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Urusei Yatsura OAV Box Set

Urusei Yatsura OAV Box Set

Written by Ross Locksley on 16 Dec 2004


Distributor MVM • Certificate 12 • Price 26.99


With MVM releasing an increasing number of more contemporary anime these days, its nice to see them visiting their back catalog to produce some great value box sets for those of us who may have missed the older titles the first time around.

This box set, comprising all 11 Urusei Yatsura OAV's, is unique to the UK market, which makes a welcome change from being the last to get everything - I'm reliably informed there are plenty of Americans ordering this set, and good for MVM too.

For those who don't know, Urusei Yatsura is the manic creation of Rumiko Takahashi, who also created Inu Yasha and Ranma 1/2. Telling the tale of luckless lecher Ataru Moroboshi, Urusei Yatsura is a farcical look at romantic comedies with a huge cast and the sort of surrealism that would have David Lynch eating his heart out. Ataru was chosen to represent the Earth in a game of tag that would save us from alien invasion, and through underhanded tactics he wins the day and, incidentally, the hand of beautiful alien babe Lum, much to the disgust of, well, pretty much everybody!

These OAV's pick up where the TV series left off, all of which are self contained stories making them perfect slices of insanity.

Whilst some background information on the series would be an advantage (and happily there's a bonus disc featuring some biographies and articles on a PC CD-ROM which opens up in Internet Explorer) you can just about get by on ignorance.

The anime has aged somewhat since its initial release, but this is to be expected. The humour has never really been to my own tastes, but there are plenty of people out there that will lap this up. As a collection it's very favourably priced and the presentation isn't too shabby either, though I do feel that the cover is going to hinder rather than help sales - a pink image from the manga is a poor choice from the thousands of options available, but then it'll be the fans rather than the broad market looking to pick this up.

7
A bumper bag of madness at an affordable price.

Ross Locksley
About Ross Locksley

Ross founded the UK Anime Network waaay back in 1995 and works in and around the anime world in his spare time.


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