As fans, we often think of the series we grew up with as classics. 90s kids usually think of Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Inuyasha, and the terrible 4Kids dubs of One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh!. Kids of the early 2000s wax nostalgic on the original Fruits Basket series, or The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. But it’s the dawning of yet another new year, and now 80s kids have one of their classics to get excited about all over again.
Announced in the Sankai Shimbun newspaper on New Year’s Day in Japan, the classic Rumiko Takahashi anime Urusai Yatsura is getting a new TV anime this year! The announcement contained a countdown to a short promotional video for the series.
The promotional clip also gives us a quick look at the new series animation, which will be done by David Production (JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure, Fire Force). Indeed, it looks like the series is bringing in the heavy hitters with Hideya Takahashi and Yasuhiro Kimura as directors, Yuko Kakihara as the series composer, and Naoyuki Hisano as character designer. Voice actors for the main characters are Hiroshi Kamiya as Ataru Moroboshi and Sumire Uesaka as Lum.
For those unfamiliar with the story of Urusai Yatsura, no matter how many tiger-stripe bikini homages you’ve seen, it concerns the story of a young man named Ataru Moroboshi. Ataru somehow becomes the Earth’s champion in a game of tag with ridiculously high stakes. He must win this game of tag against the alien leader’s daughter, Lum, within ten days, or her people will take over the world. But that’s only the beginning of Ataru’s problems as Lum has gotten it into her head that she’s going to be his bride, which would put a damper on Ataru’s lecherous ways. Ataru may not survive long enough to marry Lum, if his girlfriend, the town, and a rotating cast of alien invaders have anything to say about it!
For now, the series is slated to broadcast on Fuji TV’s Noitamina block, with no news on a simulcast stream just yet. It’s great to see a true classic get a new life, and the series has so much material to pull from, after creating several films and an OVA during its heyday.
Source: Anime News Network, Urusai Yatsura website
