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Though reboots may be all the rage in America, in Japan (and especially the anime industry) the concept is still a bit new. While Japan has produced legacy sequels (the Gundam franchise) and remakes where the same cast of characters are used in different storylines (Tenchi Muyo, The Vision of Escaflowne), the idea of rebooting something that was popular and beloved at one point is still pretty rare. This is why the announcement of Urusei Yatsura was one that even modern anime fans should be taking note of.

The idea of rebooting one of Japan’s most popular romantic comedies – one that produced 196 episodes, 6 movies, 12 OVA’s, and helped launch the career of director Mamoru Oshii – was not only a crazy one but most likely a daunting one as well. While the franchise has only a minor following in the states, this is one of THE anime of the 80s in Japan, and it’s one that is still fondly remembered by fans who watched it to this day! But why reboot it at all?

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The World of Rumiko Takahashi

Inuyasha anime Inuyasha Kagome Miroku Sango Shippo

The reboot of Urusei Yatsura is especially noteworthy because the series came from the mind of Rumiko Takahashi. Takahashi is one of the most successful manga artists of all time, with her stories ranging from slapstick comedies (Ranma ½), feudal fairy tales (InuYasha), and straight-up romances (Maison Ikkoku). What’s more, Takahashi is currently working on her current feudal fantasy series: Mao.

The interesting aspect of this whole thing is that anime producers would want to go back and reboot one of her older series rather than make an adaptation of the current series she’s writing. I have no idea if this speaks to the quality of Mao, the quality of Urusei Yatsura, or both, but it will be interesting to see how modern-day audiences react to a series that lived in a world without computers, cell phones, or even the modern home video game console.

The Story

Lum-and-Ataru-Urusei Yatsura: All-Stars

Viz Media (the publishers of the manga in America) describes the manga on their website as follows:

Revisit the acclaimed romantic comedy about an unlucky human boy who meets a beautiful space alien princess in this large trim size edition with all-new translations and new cover designs. In the series, Ataru Moroboshi's supernatural encounters with the feminine kind all start when he's chosen to play tag with an alien princess named Lum who invades the earth on her UFO. Ataru has ten days to touch Lum's horns or aliens will take over the earth! As it turns out, the game of tag is only the beginning of Ataru's troubles, as he continues to attract strange encounters with otherworldly beings like beautiful snow spirit Oyuki and the sexy crow goblin Princess Kurama!

Since this is a reboot, I don’t expect the storyline to change all that much. I also don’t expect any serious tone changes to the source material. It will likely still be a slapstick comedy with wacky characters and out-of-this-world situations that are extremely implausible (yet fun as heck to witness)!

The Characters

Urusei Yatsura All Stars

Despite what many might think, the main protagonist of the series is Ataru Moroboshi, an unlucky high school student who has a knack for attracting the supernatural and getting into otherworldly high jinks. The lady you see featured prominently in all the advertisements and commercials is Lum, a space alien who initially arrives at Earth to overtake it and ends up falling in love with Ataru. As a result, she makes Earth her home (with her father, the great Oni warlord) so that she can be with Ataru and eventually marry him.

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Other characters include Ryuunosuke Fujinami, Ataru’s classmate who was raised as a boy by her father (and the person he truly wants to be with). Ataru’s consistently bewildered parents are also along for the ride, constantly wondering how their lives got to be so crazy. Thanks to the supernatural space elements, there are also supernatural spirits and antagonists who also arrive to make the life of a typical, unimportant teenage boy a constant, living hell.

What Will be Different?

At the moment we don’t have much information on what changes (if any) there will be. We do have a less than a one-minute teaser trailer for the series, and in it, old characters are briefly highlighted while promises of Ataru’s tortured life are sprinkled throughout. The most notable difference is the quality of the animation, which is taking advantage of all the modern digital techniques that have come along to make anime easier to animate and (some would say) easier on the eyes. Character designs no longer look like they are from the 80s, and now have a modern gloss that will make modern audiences more reception to the series.

Lum herself has the more modern design that Takahashi now draws her as, as her round head has been thinned out and her body has become curvier. Ataru has a firmer build as opposed to his noodle-like postures of the original series. His other classmates also have firmer builds and no longer seem to be following the “squash and stretch” methods that the original series leaned so heavily into. Character designs aside, chances are the story will move at a much brisker pace than before. Back in the 80s anime shows never ceased production, which is why the original series produced so much content over the years.

These days anime have largely adopted the whole ‘seasons’ concept from other countries, and thus there will likely be much less filler this time around. It’s likely the manga will be followed much more closely, and there won’t be dozens of episodes in a row that (while funny) are completely pointless in the grand scheme of things. Anime has also largely moved away from constant, long-running series (Pokemon and One Piece being exceptions to the rule), so chances are the series will end with a much more reasonable set of episodes. If I were a betting man, I’d say this Urusei Yatsura will end with somewhere between 60-90 episodes, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see with that one.

We also have no idea whether the series will modernize in other ways, like having the characters have cell phones and live in a more technologically dependent society. So far, the trailer has not given any real indication that it intends to stray from the world that was established in the manga all the way back in 1979. What we do know is that if the series is a quarter as entertaining as the original 1981 anime was, then Ususei Yatsura is going to be one fun series to watch, and one that will likely provide a lot of laughs for a new generation of anime fans!

Urusei Yatsura will premier on October 13, 2022, and will be simulcast on HiDive.

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