History Trivia / UruseiYatsura

* LateExportForYou: Despite the 1981 anime series being a cult classic in Spain, it was very unknown in Latin America until the ''All-Star'' remake was licensed by Sentai Filmworks for a Latin American release in September 2022. In addition to that, HIDIVE, Sentai's streaming service, releases the subtitled chapters in Spanish and Portuguese shortly after the episode's premiere.

** While ''Urusei Yatsura'' has its fans in North America and the UK (enough for [=AnimEigo=] to spend the better part of 15 years translating every single bit of anime), it nonetheless had the unfortunate distinction of being the ''only'' Takahashi series to not have the original manga fully adapted into English – Creator/{{Viz|Media}} put out a few chapters but then dropped it (possibly because its heavy reliance on puns and wordplay makes it a nightmare to translate). It's also the only Takahashi series whose anime was not fully dubbed – only the movies have a widely-available English track.[[note]]The first few episodes of the TV series [[DuelingDubs were dubbed twice]] – a US-made dub and a UK-made GagDub – but the latter only aired once and the former only appeared on an ancient VHS release (and was quickly dropped for lack of sales and poor reception).[[/note]] From 2019 to 2023, Viz translated and released the entire manga in seventeen volumes. It only took us forty years.

* CreatorBacklash: Creator/MamoruOshi isn't proud of the first movie. He stated that it is not a movie, just an ordinary episode stretched to 100 minutes and with a larger budget.

** While ''Urusei Yatsura'' has its fans in North America and the UK (enough for [=AnimEigo=] to spend the better part of 15 years translating every single bit of anime), it nonetheless had the unfortunate distinction of being the ''only'' Takahashi series to not have the original manga fully adapted into English – Creator/{{Viz|Media}} put out a few chapters but then dropped it (possibly because its heavy reliance on puns and wordplay makes it a nightmare to translate). It's also the only Takahashi series whose anime was not fully dubbed – only the movies have a widely-available English track.[[note]]The first few episodes of the TV series [[DuelingDubs were dubbed twice]] – a US-made dub and a UK-made GagDub – but the latter only aired once and the former only appeared on an ancient VHS release (and was quickly dropped for lack of sales and poor reception).[[/note]] From 2019 to 2023, Viz translated and released the entire manga in fourteen volumes. It only took us forty years.

** While ''Urusei Yatsura'' has its fans in North America and the UK (enough for [=AnimEigo=] to spend the better part of 15 years translating every single bit of anime), it nonetheless has the unfortunate distinction of being the ''only'' Takahashi series to not have the original manga fully adapted into English – Creator/{{Viz|Media}} put out a few chapters but then dropped it (possibly because its heavy reliance on puns and wordplay makes it a nightmare to translate). It's also the only Takahashi series whose anime was not fully dubbed – only the movies have a widely-available English track. [[note]] The first few episodes of the TV series [[DuelingDubs were dubbed twice]] – a US-made dub and a UK-made GagDub – but the latter only aired once and the former only appeared on an ancient VHS release (and was quickly dropped for lack of sales and poor reception).[[/note]] As of 2019, Viz began translating and releasing the entire manga in several volumes. It only took us forty years.

* PredecessorCastingGag: In the anime reboot of ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'', Ataru's father and Lum's mother are voiced by the original voice actors of Ataru and Lum themselves from the 80s anime.

* TheWikiRule: [[http://uruseiyatsura.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page The Urusei Yatsura Wiki]].

* GeniusBonus: The series is ''filled'' with all kinds of subtle and overt references to Japanese culture and especially its various linguistic quirks, which show up a lot in its puns, wordplay and {{Meaningful Name}}s. For example, whilst Ataru Moroboshi's BornUnlucky status includes being born on Butsumetsu, the unluckiest day of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar#Rokuy.C5.8D Buddhist calendar]], his home town of Tomobiki is ''also'' named after a day from that same calendar. Ironically, this led to the [[NoExportForYou difficulty the series had in making it to the West]], as so many of those references were assumed to be too unintuitive for Western audiences. Creator/AnimEigo resorted to packaging little informational pamphlets in their copies of the subbed anime, as well as sometimes slipping informational subtitles into the episodes themselves, and the Creator/VizMedia English translated manga volumes contain footnotes sections explaining some of the Japanese events, customs or more untranslatable gags.
** Probably the biggest example is the story where an alien "Blue Bird of Happiness" shows up and attempts to grant wishes to all the kids in Tomobiki High, only [[IneptMage he keeps botching the wishes]]; the puns in this story are based on the ''large'' number of homonyms in Japanese, and don't translate easily into other languages. This story has the ''biggest'' footnotes section in the Creator/VizMedia manga as a result.
** One particularly prominent bonus that is never commented on in official "info-text" is the association between the Mendo family and their [[UnusualPetsForUnusualPeople pets]]. The crest of the Mendo family is based on the popular festival mask of the comic character Hyottoko, who in myths from the Iwate Prefecture was said to be a god that could pull gold from his belly button -- a natural patron for an ultra-wealthy family! With their FunnelMouthedCephalopod appearance, octopuses resemble the Hyottoko mask -- hence, Shutaro Mendo considers them a symbol of his family's prosperity and good fortune.

* CelebrityVoiceActor: Machiko Washio is primarily known for her live action work, and this show is one of the few anime she's done throughout her long career spanning 56 years, Sakura in particular being the closest she's had to a main role in an anime.

* GeniusBonus: The series is ''filled'' with all kinds of subtle and overt references to Japanese culture and especially its various linguistic quirks, which show up a lot in its puns, wordplay and {{Meaningful Name}}s. For example, whilst Ataru Moroboshi's BornUnlucky status includes being born on Butsumetsu, the unluckiest day of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar#Rokuy.C5.8D Buddhist calendar]], his home town of Tomobiki is ''also'' named after a day from that same calendar. Ironically, this led to the [[NoExportForYour difficulty the series had in making it to the West]], as so many of those references were assumed to be too unintuitive for Western audiences. Creator/AnimEigo resorted to packaging little informational pamphlets in their copies of the subbed anime, as well as sometimes slipping informational subtitles into the episodes themselves, and the Creator/VizMedia English translated manga volumes contain footnotes sections explaining some of the Japanese events, customs or more untranslatable gags.

** Also, Rumiko's editors (aided by overwhelming fan support) forced her to make Ataru/Lum the OfficialCouple instead of Ataru/Shinobu.

** [=AnimEigo=] held the license to the anime – which included the show, the [=OVAs=], and all but one of the movies – until it expired in 2011 after ''two decades'' (that's an eternity in the anime licensing world). The one movie they didn't have, "Beautiful Dreamer", belonged to [[Creator/CentralParkMedia a company that went bankrupt in 2009]], and copies of it are increasingly difficult to find as well.

** Creator/AnimEigo's test dub, "Those Obnoxious Aliens," was never reissued after the initial VHS release.

* OffModel: Too many instances to name. Not surprising considering it was a traditionally-animated TV series from the early 1980's (i.e. no time and little budget). Especially noticeable during production of the movies, which have no excuse... except that the first four movies were being produced by the same crew that was making the TV series, ''at the same time as'' the TV series!
** The animation quality of the TV anime dropped somewhat after Creator/MamoruOshii left the series and production moved from Studio Pierrot to Studio DEEN.
** The later movies and [=OVAs=] have different directors and character designers than the earlier entries in the series, making them look just... ''off''.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Ataru and Shinobu were originally supposed to be the OfficialCouple in the manga (note Lum’s absence in the second manga story). The readers -- and Takahashi’s editor -- preferred Lum more, so the latter was made the female protagonist and paired her with Ataru.

*** Creator/MisakiKuno voices Sugar instead of Creator/{{TARAKO}}
*** Creator/ChitoseMorinaga voices Ginger instead of Creator/ChikaSakamoto
*** Creator/RieTakahashi voices Pepper instead of Creator/RumikoUkai