English Dub Review: Urusei Yatsura “Cosmo Teacher CAO-2 / Ooh, Scary! Voodoo Doll”

Overview:

Lum and her friends worry the past will come back to haunt them. Later, Mendo’s life becomes much more complicated thanks to a voodoo doll.

Our Take:

I think I found the secret formula to this anime being good. The less Ataru the better, in fact, if we could not focus on him at all that would be perfect. The first half of the episode focused on Lum and her friends when they were younger and killed their teacher? He was a robot, maybe a little less sinister than it sounds. Seeing her hang out with her friends is enjoyable; no Ataru is a big plus.

The second half had a bit more Ataru but since it was more focused on his rivalry with Mendo it wasn’t as bad. Sure, it started because he wanted to do something for Mendo’s sister and his creepiness leaked out, but overall, it was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Seeing Mendo go out of his way to protect Ataru because he didn’t want to get hurt because of a voodoo doll was pretty great. A little pointless in the end though because by protecting Ataru he would still get hurt in the process. I just wish the entire series was like this instead of Ataru being a douche the entire time.