Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love (1985)
Animation Production: Kitty Films
Running Time: 93 minutes
Released by: Animeigo
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

The world of Urusei Yatsura revolves around Lum. The aliens, ghosts, the weird characters, everyone would seem to somehow be connected to her, forming a crazy universe whose feverish energy reminds one of those crazy days of our youth. However, what happens if Lum were to be removed from Tomobiki? Would life be anything remotely similar to what it has been since her arrival?

Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love addresses this question and by so doing manages to capture that moment in time when we realize that our youth has somehow come to a surprising and sudden end.

Story

"In the first Urusei Yatsura Movie, "Only You," Ataru found himself a reluctant bridegroom trapped between two warring Alien Princesses.

In the second Urusei Yatsura Movie, "Beautiful Dreamer," he found himself trapped in one of Lum's dreams.

Those were just warmups. This time, Ataru finds himself...

...Herbivorous???

It seems that when Lum was born, a postal screwup resulted in a witchy friend of the family not getting an invitation to the celebration. The witch put a curse on Lum-- that she would never be happy with her True Love.

In the present, a new Amusement Park has been built in Tomobiki, and opening day finds the whole gang sampling its pleasures. At a magic show, however, Ataru gets turned into a large pink hippo-potamus-- FOR REAL!

When Lum attempts to track down the magician that transformed her Darling, things start to get very weird, very fast! " -- Animeigo's Urusei Yatsura Webpage

Review

With the third movie in the Urusei Yatsura series Kazuo Yamazaki takes a decidedly more serious approach to a franchise known for its crazy and light-hearted humor. Thankfully this direction proves to be a prudent one that allows us to explore the psyche of these characters that we’ve come to love over the years in ways that we've never done before. It’s almost as if they are all at once taken from their crazy world and dropped into the everyday common universe we thrive in.

The story itself I don’t think would win any awards and compared to the other Urusei Yatsura movies it seems a little on the weak side, but the character development that we see here is some of the best in the Urusei Yatsura movie series, even if at the end things do go back to how they were in the beginning.

At the core of the movie we find Lum and what her presence in Tomobiki has meant for the lives of all of its residents, especially those who frequently interact with her such as Ataru’s schoolmates and other denizens like Cherry & Sakura, who always seem to be around. Ever since she’s come to live with Ataru things have been very different and every day crazy things seem to happen that defy all reason. While at first this may have been a bother to everyone, little by little they came not only to accept it as a fact of life, but came to find comfort in it.

When Ruu kidnaps Lum he is in a way stealing the spirit of Tomobiki’s youth and the glue that bonded everyone together. No longer are the days filled with unexpected mayhem or strange apparitions, for everyone that Lum leaves behind, life has become a boring everyday existence. I think Shinobu captures it well in the movie when she says that it felt like a great festival has finally come to an end.

This removal of Lum is what makes Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love such a phenomenal entry in the franchises’ movie series. It gives us a rare glimpse at a “what if?”-type universe in which these eccentric characters are forced to face harsh realities such as having to grow up and assume new responsibilities in a world that is not as carefree as theirs once was. In a way it’s almost representative of their loss of innocence, a loss which is symbolized by each of the cast's revisit to different times in their youth early in the movie such as Mendou seeing his first pet octopus again.

Not all is as dark and gloomy as I might be making it sound though, the movie still has more than enough servings of Urusei Yatsura insanity for those of us who thouroughly enjoy that aspect of the series. The opening to the movie is particularly memorable as the characters gather together for a day under the sun at the Marchen Land amusement park and we get to see them walk by tons of characters from the worlds of anime and tokusatsu such as Kamen Rider and a bow tie wearing Godzilla! The ending was also classic Rumiko Takahashi madness!

On the production side Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love is extremely well done and serves as a terrific showcase of what animators could pull off back in 1985. In particular there is one scene around a third into the movie where Lum is pursuing Ruu that I’ve seen many times before, but no matter how many times its been I’m always blown away by the way in which the background are completely hand-drawn and animated in a detailed & painstakingly complex way that I have never seen quite matched.

The soundtrack is very much 80’s music so if you typically enjoy that kind of fare you’ll like this movie's tunes and BGM. For my part I own the original soundtrack CD to this film so needless to say I think it's really good. The voice acting as always is out of this world with everyone giving an impressive performance. Has anyone ever come close to what this group of people did in Urusei Yatsura?

Product-wise Animeigo did a nice job with this DVD in terms of overall quality. The video and audio transfers are very well done despite the age of the movie. An English dubbed track was recorded and extras featured in the disc include behind the scenes footage of the dubbing process, interactive program notes and trailers for other Urusei Yatsura movies.

Conclusion

Urusei Yatsura movie 3: Remember My Love may not be the best entry in the popular UY movie series, but it manages to leave a strong impression despite some minute problems with the story. If you are an Urusei Yatsura fan this should be a definite addition to your collection.

We recommend Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love to all anime fans. If you haven't seen any of the Urusei Yatsura movies this one along with movie 1 might be your best entry points.

Jeffrey Couto