Carla (カルラ, Karura) is a resident of the World of Darkness and Rupa's childhood friend.
Biography[]
Carla and Rupa were childhood friends who enjoyed each other's company, but that all changed the day that Uba confirmed the existence of Lum and informed Rupa of his engagement to the oni girl. When Rupa innocently told Carla about this, Carla went mad with jealousy and began desperately trying to woo Rupa back, alternating between showering him with presents bearing her likeness (hand-sewn shirts with her face on them, giant portraits of herself, dolls in her image, etc) and violently attacking him. As she continually attacked him, growing more and more violent as time went on, Rupa became increasingly distant to her due to her wicked temper, which only fed her drive to force him to love her (similar to Ataru and Lum).
Around a decade later, on the day that Rupa prepared to wed Lum, Carla was determined to stop the wedding. But on the way to the World of Darkness' spaceport, she collided with the spaceship of Ran, which had been commandeered by a rescue party made up of Ataru Moroboshi, Shūtarō Mendō, Oyuki, Benten, Ran and Rei. The ships crashed at the spacesport, but Carla and Ataru were flung free and escaped capture, unlike the others. Carla took Ataru hostage at gunpoint, determined to use him to complete her plan; with a phony marriage license, the two of them could walk right past the guards. Whilst this plan initially worked, Carla's years of attacking Rupa had made her infamous, so she was quickly recognized. She promptly switched to plan B and blasted her way into the wedding with a massive firearm.
She confronted Rupa and Lum in the wedding hall, demanding to know why Rupa would wed Lum over her, and when Rupa bluntly proclaimed he simply didn't like Rupa, she went crazy and began attacking her old friend, as well as Ataru, who was caught up in the crossfire. She chased the two men onto the hall's roof, leading to a confrontation where she nearly fell to her death, only to be saved by Rupa. Before they could talk about that, Ataru and Lum began to argue like never before, and mutually declared their intent to break up and marry their Darkwolder counterpart.
Once the offworlders had Ran's ship ready to depart, despite Carla's ship still being stuck in it, Carla came with them back to Earth, citing that she had no reason to remain in the World of Darkness if Rupa didn't want her. Upon arriving at the Moroboshi household, Carla tried to be helpful by offering some mushrooms to pad out the hotpot, but neglected to mention that they would violently grow and multiply if exposed to heat and light, resulting in Tomobiki being overrun by a giant mushroom forest.
Carla was forced to call Rupa to try and solve the problem with his herds of flying pigs, but the pair soon devolved into another argument.
On the fifth day of the tag game, Carla watched Ataru continue to struggle to catch Lum, and wondered aloud why he didn't just take the win she had offered him from the start and say "I love you". Rupa joined her at that moment, saying that when you miss the right moment to say such words, it's hard to say them later. He then told her that whilst his original plan was to have his pigs eat all the mushrooms unconditionally, he's now changed his mind; he wants Carla to return to the World of Darkness with him, and he won't remove the mushrooms unless she agrees. Carla misses the implication, and a short spat of bickering ensues before Rupa finally spits out that he loves her and he wants to marry her. Once the words finally register, Carla flings herself into her long-time crush's embrace and breaks into tears.
After Ataru wins the tag game, Carla is seen flying away on the back of Rupa's flying boar, waving goodbye as she goes.
Appearance[]
When Carla initially appears, she is clad in the all-concealing robes common to the denizens of the World of Darkness, making her appearance impossible to determine. When she removes her robes, she is shown to be a beautiful young woman with dark skin, pale eyes, pale hair, and a bead-tipped tendril similar to the bulb of an anglerfish on her forehead, almost hidden under her hair, which is done up in a flowing mane with two small bundles on her temples, a style known variously as "oxhorn" or "odango". She wears a black two-piece bikini, black boots, a black headband, black armbands, and white shoulderpads, elbowpads and kneepads. She carries a bandolier slung diagonally across her torso full of mushrooms, with three grenades strapped to her left hip and a holster for a large pistol on her right thigh.
During the attack on the marriage hall, she wears a black wedding dress with an exposed back.
In the animated adaptation Urusei Yatsura: The Final Chapter, she is depicted as having blue-purple eyes, white hair, and a crimson light-bead.
Personality[]
Carla is an incredibly passionate woman, who throws herself wholeheartedly into whatever she has set her heart on. She loves Rupa so much that she has pursued him for over a decade trying to win his heart, and when he finally declares he loves her back, she forgets all of her gripes and grievances with him and throws herself into his arms.
She has many flaws, however. She is violently aggressive, temperamental, and unrestrained; when she succumbs to her rages, she wildly attacks the source of her anger with any available weapons, and she usually goes around heavily armed. She is headstrong to the point of foolishness and stubborn to her own detriment, never stopping to consider that her constant attacks on Rupa may be the primary thing causing him to turn away from her in favor of an idealized vision of a girl that he hasn't even met. She is reluctant to accept when she is at fault, and hates to apologize; even when Rupa bluntly tells her that he dislikes her because she keeps attacking him, she refuses to admit that she was wrong to do so, and likewise she tries to pass off the blame for causing the destructive mushroom outbreak on Tomobiki.
All in all, Carla's passionate nature makes her into her own worst enemy.
Quotes[]
- "How dare you interfere with my ship's path! Thanks to you, my ship is trashed!"
- "Stop talking nonsense and just sign this marriage license!"
- "I'll kill them all! The bride, too!"
- "Oh... I see. I'll kill you all, and then myself!"
Trivia[]
- Her seiyū previously voiced Ran in the first half of the series and movie 1, but was replaced due to her frequent overseas trips.
- In the 2022 Viz Media English translation of the manga chapters where she appears, she is officially named Karula, essentially a midpoint between her original English name "Carla" and the romaji "Karura". It's unknown why this name was chosen, but it was possibly selected to give her a more "alien" sounding name, similar to Rupa. She retains the "Karula" name in the English subtitles for the 2022 animated adaptation of Urusei Yatsura as well.
Media Appearances[]
Manga[]
|
Anime[] |
Gallery[]
Movies and OVAs[]
2022 Anime[]
.png "Carla (2022).png (1.92 MB)")