Urusei Yatsura (Movies)

Publisher
MVM
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Film
Year
1984

Urusei Yatsura Movie 3: Remember My Love

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
8th Sep 06

“Remember My Love” the third Urusei Yatsura movie based on the hugely popular, but widely unheard of in the UK, TV and manga originally created by Rumiko Takashi. The second film having not been released in the UK (due to a different company owning the rights to it in America), means that “Remember My Love” should be the next port of call for those whishing to view more antics from Lum and Co.

Unbeknownst to Lum, a witch put a curse on her when the witch wasn’t invited to a party to celebrate Lum’s birth. Lum, Ataru and an impressive roster of others visit a newly opened theme park. All manner of strange things happen, but things get even stranger when Ataru gets turned in to a pink hippo, in a magic act, by a magician who promptly disappears. Lum attempts to find the magician named Ruu, but it seems Ruu was really after Lum he kidnaps her, but it seems his actions might not be completely acting of his own accord. Lum tries to convince Ruu to let her go, whilst Ataru searches for her.

“Remember My Love” is quite different compared to “Only You”, the first Urusei Yatsura movie. This film feels a lot more serious, whilst their still is a comedy aspect the emotional story telling in “Remember My Love” stands out more (which is quite a feat when on of the main characters spends a significant part of the film as a pink hippo). The film takes its self a lot more seriously than the previous one, and the story moves at a good pace and keeps the viewer interested throughout.

Once again knowing the characters helps the movie flow easier, but really the film can be enjoyed without this knowledge. The soundtrack with a few exceptions (mainly the English language songs near the beginning and end of the film) really helps the film along, and there are some impressive sequences for quite an old anime film. The animation also seems to have been upped a few notches since the first film.

Sadly the film begins to lag during its second half, the tension and mystery built up in the first half aren’t really delivered upon as the conclusion to the film ends up becoming fairly obvious once all the early plot points are put in place.

“Remember My Love” certainly improves on the first film in many ways, but essentially it is pretty much the same in the outline. Still this is another good enjoyable film, while it isn’t really worthy to warrant a high recommendation it’s not a title to be initially dismissed off hand.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: Japanese Audio, English Subtitiles

Release information: Publisher: MVM Released: February 11th 2002 Classification: PG Running Time: 93mins

Notes:

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 8th Sep 06