ANI-MOVIES, *Urusei Yatsura: Only You

Rumiko Takahashi's first real hit was her sci-fi sitcom of Urusei Yatsura and she based it on the idea of the love triangle formed in Archie comics from America even though her own manga was more of a love octagon. The manga had already been turned into a fruitful anime TV series in 1981, and halfway through its second season it broke even more ground by creating one of the first original films based on an existing anime not including compilation movies. Takahashi gave the original manga its own particular brand of off the wall comedy, and this carried over to the anime which has boasted onto several of her other titles like Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, and Maison Ikkoku. The first movie was titled Only You and throws any first-time viewers into the deep end as we're introduced to the main setup of this wild world and its random characters, so unless you saw something of the TV show prior to this you might feel a little left out. Urusei Yatsura is about a space princess named Lum who becomes engaged to the lecherous Earth boy Ataru, and all of the various would-be suitors for either one of them both terrestrial and alien. Future Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii started his film career in this production, and its shows with the vividly higher quality of animation as opposed to that featured in the TV series.

The movie opens 11 years earlier where a younger Ataru is playing with a mysterious girl and they promise to get married. Cut to modern day and everyone in the Urusei Yatsura universe aside from the two main characters get invites to Ataru's wedding to the mysterious alien girl Elle. Elle is the ruler of her own galactic empire, and she sends some representatives to inform Ataru of their upcoming nuptials. Lum jumps the gun on this and collects Ataru, his family, and the rest of the cast from Earth to get married ahead of Elle's wedding. Elle sends a spy to snatch Ataru back along with most of his friends and rivals. One of them finds out Elle has an entire refrigerator full of frozen bishonen that she collects. Lum along with her friends, family, and military forces to attack Elle's world and the overwhelming chaos has a majority of the cast get sent back in time to witness the Elle and Ataru's first meeting where it turns out they didn't really get engaged. After returning to the future, Elle calls off the wedding and Lum tried to get her own wedding to Ataru back on track, but he rushes out of the ceremony with the rowdy cast chasing after him.

Urusei Yatsura: Only You is considered by Mamoru Oshii as one of his failures because he didn't just want it to be an expanded TV episode with a higher budget, even though it does seem like that at times as there are at least three music video breaks to pad out the film, and entire characters get lost in the shuffle of all the hijinks. The first real original movie was seen by most fans as Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, the second one directed by Oshii which took the characters into an entirely original story at the whims of a mischievous entity. Only You does have some impressive animation when comparing it to the TV series, and there are several takes on pop culture including cameos from icons like Godzilla and The Greatest American Hero, a concept that was later done to perfection in the ultimate 80s anime spoof, Project Ako. If you've never seen the Urusei Yatsura series, you might still enjoy their theatrical debut which began the legacy of anime movies based on a hit TV series.