Bodysuit 23 #755 (Patreon)

The first Urusei Yatsura TV bluray set is out! And I got my copy! Well, by got I mean it's currently sitting at a whole foods as I'm waiting to pick it up on Friday.

I remember back in like 2008 seeing Right Stuf selling the entire show in like a $800 set. Animeigo, bless their hearts, had spent years releasing the show as singles on DVDs. Imagine the torture of having to pay $20-30 for 4 episodes at a time for a 200ish episode show. Worse yet, imagine all the shelf space taken up! And having to get up and change the discs if you wanted to marathon it!

But now we're getting the show in 4 sets for about $50 a pop! Roughly $1 per episode! 

It also means I can finally delete the old dvd rip I pirated back in like 2012ish after the DVD sets went out of print. I'm getting down to just a few series that I torrented back in the heyday of digital fansubs that I've gone back and purchased legally. There's this nice sense of catharticism of being able to support the series you watched fansubbed and never got a release in the US until just these last couple of years. Manabi Straight and Mahoraba being to examples. In fact, Manabi Straight was the first anime series I followed week to week when it was coming out! It has a special place in my heart.

Anyway, Urusei Yatsura is some good slapstick comedy! It being made in the early 80s also gave it the freedom for the animators to go hog wild and throw in random references and do whatever the hell they want without worrying about copyright unlike these days. And by hog wild, I mean hog wild. Just look at this bit. There's TWO, count em, TWO Megazone 23 references in that bit! They also were given the freedom to do really cool, over the top animation sequences that must've been absolute hell to animate back then.

Seriously a hell of an anime.