From: steyn@cs.rochester.edu (Gavin Steyn)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: UY TV 3 review
Date: 9 Jan 93 20:03:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1993Jan9.200359.23216
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Rochester


Just a quickie review for anyone who's thinking of buying/renting this...

There are 6 stories on this tape:

The first one (who's name I forget) is about Ataru meeting Kurama,
an alien who's a (beautiful, naturally) crow-goblin.  She's been
sleeping for a time, and he plays Prince Charming to her Snow White.
Unfortunately, Ataru's not exactly the kind of man she's been looking
for...

I liked this story quite a bit.  Kurama's attempts to reform Ataru
were pretty funny, and reminded me of a couple of Japanese movies that
I've seen, in which the samurai needs to be cured of his bodily desires
by enduring cold, heat, etc.

--------------------

The second story, "Athletics in Woman Hell"  (or something like that)
is about Kurama's attempt to make Ataru less of a lecher by con-
fronting him with giant versions of the women he knows, who then 
attack him.

This episode had its cute moments, but I thought the story was too
weak to sustain 12-15 minutes.  (It's not one of my favorite manga
stories either.)

----------------------

The next story is a complete episode, "Christmas Pitter Patter," in
which Lum's guards try to set Ataru up with a fake date, and then
embarass him in front of Lum so that she'll give him up for good.

I really liked this episode a lot.  It handles the Ataru-Lum
relationship well, and the scenes where Megane's plot starts to come
to fruition are hilarious.

--------------------

The next story is also a complete episode, but I forget the title
again.  Mendou shows up to introduce this special New Year's episode,
which takes place during the Heian period.  The various characters
take the parts of characters from _The Tale of Genji_, an old Japanese
novel.  Devils have come back to this time from the 23rd century to
kill Momotarou, a legendary Japanese hero who killed lots of devils.
Lum and Ten decide to save Momotarou, while the rest of the cast
helps the devils.  (This is a VERY simplified synopsis, which is why
it no doubt seems confusing).

I thought this episode was the highlight of the tape.  It's
wonderfully zany, and makes even less of a pretense than usual
to tell a logical story.  The liner notes for this one seem more
intimidating than necessary--they're very extensive, but not all
that necessary to enjoying the episode.

------------------

Once again, we're back to the 15-minute episodes, for what I thought 
was the weakest story on the tape.  Sakura invites Ataru and pals
to a disco, where her fiance is going to show off his magical
powers to Cherry.  Needless to say, chaos ensues when said fiance
starts his invocations.

This story suffers from the attempt to make 15 minutes out of a
very simple story.  To stretch out the time, there are numerous scenes
of people dancing in the disco, and not particularly well-animated
ones at that.  Unfortunately, the primary story isn't that interesting
either.

--------------

The last story, "Father You Were So Strong" brings back Kurama.  She
decides to show Ataru what an ideal man is like by taking him to
see her father.  The father turns out to be Yoshitsune (one of Japan's
most respected warriors--he was a brilliant general, an amazing poet,
beautiful, and so on).  Instead of Yoshitsune's teaching Ataru,
however, Ataru decides to show Yoshitsune how to handle women.

I liked this episode very much.  The depiction of Benkei, a monk
who later joins Yoshitsune, was very funny, as was the UY version
of the legendary story of their meeting.  The liner notes are a
must for this one (unless you already know something about 
Yoshitsune and Benkei).

------------------

Overall, I thought the tape was very good, much better than UY TV 2.
It's a toss-up for me whether I like TV 1 or TV 3 better.  

Gavin Steyn
steyn@cs.rochester.edu
"So he's had the lifelong ambition of reversing the polarity of the earth?"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime