On Thursday, Crunchyroll added the original 1981 Urusei Yatsura anime adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi’s manga to its streaming service, featuring Japanese audio with English subtitles.
Originally airing from 1981 to 1986, the anime series also spawned several films and an original video animation (OVA) series. While most of the previous anime releases were handled by AnimEigo, with the exception of the Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer film, which was released by Central Park Media, the licensing rights for these titles eventually expired. Subsequently, Discotek Media has been reissuing the movies. Crunchyroll has also made available the six original movies for streaming, with the exception of the second installment.
In addition to the classic anime, the manga has inspired a new television adaptation that premiered on Fuji TV’s Noitamina programming block in October 2022. The anime’s first half aired continuously for two cours (quarters of a year) without interruption, followed by the debut of its second half on January 11. This latter portion will also run for two consecutive cours. The entire anime adaptation will cover selected stories from the manga and span four cours, equivalent to a full year, though not aired consecutively. HIDIVE is currently streaming the anime, offering an English dub alongside the original Japanese audio.
Originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from 1978 to 1987, the Urusei Yatsura manga had partial English releases by Viz Media in the 1990s, published under the titles Lum and The Return of Lum.
VIZ Media published the 2-in-1 omnibus editions of the manga in 2019 with new translations. The company describes the series as follows:
“Revisit the acclaimed romantic comedy about an unlucky human boy who meets a beautiful space alien princess in this large trim size edition with all-new translations and new cover designs. In the series, Ataru Moroboshi’s supernatural encounters with the feminine kind all start when he’s chosen to play tag with an alien princess named Lum who invades the earth on her UFO. Ataru has ten days to touch Lum’s horns or aliens will take over the earth! As it turns out, the game of tag is only the beginning of Ataru’s troubles, as he continues to attract strange encounters with otherworldly beings like beautiful snow spirit Oyuki and the sexy crow goblin Princess Kurama!”
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Source: Crunchyroll
