and he was going to get it on with Oyuki when they first met too (even better that Oyuki wondered why he stopped when he ran away), and of course there was Elle).

- Yeah, all those guys learned the hard way that Lum is completely devoted to him. It took only one line for them to understand. Another funny moment was as you mentioned Ataru knew the end result was the same. He put legit thought into wondering if he should "go all the way" with Lum that night.

- It's always funny when Ataru places his face into Lum's chest in the anime, especially since he's probably the only dude who can do that to a female in most manga and not get beaten for doing it (of course that's because the woman he does it to is madly in love with him and wants him to show as much attention to her as possible). Ataru is a lucky man.

- I'd love for Love and Valor to be adapted. Great conclusion for Shinobu and Inaba. Ataru as well got a good deal that storyline when he officially recognized that Shinobu would truly be happy with Inaba and it was nice seeing him officially give up on her. I always did believe Ataru knew Mendou was terrible for her, even if he wasn't entirely noble in his efforts to stop her from getting with him.

- Makes you realize a few things: a) Ataru is better than many of these other characters and really isn't all that bad compared to them and b) Lum is pretty much a saint compared to everyone else. What makes Lum great is that she's had one person she's been after since day one and she's usually just trying to (initially) get him to reciprocate those feelings. Eventually she realizes and finds out he feels the same way and is grateful for that. However, she definitely wishes Ataru would express his love for her more often than he does (he definitely treats her more like a best friend later in the manga and anime which is a massive improvement from how he treated her for like the first third of the manga). Of course as we know, Ataru fears commitment and believes if he does acknowledge his love for Lum he'd have to actually settle down with just her, something he ain't ready to do just yet.

- Translating seems like such a pain. The artwork is very nice I agree. I tend to look at the gallery every once in awhile.

I actually see Megane as being arrested in the future, stalking or some other crime. He and Mendou had the most sinister of intents when it came to doing whatever was needed to get Lum away from Ataru. Megane would be the serial killer, Mendou would have his private army do it - though to Ataru's credit, he proved in Ep 106 that they are horrible at shooting. Despite anyone else's special abilities, Ataru to this day is the only one that ran around machine gun fire and had a tank shell explode in close proximity to him and he was fine. Sometimes I wondered at first if he was really human, or fully human as the case may be. I mean we know he is, but it would have been a funny twist if he had some other blood in him.

Whichever nickname we use for that quartet, they weren't very good at it. If they had guns, they'd be like star wars stormtroopers for sure, couldn't hit anything.

Poor Ataru, can't get very far with Earth women, throw alien women in the mix and he's almost king. I think Elle was the unique one, overall, his and Mendou's initial reactions when they all first met here were the coolest. They all had their mouths open, but those two had the most normal reactions. I was also surprised that while Ataru was playful with her at first, he seemed to cool off towards her fairly quick. I'd imagine that Lum was on his mind already by that time as we know what happens the night before the wedding. Oyuki's reaction with her encounter was priceless, and Lum's was also. I would imagine if the men are always shoveling snow there on Neptune and along comes a really hot-blooded guy, the attention would be pretty welcome.

I give credit for Inaba being more fleshed out in Love and Valor as being probably the only 100% really nice guy, innocent, kind, and really devoted. He's perfectly suited for Shinobu and the fact that he's handsome (the one annoying trait I found among the girls of UY - save for Lum, a guy had to be handsome) gave her what she was looking for. In Ataru's case, I had to wonder if he recognized his own traits in Mendou and that's why he was so much of a thorn in his side. Until Mendou came along, Ataru was the king of lechery, but Mendou's 'noble' intentions pretty much served as a mask for a snake.

Not counting Inaba, Ataru was the only male that showed any compassion for anything. The caterpillar episode, as he and Lum defend it, Mendou and the others are basically trying to kill it. When Ten missed his mother for giving her a flower, while Ataru's method of getting him to his mother was iffy, he appeared immediately when Ten started crying and sent him flying to get to her. Ataru shows intense levels of being introspective and sentimental on more than one occasion.

Lum, for her part, as an alien was more human than anyone else in the show overall, Shinobu being a close second. Though Shinobu did grow up towards the end, Lum's worst trait was she wanted Ataru all to herself and was willing to say/do anything to ensure it. The slightest sad moment could set Lum off to having tears in her eyes, and when Ataru showed his compassion, she loved him all the more for it. Examples being the caterpillar episode again, as well as the girl that fell in love with Ataru when she was sick/dying in the hospital. Lum was basically guilty of falling so in love she didn't really know how to handle it as it's obvious the way Oni do things is different. I'd wager that since Lum is Ataru's age, her mother is only twice her age. We've seen two Oni women aside from Lum, her mother and her aunt and they're both really good looking as well and aside from Rei and Ten, Oni men are kinda silly looking. (As an aside from that, I did find it interesting that Lum's mother has blue eyes like her, and her aunt has red eyes, but Ten has blue eyes.)

Ataru is the epitome of the 17 year old boy, he wants to have as much fun as he can until he can't anymore. Eat, flirt, chase girls, and live for the moment, his problem as you say is commitment, and Lum is the personification of that problem. Until she came along, he was who he was. In both manga and anime, despite having Shinobu as a girlfriend, he had no issues staring at women or flirting and showed no signs of dropping that trait. Once things started moving more between him and Lum, his actions with others reflected it - she became his best friend that he was falling for. I think the movies emphasized that more than the TV Eps, though they had their moments too. With him settling down, it's why I see it as he has a moment where he realizes if it's a choice between a hurt Lum and his freedom, he'd rather Lum be happy. He DID try to save the future where they get married after all.

The translating isn't SO bad, it's just much more literal than we'd expect. The use of the kanji and kana make it like that, since each one has a literal meaning or meanings as the case may be.

- No doubt there about Megane or Mendou. The sheer fact Mendou has legit tried murdering Ataru before (obviously failing as Ataru tends to succeed over Mendou). Sending his own army to kill Ataru was pretty crazy tbh. Lucky for them that Ataru is nigh indestructible. That's an aspect of Ataru that I love. He's completely human, but possesses the regenerative properties of a lizard, the live force of a cockroach, has superhuman strength (like lifting the tree, choking out a giant sea snake, smashing Cherry with a lamp post), superhuman speed (outrunning Asuka, and in the anime outrunning a Jet and Superman), and durability (all the punishment he takes from characters only to appear fine a moment later).

- They were essentially a glorified fanclub for Lum tbh.

- I just always found it fascinating that Ataru's luck with alien women is incredibly good. Crazy how good he has it with women. Even better, he scored the best alien girl (and best girl in the series) straight out of the first chapter.

- He probably was thinking of Lum at that point, especially with how terrified he was when he initially thought she died when she tried rescuing him the first time.

- Pretty ballsy of Ataru to pull the stunt he did at the end of Only You. I give him credit for doing it, but absolutely hope he gets the punishment he deserves lol. Puts everyone (especially Lum) through all that, and even initially seems fairly ready for marrying her (obviously we know at this point in the series he wasn't but when Lum first asked him if he wanted to get married or not after the whole Elle business was done, that was the time to tell her that he wasn't ready for that). Instead he yells "No!" and sprints out of the the wedding hall where everyone plans to beat him to a pulp. Hilarious that he managed to take his shirt and pants off and keep up the same level of speed.

- Too true. Inaba was a genuinely sweet guy, and the only one in UY who was completely that way. Shinobu definitely deserved that happy ending. Yeah many of the girls (including Shinobu at one point) only wanting a "handsome" boyfriend really made them come off as somewhat shallow, though I can't blame them completely as the choices they had in their school wasn't all that good. What made Mendou so slimy was that he'd call Moroboshi out for being a lecherous individual but not only was he just as lecherous towards Lum, he was aware of Shinobu's feelings for him and even has flirted with her before, but had no care about just ignoring her completely in favor of showering Lum with affection.

- Agreed about that. Ataru really has shown genuine compassion towards others in comparison to the other guys that aren't Inaba. The caterpillar one as you mentioned is really as good as you get it. He was compassionate in that story from start to finish. He's legit tried helping Ryuunosuke out before as well, and he's obviously been willing to put everything on the line for Lum on numerous occasions.

- Agreed again. Lum was by and far the most human of the characters. That's easily her worst trait, she's so clingy and attached to Ataru. She's so madly in love with the guy that she'd go to whatever lengths to (initially) keep him and eventually get him to not only reciprocate her feelings but (when she realizes he does love her) display his affection for her more often. Lum's love for Ataru at first definitely was genuine, but she seemed to see him as more of a possession than an actual lover. Over time that's obviously evolved into something much greater and her love and devotion to him only grew to the point that she can't tolerate any girl being friendly with him for too long.

- Very much the standard 17 year old. Difference between Lum and Shinobu is first and foremost, Lum wanted marriage immediately and has treated Ataru as her husband since the end of chapter 1. As you mentioned, Lum is the personification of his fear of commitment as both Ataru and Lum are very clearly aware of the fact that Lum is there for the long haul. Lum clearly wants a serious relationship with Ataru (and while she can settle for just being his girlfriend/fiance for now) and is fully committed to this relationship as she wants for nothing more to spend the rest of her life with Ataru and (as she put it in Only You) "Be in charge of his life." Ataru knows this and clearly doesn't want this (at the moment) since he wants to be free and spend a good portion of the remains of his youth having the ability to chasing skirts. Yeah, great moment for him. He pretty much gave up wanting a harem, and even settled on the idea that a future life where he marries Lum isn't bad and even something worth trying to save for her happiness.

- Ataru's relationship with Lum has always been fascinating, especially in Takahashi's works. Especially since it's probably more complex than other Takahashi couples due to the traits from both Lum and especially Ataru.

- What I always found an interesting topic as well though was their friendship. They clearly love one another, but the progression of their relationship involves them essentially treating one another as best friends, where their personalities begin to bounce off one another a lot more, and they even become a lot more playful towards one another (in Lum's case there's the episode of the St. Valentine's Day in where she gets Ataru out of hiding from the table by pretending to give her chocolate away to Perm or Megane. After Ataru reveals himself, she continues to chase him but smiles as she chases him. In Ataru's case, there's the simple fact that late in the series he doesn't really flirt with other girls most of the time because he genuinely wants to do so, but largely did so because he was purposely teasing Lum and getting her pissed off as he likes the challenge Lum brings him when chasing girls. He hates being caught, but loves the thrill of the challenge).

- Speaking of friends, I've always been curious of who Ataru's friends are. We know Lum is pretty much his best friend. He's usually at odds with the males in his class, but is usually on good terms with them when it doesn't have to do with Lum. He's obviously friends with Shinobu, and is friends with (although not close) Inaba. I'd say all of Lum's childhood friends like Ataru too, though Benten, and would even wager that Ryuunosuke views him as a friend of sorts as well. Ryuunosuke, Shinobu, and Benten only really can't seem to stand Ataru when he tries to flirt with them.

- A very tedious process translating can be.

[Oldfan]

- No doubt there about Megane or Mendou. The sheer fact Mendou has legit tried murdering Ataru before (obviously failing as Ataru tends to succeed over Mendou). Sending his own army to kill Ataru was pretty crazy tbh. Lucky for them that Ataru is nigh indestructible. That's an aspect of Ataru that I love. He's completely human, but possesses the regenerative properties of a lizard, the live force of a cockroach, has superhuman strength (like lifting the tree, choking out a giant sea snake, smashing Cherry with a lamp post), superhuman speed (outrunning Asuka, and in the anime outrunning a Jet and Superman), and durability (all the punishment he takes from characters only to appear fine a moment later).

- They were essentially a glorified fanclub for Lum tbh.

- I just always found it fascinating that Ataru's luck with alien women is incredibly good. Crazy how good he has it with women. Even better, he scored the best alien girl (and best girl in the series) straight out of the first chapter.

- He probably was thinking of Lum at that point, especially with how terrified he was when he initially thought she died when she tried rescuing him the first time.

- Pretty ballsy of Ataru to pull the stunt he did at the end of Only You. I give him credit for doing it, but absolutely hope he gets the punishment he deserves lol. Puts everyone (especially Lum) through all that, and even initially seems fairly ready for marrying her (obviously we know at this point in the series he wasn't but when Lum first asked him if he wanted to get married or not after the whole Elle business was done, that was the time to tell her that he wasn't ready for that). Instead he yells "No!" and sprints out of the the wedding hall where everyone plans to beat him to a pulp. Hilarious that he managed to take his shirt and pants off and keep up the same level of speed.

- Too true. Inaba was a genuinely sweet guy, and the only one in UY who was completely that way. Shinobu definitely deserved that happy ending. Yeah many of the girls (including Shinobu at one point) only wanting a "handsome" boyfriend really made them come off as somewhat shallow, though I can't blame them completely as the choices they had in their school wasn't all that good. What made Mendou so slimy was that he'd call Moroboshi out for being a lecherous individual but not only was he just as lecherous towards Lum, he was aware of Shinobu's feelings for him and even has flirted with her before, but had no care about just ignoring her completely in favor of showering Lum with affection.

- Agreed about that. Ataru really has shown genuine compassion towards others in comparison to the other guys that aren't Inaba. The caterpillar one as you mentioned is really as good as you get it. He was compassionate in that story from start to finish. He's legit tried helping Ryuunosuke out before as well, and he's obviously been willing to put everything on the line for Lum on numerous occasions.

- Agreed again. Lum was by and far the most human of the characters. That's easily her worst trait, she's so clingy and attached to Ataru. She's so madly in love with the guy that she'd go to whatever lengths to (initially) keep him and eventually get him to not only reciprocate her feelings but (when she realizes he does love her) display his affection for her more often. Lum's love for Ataru at first definitely was genuine, but she seemed to see him as more of a possession than an actual lover. Over time that's obviously evolved into something much greater and her love and devotion to him only grew to the point that she can't tolerate any girl being friendly with him for too long.

- Very much the standard 17 year old. Difference between Lum and Shinobu is first and foremost, Lum wanted marriage immediately and has treated Ataru as her husband since the end of chapter 1. As you mentioned, Lum is the personification of his fear of commitment as both Ataru and Lum are very clearly aware of the fact that Lum is there for the long haul. Lum clearly wants a serious relationship with Ataru (and while she can settle for just being his girlfriend/fiance for now) and is fully committed to this relationship as she wants for nothing more to spend the rest of her life with Ataru and (as she put it in Only You) "Be in charge of his life." Ataru knows this and clearly doesn't want this (at the moment) since he wants to be free and spend a good portion of the remains of his youth having the ability to chasing skirts. Yeah, great moment for him. He pretty much gave up wanting a harem, and even settled on the idea that a future life where he marries Lum isn't bad and even something worth trying to save for her happiness.

- Ataru's relationship with Lum has always been fascinating, especially in Takahashi's works. Especially since it's probably more complex than other Takahashi couples due to the traits from both Lum and especially Ataru.

- What I always found an interesting topic as well though was their friendship. They clearly love one another, but the progression of their relationship involves them essentially treating one another as best friends, where their personalities begin to bounce off one another a lot more, and they even become a lot more playful towards one another (in Lum's case there's the episode of the St. Valentine's Day in where she gets Ataru out of hiding from the table by pretending to give her chocolate away to Perm or Megane. After Ataru reveals himself, she continues to chase him but smiles as she chases him. In Ataru's case, there's the simple fact that late in the series he doesn't really flirt with other girls most of the time because he genuinely wants to do so, but largely did so because he was purposely teasing Lum and getting her pissed off as he likes the challenge Lum brings him when chasing girls. He hates being caught, but loves the thrill of the challenge).

- Speaking of friends, I've always been curious of who Ataru's friends are. We know Lum is pretty much his best friend. He's usually at odds with the males in his class, but is usually on good terms with them when it doesn't have to do with Lum. He's obviously friends with Shinobu, and is friends with (although not close) Inaba. I'd say all of Lum's childhood friends like Ataru too, though Benten, and would even wager that Ryuunosuke views him as a friend of sorts as well. Ryuunosuke, Shinobu, and Benten only really can't seem to stand Ataru when he tries to flirt with them.

- A very tedious process translating can be.

The choking out of the snake might have been the most outwardly violent that Ataru has ever been in when coming to Lum's aid. I mean from the end of that sequence, he had crushed that snake's throat. Also, I do tend to wonder what would have happened if he had made it to Mendou in Ep 106 when he charged across the bridge. Seemed to me like Mendou was just a little scared of him. I would be too if I saw someone doing that and running at me.

A fan club with less than noble intentions, Kakugari was the only one that never tried to touch her that I recall at least.

Here Ataru is with the best girl and he complains, until something threatens that situation and he goes all out to preserve it. I'd actually say the only really bad luck he had with alien women ended up being Lupica in Movie 6 since she just used him overall, and then in second was Elle - she did want to freeze him solid after all.

Every time something pops up that makes him think, there's always a few scenes of him thinking of Lum. The snow fairy one much later in the series is a big example, she was going to claim him and take him away, and it was his thoughts of Lum that saved him. If I had to bet, I'd almost say that while it was obvious Lum was so in love with him that it almost crazy, near the end in certain situations, the feeling was mutual. Which always comes back to my gripe, if the series was around the adventures of kids in school (the focus being Ataru and Lum) that was one heck of a convoluted way to create a relationship, which supposedly wasn't the focus of the overall story.

Oh I hope he was roasted for that stunt at the end of Only You too, Lum went through hell for him and then he did that. And we can add that to his powerset, get dressed and run at the same time at superspeed. I recall that Mamoru Oshii wasn't happy with cranking out the usual UY story into a movie, which is why Beautiful Dreamer was such a departure. Well, other than Lum expressing once more than all she wants to do is live with Ataru forever and Ataru being forced to realize as his spirit freefalls that all he wants to do is see Lum. I'm still wondering what the child version of Lum is supposed to really represent in all that.

There were times I appreciated Mendou's presence and then there were times I just didn't. I think he was added as a rival, and to also make people realize that handsome isn't better. Shinobu pretty much considered him an idiot at one point too. But yeah, the girls and that shallowness, you're right though, they didn't really have too much to work with overall in that school. Pretty bad when the most popular boy ends up being Ryuunosuke.

In a nutshell - by the last story the Earth can be covered in mushrooms for all Ataru really cared. Lum's feelings were more important. That's a ballsy sort of character trait there, his convictions and compassion are like iron.

If I had to pin a hidden trait to Lum, it comes from her being that clingy and possessive. She's insanely jealous, but it makes me wonder if she's lacking in self-confidence. Much like how Ataru can relentlessly chase girls, but the moment it gets personal he gets really shy and awkward. But for the life of me I couldn't see why she's lacking that confidence, unless emotionally speaking she hopes for that ONE great love and in Ataru she believes she has it, and can't stand the thought of losing him/it. She's really very complex, but I tend to overthink it too. But I do see the Oni as being unreserved and so she's way ahead of Ataru on expressing her feelings.

It makes me think that the only reason Shinobu said she'd marry him was to motivate him to win and not because of anything else. Some of her traits were pretty horrifying at the beginning as were Lum's too, not that Ataru was a saint by any means. But some of the things those two girls did were downright horrible to him. The manga version of the duel between Ataru and Rei was really one of Shinobu's worst moments, pretty much telling him to duel and die is bad.

I would have to say they have way more in common than you'd think, they're just on opposite sides of the room in being able to say it/express it. That is, until we get to the end. It's like walking down a street from two ends and meeting in the middle. By the time we get to the end, they're at the middle point.

They are best friends, and they're each other's links to things they never knew existed. It's amusing that when I look at the episodes or read the manga parts where Lum was engaged to Rei, she seemed happy at the time and then in retrospect she can't stand him. For Lum, she's intensely happy, has friends, has adventures and likely knows deep down inside the guy who's bedroom closet she sleeps in he loves her. For Ataru it's a life he never knew existed, with a woman who's overall the best girl of the whole lot that is intensely in love with him. Despite the times he's been an ass, he's also been exceptionally considerate when dealing with her. Example: Lum's class reunion, he really did try to comfort her a lot in that, even going so far as to be with her when all her classmates setup a party. If she's sad, he's right there (unless he causes it of course, but he relents as we all know and apologizes), and if anyone upsets her, he's all over them. And if people pick on him, she's right there too.


This part is my speculation.
His friends in order of best to worst for females: Lum, Shinobu, Lum's mother, Oyuki, Benten, His mother, Ryuunosuke, Sakura, Ran - one shot girls don't count.

His friends in order of best to worst for males: Ten, Lum's dad, His dad, Perm, Cherry, Onsen-Mark, Mendou, Megane, Chibi, Kakugari, Rei - one shot guys don't count.

Why is Ten #1 in the males? If Ataru was SUCH an idiot, Ten would not have acted the way he did in the last story.

[Seiryu]

- No doubt there about Megane or Mendou. The sheer fact Mendou has legit tried murdering Ataru before (obviously failing as Ataru tends to succeed over Mendou). Sending his own army to kill Ataru was pretty crazy tbh. Lucky for them that Ataru is nigh indestructible. That's an aspect of Ataru that I love. He's completely human, but possesses the regenerative properties of a lizard, the live force of a cockroach, has superhuman strength (like lifting the tree, choking out a giant sea snake, smashing Cherry with a lamp post), superhuman speed (outrunning Asuka, and in the anime outrunning a Jet and Superman), and durability (all the punishment he takes from characters only to appear fine a moment later).

- They were essentially a glorified fanclub for Lum tbh.

- I just always found it fascinating that Ataru's luck with alien women is incredibly good. Crazy how good he has it with women. Even better, he scored the best alien girl (and best girl in the series) straight out of the first chapter.

- He probably was thinking of Lum at that point, especially with how terrified he was when he initially thought she died when she tried rescuing him the first time.

- Pretty ballsy of Ataru to pull the stunt he did at the end of Only You. I give him credit for doing it, but absolutely hope he gets the punishment he deserves lol. Puts everyone (especially Lum) through all that, and even initially seems fairly ready for marrying her (obviously we know at this point in the series he wasn't but when Lum first asked him if he wanted to get married or not after the whole Elle business was done, that was the time to tell her that he wasn't ready for that). Instead he yells "No!" and sprints out of the the wedding hall where everyone plans to beat him to a pulp. Hilarious that he managed to take his shirt and pants off and keep up the same level of speed.

- Too true. Inaba was a genuinely sweet guy, and the only one in UY who was completely that way. Shinobu definitely deserved that happy ending. Yeah many of the girls (including Shinobu at one point) only wanting a "handsome" boyfriend really made them come off as somewhat shallow, though I can't blame them completely as the choices they had in their school wasn't all that good. What made Mendou so slimy was that he'd call Moroboshi out for being a lecherous individual but not only was he just as lecherous towards Lum, he was aware of Shinobu's feelings for him and even has flirted with her before, but had no care about just ignoring her completely in favor of showering Lum with affection.

- Agreed about that. Ataru really has shown genuine compassion towards others in comparison to the other guys that aren't Inaba. The caterpillar one as you mentioned is really as good as you get it. He was compassionate in that story from start to finish. He's legit tried helping Ryuunosuke out before as well, and he's obviously been willing to put everything on the line for Lum on numerous occasions.

- Agreed again. Lum was by and far the most human of the characters. That's easily her worst trait, she's so clingy and attached to Ataru. She's so madly in love with the guy that she'd go to whatever lengths to (initially) keep him and eventually get him to not only reciprocate her feelings but (when she realizes he does love her) display his affection for her more often. Lum's love for Ataru at first definitely was genuine, but she seemed to see him as more of a possession than an actual lover. Over time that's obviously evolved into something much greater and her love and devotion to him only grew to the point that she can't tolerate any girl being friendly with him for too long.

- Very much the standard 17 year old. Difference between Lum and Shinobu is first and foremost, Lum wanted marriage immediately and has treated Ataru as her husband since the end of chapter 1. As you mentioned, Lum is the personification of his fear of commitment as both Ataru and Lum are very clearly aware of the fact that Lum is there for the long haul. Lum clearly wants a serious relationship with Ataru (and while she can settle for just being his girlfriend/fiance for now) and is fully committed to this relationship as she wants for nothing more to spend the rest of her life with Ataru and (as she put it in Only You) "Be in charge of his life." Ataru knows this and clearly doesn't want this (at the moment) since he wants to be free and spend a good portion of the remains of his youth having the ability to chasing skirts. Yeah, great moment for him. He pretty much gave up wanting a harem, and even settled on the idea that a future life where he marries Lum isn't bad and even something worth trying to save for her happiness.

- Ataru's relationship with Lum has always been fascinating, especially in Takahashi's works. Especially since it's probably more complex than other Takahashi couples due to the traits from both Lum and especially Ataru.

- What I always found an interesting topic as well though was their friendship. They clearly love one another, but the progression of their relationship involves them essentially treating one another as best friends, where their personalities begin to bounce off one another a lot more, and they even become a lot more playful towards one another (in Lum's case there's the episode of the St. Valentine's Day in where she gets Ataru out of hiding from the table by pretending to give her chocolate away to Perm or Megane. After Ataru reveals himself, she continues to chase him but smiles as she chases him. In Ataru's case, there's the simple fact that late in the series he doesn't really flirt with other girls most of the time because he genuinely wants to do so, but largely did so because he was purposely teasing Lum and getting her pissed off as he likes the challenge Lum brings him when chasing girls. He hates being caught, but loves the thrill of the challenge).

- Speaking of friends, I've always been curious of who Ataru's friends are. We know Lum is pretty much his best friend. He's usually at odds with the males in his class, but is usually on good terms with them when it doesn't have to do with Lum. He's obviously friends with Shinobu, and is friends with (although not close) Inaba. I'd say all of Lum's childhood friends like Ataru too, though Benten, and would even wager that Ryuunosuke views him as a friend of sorts as well. Ryuunosuke, Shinobu, and Benten only really can't seem to stand Ataru when he tries to flirt with them.

- A very tedious process translating can be.

The choking out of the snake might have been the most outwardly violent that Ataru has ever been in when coming to Lum's aid. I mean from the end of that sequence, he had crushed that snake's throat. Also, I do tend to wonder what would have happened if he had made it to Mendou in Ep 106 when he charged across the bridge. Seemed to me like Mendou was just a little scared of him. I would be too if I saw someone doing that and running at me.

A fan club with less than noble intentions, Kakugari was the only one that never tried to touch her that I recall at least.

Here Ataru is with the best girl and he complains, until something threatens that situation and he goes all out to preserve it. I'd actually say the only really bad luck he had with alien women ended up being Lupica in Movie 6 since she just used him overall, and then in second was Elle - she did want to freeze him solid after all.

Every time something pops up that makes him think, there's always a few scenes of him thinking of Lum. The snow fairy one much later in the series is a big example, she was going to claim him and take him away, and it was his thoughts of Lum that saved him. If I had to bet, I'd almost say that while it was obvious Lum was so in love with him that it almost crazy, near the end in certain situations, the feeling was mutual. Which always comes back to my gripe, if the series was around the adventures of kids in school (the focus being Ataru and Lum) that was one heck of a convoluted way to create a relationship, which supposedly wasn't the focus of the overall story.

Oh I hope he was roasted for that stunt at the end of Only You too, Lum went through hell for him and then he did that. And we can add that to his powerset, get dressed and run at the same time at superspeed. I recall that Mamoru Oshii wasn't happy with cranking out the usual UY story into a movie, which is why Beautiful Dreamer was such a departure. Well, other than Lum expressing once more than all she wants to do is live with Ataru forever and Ataru being forced to realize as his spirit freefalls that all he wants to do is see Lum. I'm still wondering what the child version of Lum is supposed to really represent in all that.

There were times I appreciated Mendou's presence and then there were times I just didn't. I think he was added as a rival, and to also make people realize that handsome isn't better. Shinobu pretty much considered him an idiot at one point too. But yeah, the girls and that shallowness, you're right though, they didn't really have too much to work with overall in that school. Pretty bad when the most popular boy ends up being Ryuunosuke.

In a nutshell - by the last story the Earth can be covered in mushrooms for all Ataru really cared. Lum's feelings were more important. That's a ballsy sort of character trait there, his convictions and compassion are like iron.

If I had to pin a hidden trait to Lum, it comes from her being that clingy and possessive. She's insanely jealous, but it makes me wonder if she's lacking in self-confidence. Much like how Ataru can relentlessly chase girls, but the moment it gets personal he gets really shy and awkward. But for the life of me I couldn't see why she's lacking that confidence, unless emotionally speaking she hopes for that ONE great love and in Ataru she believes she has it, and can't stand the thought of losing him/it. She's really very complex, but I tend to overthink it too. But I do see the Oni as being unreserved and so she's way ahead of Ataru on expressing her feelings.

It makes me think that the only reason Shinobu said she'd marry him was to motivate him to win and not because of anything else. Some of her traits were pretty horrifying at the beginning as were Lum's too, not that Ataru was a saint by any means. But some of the things those two girls did were downright horrible to him. The manga version of the duel between Ataru and Rei was really one of Shinobu's worst moments, pretty much telling him to duel and die is bad.

I would have to say they have way more in common than you'd think, they're just on opposite sides of the room in being able to say it/express it. That is, until we get to the end. It's like walking down a street from two ends and meeting in the middle. By the time we get to the end, they're at the middle point.

They are best friends, and they're each other's links to things they never knew existed. It's amusing that when I look at the episodes or read the manga parts where Lum was engaged to Rei, she seemed happy at the time and then in retrospect she can't stand him. For Lum, she's intensely happy, has friends, has adventures and likely knows deep down inside the guy who's bedroom closet she sleeps in he loves her. For Ataru it's a life he never knew existed, with a woman who's overall the best girl of the whole lot that is intensely in love with him. Despite the times he's been an ass, he's also been exceptionally considerate when dealing with her. Example: Lum's class reunion, he really did try to comfort her a lot in that, even going so far as to be with her when all her classmates setup a party. If she's sad, he's right there (unless he causes it of course, but he relents as we all know and apologizes), and if anyone upsets her, he's all over them. And if people pick on him, she's right there too.


This part is my speculation.
His friends in order of best to worst for females: Lum, Shinobu, Lum's mother, Oyuki, Benten, His mother, Ryuunosuke, Sakura, Ran - one shot girls don't count.

His friends in order of best to worst for males: Ten, Lum's dad, His dad, Perm, Cherry, Onsen-Mark, Mendou, Megane, Chibi, Kakugari, Rei - one shot guys don't count.

Why is Ten #1 in the males? If Ataru was SUCH an idiot, Ten would not have acted the way he did in the last story.

- I kind of felt bad for the snakes lol. Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke all beat them up and Ran just laser'd them. Mendou and Lum were the only ones to get wrecked and Lum only was on the receiving end since she did not want to risk knocking the others out with her electricity. Mendou? The guy was straight up just a joke to those things. Onsen Mark came off as real crazy in that OVA. Mendou feared the unstoppable.  Ataru is just way too determined and nigh invincible to be taken down by Mendou.

- I always love seeing them go up against one another because either the writers or Takahashi almost always has Ataru clown Mendou. Like the episode they were trapped in Mendou's vault and Ataru kept on one-upping him at their card game and taking Mendou's gold from him, or the story of when Lum was going to go kiss Pigumo (the frog guy) and Ataru and Mendou step outside together only for the students to follow. When they open the door, they see Mendou unconscious after Ataru clonked him on the head.

- What makes it worse is that Ataru is fully aware how good he has it. He knows Lum is devoted to him, and constantly exploits that fact. He takes full advantage of the fact that no matter what he does, she'll stay with him regardless. Definitely makes him a scumbag a lot of the time lol.

- Speaking on how terrible Ataru can be, the episode of the Miss Tomobiki was extremely funny with what Ataru did. He was terrible in that as a person, but the way it ended had me laughing for some time. He literally takes the money at the end of the episode when everybody questions where it and he is. When then pan over to Ataru who pretty much fled the scene and hopped the train. He's going to get thrashed later on for that, but I found that whole ending hilarious.

- I'd argue their relationship is partly the central focus. It's just that in comparison to Takahashi's other series, UY is the least focused on romance and more of the comedic hijinks of the gang. Their relationship did kick off after all with Lum mistaking his announcement in the first story as a proposal. Always crazy when I think about the fact that Lum was only suppose to essentially be as important to the series as say Kurama initially. A recurring antagonist who'd serve as a trial for Ataru and Shinobu to overcome.

- Well Only You was essentially "UY the movie". It served it's purpose as a theatrical version of the series. Beautiful Dreamer, was stepping out of this series' comfort zone and as a result, it's regarded as one of the best anime films of all time. That movie had an incredibly horrific scene - Ataru in that dream sequence where he wakes up and finds Lum's decomposed body. Always funny to me how Ataru so casually trolled Mujaki and managed to escape to different dreams with him whereas Sakura and Mendou were easily taken out. Ataru is so absurd, and played it cool when Mujaki thought he trapped him in that last dream. The miniature Lum always confused me as well. I love the ending scene of that movie where Ataru and Lum are about to kiss only for Mendou and the Stormtroopers to be pissed off at the sight of this, and then you just get Onsen Mark who is so confused and Ryuunosuke who looks so curious.

- Legit every teenage boy in this series is horny in some form or way. Ataru, Mendou, and Ten are all pretty similar to each other, though none of them would ever admit it. Shinobu calling Mendou an idiot was one of my favorite moments of hers. Like at that point, she's finally had enough with Mendou.

- Ataru is made of iron. An indomitable will so strong, he'll walk through the ground just to kiss a girl, he'll allow the earth to be covered in mushrooms and nearly cover the earth in darkness because of the sake of his girlfriend's feelings and their relationship and his determination to be as genuine with her as possible.

- I don't. Lum seems to have a lot of confidence in herself almost completely. Only time she really seems unsure of herself is when she has to show courage by not relying on her flight and electricity. As we know, Ataru proved that without her powers she's just an ordinary 17 year old girl in the physical stats department. Which is why she pretty much was forced to "cheat" via enhancer gauntlets and pills to boost her strength. Problem is she's rarely ever had to be in a situation where she couldn't use her powers and it had a major affect on her. Outside of that though? Lum seems to be generally confident about everything. She's sees herself as a great cook (which she is on her home planet as the Oni love spicy foods) but Ataru constantly tells her how her cooking sucks for Humans and how it doesn't mesh well with them.

- While Lum has flaws, many of those flaws only really surfaced usually as a result of things. Like yeah she's incredibly clingy and jealous, but she usually only gets jealous because Ataru initiates a situation where she reacts to it. Of course there are exceptions (like the story where they were going to eat everywhere in town and the teachers were going to punish them. They got to one restaurant and Lum got pretty angry just from the lady who worked at the shop holding his hand). Then there's of course Lum getting jealous over a ghost girl. Though anyone would probably get jealous easily if they already viewed another person as his or hers husband or wife from the get-go.

- Shinobu was a pretty terrible person at first. She beat the living tar out of him constantly. There's also the early story of when Ataru ran away from home and tells Sakura about it. How Lum forced a kiss on him, and Shinobu responds by refusing to listen to him and crushes him under several desks. Or how in Lum's case she initially didn't really view him as a person and more like a possession. Since he made it quite clear he didn't love her, she blackmailed him into allowing her to live with him, and went out of her way to ruin his life and his relationship with Shinobu simply because she wanted Ataru and didn't care that he didn't like her. Ataru came off as more horny earlier in the series than late in the series as well. Like sometimes it could be pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately, all three of them improved tremendously as characters.

- Yeah, he doesn't really tolerate anyone treating her like crap or trying to take her away from him. Lum doesn't even really seem to hate Rei later on and seems like she's fine getting along with him late in the series when he pretty much stops chasing after her (since he just settles with Ran because Ran makes him food so often). Hell, even Ran gained some development herself when Lum went to take care of her. Ran always had that paranoia that Lum was out to get her, but learned there that Lum just messes things up because she legitimately just unaware of things at times and is quite genuine in her efforts. Doesn't stop Ran from pulling crap like trying to feed Ataru and Lum to that cannibal though lol.

- He gets along surprisingly well with Lum's mother with the interactions they've had with each other. He gets along well with Ten's mother too. Funny, he has more female friends than male friends, which becomes obvious why when reading the series. Not sure I'd even classify Rei as a friend at all though. He was a one-chapter rival to Ataru until he lost to Ataru in his first appearance, and then just gets relegated to rare occasional antagonist or just minor character. Rei I'd argue is more of a friend to Ten. Ten seemed to get along with him well. Ataru and Ten's relationship was always fun to explore as well. Despite the two disliking one another a lot, they are incredibly similar. As you mentioned, the last story had Ten pretty much show that he was indeed going to miss Ataru (despite saying he wouldn't). He wouldn't have shed a tear for the guy if he legitimately wasn't going to miss being around him. I always imagine the two getting along more when they both get older.

[Oldfan]

- I kind of felt bad for the snakes lol. Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke all beat them up and Ran just laser'd them. Mendou and Lum were the only ones to get wrecked and Lum only was on the receiving end since she did not want to risk knocking the others out with her electricity. Mendou? The guy was straight up just a joke to those things. Onsen Mark came off as real crazy in that OVA. Mendou feared the unstoppable.  Ataru is just way too determined and nigh invincible to be taken down by Mendou.

- I always love seeing them go up against one another because either the writers or Takahashi almost always has Ataru clown Mendou. Like the episode they were trapped in Mendou's vault and Ataru kept on one-upping him at their card game and taking Mendou's gold from him, or the story of when Lum was going to go kiss Pigumo (the frog guy) and Ataru and Mendou step outside together only for the students to follow. When they open the door, they see Mendou unconscious after Ataru clonked him on the head.

- What makes it worse is that Ataru is fully aware how good he has it. He knows Lum is devoted to him, and constantly exploits that fact. He takes full advantage of the fact that no matter what he does, she'll stay with him regardless. Definitely makes him a scumbag a lot of the time lol.

- Speaking on how terrible Ataru can be, the episode of the Miss Tomobiki was extremely funny with what Ataru did. He was terrible in that as a person, but the way it ended had me laughing for some time. He literally takes the money at the end of the episode when everybody questions where it and he is. When then pan over to Ataru who pretty much fled the scene and hopped the train. He's going to get thrashed later on for that, but I found that whole ending hilarious.

- I'd argue their relationship is partly the central focus. It's just that in comparison to Takahashi's other series, UY is the least focused on romance and more of the comedic hijinks of the gang. Their relationship did kick off after all with Lum mistaking his announcement in the first story as a proposal. Always crazy when I think about the fact that Lum was only suppose to essentially be as important to the series as say Kurama initially. A recurring antagonist who'd serve as a trial for Ataru and Shinobu to overcome.

- Well Only You was essentially "UY the movie". It served it's purpose as a theatrical version of the series. Beautiful Dreamer, was stepping out of this series' comfort zone and as a result, it's regarded as one of the best anime films of all time. That movie had an incredibly horrific scene - Ataru in that dream sequence where he wakes up and finds Lum's decomposed body. Always funny to me how Ataru so casually trolled Mujaki and managed to escape to different dreams with him whereas Sakura and Mendou were easily taken out. Ataru is so absurd, and played it cool when Mujaki thought he trapped him in that last dream. The miniature Lum always confused me as well. I love the ending scene of that movie where Ataru and Lum are about to kiss only for Mendou and the Stormtroopers to be pissed off at the sight of this, and then you just get Onsen Mark who is so confused and Ryuunosuke who looks so curious.

- Legit every teenage boy in this series is horny in some form or way. Ataru, Mendou, and Ten are all pretty similar to each other, though none of them would ever admit it. Shinobu calling Mendou an idiot was one of my favorite moments of hers. Like at that point, she's finally had enough with Mendou.

- Ataru is made of iron. An indomitable will so strong, he'll walk through the ground just to kiss a girl, he'll allow the earth to be covered in mushrooms and nearly cover the earth in darkness because of the sake of his girlfriend's feelings and their relationship and his determination to be as genuine with her as possible.

- I don't. Lum seems to have a lot of confidence in herself almost completely. Only time she really seems unsure of herself is when she has to show courage by not relying on her flight and electricity. As we know, Ataru proved that without her powers she's just an ordinary 17 year old girl in the physical stats department. Which is why she pretty much was forced to "cheat" via enhancer gauntlets and pills to boost her strength. Problem is she's rarely ever had to be in a situation where she couldn't use her powers and it had a major affect on her. Outside of that though? Lum seems to be generally confident about everything. She's sees herself as a great cook (which she is on her home planet as the Oni love spicy foods) but Ataru constantly tells her how her cooking sucks for Humans and how it doesn't mesh well with them.

- While Lum has flaws, many of those flaws only really surfaced usually as a result of things. Like yeah she's incredibly clingy and jealous, but she usually only gets jealous because Ataru initiates a situation where she reacts to it. Of course there are exceptions (like the story where they were going to eat everywhere in town and the teachers were going to punish them. They got to one restaurant and Lum got pretty angry just from the lady who worked at the shop holding his hand). Then there's of course Lum getting jealous over a ghost girl. Though anyone would probably get jealous easily if they already viewed another person as his or hers husband or wife from the get-go.

- Shinobu was a pretty terrible person at first. She beat the living tar out of him constantly. There's also the early story of when Ataru ran away from home and tells Sakura about it. How Lum forced a kiss on him, and Shinobu responds by refusing to listen to him and crushes him under several desks. Or how in Lum's case she initially didn't really view him as a person and more like a possession. Since he made it quite clear he didn't love her, she blackmailed him into allowing her to live with him, and went out of her way to ruin his life and his relationship with Shinobu simply because she wanted Ataru and didn't care that he didn't like her. Ataru came off as more horny earlier in the series than late in the series as well. Like sometimes it could be pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately, all three of them improved tremendously as characters.

- Yeah, he doesn't really tolerate anyone treating her like crap or trying to take her away from him. Lum doesn't even really seem to hate Rei later on and seems like she's fine getting along with him late in the series when he pretty much stops chasing after her (since he just settles with Ran because Ran makes him food so often). Hell, even Ran gained some development herself when Lum went to take care of her. Ran always had that paranoia that Lum was out to get her, but learned there that Lum just messes things up because she legitimately just unaware of things at times and is quite genuine in her efforts. Doesn't stop Ran from pulling crap like trying to feed Ataru and Lum to that cannibal though lol.

- He gets along surprisingly well with Lum's mother with the interactions they've had with each other. He gets along well with Ten's mother too. Funny, he has more female friends than male friends, which becomes obvious why when reading the series. Not sure I'd even classify Rei as a friend at all though. He was a one-chapter rival to Ataru until he lost to Ataru in his first appearance, and then just gets relegated to rare occasional antagonist or just minor character. Rei I'd argue is more of a friend to Ten. Ten seemed to get along with him well. Ataru and Ten's relationship was always fun to explore as well. Despite the two disliking one another a lot, they are incredibly similar. As you mentioned, the last story had Ten pretty much show that he was indeed going to miss Ataru (despite saying he wouldn't). He wouldn't have shed a tear for the guy if he legitimately wasn't going to miss being around him. I always imagine the two getting along more when they both get older.

When I watched that OVA and saw the snakes, my immediate thought was "Here comes the real violence". Shinobu slapped one snake and beat on the other, Ryuunosuke outright pummeled hers, and Ran used gadgets. Ataru? No discredit to him, but the artwork favored the women more than the boys, but his beatdown of the snake made me feel bad for it. But yeah, Mendou was the ultimate chump in that sequence. In fact, he basically other than his one flashy sword sequence was given a beating throughout. He stood there with his mouth open like the town idiot when Ryuunosuke and her dad were fighting, even Ataru was more decisive than him. Kudos to Toshio for that voiceover for Dirt Poor too, I laughed really hard hearing it. But then Mendou was launched into Ran's bazooka, clocked in the head with a hammer, shocked by Lum, eaten by a snake and blown up by the Dappya doll and also technically by his sister too. And I will give credit to Onsen Mark, that might have been HIS best showing for his strength because Ryuunosuke is no lightweight and she really hurled that ball at him. If it hadn't of exploded, he would have sent it back at her. And in Ep 106, I tend to think that might have been the first time Ataru might have actually been in a brawl if he made it to Mendou, that was the most angry I've ever seen him. Even in the Electric Jungle and Final Chapter, he was angry, but not like that.

The vault episode is great, Mendou is always so convinced he'll win that when he loses he can't understand. Like the class president episode, They tie and Mendou looks stupified that Ataru tied him, of course, Lum zaps him in their duel for Ataru's win, but the ritual suicide moment just shows he's all pride and can't stand any blows to it. That Pigumo episode was great too, and another great Mendou loses moment was thanks to Lum, when she and Ten got drunk on Umeboshi. Mendou betting Onsen Mark he'd dance naked if there was alcohol and Lum comes drunkenly floating in with sake. Ataru comes in at the end and sees that and the look on his face was perfect "Nope, I want no part of that!".

You'd almost think that Ataru was testing Lum at times, like to see if she really still loves him. Whenever she's missing, he has no desire to do any girl chasing. But yeah, he is the scumbag with a heart of gold, very contradictory.

He was terrible in Miss Tomobiki for sure, and the Rice Cooker incident too, when Lum forgot her Japanese. He partied like an idiot for ten days and then in the throes of exhaustion and being sick from eating that bad food he finally gave in and begged for her forgiveness. More like a please come back and save me from myself and my tendencies. I also found it funny how when Lum grew the plant for the berries to give her good dreams, the dream Ataru was actually more of a jerk than the real Ataru even though he was supposed to be 'perfect'. Dream Ataru had no qualms about encasing Lum in a bubble and making her electrocute herself (didn't think that was possible) just to get out. Real Ataru actually had an attack of his conscience and went back for her.

I liked how he opened his side of the dialogue in Beautiful Dreamer when Mujaki discovered he was still free, that he was going to beat on Mujaki for messing with Lum but he fell in the water. Ataru usually doesn't do violence, the boxing glove episode he even said he hates it, but he's really not above it when it comes to Lum. But he did happily send Megane and Mendou flying at least in it. That was their second interrupted kiss too, since they were going to kiss near the end of Only You too. And poor Lum, she would have been so happy if those guys didn't interrupt her. But I have heard two theories regarding that Little Lum, one is that she's the inner Lum, she's so innocent that she's like a child at times. Of course, the Lum we know isn't THAT innocent, but she makes strange appearances throughout the movie, I didn't even notice the one time in the empty classroom until I watched my Blu-ray of the film. The other theory I've seen is that some people think she's their daughter, trying to help Ataru so the future isn't disrupted. Not much lends itself to validate it, other than she looks pretty much like Lum. If you look at Lum's family, she's pretty close to her mother in looks, which is good but she's terribly short in comparison to both. Her mother is notably taller than Ataru, and we won't even discuss the incredible shrinking Mr. Invader. Unless Lum is wearing some kind of heels, she's shorter than Ataru. But I attribute Onsen Mark's confusion to the "I thought he couldn't stand her" and Ryuunosuke probably never saw a guy and a girl kiss before.

When Ataru walked through the ground itself I had to laugh, because as everyone else was staring in disbelief and Mendou was holding onto Lum, she really revved up the shock on Mendou. Started off as a normal shock and then the arcs were flying everywhere. The only way Ataru was stopped was the headbutt from Megane and despite being turned into a 90 something year old man, Ataru STILL wanted to kiss Ran. But you're right, Ataru would doom the earth before hurting Lum, it's too bad Lum didn't see that in the midst of her proving she's as stubborn as he is.

But in thinking about it, I still wonder with Lum and her actions/reactions with Ataru. I know it's per the story she's so in love with him because of the mistaken marriage proposal and his adherence to being free (contradicted by all his actions both around her and in free moments). She basically becomes an earth girl in all but actually being from earth for him, but as we see through the run of the whole thing, he's accepted her for what she is and loves her above all else regardless. But that cooking? I like spicy foods, but she basically can drink tabasco and be happy, that scares me. And the fact that HOW she cooks is scary too.

The episode with the crackdown on eating was good, because Lum didn't even eat out, she was just helping him. And when Megane tried to horn in Ataru immediately went into 'My Girl' mode, just like at the end when Mendou tried to get her to join and Ataru came > . < close to saying she was his girl and caught himself.

Ataru, Lum and Shinobu were all terrible at first, I cut Lum just a sliver of slack only because she was an alien on earth. She thinks she was just proposed to by someone she was playing the Oni tag game against for the earth itself. But that sliver is shaky because she pulled the 'I'm pregnant' thing which Shinobu buys without even hesitating. Shinobu is supposed to be Ataru's childhood friend and she has that little faith in him. I don't think I would want to keep trying to date someone that had that little faith in me. And in the manga at times she was outright crappier in the way she treated Ataru. When Lum disguised herself as a schoolgirl, and Ataru and Shinobu had the moment until Mendou landed on her was really horrible. And she had the nerve to go at him when Lum arrived in disguise, I was glad Ataru called her out on it.

Lum likely sees her time with Rei as a mistake, she's moved on. If they're 17 in the show, Lum was engaged awfully young (15-16?) and probably viewed it as an infatuation. Of course, it was because for the same reason every other woman chases Rei, he's the best looking guy overall (I loved how that was a blow to Mendou as well), but despite it being early on in the series, I give Rei's first appearance as Lum having some character - looks are NOT everything, even when Shinobu keeps saying he's so handsome. And Ran is probably the only one that has tried to kill/incapacitate Ataru the most overall.

I'd say Ten sees Ataru is a sort of older brother. He picks on him, but Ten fights back, and pretty effectively too. When Ataru made Ten lose his horn though I did laugh - another super strength moment for Ataru as he pretty much threw everything including a sink at him in a huge sack. Ten though is the only male Oni I've seen with just one horn though - Lum's dad and Rei have two, and from Only You, the other Oni have two also. But Rei is actually close to boring overall, only because he's basically a walking appetite with a thing for Lum. I give the Stormtroopers more credit for confronting Rei than Ataru, but Rei is good for one thing, he makes women show just how shallow they are. But with Ten, I see it that if Ataru and Lum have kid(s), I see them terrorizing Ten and Ataru being glad for it as a sort of revenge.

Total aside from all this, Fumi Hirano still does an occasional radio show in Japan and she will broadcast it over the Twitcasting plugin for Twitter. As Japan is 13 hrs ahead of me, I tuned into it this past Saturday morning. She talks about things and plays music and while for the life of me I don't understand nearly enough of Japanese to have it all make sense, she DID slip into Lum's persona for a moment as she used the words Uchi and Daccha when speaking in a cute manner.

[Seiryu]

- I kind of felt bad for the snakes lol. Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke all beat them up and Ran just laser'd them. Mendou and Lum were the only ones to get wrecked and Lum only was on the receiving end since she did not want to risk knocking the others out with her electricity. Mendou? The guy was straight up just a joke to those things. Onsen Mark came off as real crazy in that OVA. Mendou feared the unstoppable.  Ataru is just way too determined and nigh invincible to be taken down by Mendou.

- I always love seeing them go up against one another because either the writers or Takahashi almost always has Ataru clown Mendou. Like the episode they were trapped in Mendou's vault and Ataru kept on one-upping him at their card game and taking Mendou's gold from him, or the story of when Lum was going to go kiss Pigumo (the frog guy) and Ataru and Mendou step outside together only for the students to follow. When they open the door, they see Mendou unconscious after Ataru clonked him on the head.

- What makes it worse is that Ataru is fully aware how good he has it. He knows Lum is devoted to him, and constantly exploits that fact. He takes full advantage of the fact that no matter what he does, she'll stay with him regardless. Definitely makes him a scumbag a lot of the time lol.

- Speaking on how terrible Ataru can be, the episode of the Miss Tomobiki was extremely funny with what Ataru did. He was terrible in that as a person, but the way it ended had me laughing for some time. He literally takes the money at the end of the episode when everybody questions where it and he is. When then pan over to Ataru who pretty much fled the scene and hopped the train. He's going to get thrashed later on for that, but I found that whole ending hilarious.

- I'd argue their relationship is partly the central focus. It's just that in comparison to Takahashi's other series, UY is the least focused on romance and more of the comedic hijinks of the gang. Their relationship did kick off after all with Lum mistaking his announcement in the first story as a proposal. Always crazy when I think about the fact that Lum was only suppose to essentially be as important to the series as say Kurama initially. A recurring antagonist who'd serve as a trial for Ataru and Shinobu to overcome.

- Well Only You was essentially "UY the movie". It served it's purpose as a theatrical version of the series. Beautiful Dreamer, was stepping out of this series' comfort zone and as a result, it's regarded as one of the best anime films of all time. That movie had an incredibly horrific scene - Ataru in that dream sequence where he wakes up and finds Lum's decomposed body. Always funny to me how Ataru so casually trolled Mujaki and managed to escape to different dreams with him whereas Sakura and Mendou were easily taken out. Ataru is so absurd, and played it cool when Mujaki thought he trapped him in that last dream. The miniature Lum always confused me as well. I love the ending scene of that movie where Ataru and Lum are about to kiss only for Mendou and the Stormtroopers to be pissed off at the sight of this, and then you just get Onsen Mark who is so confused and Ryuunosuke who looks so curious.

- Legit every teenage boy in this series is horny in some form or way. Ataru, Mendou, and Ten are all pretty similar to each other, though none of them would ever admit it. Shinobu calling Mendou an idiot was one of my favorite moments of hers. Like at that point, she's finally had enough with Mendou.

- Ataru is made of iron. An indomitable will so strong, he'll walk through the ground just to kiss a girl, he'll allow the earth to be covered in mushrooms and nearly cover the earth in darkness because of the sake of his girlfriend's feelings and their relationship and his determination to be as genuine with her as possible.

- I don't. Lum seems to have a lot of confidence in herself almost completely. Only time she really seems unsure of herself is when she has to show courage by not relying on her flight and electricity. As we know, Ataru proved that without her powers she's just an ordinary 17 year old girl in the physical stats department. Which is why she pretty much was forced to "cheat" via enhancer gauntlets and pills to boost her strength. Problem is she's rarely ever had to be in a situation where she couldn't use her powers and it had a major affect on her. Outside of that though? Lum seems to be generally confident about everything. She's sees herself as a great cook (which she is on her home planet as the Oni love spicy foods) but Ataru constantly tells her how her cooking sucks for Humans and how it doesn't mesh well with them.

- While Lum has flaws, many of those flaws only really surfaced usually as a result of things. Like yeah she's incredibly clingy and jealous, but she usually only gets jealous because Ataru initiates a situation where she reacts to it. Of course there are exceptions (like the story where they were going to eat everywhere in town and the teachers were going to punish them. They got to one restaurant and Lum got pretty angry just from the lady who worked at the shop holding his hand). Then there's of course Lum getting jealous over a ghost girl. Though anyone would probably get jealous easily if they already viewed another person as his or hers husband or wife from the get-go.

- Shinobu was a pretty terrible person at first. She beat the living tar out of him constantly. There's also the early story of when Ataru ran away from home and tells Sakura about it. How Lum forced a kiss on him, and Shinobu responds by refusing to listen to him and crushes him under several desks. Or how in Lum's case she initially didn't really view him as a person and more like a possession. Since he made it quite clear he didn't love her, she blackmailed him into allowing her to live with him, and went out of her way to ruin his life and his relationship with Shinobu simply because she wanted Ataru and didn't care that he didn't like her. Ataru came off as more horny earlier in the series than late in the series as well. Like sometimes it could be pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately, all three of them improved tremendously as characters.

- Yeah, he doesn't really tolerate anyone treating her like crap or trying to take her away from him. Lum doesn't even really seem to hate Rei later on and seems like she's fine getting along with him late in the series when he pretty much stops chasing after her (since he just settles with Ran because Ran makes him food so often). Hell, even Ran gained some development herself when Lum went to take care of her. Ran always had that paranoia that Lum was out to get her, but learned there that Lum just messes things up because she legitimately just unaware of things at times and is quite genuine in her efforts. Doesn't stop Ran from pulling crap like trying to feed Ataru and Lum to that cannibal though lol.

- He gets along surprisingly well with Lum's mother with the interactions they've had with each other. He gets along well with Ten's mother too. Funny, he has more female friends than male friends, which becomes obvious why when reading the series. Not sure I'd even classify Rei as a friend at all though. He was a one-chapter rival to Ataru until he lost to Ataru in his first appearance, and then just gets relegated to rare occasional antagonist or just minor character. Rei I'd argue is more of a friend to Ten. Ten seemed to get along with him well. Ataru and Ten's relationship was always fun to explore as well. Despite the two disliking one another a lot, they are incredibly similar. As you mentioned, the last story had Ten pretty much show that he was indeed going to miss Ataru (despite saying he wouldn't). He wouldn't have shed a tear for the guy if he legitimately wasn't going to miss being around him. I always imagine the two getting along more when they both get older.

When I watched that OVA and saw the snakes, my immediate thought was "Here comes the real violence". Shinobu slapped one snake and beat on the other, Ryuunosuke outright pummeled hers, and Ran used gadgets. Ataru? No discredit to him, but the artwork favored the women more than the boys, but his beatdown of the snake made me feel bad for it. But yeah, Mendou was the ultimate chump in that sequence. In fact, he basically other than his one flashy sword sequence was given a beating throughout. He stood there with his mouth open like the town idiot when Ryuunosuke and her dad were fighting, even Ataru was more decisive than him. Kudos to Toshio for that voiceover for Dirt Poor too, I laughed really hard hearing it. But then Mendou was launched into Ran's bazooka, clocked in the head with a hammer, shocked by Lum, eaten by a snake and blown up by the Dappya doll and also technically by his sister too. And I will give credit to Onsen Mark, that might have been HIS best showing for his strength because Ryuunosuke is no lightweight and she really hurled that ball at him. If it hadn't of exploded, he would have sent it back at her. And in Ep 106, I tend to think that might have been the first time Ataru might have actually been in a brawl if he made it to Mendou, that was the most angry I've ever seen him. Even in the Electric Jungle and Final Chapter, he was angry, but not like that.

The vault episode is great, Mendou is always so convinced he'll win that when he loses he can't understand. Like the class president episode, They tie and Mendou looks stupified that Ataru tied him, of course, Lum zaps him in their duel for Ataru's win, but the ritual suicide moment just shows he's all pride and can't stand any blows to it. That Pigumo episode was great too, and another great Mendou loses moment was thanks to Lum, when she and Ten got drunk on Umeboshi. Mendou betting Onsen Mark he'd dance naked if there was alcohol and Lum comes drunkenly floating in with sake. Ataru comes in at the end and sees that and the look on his face was perfect "Nope, I want no part of that!".

You'd almost think that Ataru was testing Lum at times, like to see if she really still loves him. Whenever she's missing, he has no desire to do any girl chasing. But yeah, he is the scumbag with a heart of gold, very contradictory.

He was terrible in Miss Tomobiki for sure, and the Rice Cooker incident too, when Lum forgot her Japanese. He partied like an idiot for ten days and then in the throes of exhaustion and being sick from eating that bad food he finally gave in and begged for her forgiveness. More like a please come back and save me from myself and my tendencies. I also found it funny how when Lum grew the plant for the berries to give her good dreams, the dream Ataru was actually more of a jerk than the real Ataru even though he was supposed to be 'perfect'. Dream Ataru had no qualms about encasing Lum in a bubble and making her electrocute herself (didn't think that was possible) just to get out. Real Ataru actually had an attack of his conscience and went back for her.

I liked how he opened his side of the dialogue in Beautiful Dreamer when Mujaki discovered he was still free, that he was going to beat on Mujaki for messing with Lum but he fell in the water. Ataru usually doesn't do violence, the boxing glove episode he even said he hates it, but he's really not above it when it comes to Lum. But he did happily send Megane and Mendou flying at least in it. That was their second interrupted kiss too, since they were going to kiss near the end of Only You too. And poor Lum, she would have been so happy if those guys didn't interrupt her. But I have heard two theories regarding that Little Lum, one is that she's the inner Lum, she's so innocent that she's like a child at times. Of course, the Lum we know isn't THAT innocent, but she makes strange appearances throughout the movie, I didn't even notice the one time in the empty classroom until I watched my Blu-ray of the film. The other theory I've seen is that some people think she's their daughter, trying to help Ataru so the future isn't disrupted. Not much lends itself to validate it, other than she looks pretty much like Lum. If you look at Lum's family, she's pretty close to her mother in looks, which is good but she's terribly short in comparison to both. Her mother is notably taller than Ataru, and we won't even discuss the incredible shrinking Mr. Invader. Unless Lum is wearing some kind of heels, she's shorter than Ataru. But I attribute Onsen Mark's confusion to the "I thought he couldn't stand her" and Ryuunosuke probably never saw a guy and a girl kiss before.

When Ataru walked through the ground itself I had to laugh, because as everyone else was staring in disbelief and Mendou was holding onto Lum, she really revved up the shock on Mendou. Started off as a normal shock and then the arcs were flying everywhere. The only way Ataru was stopped was the headbutt from Megane and despite being turned into a 90 something year old man, Ataru STILL wanted to kiss Ran. But you're right, Ataru would doom the earth before hurting Lum, it's too bad Lum didn't see that in the midst of her proving she's as stubborn as he is.

But in thinking about it, I still wonder with Lum and her actions/reactions with Ataru. I know it's per the story she's so in love with him because of the mistaken marriage proposal and his adherence to being free (contradicted by all his actions both around her and in free moments). She basically becomes an earth girl in all but actually being from earth for him, but as we see through the run of the whole thing, he's accepted her for what she is and loves her above all else regardless. But that cooking? I like spicy foods, but she basically can drink tabasco and be happy, that scares me. And the fact that HOW she cooks is scary too.

The episode with the crackdown on eating was good, because Lum didn't even eat out, she was just helping him. And when Megane tried to horn in Ataru immediately went into 'My Girl' mode, just like at the end when Mendou tried to get her to join and Ataru came > . < close to saying she was his girl and caught himself.

Ataru, Lum and Shinobu were all terrible at first, I cut Lum just a sliver of slack only because she was an alien on earth. She thinks she was just proposed to by someone she was playing the Oni tag game against for the earth itself. But that sliver is shaky because she pulled the 'I'm pregnant' thing which Shinobu buys without even hesitating. Shinobu is supposed to be Ataru's childhood friend and she has that little faith in him. I don't think I would want to keep trying to date someone that had that little faith in me. And in the manga at times she was outright crappier in the way she treated Ataru. When Lum disguised herself as a schoolgirl, and Ataru and Shinobu had the moment until Mendou landed on her was really horrible. And she had the nerve to go at him when Lum arrived in disguise, I was glad Ataru called her out on it.

Lum likely sees her time with Rei as a mistake, she's moved on. If they're 17 in the show, Lum was engaged awfully young (15-16?) and probably viewed it as an infatuation. Of course, it was because for the same reason every other woman chases Rei, he's the best looking guy overall (I loved how that was a blow to Mendou as well), but despite it being early on in the series, I give Rei's first appearance as Lum having some character - looks are NOT everything, even when Shinobu keeps saying he's so handsome. And Ran is probably the only one that has tried to kill/incapacitate Ataru the most overall.

I'd say Ten sees Ataru is a sort of older brother. He picks on him, but Ten fights back, and pretty effectively too. When Ataru made Ten lose his horn though I did laugh - another super strength moment for Ataru as he pretty much threw everything including a sink at him in a huge sack. Ten though is the only male Oni I've seen with just one horn though - Lum's dad and Rei have two, and from Only You, the other Oni have two also. But Rei is actually close to boring overall, only because he's basically a walking appetite with a thing for Lum. I give the Stormtroopers more credit for confronting Rei than Ataru, but Rei is good for one thing, he makes women show just how shallow they are. But with Ten, I see it that if Ataru and Lum have kid(s), I see them terrorizing Ten and Ataru being glad for it as a sort of revenge.

Total aside from all this, Fumi Hirano still does an occasional radio show in Japan and she will broadcast it over the Twitcasting plugin for Twitter. As Japan is 13 hrs ahead of me, I tuned into it this past Saturday morning. She talks about things and plays music and while for the life of me I don't understand nearly enough of Japanese to have it all make sense, she DID slip into Lum's persona for a moment as she used the words Uchi and Daccha when speaking in a cute manner.

- Mendou being the butt monkey was hilarious. Someone had to be it and Onsen Mark usually takes the role as butt monkey but they wanted to give him a break (though they wanted him to take some damage before the OVA ended lol). Ataru smashing him on the head with the hammer was funny because I knew the moment they decided to be nice to one another, Ataru was going to pull something funny. You're right. Definitely the closest he was to willingly brawling Mendou. Though he did beat Mendou up briefly when he had the boxing gloves on.

- Mendou's failures are funny. You mentioned my second favorite one, his bet with Onsen Mark. When he lost that, lol I knew he was going to try and back out of it. He doesn't know how to deal with a loss or failure. You'd think he'd learn how to by now, considering he's rarely ever been a challenge for Ataru. The class election was hilarious as well. The boys are just "Let's get Ataru to run against him! If anybody can take Mendou he can!" Always hilarious how the boys in the class are on Ataru's side whenever they are jealous of Mendou or against him when they're jealous of Ataru.

- Well Ataru has to keep up his reputation as the biggest jerk with a heart of gold of all of Takahashi's male main protagonists. I loved the ending of the rice cooker one. She clearly sees he misses having her around, and she's grateful for it. But thought ahead of time and built him an ugly translator that would prevent him from approaching girls lol. I'd imagine that despite how angry he was that he couldn't flirt with girls, he'd keep the translator on until she remembered how to speak Japanese considering he actually wants to hear her voice. The dream one is funny. Dream Ataru was so focused on the single-minded goal of marriage, he didn't give a damn that Lum was self-inflicting electrocution on herself. Luckily our Ataru (despite his terrible qualities) has a heart of gold and a conscious, despite him wanting others to think otherwise. I mean Ataru going back for Lum meant that they were too late to stop the wedding, but he definitely had no problems going back for her. I love how she calls out to Ataru when she's on the ground and he just stops, and just knows he can't leave without her. The next scene just has him piggybacking her as "Lum no Love Song (instrumental)" starts playing.

- You're right, Ataru really isn't all that big on violence. We know he wouldn't dare hit a girl, and he'd even refrain from hitting boys most of the time. Considering the only guys he actually does go out of his way to hit often are Onsen, Ten, Megane, and Mendou. Doesn't really hit anyone else. That little Lum was hilarious when I saw her cameo in the Inaba OVA. A small scene during Ataru looking at the future of him and Lum getting married and you see the Little Lum and Mujaki there. Lum definitely isn't that innocent. I mean she tried getting Ataru straight up in like chapter 5 to sleep with her. I mean by late in the series, both have already expressed and willingness to sleep with one another (in Ataru's case in the story where they spent the night alone - he eventually became acceptable to sleeping with her. Funny how at the end of that story when he was in the suit, he even tried kissing her).

- What really sold that scene was the music that played. That music plays often whenever we see Ataru do something insane (it also played in the episode when Ataru was lifting the tree so the episode when Ten's mother appeared). Mendou toughed it out though, I was impressed. Ataru is usually the only one who can withstand the shocks but Mendou showed some guts (I think he even said to Lum that he has his pride on the line as well - funny, Mendou's pride never became a factor before or after since that episode lol). Both are incredibly stubborn, unfortunately for Ataru, there was no way at that point Lum could have realized that he was being more genuine by not saying he loved her because by that point she was desperate enough to not care if he was even lying about it as long as he said it.

- She uses a gun to help her cook. Perfectly understandable why Ataru hates her cooking. Any person who drinks Tabasco sauce so casually clearly doesn't think of food the same way as an earthling would. I remember in one story where Ataru was trying to learn what food made Lum tick, he treated her to different places and he asked her how it tasted. None of the food she ate had any major spicy stuff and she even said that none of the food to her has a particular taste. Tabasco seems to give food flavor to the Oni. The camping story becomes funnier since you know Ataru hates her cooking and the moment he hears it's finished, he straight up runs for it. Of course, she drags him right back but he refuses to eat saying the "Gods have already punished him" lol. She knows what he thinks about her cooking, and he's even told her she makes it too spicy, but she makes it spicy anyway despite trying to give him food often that he'd like.

- Ataru has to be careful. Saying Lum is his girl out in public will ruin his chances of "being free" lol. He's only ever said she's his woman on one occasion in public, when she used the dolphin dude to get him jealous.

- Yeah, Ataru did call Shinobu out on her terrible actions at times. I think I would argue that she was the worst of the three at first. I mean yeah, Lum was pretty antagonistic, and Ataru was a horny lecherous fool, but: Lum pulled the pregnant card twice and she was terrible for it, but Shinobu believed it twice without even bothering to think that it's a lie, the second time with her actually wanting Ataru to die. Then you have Ataru who gets beaten up for calling her out on her hypocrisy lol and being the object of her anger because she never tried to believe him on anything. He honestly went through more effort getting Shinobu to believe him than he should have put out. Childhood friendship apparently didn't run that deep since she dropped him like a bad habit the moment Mendou stepped into the picture (loved the pun chapter title on Mendou's debut "Trouble drops in" since Mendou's name means trouble).

- Ran definitely tried murdering Ataru more often than anyone else. Mendou's ego taking a blow not just to Rei, but to Ryuunosuke never stops being funny. True. Even in the early parts of the series, Lum had more class than to want to get back with Rei. Rei is very dull in personality. Never once in the series does he show any ounce of really anything beyond his love for food and his occasional attempts to get Lum to love him. Love how in his second appearance, Ataru, Lum, and the Stormtroopers just troll Rei by saying if he can actually propose to Lum, she'll go with him. They all just start laughing at him. Love how they even made fun of him by saying the Lum doll he had dumped him.

- Shallow is putting it mildly when in Rei's second appearance several girls (including Shinobu and Ataru's mother) all gets smitten with Rei and actually consider marrying him. Ataru and Ten will be arguing until they're both middle aged men probably. He probably would have his kids terrorize Ten just to get him back, especially since Ten wouldn't be allowed to hit Ataru's kids and get away with it. Lum would be on him so fast.

- I appreciate all the good work both Toshio and Fumi do even to this day.

[Oldfan]

- Mendou being the butt monkey was hilarious. Someone had to be it and Onsen Mark usually takes the role as butt monkey but they wanted to give him a break (though they wanted him to take some damage before the OVA ended lol). Ataru smashing him on the head with the hammer was funny because I knew the moment they decided to be nice to one another, Ataru was going to pull something funny. You're right. Definitely the closest he was to willingly brawling Mendou. Though he did beat Mendou up briefly when he had the boxing gloves on.

- Mendou's failures are funny. You mentioned my second favorite one, his bet with Onsen Mark. When he lost that, lol I knew he was going to try and back out of it. He doesn't know how to deal with a loss or failure. You'd think he'd learn how to by now, considering he's rarely ever been a challenge for Ataru. The class election was hilarious as well. The boys are just "Let's get Ataru to run against him! If anybody can take Mendou he can!" Always hilarious how the boys in the class are on Ataru's side whenever they are jealous of Mendou or against him when they're jealous of Ataru.

- Well Ataru has to keep up his reputation as the biggest jerk with a heart of gold of all of Takahashi's male main protagonists. I loved the ending of the rice cooker one. She clearly sees he misses having her around, and she's grateful for it. But thought ahead of time and built him an ugly translator that would prevent him from approaching girls lol. I'd imagine that despite how angry he was that he couldn't flirt with girls, he'd keep the translator on until she remembered how to speak Japanese considering he actually wants to hear her voice. The dream one is funny. Dream Ataru was so focused on the single-minded goal of marriage, he didn't give a damn that Lum was self-inflicting electrocution on herself. Luckily our Ataru (despite his terrible qualities) has a heart of gold and a conscious, despite him wanting others to think otherwise. I mean Ataru going back for Lum meant that they were too late to stop the wedding, but he definitely had no problems going back for her. I love how she calls out to Ataru when she's on the ground and he just stops, and just knows he can't leave without her. The next scene just has him piggybacking her as "Lum no Love Song (instrumental)" starts playing.

- You're right, Ataru really isn't all that big on violence. We know he wouldn't dare hit a girl, and he'd even refrain from hitting boys most of the time. Considering the only guys he actually does go out of his way to hit often are Onsen, Ten, Megane, and Mendou. Doesn't really hit anyone else. That little Lum was hilarious when I saw her cameo in the Inaba OVA. A small scene during Ataru looking at the future of him and Lum getting married and you see the Little Lum and Mujaki there. Lum definitely isn't that innocent. I mean she tried getting Ataru straight up in like chapter 5 to sleep with her. I mean by late in the series, both have already expressed and willingness to sleep with one another (in Ataru's case in the story where they spent the night alone - he eventually became acceptable to sleeping with her. Funny how at the end of that story when he was in the suit, he even tried kissing her).

- What really sold that scene was the music that played. That music plays often whenever we see Ataru do something insane (it also played in the episode when Ataru was lifting the tree so the episode when Ten's mother appeared). Mendou toughed it out though, I was impressed. Ataru is usually the only one who can withstand the shocks but Mendou showed some guts (I think he even said to Lum that he has his pride on the line as well - funny, Mendou's pride never became a factor before or after since that episode lol). Both are incredibly stubborn, unfortunately for Ataru, there was no way at that point Lum could have realized that he was being more genuine by not saying he loved her because by that point she was desperate enough to not care if he was even lying about it as long as he said it.

- She uses a gun to help her cook. Perfectly understandable why Ataru hates her cooking. Any person who drinks Tabasco sauce so casually clearly doesn't think of food the same way as an earthling would. I remember in one story where Ataru was trying to learn what food made Lum tick, he treated her to different places and he asked her how it tasted. None of the food she ate had any major spicy stuff and she even said that none of the food to her has a particular taste. Tabasco seems to give food flavor to the Oni. The camping story becomes funnier since you know Ataru hates her cooking and the moment he hears it's finished, he straight up runs for it. Of course, she drags him right back but he refuses to eat saying the "Gods have already punished him" lol. She knows what he thinks about her cooking, and he's even told her she makes it too spicy, but she makes it spicy anyway despite trying to give him food often that he'd like.

- Ataru has to be careful. Saying Lum is his girl out in public will ruin his chances of "being free" lol. He's only ever said she's his woman on one occasion in public, when she used the dolphin dude to get him jealous.

- Yeah, Ataru did call Shinobu out on her terrible actions at times. I think I would argue that she was the worst of the three at first. I mean yeah, Lum was pretty antagonistic, and Ataru was a horny lecherous fool, but: Lum pulled the pregnant card twice and she was terrible for it, but Shinobu believed it twice without even bothering to think that it's a lie, the second time with her actually wanting Ataru to die. Then you have Ataru who gets beaten up for calling her out on her hypocrisy lol and being the object of her anger because she never tried to believe him on anything. He honestly went through more effort getting Shinobu to believe him than he should have put out. Childhood friendship apparently didn't run that deep since she dropped him like a bad habit the moment Mendou stepped into the picture (loved the pun chapter title on Mendou's debut "Trouble drops in" since Mendou's name means trouble).

- Ran definitely tried murdering Ataru more often than anyone else. Mendou's ego taking a blow not just to Rei, but to Ryuunosuke never stops being funny. True. Even in the early parts of the series, Lum had more class than to want to get back with Rei. Rei is very dull in personality. Never once in the series does he show any ounce of really anything beyond his love for food and his occasional attempts to get Lum to love him. Love how in his second appearance, Ataru, Lum, and the Stormtroopers just troll Rei by saying if he can actually propose to Lum, she'll go with him. They all just start laughing at him. Love how they even made fun of him by saying the Lum doll he had dumped him.

- Shallow is putting it mildly when in Rei's second appearance several girls (including Shinobu and Ataru's mother) all gets smitten with Rei and actually consider marrying him. Ataru and Ten will be arguing until they're both middle aged men probably. He probably would have his kids terrorize Ten just to get him back, especially since Ten wouldn't be allowed to hit Ataru's kids and get away with it. Lum would be on him so fast.

- I appreciate all the good work both Toshio and Fumi do even to this day.

It was great seeing him take all that abuse, heck, Ataru took him just by breaking away from the flypaper hanging from the ceiling and then rolling around with him. I did sort of question Ataru's antics with that one considering the Eps with them having some form of physical contact led to them both experiencing utter revulsion. And Mendou's pseudo speedo was a little dry too, considering the fact that in the earlier works, they were definitely older looking. I know that from when Movie 6 aired to 2008's OVA art changed a lot but they really sort of skewed the looks for Lum, Ataru, Mendou and Shinobu, not to mention Ran and Sakura too. They just looked for lack of a better way to say it, young. Well, other than Sakura - she actually looked older.

I wonder if Mendou's mindset is always "Moroboshi will never beat me" until he does. That Ep might have been the one time I actually cheered Megane for helping with making sure Mendou went through with his loss of the bet. But yeah, the guys in the class basically cheer on whoever didn't upset them and Mendou sure went out of his way to alienate them early on with his rules if he won the presidency. Harsh rules, but only for the boys, the girls of course are completely exempt. Mendou eats lunch out too, and yet he decides to assist the school in reining in the others from eating. He's probably the most snake-like of the lot.

That thing was god awful ugly, in both manga and anime versions. It was like Donald Duck had Oni fangs, but I still give the manga version more credit for being the better story in that case. Just like with the eyedrops story, the anime had weird things happen that just did not make sense, the manga was imple and to the point and Ataru's golden heart came out when at the end he left a whole huge plate of steamed sweet potatoes for Lum. But all Ataru has to do is hear her even start to sniffle and he's pretty much done, at least until the last story. Heck, Ataru creamed his alternate self in Inaba for mistreating Lum. As soon as "I sold all your stuff" is said, you see the mood change, which is funnier because our Ataru is in that rabbit suit. And that pose of his raising his fists up, one higher than the other just before he really slammed his other self with that hammer.

The no violence aspect to his personality is interesting considering that wooden hammers are a constant after a while. But he exhibits his willingness to be violent also when Lum is threatened, the matchmaking party episode was a good example. In the anime, he punched the guy face first into the ground, in the manga it was a wallop with a hammer. He did it to Shingo too in the Electric Jungle, grabbed him and threw him right off the vine he was swinging on. Ten is just Ten, that's like sibling rivalry there. His best violence on Megane was in The Final Chapter when Megane is calling to Lum during the race with the megaphone and Ataru grabs it, yells in his ear and then hammers him over the head. On Mendou, they're all good, but it is the boxing glove one that's the best. When he says he hates violence after punching Onsen Mark out of the school via the roof and he turns and looks at Mendou and that muffled trumpet sound starts playing. He just has that evil smile on his face and Mendou's face and the sound he makes are both priceless, just like the sound he makes after Mendou congratulates him for not hitting Lum you see him hit Mendou and then the "WAH!". Of course he beats the crap out of himself because Lum is enjoying seeing him protect her even from himself. And that suit, Ataru was like, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't so what the hell! And then he's basically in that and when he can't kiss Lum he cries. But overall, it interesting that the one person that throws herself at him is the one person he won't do anything with. Yes, Benten is good looking, so is Ran and Sakura. Oyuki actually became LESS appealing as her appearances ticked on, and for the life of me I can't see why he would want Ryuunosuke. I'd be afraid she'd kill me if I were in his shoes, she straight up stopped a punch from Benten and threw her casually. Only Asuka overpowered her and that's just because Asuka is completely overpowered, though to Ataru's credit, he did stop the brawl with Ryuunosuke and Benten, that jump he made was really impressive.

That music and the music that starts when Ataru first chases Asuka, those are his themes it seems when he does something like that. I'm not sure if the English sub was 100% correct, but his line when getting the tree out of the ground "Please God, don't let my colon pop out of my ass" was hysterical. And when Asuka does the pole vault, lands and immediately is running at full speed and then The Fla...I mean Ataru comes out of nowhere shocking the two women agents by doing 100 meters in 7-8 seconds flat. I tried doing the math to see if that was a fair indication for his running speed, rounding to the nearest whole number there's 1609 meters in a mile. He basically can run a mile every 113 seconds, by comparison, the fastest mile ever run was 3 mins, 43 seconds in the real world, and he's gone faster when he needs to that's the scary part. The Gardenia episode had him running faster than Lum could keep up with running or flying, as well as vehicles, and Superman. And yes, Mendou said he has his pride as well, which was good enough in my book as a reason to completely electrocute him. The whole last story was an exercise in just how stubborn two people can be, I would shudder to think of how stubborn their kids would be.

The effects her cooking have on people is great, they look like they have duck bills. Mendou was so looking forward to her cooking in that and then they all paid the price except Ataru. And she uses a gun and a welding mask and a shield at times, that right there says something is decidedly wrong. Of course, when it's not spicy it turns him into a wolf...

Another near violent moment for Ataru, the "Get your hands off my woman", it's really too bad there's not a true sense of continuity with the Eps, because Lum clearly heard that. The way he yelled that, I'm surprised the whole beach didn't hear it.

When Shinobu says she'll marry Ataru if he wins the tag match, his reply is you're just saying that to save yourself. The way she went to treating him right afterwards makes you think she probably was just saying that. Of course, she had already beaten the crap out of him once for his reaction to seeing Lum for the first time. She looked like she clawed his face right across his eyes. And nothing against Shinobu, but considering the girls Ataru lusted after, Shinobu was a complete contrast to them. I had to laugh when Kurama called her jailbait, but then Shinobu is plotting in the cave to get Mendou alone.

I give Lum credit for despite her treating Ataru like a possession, she had class. Ataru wasn't bad looking, but Rei was the pretty one of the males, and Lum didn't care about looks. Mendou should have gone around and said Ego is Everything, he might have had a chance then. Rei's reading off that scroll as a form of a marriage proposal to Lum was funny, no mention of love, just will you cook for me. No wonder they all laughed at him, he might as well have just said "Feed me" over and over again. Which is why in Only You when he showed up at the beefbowl place I was surprised he was actually able to order it.

Given how payback seems to work in UY, Ten would go to hit the kids and they'd have not only inherited the moods of Lum and ataru but her lightning. He'd get zapped from one or more sides as my bet is Lum would not want to stop at one kid, she seems to be intent on growing up to be a mommy. The other precious payback would be that first fateful day in Class 2-4, as Onsen Mark, older and still harried, calls out the names of the students and turns pale as he says..."Moroboshi" and there's two of them, twins.

[Seiryu]

- Mendou being the butt monkey was hilarious. Someone had to be it and Onsen Mark usually takes the role as butt monkey but they wanted to give him a break (though they wanted him to take some damage before the OVA ended lol). Ataru smashing him on the head with the hammer was funny because I knew the moment they decided to be nice to one another, Ataru was going to pull something funny. You're right. Definitely the closest he was to willingly brawling Mendou. Though he did beat Mendou up briefly when he had the boxing gloves on.

- Mendou's failures are funny. You mentioned my second favorite one, his bet with Onsen Mark. When he lost that, lol I knew he was going to try and back out of it. He doesn't know how to deal with a loss or failure. You'd think he'd learn how to by now, considering he's rarely ever been a challenge for Ataru. The class election was hilarious as well. The boys are just "Let's get Ataru to run against him! If anybody can take Mendou he can!" Always hilarious how the boys in the class are on Ataru's side whenever they are jealous of Mendou or against him when they're jealous of Ataru.

- Well Ataru has to keep up his reputation as the biggest jerk with a heart of gold of all of Takahashi's male main protagonists. I loved the ending of the rice cooker one. She clearly sees he misses having her around, and she's grateful for it. But thought ahead of time and built him an ugly translator that would prevent him from approaching girls lol. I'd imagine that despite how angry he was that he couldn't flirt with girls, he'd keep the translator on until she remembered how to speak Japanese considering he actually wants to hear her voice. The dream one is funny. Dream Ataru was so focused on the single-minded goal of marriage, he didn't give a damn that Lum was self-inflicting electrocution on herself. Luckily our Ataru (despite his terrible qualities) has a heart of gold and a conscious, despite him wanting others to think otherwise. I mean Ataru going back for Lum meant that they were too late to stop the wedding, but he definitely had no problems going back for her. I love how she calls out to Ataru when she's on the ground and he just stops, and just knows he can't leave without her. The next scene just has him piggybacking her as "Lum no Love Song (instrumental)" starts playing.

- You're right, Ataru really isn't all that big on violence. We know he wouldn't dare hit a girl, and he'd even refrain from hitting boys most of the time. Considering the only guys he actually does go out of his way to hit often are Onsen, Ten, Megane, and Mendou. Doesn't really hit anyone else. That little Lum was hilarious when I saw her cameo in the Inaba OVA. A small scene during Ataru looking at the future of him and Lum getting married and you see the Little Lum and Mujaki there. Lum definitely isn't that innocent. I mean she tried getting Ataru straight up in like chapter 5 to sleep with her. I mean by late in the series, both have already expressed and willingness to sleep with one another (in Ataru's case in the story where they spent the night alone - he eventually became acceptable to sleeping with her. Funny how at the end of that story when he was in the suit, he even tried kissing her).

- What really sold that scene was the music that played. That music plays often whenever we see Ataru do something insane (it also played in the episode when Ataru was lifting the tree so the episode when Ten's mother appeared). Mendou toughed it out though, I was impressed. Ataru is usually the only one who can withstand the shocks but Mendou showed some guts (I think he even said to Lum that he has his pride on the line as well - funny, Mendou's pride never became a factor before or after since that episode lol). Both are incredibly stubborn, unfortunately for Ataru, there was no way at that point Lum could have realized that he was being more genuine by not saying he loved her because by that point she was desperate enough to not care if he was even lying about it as long as he said it.

- She uses a gun to help her cook. Perfectly understandable why Ataru hates her cooking. Any person who drinks Tabasco sauce so casually clearly doesn't think of food the same way as an earthling would. I remember in one story where Ataru was trying to learn what food made Lum tick, he treated her to different places and he asked her how it tasted. None of the food she ate had any major spicy stuff and she even said that none of the food to her has a particular taste. Tabasco seems to give food flavor to the Oni. The camping story becomes funnier since you know Ataru hates her cooking and the moment he hears it's finished, he straight up runs for it. Of course, she drags him right back but he refuses to eat saying the "Gods have already punished him" lol. She knows what he thinks about her cooking, and he's even told her she makes it too spicy, but she makes it spicy anyway despite trying to give him food often that he'd like.

- Ataru has to be careful. Saying Lum is his girl out in public will ruin his chances of "being free" lol. He's only ever said she's his woman on one occasion in public, when she used the dolphin dude to get him jealous.

- Yeah, Ataru did call Shinobu out on her terrible actions at times. I think I would argue that she was the worst of the three at first. I mean yeah, Lum was pretty antagonistic, and Ataru was a horny lecherous fool, but: Lum pulled the pregnant card twice and she was terrible for it, but Shinobu believed it twice without even bothering to think that it's a lie, the second time with her actually wanting Ataru to die. Then you have Ataru who gets beaten up for calling her out on her hypocrisy lol and being the object of her anger because she never tried to believe him on anything. He honestly went through more effort getting Shinobu to believe him than he should have put out. Childhood friendship apparently didn't run that deep since she dropped him like a bad habit the moment Mendou stepped into the picture (loved the pun chapter title on Mendou's debut "Trouble drops in" since Mendou's name means trouble).

- Ran definitely tried murdering Ataru more often than anyone else. Mendou's ego taking a blow not just to Rei, but to Ryuunosuke never stops being funny. True. Even in the early parts of the series, Lum had more class than to want to get back with Rei. Rei is very dull in personality. Never once in the series does he show any ounce of really anything beyond his love for food and his occasional attempts to get Lum to love him. Love how in his second appearance, Ataru, Lum, and the Stormtroopers just troll Rei by saying if he can actually propose to Lum, she'll go with him. They all just start laughing at him. Love how they even made fun of him by saying the Lum doll he had dumped him.

- Shallow is putting it mildly when in Rei's second appearance several girls (including Shinobu and Ataru's mother) all gets smitten with Rei and actually consider marrying him. Ataru and Ten will be arguing until they're both middle aged men probably. He probably would have his kids terrorize Ten just to get him back, especially since Ten wouldn't be allowed to hit Ataru's kids and get away with it. Lum would be on him so fast.

- I appreciate all the good work both Toshio and Fumi do even to this day.

It was great seeing him take all that abuse, heck, Ataru took him just by breaking away from the flypaper hanging from the ceiling and then rolling around with him. I did sort of question Ataru's antics with that one considering the Eps with them having some form of physical contact led to them both experiencing utter revulsion. And Mendou's pseudo speedo was a little dry too, considering the fact that in the earlier works, they were definitely older looking. I know that from when Movie 6 aired to 2008's OVA art changed a lot but they really sort of skewed the looks for Lum, Ataru, Mendou and Shinobu, not to mention Ran and Sakura too. They just looked for lack of a better way to say it, young. Well, other than Sakura - she actually looked older.

I wonder if Mendou's mindset is always "Moroboshi will never beat me" until he does. That Ep might have been the one time I actually cheered Megane for helping with making sure Mendou went through with his loss of the bet. But yeah, the guys in the class basically cheer on whoever didn't upset them and Mendou sure went out of his way to alienate them early on with his rules if he won the presidency. Harsh rules, but only for the boys, the girls of course are completely exempt. Mendou eats lunch out too, and yet he decides to assist the school in reining in the others from eating. He's probably the most snake-like of the lot.

That thing was god awful ugly, in both manga and anime versions. It was like Donald Duck had Oni fangs, but I still give the manga version more credit for being the better story in that case. Just like with the eyedrops story, the anime had weird things happen that just did not make sense, the manga was imple and to the point and Ataru's golden heart came out when at the end he left a whole huge plate of steamed sweet potatoes for Lum. But all Ataru has to do is hear her even start to sniffle and he's pretty much done, at least until the last story. Heck, Ataru creamed his alternate self in Inaba for mistreating Lum. As soon as "I sold all your stuff" is said, you see the mood change, which is funnier because our Ataru is in that rabbit suit. And that pose of his raising his fists up, one higher than the other just before he really slammed his other self with that hammer.

The no violence aspect to his personality is interesting considering that wooden hammers are a constant after a while. But he exhibits his willingness to be violent also when Lum is threatened, the matchmaking party episode was a good example. In the anime, he punched the guy face first into the ground, in the manga it was a wallop with a hammer. He did it to Shingo too in the Electric Jungle, grabbed him and threw him right off the vine he was swinging on. Ten is just Ten, that's like sibling rivalry there. His best violence on Megane was in The Final Chapter when Megane is calling to Lum during the race with the megaphone and Ataru grabs it, yells in his ear and then hammers him over the head. On Mendou, they're all good, but it is the boxing glove one that's the best. When he says he hates violence after punching Onsen Mark out of the school via the roof and he turns and looks at Mendou and that muffled trumpet sound starts playing. He just has that evil smile on his face and Mendou's face and the sound he makes are both priceless, just like the sound he makes after Mendou congratulates him for not hitting Lum you see him hit Mendou and then the "WAH!". Of course he beats the crap out of himself because Lum is enjoying seeing him protect her even from himself. And that suit, Ataru was like, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't so what the hell! And then he's basically in that and when he can't kiss Lum he cries. But overall, it interesting that the one person that throws herself at him is the one person he won't do anything with. Yes, Benten is good looking, so is Ran and Sakura. Oyuki actually became LESS appealing as her appearances ticked on, and for the life of me I can't see why he would want Ryuunosuke. I'd be afraid she'd kill me if I were in his shoes, she straight up stopped a punch from Benten and threw her casually. Only Asuka overpowered her and that's just because Asuka is completely overpowered, though to Ataru's credit, he did stop the brawl with Ryuunosuke and Benten, that jump he made was really impressive.

That music and the music that starts when Ataru first chases Asuka, those are his themes it seems when he does something like that. I'm not sure if the English sub was 100% correct, but his line when getting the tree out of the ground "Please God, don't let my colon pop out of my ass" was hysterical. And when Asuka does the pole vault, lands and immediately is running at full speed and then The Fla...I mean Ataru comes out of nowhere shocking the two women agents by doing 100 meters in 7-8 seconds flat. I tried doing the math to see if that was a fair indication for his running speed, rounding to the nearest whole number there's 1609 meters in a mile. He basically can run a mile every 113 seconds, by comparison, the fastest mile ever run was 3 mins, 43 seconds in the real world, and he's gone faster when he needs to that's the scary part. The Gardenia episode had him running faster than Lum could keep up with running or flying, as well as vehicles, and Superman. And yes, Mendou said he has his pride as well, which was good enough in my book as a reason to completely electrocute him. The whole last story was an exercise in just how stubborn two people can be, I would shudder to think of how stubborn their kids would be.

The effects her cooking have on people is great, they look like they have duck bills. Mendou was so looking forward to her cooking in that and then they all paid the price except Ataru. And she uses a gun and a welding mask and a shield at times, that right there says something is decidedly wrong. Of course, when it's not spicy it turns him into a wolf...

Another near violent moment for Ataru, the "Get your hands off my woman", it's really too bad there's not a true sense of continuity with the Eps, because Lum clearly heard that. The way he yelled that, I'm surprised the whole beach didn't hear it.

When Shinobu says she'll marry Ataru if he wins the tag match, his reply is you're just saying that to save yourself. The way she went to treating him right afterwards makes you think she probably was just saying that. Of course, she had already beaten the crap out of him once for his reaction to seeing Lum for the first time. She looked like she clawed his face right across his eyes. And nothing against Shinobu, but considering the girls Ataru lusted after, Shinobu was a complete contrast to them. I had to laugh when Kurama called her jailbait, but then Shinobu is plotting in the cave to get Mendou alone.

I give Lum credit for despite her treating Ataru like a possession, she had class. Ataru wasn't bad looking, but Rei was the pretty one of the males, and Lum didn't care about looks. Mendou should have gone around and said Ego is Everything, he might have had a chance then. Rei's reading off that scroll as a form of a marriage proposal to Lum was funny, no mention of love, just will you cook for me. No wonder they all laughed at him, he might as well have just said "Feed me" over and over again. Which is why in Only You when he showed up at the beefbowl place I was surprised he was actually able to order it.

Given how payback seems to work in UY, Ten would go to hit the kids and they'd have not only inherited the moods of Lum and ataru but her lightning. He'd get zapped from one or more sides as my bet is Lum would not want to stop at one kid, she seems to be intent on growing up to be a mommy. The other precious payback would be that first fateful day in Class 2-4, as Onsen Mark, older and still harried, calls out the names of the students and turns pale as he says..."Moroboshi" and there's two of them, twins.

- I didn't particularly dislike the animation and art style for the 2008 OVA, but it is undeniable that it made them look younger (barring Sakura as you said).

- You'd think Mendou would learn some humility, with how often Ataru makes a fool out of him. It gets worse than that, he also constantly has to get shown up in the looks department by both Ryuunosuke and Rei as well. Mendou has always also done things in his best interest. A real snake. I don't hate the character overall as I feel he was necessary in the series to further showcase how shallow, vain, and materialistic some individuals can be.

- It can be pretty bad to be a Mendou though. Unlike Ataru who usually only has to deal with electric shocks (which he's built up a resistance to due to how often he gets shocked) and burns (and Ataru can usually fight back against Ten), Mendou is stuck being tormented by Ryoko. Speaking of Ryoko, her relationship with Ataru is pretty fascinating. She makes a hobby out of manipulating and torturing people (mainly Mendou and Ton-chan). At first glance, you'd think she was the one manipulating Ataru, but after you read/watch the story where Ataru tricks Ryoko into believing she mind controlled him into thinking he was a dog, you learn that it's Ataru who's manipulating her. Ryoko usually comes out unscathed, but in that one story, the puppetmaster ends up being the one getting her strings pulled as Ataru took full advantage of that situation, fooling everyone into believing Ryoko did something to him. It really shows how cunning Ataru can be. Despite the fact people call him stupid or an idiot, he's outwitted everyone of the main cast before if it had to do with something he wanted to accomplish.

- You gotta do what you gotta do to prevent your man from cheating on you as often as possible. I really did enjoy the eyedrops one in the manga. Quite a sweet end to that one. A great character moment and nice development from Ataru when he erased his own future harem. Being disgusted with himself enough to get rid of it. As he said in the manga version of that story, he felt the future where he and Lum got married wasn't perfect, but he saw how happy she was to get married to the man of her dreams and he just had to try and save it. As we saw, it was more than just that. While he was mainly doing it for Lum's sake, he wouldn't have gone through that much effort of doing so if he wasn't content with that future either.

- Wooden Mallets are very common in the manga. It's Ataru's choice of weaponry. Suits him quite well. It's always even funnier when Lum resorts to it considering she can just electrocute him, so seeing her bust out the mallet is always funny to see. The gloves story was in general a very fun one to watch/read. Ataru could handle Ryuunosuke. He isn't as good a fighter as her or Benten. But as you mentioned, he stopped their fight, I also remember there was a chapter in the manga where Ataru feels up on Ryuunosuke and she goes for a punch on him and he straight up blocks it by grabbing her fist. He can hang with Ryuunosuke if he needs to. He seems to just be overall nervous with Lum. His feelings for her are a lot more genuine than his feelings for Shinobu (not to mention he was a lot hornier when he was with Shinobu than he is in say chapter 224). Like in both anime and manga, you'll almost never get him to show affection for Lum in public. He's more willing to do so if they're both alone, and even then, he's incredibly nervous when it's just the two of them. Lum has to give him a lot of nudges when they're alone just for him to respond the way she wants (i.e. episode 195, she had to keep asking him a few times when they were in the portable cave alone to kiss her. Ataru was extremely reluctant due to embarrassment, but still did so anyway largely because he does love her, but also cause they were alone in there with nobody watching).

- Always love how that song tends to play whenever Ataru gets to show off his determination. It practically is his theme really in the show. It's played often enough to where it could be classified as his theme (of course there are also a few other songs that play often that associate with Ataru that could qualify as well). Ataru is just that fast. His speed is quite impressive. One of the things anybody in the series (even if they don't like him) can say good about him. That he's just extremely fast. People don't really talk about his superhuman strength very often either, a very undervalued trait of his, which I guess makes sense considering many characters possess superhuman physical strength. Oyuki though is probably the most powerful character in this series just by virtue of the abilities she possesses. Their kids will definitely be as stubborn as they are. That's just how it's going to be.

- I love how all of them were giving Ataru flak for hating on Lum's cooking, and then Ataru just mocks them afterwards for not listening to him. Ataru just can't win with Lum's cooking. Perfectly understandable why he avoids eating it as often as he can. Maybe Ataru should learn how to cook himself in the future, for both of their sake.

- You'd think Mendou would have reacted to it, as he did yell it out loud, which is how Lum and the dolphin heard Ataru in the first place. She was happy as anyone could be to hear Ataru essentially say that she's his girlfriend. Unfortunately for Lum, Dolphin dude decides to go female on them at the last moment lol.

- Hilarious when you realize Kurama gave Ataru more chances despite being more repulsed by him than Shinobu was, as well as the fact that Shinobu has actually known Ataru since they were young.

- Gotta change how I see it. Shinobu was bad, but the Rei stories really made Ataru's mother look even worse (on top of the whole "I wish I never had him" line she'd say every chapter in the early parts of the series).

- Ten isn't winning over Ataru in the end scheme of things thinking about it lol. Probably nobody is ever getting the better over Ataru in the end except Lum (and even then her wins over him usually aren't even complete wins as she never fully gets what she wants out of him). Onsen would probably dig his grave if he had to deal with more of the Moroboshi family. Unfortunately, he's already aware Ataru and Lum are pretty much an item. Lum does want to be a mother, and yeah, she'd probably want two kids to take care of. Onsen's life will never get better.

[Oldfan]

- I didn't particularly dislike the animation and art style for the 2008 OVA, but it is undeniable that it made them look younger (barring Sakura as you said).

- You'd think Mendou would learn some humility, with how often Ataru makes a fool out of him. It gets worse than that, he also constantly has to get shown up in the looks department by both Ryuunosuke and Rei as well. Mendou has always also done things in his best interest. A real snake. I don't hate the character overall as I feel he was necessary in the series to further showcase how shallow, vain, and materialistic some individuals can be.

- It can be pretty bad to be a Mendou though. Unlike Ataru who usually only has to deal with electric shocks (which he's built up a resistance to due to how often he gets shocked) and burns (and Ataru can usually fight back against Ten), Mendou is stuck being tormented by Ryoko. Speaking of Ryoko, her relationship with Ataru is pretty fascinating. She makes a hobby out of manipulating and torturing people (mainly Mendou and Ton-chan). At first glance, you'd think she was the one manipulating Ataru, but after you read/watch the story where Ataru tricks Ryoko into believing she mind controlled him into thinking he was a dog, you learn that it's Ataru who's manipulating her. Ryoko usually comes out unscathed, but in that one story, the puppetmaster ends up being the one getting her strings pulled as Ataru took full advantage of that situation, fooling everyone into believing Ryoko did something to him. It really shows how cunning Ataru can be. Despite the fact people call him stupid or an idiot, he's outwitted everyone of the main cast before if it had to do with something he wanted to accomplish.

- You gotta do what you gotta do to prevent your man from cheating on you as often as possible. I really did enjoy the eyedrops one in the manga. Quite a sweet end to that one. A great character moment and nice development from Ataru when he erased his own future harem. Being disgusted with himself enough to get rid of it. As he said in the manga version of that story, he felt the future where he and Lum got married wasn't perfect, but he saw how happy she was to get married to the man of her dreams and he just had to try and save it. As we saw, it was more than just that. While he was mainly doing it for Lum's sake, he wouldn't have gone through that much effort of doing so if he wasn't content with that future either.

- Wooden Mallets are very common in the manga. It's Ataru's choice of weaponry. Suits him quite well. It's always even funnier when Lum resorts to it considering she can just electrocute him, so seeing her bust out the mallet is always funny to see. The gloves story was in general a very fun one to watch/read. Ataru could handle Ryuunosuke. He isn't as good a fighter as her or Benten. But as you mentioned, he stopped their fight, I also remember there was a chapter in the manga where Ataru feels up on Ryuunosuke and she goes for a punch on him and he straight up blocks it by grabbing her fist. He can hang with Ryuunosuke if he needs to. He seems to just be overall nervous with Lum. His feelings for her are a lot more genuine than his feelings for Shinobu (not to mention he was a lot hornier when he was with Shinobu than he is in say chapter 224). Like in both anime and manga, you'll almost never get him to show affection for Lum in public. He's more willing to do so if they're both alone, and even then, he's incredibly nervous when it's just the two of them. Lum has to give him a lot of nudges when they're alone just for him to respond the way she wants (i.e. episode 195, she had to keep asking him a few times when they were in the portable cave alone to kiss her. Ataru was extremely reluctant due to embarrassment, but still did so anyway largely because he does love her, but also cause they were alone in there with nobody watching).

- Always love how that song tends to play whenever Ataru gets to show off his determination. It practically is his theme really in the show. It's played often enough to where it could be classified as his theme (of course there are also a few other songs that play often that associate with Ataru that could qualify as well). Ataru is just that fast. His speed is quite impressive. One of the things anybody in the series (even if they don't like him) can say good about him. That he's just extremely fast. People don't really talk about his superhuman strength very often either, a very undervalued trait of his, which I guess makes sense considering many characters possess superhuman physical strength. Oyuki though is probably the most powerful character in this series just by virtue of the abilities she possesses. Their kids will definitely be as stubborn as they are. That's just how it's going to be.

- I love how all of them were giving Ataru flak for hating on Lum's cooking, and then Ataru just mocks them afterwards for not listening to him. Ataru just can't win with Lum's cooking. Perfectly understandable why he avoids eating it as often as he can. Maybe Ataru should learn how to cook himself in the future, for both of their sake.

- You'd think Mendou would have reacted to it, as he did yell it out loud, which is how Lum and the dolphin heard Ataru in the first place. She was happy as anyone could be to hear Ataru essentially say that she's his girlfriend. Unfortunately for Lum, Dolphin dude decides to go female on them at the last moment lol.

- Hilarious when you realize Kurama gave Ataru more chances despite being more repulsed by him than Shinobu was, as well as the fact that Shinobu has actually known Ataru since they were young.

- Gotta change how I see it. Shinobu was bad, but the Rei stories really made Ataru's mother look even worse (on top of the whole "I wish I never had him" line she'd say every chapter in the early parts of the series).

- Ten isn't winning over Ataru in the end scheme of things thinking about it lol. Probably nobody is ever getting the better over Ataru in the end except Lum (and even then her wins over him usually aren't even complete wins as she never fully gets what she wants out of him). Onsen would probably dig his grave if he had to deal with more of the Moroboshi family. Unfortunately, he's already aware Ataru and Lum are pretty much an item. Lum does want to be a mother, and yeah, she'd probably want two kids to take care of. Onsen's life will never get better.

I didn't dislike it, I was just thrown off by it. I know that the last animation for them was back in '91 and that was also a departure in some respects from The Final Chapter as many of the characters lost some of their physical maturity in the jump to Always. That makes me think Movie 6 is not a story after Movie 5, but in-between Inaba and Movie 5 but that's just my opinion. But regardless, Lum has always had darker green hair, like the color of a well kept lawn. It has varied, and there's been times when her hair was actually more blue than green,but not her eye color. But her hair was pastel green, the kind of green you'd see on some brightly colored piece of clothing. It was jarring. Lum's artwork itself was pretty good in some sequences, like when the snake had her underwater they seemed to do a really good job with her facial expressions.

I have to say I think Mendou is incapable of overall humility, spurred partially on by the fact that Ataru consistently wins over him. He's just too proud, and when Ryuunosuke gets more Valentine candy than him in the manga, that just floors him. Rei was bad enough, but for her to get more because all the younger girls think she's a boy is even worse for him. But he is the perfect opposite to Ataru's real personality, he's a lecher with a heart of lead.

Ryoko is funny, as both a foil to Mendou and her own attempts to manipulate Ataru and how they backfire. Like you said, she thought she was manipulating Ataru and it turns out he had her fooled. What's disturbing in her behavior is the way she acts with her brother, it's not nearly as bad as Asuka/Ton, but it's clearly disturbing. Ryoko at least causes Mendou a lot of problems willingly, the giant Christmas tree climb, the rescue of Lum, the electric bodyguard when she basically grenades everyone, Goat and Cheese too, when she feeds Mendou's part of the picture to the goat. But you're right, Ataru has outwitted everyone, even though he is not the smartest member of the cast.

Considering how close they grew, it's why I think Boy Meets Girl is not the title of the last story, but the overall story theme. A Boy meets a Girl, while Rupa and Carla did get married and we are left to puzzle out Ataru and Lum, thematically the relationships are the same. Boy meets Girl, Boy can't stand Girl, Boy ends up falling in love with Girl. Rupa's is more of a stretch because we don't know why, but Ataru and Lum's side of the situation we know. They've been with each other constantly since they met, they went through hell with each other and for each other. The manga is a little more direct, the anime is more poignant. The first Inaba story just seals the deal, Lum's happiness is the one thing that really means the most to him.

Ataru's use of them is great, especially when someone gets near Lum or hurts her in some way. Hence when he creamed his future self with very obvious prejudice. Considering Ataru doesn't fight, I've always thought his skills were interesting. His powers I get, it's his skills that are unexplained. But with how he feels about Lum; it's established he's actually pretty shy early on. His flirting is like a defense mechanism, he does that to offset the fact that he doesn't have that confidence. I tend to think he's so used to rejection that pretty much 99.9% of the time when he flirts he knows it'll go nowhere so he's accepted that. So when Lum, who's so in love with him it's little scary, expresses nothing but desire to be with him, he doesn't know how to react and maybe he feels inside he can't accept it. Kind of like "I just know if I reciprocate, it'll go to hell" basically so it's better to love Lum from afar so to speak, than risk what he has. But, the moment there's a threat to that, Ataru will do whatever it takes to make sure his bubble is safe. But the last story basically forces him to realize he can't do that anymore. And that kiss episode, I will say it was a nice way of taking a small, nondescript manga story and turn it into a story for them.

Which as we discuss the music, it's the music that plays in that cave that is another trademark of Lum/Ataru. That first came about in Beautiful Dreamer as an alternate version of the music from the soundtrack, when Lum tells Shinobu and Sakura her dream, to basically be with Ataru, his family and friends forever. Every time dreams come up, or something suitably romantic, that music gets played. They used it for Shinobu when Inaba appeared at the end of the OVA, and in the Date with a Spirit OVA when Maiko is looking at Tsubame and then in a handful of episodes - notably the dream fruit one which we've been discussing with Dream Ataru being far less than perfect for Lum than the real Ataru is. I maintain that the black suited guy purposely dropped the cave over Lum and Ataru so she could get him, she was frying him at the moment for his looking at Uzume the Dancer when she was supposed to be Uzume for the performance. Speed, Strength and Durability, all hallmarks of the unluckiest kid alive, wish I had that kind of bad luck.

Seeing some stills of Lum's cooking, the fact it glows is warning enough. But watching the others suffer was pretty much perfect payback in Ataru's mind for that flak.

Mendou is person of opportunity, but he can get distracted easily. I seem to recall he was cutting up watermelon for other girls with his sword after confronting Ataru about Lum being with that dolphin turned boy. Likely he missed it because otherwise he would have played his interference as usual.

Kurama was interesting, she was effectively able to keep Lum repelled in most situations, something no other female was able to do. Too bad she basically had one trick - looking for a husband. She came really close with Rei, until Rei saved Ran and completely ignored the food she had in the process.

Ataru's mother was terrible early on, his father showed support on occasion, but it was clear she was not happy with her life. The cracks about money were also annoying because as a salaryman in Japan, you basically only 'got by' barely.

I tend to think while sometimes Lum's wins are genuine, other times they're because he let her win. Much like how other than the aforementioned loss of Japanese episode, Ataru basically stops his usual routine and habits when Lum isn't around. After You've Gone is a perfect example - he met Shinobu but he had the doll with him, it didn't take more than a minute for him to remember there was no Lum and he went for home. That fan made story I gave you the link to actually is pretty insightful in the way it explains the status quo of the others with regards to Lum and Ataru as well regarding his habits. Like a lot of what he does might be a game he's playing with her and nothing more. But I do think all Lum wanted to do was grow up and be a mother, just like her own mother. She's clearly well suited to do that, she mothers Ten as it is, and the Ribbon anime was loud and clear about it. As soon as Ataru said about her being his wife to fool her with the ribbon, we saw Ataru come home and she was cooking and had a baby slung over her back. Ran wanted that more or less with Rei too, even Kurama was looking for a mate for kids only, but still I find it funny the alien women are more wife material than the human women.

[Seiryu]

- I didn't particularly dislike the animation and art style for the 2008 OVA, but it is undeniable that it made them look younger (barring Sakura as you said).

- You'd think Mendou would learn some humility, with how often Ataru makes a fool out of him. It gets worse than that, he also constantly has to get shown up in the looks department by both Ryuunosuke and Rei as well. Mendou has always also done things in his best interest. A real snake. I don't hate the character overall as I feel he was necessary in the series to further showcase how shallow, vain, and materialistic some individuals can be.

- It can be pretty bad to be a Mendou though. Unlike Ataru who usually only has to deal with electric shocks (which he's built up a resistance to due to how often he gets shocked) and burns (and Ataru can usually fight back against Ten), Mendou is stuck being tormented by Ryoko. Speaking of Ryoko, her relationship with Ataru is pretty fascinating. She makes a hobby out of manipulating and torturing people (mainly Mendou and Ton-chan). At first glance, you'd think she was the one manipulating Ataru, but after you read/watch the story where Ataru tricks Ryoko into believing she mind controlled him into thinking he was a dog, you learn that it's Ataru who's manipulating her. Ryoko usually comes out unscathed, but in that one story, the puppetmaster ends up being the one getting her strings pulled as Ataru took full advantage of that situation, fooling everyone into believing Ryoko did something to him. It really shows how cunning Ataru can be. Despite the fact people call him stupid or an idiot, he's outwitted everyone of the main cast before if it had to do with something he wanted to accomplish.

- You gotta do what you gotta do to prevent your man from cheating on you as often as possible. I really did enjoy the eyedrops one in the manga. Quite a sweet end to that one. A great character moment and nice development from Ataru when he erased his own future harem. Being disgusted with himself enough to get rid of it. As he said in the manga version of that story, he felt the future where he and Lum got married wasn't perfect, but he saw how happy she was to get married to the man of her dreams and he just had to try and save it. As we saw, it was more than just that. While he was mainly doing it for Lum's sake, he wouldn't have gone through that much effort of doing so if he wasn't content with that future either.

- Wooden Mallets are very common in the manga. It's Ataru's choice of weaponry. Suits him quite well. It's always even funnier when Lum resorts to it considering she can just electrocute him, so seeing her bust out the mallet is always funny to see. The gloves story was in general a very fun one to watch/read. Ataru could handle Ryuunosuke. He isn't as good a fighter as her or Benten. But as you mentioned, he stopped their fight, I also remember there was a chapter in the manga where Ataru feels up on Ryuunosuke and she goes for a punch on him and he straight up blocks it by grabbing her fist. He can hang with Ryuunosuke if he needs to. He seems to just be overall nervous with Lum. His feelings for her are a lot more genuine than his feelings for Shinobu (not to mention he was a lot hornier when he was with Shinobu than he is in say chapter 224). Like in both anime and manga, you'll almost never get him to show affection for Lum in public. He's more willing to do so if they're both alone, and even then, he's incredibly nervous when it's just the two of them. Lum has to give him a lot of nudges when they're alone just for him to respond the way she wants (i.e. episode 195, she had to keep asking him a few times when they were in the portable cave alone to kiss her. Ataru was extremely reluctant due to embarrassment, but still did so anyway largely because he does love her, but also cause they were alone in there with nobody watching).

- Always love how that song tends to play whenever Ataru gets to show off his determination. It practically is his theme really in the show. It's played often enough to where it could be classified as his theme (of course there are also a few other songs that play often that associate with Ataru that could qualify as well). Ataru is just that fast. His speed is quite impressive. One of the things anybody in the series (even if they don't like him) can say good about him. That he's just extremely fast. People don't really talk about his superhuman strength very often either, a very undervalued trait of his, which I guess makes sense considering many characters possess superhuman physical strength. Oyuki though is probably the most powerful character in this series just by virtue of the abilities she possesses. Their kids will definitely be as stubborn as they are. That's just how it's going to be.

- I love how all of them were giving Ataru flak for hating on Lum's cooking, and then Ataru just mocks them afterwards for not listening to him. Ataru just can't win with Lum's cooking. Perfectly understandable why he avoids eating it as often as he can. Maybe Ataru should learn how to cook himself in the future, for both of their sake.

- You'd think Mendou would have reacted to it, as he did yell it out loud, which is how Lum and the dolphin heard Ataru in the first place. She was happy as anyone could be to hear Ataru essentially say that she's his girlfriend. Unfortunately for Lum, Dolphin dude decides to go female on them at the last moment lol.

- Hilarious when you realize Kurama gave Ataru more chances despite being more repulsed by him than Shinobu was, as well as the fact that Shinobu has actually known Ataru since they were young.

- Gotta change how I see it. Shinobu was bad, but the Rei stories really made Ataru's mother look even worse (on top of the whole "I wish I never had him" line she'd say every chapter in the early parts of the series).

- Ten isn't winning over Ataru in the end scheme of things thinking about it lol. Probably nobody is ever getting the better over Ataru in the end except Lum (and even then her wins over him usually aren't even complete wins as she never fully gets what she wants out of him). Onsen would probably dig his grave if he had to deal with more of the Moroboshi family. Unfortunately, he's already aware Ataru and Lum are pretty much an item. Lum does want to be a mother, and yeah, she'd probably want two kids to take care of. Onsen's life will never get better.

I didn't dislike it, I was just thrown off by it. I know that the last animation for them was back in '91 and that was also a departure in some respects from The Final Chapter as many of the characters lost some of their physical maturity in the jump to Always. That makes me think Movie 6 is not a story after Movie 5, but in-between Inaba and Movie 5 but that's just my opinion. But regardless, Lum has always had darker green hair, like the color of a well kept lawn. It has varied, and there's been times when her hair was actually more blue than green,but not her eye color. But her hair was pastel green, the kind of green you'd see on some brightly colored piece of clothing. It was jarring. Lum's artwork itself was pretty good in some sequences, like when the snake had her underwater they seemed to do a really good job with her facial expressions.

I have to say I think Mendou is incapable of overall humility, spurred partially on by the fact that Ataru consistently wins over him. He's just too proud, and when Ryuunosuke gets more Valentine candy than him in the manga, that just floors him. Rei was bad enough, but for her to get more because all the younger girls think she's a boy is even worse for him. But he is the perfect opposite to Ataru's real personality, he's a lecher with a heart of lead.

Ryoko is funny, as both a foil to Mendou and her own attempts to manipulate Ataru and how they backfire. Like you said, she thought she was manipulating Ataru and it turns out he had her fooled. What's disturbing in her behavior is the way she acts with her brother, it's not nearly as bad as Asuka/Ton, but it's clearly disturbing. Ryoko at least causes Mendou a lot of problems willingly, the giant Christmas tree climb, the rescue of Lum, the electric bodyguard when she basically grenades everyone, Goat and Cheese too, when she feeds Mendou's part of the picture to the goat. But you're right, Ataru has outwitted everyone, even though he is not the smartest member of the cast.

Considering how close they grew, it's why I think Boy Meets Girl is not the title of the last story, but the overall story theme. A Boy meets a Girl, while Rupa and Carla did get married and we are left to puzzle out Ataru and Lum, thematically the relationships are the same. Boy meets Girl, Boy can't stand Girl, Boy ends up falling in love with Girl. Rupa's is more of a stretch because we don't know why, but Ataru and Lum's side of the situation we know. They've been with each other constantly since they met, they went through hell with each other and for each other. The manga is a little more direct, the anime is more poignant. The first Inaba story just seals the deal, Lum's happiness is the one thing that really means the most to him.

Ataru's use of them is great, especially when someone gets near Lum or hurts her in some way. Hence when he creamed his future self with very obvious prejudice. Considering Ataru doesn't fight, I've always thought his skills were interesting. His powers I get, it's his skills that are unexplained. But with how he feels about Lum; it's established he's actually pretty shy early on. His flirting is like a defense mechanism, he does that to offset the fact that he doesn't have that confidence. I tend to think he's so used to rejection that pretty much 99.9% of the time when he flirts he knows it'll go nowhere so he's accepted that. So when Lum, who's so in love with him it's little scary, expresses nothing but desire to be with him, he doesn't know how to react and maybe he feels inside he can't accept it. Kind of like "I just know if I reciprocate, it'll go to hell" basically so it's better to love Lum from afar so to speak, than risk what he has. But, the moment there's a threat to that, Ataru will do whatever it takes to make sure his bubble is safe. But the last story basically forces him to realize he can't do that anymore. And that kiss episode, I will say it was a nice way of taking a small, nondescript manga story and turn it into a story for them.

Which as we discuss the music, it's the music that plays in that cave that is another trademark of Lum/Ataru. That first came about in Beautiful Dreamer as an alternate version of the music from the soundtrack, when Lum tells Shinobu and Sakura her dream, to basically be with Ataru, his family and friends forever. Every time dreams come up, or something suitably romantic, that music gets played. They used it for Shinobu when Inaba appeared at the end of the OVA, and in the Date with a Spirit OVA when Maiko is looking at Tsubame and then in a handful of episodes - notably the dream fruit one which we've been discussing with Dream Ataru being far less than perfect for Lum than the real Ataru is. I maintain that the black suited guy purposely dropped the cave over Lum and Ataru so she could get him, she was frying him at the moment for his looking at Uzume the Dancer when she was supposed to be Uzume for the performance. Speed, Strength and Durability, all hallmarks of the unluckiest kid alive, wish I had that kind of bad luck.

Seeing some stills of Lum's cooking, the fact it glows is warning enough. But watching the others suffer was pretty much perfect payback in Ataru's mind for that flak.

Mendou is person of opportunity, but he can get distracted easily. I seem to recall he was cutting up watermelon for other girls with his sword after confronting Ataru about Lum being with that dolphin turned boy. Likely he missed it because otherwise he would have played his interference as usual.

Kurama was interesting, she was effectively able to keep Lum repelled in most situations, something no other female was able to do. Too bad she basically had one trick - looking for a husband. She came really close with Rei, until Rei saved Ran and completely ignored the food she had in the process.

Ataru's mother was terrible early on, his father showed support on occasion, but it was clear she was not happy with her life. The cracks about money were also annoying because as a salaryman in Japan, you basically only 'got by' barely.

I tend to think while sometimes Lum's wins are genuine, other times they're because he let her win. Much like how other than the aforementioned loss of Japanese episode, Ataru basically stops his usual routine and habits when Lum isn't around. After You've Gone is a perfect example - he met Shinobu but he had the doll with him, it didn't take more than a minute for him to remember there was no Lum and he went for home. That fan made story I gave you the link to actually is pretty insightful in the way it explains the status quo of the others with regards to Lum and Ataru as well regarding his habits. Like a lot of what he does might be a game he's playing with her and nothing more. But I do think all Lum wanted to do was grow up and be a mother, just like her own mother. She's clearly well suited to do that, she mothers Ten as it is, and the Ribbon anime was loud and clear about it. As soon as Ataru said about her being his wife to fool her with the ribbon, we saw Ataru come home and she was cooking and had a baby slung over her back. Ran wanted that more or less with Rei too, even Kurama was looking for a mate for kids only, but still I find it funny the alien women are more wife material than the human women.

- Final Chapter had perfectly captured the characters looking a bit older than they did for most of the series. It's part of why the OVA I Howl at the Moon is very pleasing to look at since it's artstyle is pretty much the same as The Final Chapter.

- Heart of lead is pretty accurate. I love how the series doesn't ever try to make you feel bad for Mendou either because he's a an egotistical scumbag underneath it all, and pretty much has almost everything coming for him. When he doesn't have it coming to him, he's pretty just being the butt monkey of the story. The way he took pain isn't the same way early Ataru did where you legit could feel bad for Ataru at times. I'd love to see Valentine's Deception adapted into an OVA now that I think about it. A cute and funny story. But it's also the usual Ataru acts like a jerk, but in a "cruel twist" he doesn't receive any of the Valentine's from Shinobu, Ran, or even Lum, and even watches Lum give one to Mendou lol. Mendou mocked Ataru the entirety of that one. Until we find out at the end of it all, Lum had planned a special one for Ataru.

- Ryoko's desire to torment does reach pretty crazy levels. I think I'd feel bad more for Mendou if Ryoko was a more recurring character than she ended up being. I remember the story of the voodoo doll and I think I legitimately started feeling bad for Mendou there. He legit could have died there if she really wanted to kill him. Turning the tree into a rocket is something so Ryoko like I laughed when it all happened. That episode in general was funny with Mendou constantly being dumb and jumping off the tree to attack Ataru. When Moroboshi wants to get to or away from a girl, he'll do whatever it takes to do so. It's why I find it funny. He can deceive people and trick people quite often, but he's a terrible liar.

- I mean it was pretty obvious he'd choose to try and protect their future, but it's always nice to see him willingly choose to save it. We all know he doesn't want to settle down at the age he's at (and while his actions are justifiable by any means, I can understand him perfectly for not wanting to just tie the knot at age 17). But it's always great to see that he's clearly content with not only spending the rest of his life with her, but eventually settling down with Lum when he feels he's at the age of where that'd be appropriate.

- Mallets were incredibly underused in the anime unfortunately. He's very shy, he's also extremely emotional. Which explains why he has a diary. The diary one was funny. Especially the scene where he stumbled upon the page that said that Lum and Mendou would talk with one another and he'd get jealous. I find it funny how one of the versions of that story (I think the anime) has him scoff it off, while the manga version has him legit trying to pretend that he isn't jealous. You may have a point. I remember the beginning of the Electric Jungle story, a girl actually did say yes to him, and he chose to not go to that date. He's extremely use to rejection and already expects girls to say no to the point that he doesn't know how to handle a girl that actually does say yes. Of course Ataru doesn't get turned down all the time, as in the story with the Rain Girl, he told her he gets dumped like 4 out of 5 times. I'm surprised girls even accept to go on dates with him 20% of the time. But then you have Lum, a girl truly devoted and invested in a relationship with him, and he's in completely unknown territory. There's only one way to handle it for Ataru, flirt with other girls to keep that distance between Lum and him. Probably was the anime writers throwing the couple a bone considering Ataru and Lum's kiss in the last episode I believe is the only one he willingly chose to participate in throughout the anime from the very start.

- I've just been listening to all of the music capsules and it's feels honestly amazing listening back to all these tracks from the 80s. So many of them I associate with different characters depending on what it is just because of how frequently it plays with a specific character or if it matches their personality. Of course, there's a few tracks with Lum or Ataru in the title of it, which is a dead giveaway as to who the song is specifically referring to. Ataru's life seems to be pretty fun all things considering. He doesn't even concern himself with luck. Heck, it's part of the character's appeal to me later in the series. He becomes so apathetic and disinterested with the consequences of his actions that he disregards them. He knows very well that if Lum or whoever gets him whenever he's doing something mischievous, he's going to endure some punishment, yet he does what he does anyway. He pretty much doesn't fear the pain, as he knows it won't last longer for more than a moment or two and he'll just brush it off and go about with his day. The invincible Ataru fears nothing... except commitment.

- When you catch flak from most of the other major male characters because they're jelly of you because you have the attractive and kind-hearted alien girl, you take every opportunity to mock them right back. Ataru is always in the mood to making a fool of the others.

- Not like Mendou would be much of a factor. It's like everyone can clown the guy. He's little more threatening than Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma in that he's a least a bit more competent than Kuno and more resources.

- That really was the flaw with Kurama as a character. She was single-minded and so stories with her were extremely limited to just that: Kurama finding a suitable husband. She also got pretty close to getting Ryuunosuke until Ataru stopped that from happening and even became a woman in the process as well. That was one of my favorite stories in the series. It got so bad that even Ataru in the manga was like: "This is weird even for us." Only other female who had the upperhand on Lum was Elle, which was pretty much until Lum's rescue mission crashing that wedding.

- It's nice how much Ataru's mother improved as well. She's legit nicer towards Ataru and has even expressed that she loves him later on. Ataru's dad was sort of in the background almost all of the time, and his mother quite often appeared more in random chapters and had dialogue as opposed to his dad.

- Just seems like the alien women are a lot more committed to being mothers. Doesn't hurt that they're pretty determined and feel strongly about their decisions to spend the rest of their lives with the men of their dreams. Ataru does often let her win like when they both wrestled each other for the Mendou family. Ataru (who doesn't hit women) just chose to just let her get him on the ground and everything. It was all very playful between the two, which starts becoming the nature of their relationship later on. They're quite playful with one another. Lum tries her hardest to get Ataru to express his feelings for her more often, and Ataru likes to piss her off by flirting with other girls. It's made even better with the fact that Ataru is a rebellious guy, but Lum herself is no stranger to acting like that either. While she definitely hates that he flirts with girls, there's probably some part of her that feels attracted to that rebellious side of his.