Ten Is Here (テンちゃんがきた, "Ten-chan ga Kita"?), known as "Arrival of Ten-chan" in the first Viz translation, is the 63rd chapter of the Urusei Yatsura manga.
Summary[]
Ataru's New Year's Day takes a turn for the worse when Lum's baby cousin Ten comes to stay!
Plot Overview[]
On New Year's Day, Lum is having the time of her life dressing up in Spring kimonos for the Moroboshis, who are delighted to have the chance to do this. Their open happiness makes Ataru feel jealous and unloved. He soon finds other things to worry about when he finds a strange baby in their mailbox - a baby who turns out to be Lum's infant cousin, Ten. Joined by Ten, Ataru and Lum go to Sakura's shrine to play some traditional New Year's games, where they meet up with Sakura, Cherry, Shinobu and Ran. Ten nearly gives away Ran's status as an alien, but Ran manages to cover it up. The group starts to play Hyakkunin Isshu, but Ten burns Ataru's hand for constantly grabbing at the girls when they go for the cards. Sugoroku goes no better, with Ten scorching Ataru's face for mocking his slow flying speed. Ataru retreats to the kitchen to cool off and sulk, and Ran tries to get closer to him, only for Ten to attack Ataru yet again. Finally losing his patience, Ataru attacks Ten with a frying pan and spatula, only to be dogpiled and scolded by Lum, Shinobu and Sakura.
Characters in Order of Appearance[]
Trivia[]
- This chapter marks the introduction of Ten to the cast as a permanent secondary character.
- The chapter's opening, where Ataru's parents are excitedly taking photographs of Lum in a spring kimono, is both a reference to a real activity that Japanese families with daughters like to do after the turn of the New Year and also a call-back to their private confession that they wanted a daughter instead of a son in Chapter 9.
- In the panel where Ataru runs away after Ten blasts him with his fire breath for the first time, two children can be seen pointing at Ataru and declaring, "Mount Fire Crackle!" In the Japanese, what they say is "kachi kachi yama" (literally "Mount Fire Crackle"); this is a reference to a Japanese folktale in which a rabbit takes revenge on a tanuki for wrongs it committed against the rabbit's human friends. In the signature scene of this tale (known variously as Kachi-kachi Yama or The Farmer and the Tanuki), the rabbit secretly sets fire to a bundle of sticks the tanuki is carrying on its back, and when the foolish tanuki asks why it can hear the sound of fire crackling, the rabbit assuages him that he is simply hearing the famous Fire Crackle Mountain, and the tanuki doesn't question this until the flames scorch his back, causing him to throw down the burning bundle and flee for his life. Although there are many aspects of the story that differ from version to version, such as the initial crime the tanuki committed and whether or not he is ultimately killed by the rabbit, the scene with the rabbit's lie about Mount Fire Crackle is iconic and almost never changed.
- When Ran threatens to expose Lum's tendency to wet the bed as a little girl, a sign can be seen behind the two that reads "Pippu", with "Northern Pippu" and "Southern Pippu" beneath it. These signs are all referring to the Hokkaido town of Pippu, renowned for its strawberry farms and ski slopes.
- The card game that the group plays, hyakunin issshu, is the oldest and most famous variant of a traditional Japanese card game called karuta (歌留多); players sit around a designated space covered in cards bearing images or kanji characters, whilst a designated director reads aloud a famous poem or proverb, with players aiming to be the first to spot and touch the card that corresponds to it - whoever touches the most cards wins. hyakunin issshu means "One-Hundred Poets, One Poem Each".
- After their game of hyakunin isshu, the group decide to play sugoroku (雙六 or 双六), literally meaning "double six". This ancient game actually has two forms; the original ban-sugoroku (盤双六, "board-sugoroku"), and the modern e-sugoroku (絵双六, "picture-sugoroku"). Ban-sugoroku was a tables game roughly analogous to Europe's backgamon, imported from China (where it was known as Shuanglu) in the sixth century; its simple rules and largely luck-based nature made it become a popular gambling game, which led to it repeatedly being declared illegal by the different Japanese governments. It survived until the early Edo era, where a new dice game called Chō-han (丁半) displaced it as Japan's favorite gambling game, causing ban-sugoroku to fade into obscurity. E-sugoroku, which our characters are shown playing, is a boardgame fundamentally akin to Snakes & Ladders; it came into being in the early 13th century, when the cheap and elaborate wooden block printing technology of the Edo period made it possible to easily produce countless varieties of e-sugoroku board, with aesthetic themes ranging from actors and politicians to religion and even pornography! In the modern era, sugoroku and e-sugoroku are used almost interchangeably, due to the obscurity of ban-sugoroku.