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Goodbye, Urusei Yatsura

By Dylan Acres & Harley Acres



Lum and Ataru Embracing.

by Dylan Acres

In 1989 Viz began publishing a handful of Shonen Sunday series, including Mai the Psychic Girl by Ryoichi Ikegami and Kazuya Kudo, Justy by Tsuguo Okazaki and Viz's first series by Rumiko Takahashi, and what better series to start with than her first series, Urusei Yatsura. 37 years later, Viz is finally releasing the final chapter in English for the first time. Unlike every other series of Takahashi’s, Urusei Yatsura had a very challenging time in the American market. It has been cancelled multiple times, gone through title changes, skipped chapters and seen decades long hiatuses.

The series ended the first time after chapter 20 and was brought back in the pages of Animerica in 1993. After about a year there, Viz tried out the comic market again and the series returned under the name The Return of Lum * Urusei Yatsura. It fared better, but not much, lasting about three times as long as it did in its first run. The series ended with its last chapter as 112, almost completing the 11th volume of the original Japanese edition.

As massive fans of all of Takahashi’s works it was always a little mystifying why Urusei Yatsura never caught on as much as Ranma 1/2 or Maison Ikkoku, which were both published alongside Urusei Yatsura during most of its “Return” run. There was talk of perhaps skipping ahead, to a point in the series when more of the regular cast would appear, like Ryunosuke, or when Takahashi’s art style would take on its more familiar look. While skipping ahead would have been horrifying to those of us who knew that art styles change and evolve naturally over time, and the number of really hilarious stories that would be skipped would be detrimental to the series, a few chapters had already been skipped early on. It always puzzled us though, what’s not to like in this series? If people are buying Ranma 1/2 because of its comedy and sex appeal, they’ll definitely get that in Lum and Ataru. If a grown up love story like Maison Ikkoku could sell at a time when literally no other comic books published in the United States were showing any sort of real life romance, how could something as zany, funny and sexually charged as Urusei Yatsura not find an audience?

By the early 2000s with no one talking about Urusei Yatsura in America and the anime getting re-released on DVD regularly by Animeigo, we felt we had to do something to see the series get some level of attention on our shores, and so along with a number of regulars from the Rumic World Messageboard, we relaunched Project ILM, a scanlation group dedicated to working specifically on Urusei Yatsura.

When Viz announced that it would be relaunching Urusei Yatsura again and committed to releasing the entire series, we could not have been more pleasantly surprised. The release itself had an entirely new translation that on the whole was quite good, minus the name change choices of Onsen-Mark to “Hot Springs Emblem” and Kotatsuneko to “Kotatsu Kitty”. Both seem like strange choices, as its not like Viz called Inuyasha “Dog Demon” for instance. But with those quibbles aside, Viz must be applauded for its commitment to the series, and the happy fortune that found it being released alongside the re-launched anime in Japan. One could say that there is no better time since the 1980s to be a fan of Urusei Yatsura!

Of course, experiencing the series itself is the most important thing, and in reading it one finds favorite chapters, storylines and moments. Whether it's Ran ultimately realizing what her friendship with Lum means to her, and that Lum, while an imperfect person means well in "House Call", the over the top, in your face wish fulfillment of seeing a horrible teacher put in his place in "The Home Visit Blues" or getting to see a softer side of Ataru in chapters like "How I’ve Waited for You", "Last Date" and "Big Bottle, Little Bottle". In Urusei Yatsura Rumiko Takahashi firmly established what she learned from Kazuo Koike, “the character is the thing”. [1] [2]

Before there were phrases like moe, tsundere, harem comedies and the like, there was Urusei Yatsura. It is the definitive prototype for so much that has come after it, and the joy that it brings not only to fans of Rumiko Takahashi’s work, but to anyone who loves hilarious, heartfelt manga, it really is a joy to be able to have it finally reach its conclusion in English after all these long years. The idea that someone as iconic as Lum and a series as influential as Urusei Yatsura could ever be anything other than a hit is still perplexing, but at least we have it, in all its outlandish glory.

Transformation Spray

by Harley Acres

I discovered Rumiko Takahashi through Viz Communication's (as they were then known) release of Ranma 1/2 in 1993. My local comic book store had only recently begun to carry manga and it didn't take terribly long for me to become entraptured by how unique the stories and artwork were. It felt so fresh, it was funny, something that I had never seen in American comic books. Strange that something as commonplace as "humor" would have to be imported from abroad to an American audience, but in the early 1990s that was certainly the case. In a world of perpetual sameness Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 was utterly unique, and completely fresh. It did not take long before I wanted more of it. Very quickly our comic book diet changed irreversabily from The Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor and Excalibur to Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura.

Urusei Yatsura was running in Animerica magazine, having already struggled to find an audience some years before I discovered it. The anime was released (slowly) and other than a brief attempt at a dub, it was subtitled only from a boutique importer, Animeigo. This meant the anime would reach a smaller audience, at a slower pace. This meant that the anime would not be able to aid the manga in the same way Rumiko Takahashi's other properties were at the time. The Urusei Yatsura anime was released with long liner notes explaining references, puns and other minutae. This reinforced the idea that this was a series that "not for everyone" and established an unfortunate canard that Urusei Yatsura was "difficult to translate". In one of the earliest issues of their own Animerica magazine Viz gave voice to this belief, "'Too cultural,' the critics said when Viz announced the English release of Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura comic. 'She'll never sell in America... Takahashi's too ethnic.'" [3] Unfortunately this became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Additionally American fans could see Rumiko Takahashi's more mature, polished artwork on shelves with Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku (and by 1997 Inuyasha) and not understand why Urusei Yatsura looked so different. To most Americans these were all series being released "now", they had no sense that in Japan these manga were one to two decades apart. Unfortunately, given the slow release of manga in the 1990s (two chapters a month was typical in those days) it would have taken years for Urusei Yatsura to reach a point in the story where Takahashi's style looked more similar to what American audiences were becoming increasingly familiar with. These were the barriers that made Urusei Yatsura a "difficult" series.

And so while Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha and Kyokai no RINNE were all fully translated into English, Urusei Yatsura was left in limbo. Viz had tried a few times and given up by 1998. It became clear that they were not going to revisit the series. They signed off with "Once again The Return of Lum goes on a temporary hiatus. Sniff! We know we'll miss her! How about you?" [4] A year later I had started college and decided to minor in Japanese while studying printmaking. By 2002 I was in Japan studying at Kansai Gaidai and posting low resolution photos of images snapped on a Sony CLIÉ from brand new Inuyasha chapters as they came out in Shonen Sunday. By the time I had returned to the United States our friends here at the Rumic World Messageboard were beginning to discuss relaunching Project ILM and completing Urusei Yatsura. [5] [6] [7] [8] Viz's "temporary hiatus" was four years old, had we known then that the hiatus would last from 1998 until 2019 we might not have waited those initial four years to begin our work.

I was somewhat hesitant intially, I knew that committing to translating Urusei Yatsura was going to be time consuming in addition to finishing up my undergrad degree and working on Rumic World. Scanlations were fairly new and legally dubious. [9] However, I felt I had invested in buying Urusei Yatsura through Viz before they cancelled it (repeatedly) and I owned the Japanese tankobon releases as well. Again, had I known it would take Viz another 21 years to begin translating the series again and 23 years before it would see completion I would not have felt so conflicted. I still fondly remember choosing "Transformation Spray" as my first chapter to translate as we all started to grab stories that interested us and begin to fill in the tapestry of Urusei Yatsura as each translator fancied. Among the translators, our only agreement was that we would leave the final storyline, "Boy Meets Girl" until everything else was completed. I was privledged to ultimately handle that translation as well.

One thing I learned was that Urusei Yatsura was not "difficult" or "too cultural". Sure, it had puns that could be challenging to convey, one story's punchline centered around "money" (金/kane) and "bell" (鐘/kane) being confused for one another. [10] Still, this was nothing a simple note couldn't clarify. It certainly didn't make the humor impenetrable. The more I translated the more I learned that the series had the same rhythm and tone as Takahashi's later works. As one of the earliest manga brought to America perhaps it had seemed difficult at one time, but by the early 2000s much of what might have been considered foreign to westerners in 1989 had been familiarized to us through hundreds of other manga that had been brought over in translation. Taiyaki, kotatsu, the Seven Lucky Gods... none of this felt alien to those of us vaguely familiar with manga by the 21st century.

And so, as I write this, I look back not only on the long, difficult road of Urusei Yatsura's translation into English but my own life. I first began to read the series when I was 13 years old in 1994. I saw it cancelled and restarted throughout my high school life. I helped translate it unofficially during college. And now, I'm deep into my career and 41 years old as it finally concludes, the final volume sitting here on my coffee table as the latest episode of the remake of Urusei Yatsura aired on a streaming platform just a few days ago.

So much has changed, but I do not feel like a different person than the thirteen year old I was when I first discovered Urusei Yatsura. In many ways there is a sense of lonliness in seeing the series conclude after so long. I have changed, Lum hasn't. I suppose that's the way things should be in Tomobiki.

Footnotes

Over the course of the publication of Urusei Yatsura Dylan became a psychology professor while Harley became an art history professor. Please visit our Rumic World YouTube Channel for more video essays on other Rumiko Takahashi topics. Or check out our farewells to Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha and Kyokai no RINNE.

Cover

Rumic World
Published: March 4, 2023
Author: Dylan Acres & Harley Acres
Translated by: ---
Archived: ---
ISBN/Web Address: https://www.furinkan.com/ features/articles/goodbyeurusei.html
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