Farewell Morning (別れの朝, Wakare no Asa) is the forty-third episode of the 2022 adaptation of Urusei Yatsura, serving as the first part of the "Boy Meets Girl" four-part finale.
Summary[]
Lum and Ataru's usual stormy courtship achieves a new level of turbulence when a mysterious alien named Rupa appears, claiming to be Lum's fiancé - and he's not going to take "No" for an answer!
Plot[]
Falling asleep in Onsen Mark's class, Lum suddenly wakes screaming from a horrible nightmare of an ominous shadowy figure approaching her as a girl and claiming that it will return to take her as its bride when she comes of age. After school, she tells Ataru about her nightmare, but he's more interested in chasing skirts again. After the usual fight, Lum returns to her UFO, where she gets a vid-call from her father; her great-grandfather's missing cryo-stasis capsule has been discovered after twenty years, and he wants to meet her now he's been woken up.
Meanwhile, Ataru ends up at Sakura's shrine, where ominous signs lead to her consulting a crystal ball, receiving a vision of Lum swallowed by darkness. It's night by the time he gets home, where he's told that Lum is visiting her parents, with Ten taunting him that this time, she mightn't come back, given how they fought before she left.
Meanwhile, on Oniboshi, Lum's great-grandfather is finally told that Lum is a girl, and he starts to panic...
Back on Earth, Ataru wakes from a nightmare about losing Lum, and tries to assure himself it's just a dream.
On Oniboshi, Lum finally meets her great-grandfather, who is very upset - but too senile to explain why. Suddenly, the black phantom from her earlier nightmare arrives, revealing itself as an alien named Uba. He explains that when Lum's great-grandfather was young, he met the oni whilst he was lost and starving, and forced him to play a cruel game, offering him an edible mushroom and a poisoned mushroom. When the oni ate the poisoned mushroom, he demanded the oni's daughter's hand in marriage in exchange for the antidote. However, Lum's great-grandfather only had sons, a fact he revealed after getting the antidote. Uba vowed he would claim the first girl-child to be born to that oni's line, which would ultimately be Lum. And he doesn't care that Lum considers herself betrothed to Ataru. Lum's dad points out he's far too old for Lum, but Uba asserts he has a great-grandson who will marry Lum in his place. The oni finally lose their patience and throw him out of their UFO, but he vows that Lum will be wed to his great-grandson.
On Earth the next morning, a strange shadow suddenly falls over Tomobiki High as a mysterious alien emerges from it on a chariot drawn by flying pigs. He tries to make a dramatic entrance into Class 2-4, but knocks himself unconscious and is taken to the nurse's office.
The alien regains consciousness and immediately latches onto Sakura, mistaking her for Lum. He announces himself as Lum's fiancé, Rupa. At that moment, Lum arrives, and although she shocks him, he gives her a ring and tries to make a dramatic exit, only to bonk his head again. That evening, Ataru is sulking over the reveal of Lum having another fiancé, this one at least somewhat smarter than Rei, and his jealousy causes him to make snide comments. In a spaceship on the dark side of the moon, Rupa confers with Uba, who gloats that the ring Rupa gave Lum will accelerate her horn-shedding cycle, making her defenseless and easy to abduct. The next morning, Ataru is still making snide remarks, and Lum finally loses her patience and zaps him before flying ahead of him. She stumbles onto Rupa, and at that moment, her horns finally drop off, removing her powers until they regrow. Rupa quickly subdues her with soporific spores and spirits her away just before Ataru arrives. Finding Lum's shed horns on the street, he picks them up and then looks up to see Rupa flying away with Lum, taunting Ataru as he goes.
Characters[]
- Lum
- Upa
- Onsen-Mark
- Ataru Moroboshi
- Shūtarō Mendō
- Kōsuke Shirai
- Sakura
- Cherry
- Ten
- Lum's Father
- Lum's Great-Grandfather
- Lum's Mother
- Sakura's Mother
- Ataru's Mother
- Rupa
- Kakugari
- Ryūnosuke Fujinami
- Shinobu Miyake
- Kotatsu-neko
Trivia[]
- This is the second episode where the title card is shown at the end rather than the beginning, following episode 31.
- The doll Lum made of herself in Episode 10 appears after Ataru has his nightmare.
- This episode and the three after it have an entirely new mid-episode eyecatch unique to this final arc.
Differences from the Manga[]
- In the manga, Sakura isn't buying a tinned coffee from a vending machine, and Cherry approaches her from the side rather than sliding along the ground under her dress on his back.
- In the manga, Ataru's nightmare occurs in his darkened room as he's asleep in bed. In this version, it takes place whilst he's napping in his well-lit room.
- Ataru doesn't hit his head on his bookshelf when waking from his nightmare in the manga, and there is no appearance by Lum's handmade doll.
Gallery[]
