The Old School Otaku Lounge

Hisao Nojima wrote:20-Oct-86 08:41:18-PDT,2226;000000000010
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Date: Mon 20 Oct 86 23:46:20
From: Hisao NOJIMA <NOJIMA@NTT-20>
Subject: URUSEI YATSURA
To: MRC%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM
cc: nojima%NTTLAB.NTT@NTT-20
Message-ID: <12248304541.6.NOJIMA@NTT-20.NTT.JUNET>

Hi

I got LDs (URUSEI YATSURA, 1,2,3) on Sunday and asked Yaski to
send them to you, which he had already done.
I hope you get the disks without any problem soon.

I have checked them and they all looks fairly nice. (Of course,
there may be problems left which I have overlooked.)
I have bought about ten Laser Disks so far(most of them are music
disks), and none of them were defective. But, while I bought the
disks at a shop, two men asked the clark to change their disks because they
were defective. I think their standards are much severer than mine,
but disks may have troubles. Generally speaking, animation fans are
said to be very strict with the quality. And as you are the one of them,
you may find the problems. In such a case, please bring the disk with
you when you come to Japan. I will ahve them replaced.

Anyway, as the programs are from TV series, the quality of picture
and sounds may be poorer (compared with movies). But, I just found
them very interesting. Actually, this is the first time I saw URUSEI
YATSURA on TV. I am reading commics of it every week, and they are
surely interesting.

I remember reading "MACHI NI SEKIYU NO AME GA FURU (No.2)" on
the magazine for about 8 years ago. RUMIKO TAKAHASHI appeared on
the magazine suddenly and she wrote URUSEI YATSURA in ten succeeding
weeks. (They were her first commics on commercial magazines.)
There were very interesting. After a short break, URUSEI YATSURA
began to appear on the magazine regularly.
Yes, it was a good story.

No.76 is a very famous story. I have heard about it but had never
seen it.

Anyway, I have forgotten the time. When I came to my senses watching
URUSEI YATSURA, I noticed that I had spent 5 hours.
But it worthed the time.

Hisao NOJIMA

Mark Crispin wrote:I founded the URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list on April 11, 1987 on Panda, which was then the name of my home DEC-20 mainframe. I worked at Stanford at the time.

The URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list was, to my knowledge, the first real attempt to have a means of communication between anime fans.

[. . .]

All good things do come to an end. I moved in October 1988 in the wake of a messy divorce... Panda and its mailing lists were shut down at the time, and packed on a moving van.

[ . . .]

With the shutdown of Panda, the traffic that had previously went to the URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list went to rec.arts.anime. Panda rejoined the land of the living for a few months in the late spring of 1989 until that fall, but there were hardware problems that prevented Yuuyuu (it's new name after more computers joined the Panda zoo) from
operating with any vestige of reasonable reliability until a complete replacement of all its disks was made until 1991.

By that time, the URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list had become little more than a dim memory. I became convinced that Yuuyuu would never be reliable enough for a mailing list or for the central Panda.COM mail machine, and in 1991 I moved both to Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM, a 68040 NeXT. However, the DEC-20 is running as I speak; it just doesn't have
much to do these days.

Eric Bowles wrote:Date: Fri, 10 Apr 87 15:46:41 PST
From: bowles%cory.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU (Eric Bowles)
Message-Id: <8704102346.AA02146@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
To: mrc%panda@sumex-aim.stanford.edu
Subject: Urusei Yatsura/Maison Ikkoku


I'm an avid fan of both of the above, but since I come from Japan [I'm in the U.S. to attend college], perhaps I don't qualify as a Japanimation fan from the United States...

However, I didn't know that the new movie was delayed. Since I haven't talked to my friends at home (including one who works for a certain animation group), I haven't been up to date on current events.

Has the 3rd "Touch" movie been released? I think it was supposed to come out this spring. And has there been any new developments on the new Gundam movie that's coming out next spring?

It would be great if we could form an Urusei Yatsura/Maison Ikkoku discussion group or something... one of my highschool classmates from Japan is now at Northwestern U., and he's a U.Y. fanatic. I'm sure you'll be hearing from him, since I forwarded your USENET posting to him. I believe he's going to get the 50 laser discs containing the complete TV series of U.Y. He currently has the entire comic book collection.

Anyways, it's great to hear from a U.Y. fan, since in my 3 years at Berkeley, I haven't come across one until now.

================================================================================
Eric Bowles

ARPA: bowles@cory.Berkeley.EDU
UUCP: {tektronix|dual|sun|ihnp4|decvax}!ucbvax!ucbcory!bowles
================================================================================

David Jo wrote:Date: Sat, 11 Apr 87 19:59 CST
From: <DAV08345@NUACC.BITNET>
Subject: KAC
To: mrc@panda.stanford.edu
X-Original-To: mrc@panda.stanford.edu, DAV08345

Hi there, I recently was forwarded mail from you from a friend in Berkeley. You're looking for Urusei Yatsura fans? Well, you've got perhaps the largest fan in the U.S. right here! I've known and loved Urusei Yatsura since I randomly saw one on tv back in 1981. Ever since, I've been a die hard fan of Urusei Yatsura. My name is David Jo and I'm a student at Northwestern University near Chicago. My home is in Tokyo, Japan and I've lived there for 18 years or so.

I really didn't think I'd encounter a U.Y. fan out here in the U.S. but I guess anything is possible when you're on a network and are in touch with people from all over the world.

I have all UY comic books except those after 31. I was going to get them before I left Japan last summer but they weren't out yet. I'll get the rest this summer. I've almost all T.V. UY at least twice. I've seen all movies at least twice and have read the movie comics at least twice. I have a lot of odds and ends on U.Y. that I wonder about myself sometimes. My friend in Berkeley and I have been to all nighter U.Y. movies twice so far. We have also been to numerous all-nighter video nights with U.Yu. (Sorry about that)

Send him a letter, I'm sure he'll ack you. He is BOWLES @ UCBCORY.

Oh yeah, I have a ton of U.Y. music and even a CD. I have a few posters back in Japan. Too bad U.Y. finished.

Let's keep in touch.


David Jo

Mark Crispin wrote:Date: Sat, 11 Apr 87 23:24:28 PDT
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@PANDA>
Subject: a new mailing list
To: Urusei-Yatsura@PANDA
Postal-Address: 1802 Hackett Ave.; Mountain View, CA 94043-4431
Phone: +1 (415) 968-1052
Message-ID: <12293837157.8.MRC@PANDA>

I've set up a new mailing list, for us Lum-chan fans: URUSEI-YATSURA%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU
If you got this message, you are on the list. URUSEI-YATSURA-REQUEST also exists.

The reason for the %PANDA is that the mailing list is located on PANDA, a DEC-2020 in my house running TOPS-20.PANDA transfers mail with SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU, a DEC-2065, via a TTY mail protocol much like UUCP under Unix. Do not confuse PANDA with PANDA.Stanford.EDU, which is a MicroVAX at Stanford running Unix and is used as a workstation by the V group. As a service to me, PANDA.Stanford.EDU knows about the mail address "mrc" and knows to forward it to "mrc on the other PANDA", but this is by no means generalized. PANDA.Stanford.EDU would probably be quite surprised to see URUSEI-YATSURA mail!

Since there's only three of us so far (Eric Bowles, David Jo, and myself), I thought I'd respond to your messages to me together...

Are either of you guys nihonjin? I mean, you say you're from Japan, but, your names aren't very Japanese! Or did you just adopt American names to use while you are here? For business purposes, I use the katakana of my name (MA-KU.KURISUPIN) but I've "adopted" a native Japanese name, Kurisu Masahisa, using the kanjis KURI (chestnut), SU (nest), MA (truth), KU (eternity) for my jitsu-in.

Besides being nuts about Urusei Yatsura and having a DEC 20 in my house, I'm a 30 year old staff member at Stanford University's Department of Medicine, working as a system programmer on Lisp workstations and occasionally in my old DEC 20 haunts. Last October, I decided that after 9 years of working at Stanford I should put my staff auditing privileges to good use and so I started taking first-year Japanese. It's a difficult class, and since I don't have time to study as much
as I should I will probably take it over again next year. It's nice to have the luxury of being able to do that.

The best way to keep track of Urusei Yatsura is to join KAC. If you don't have their address from an earlier message, it is (in romaji style):

Kitty Animation Circle
1-8-5 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 151 JAPAN

(I always have my wordprocessor output the address in kanji). It costs 500 yen to join (you get a Lum-chan/Kyoko-chan T-shirt and a membership card) plus 2000 yen for a 6-month membership (subscription to "Movement!" magazine plus merchandise offers) plus 1300 yen for foreign members. If you join be sure to mention me. KAC told my friend Nojima-san that a guy in Taiwan and I are presently their only foreign members.

It was in the April issue of Movement! that the news about the delay in the new movie was announced, so this is recent news. I can't read Movement! without help from nihonjin (I can read hiragana, but I only know about 10 kanji as yet), but here's what I got from my friends who scanned the article: The original fifth movie was going to be called ""Urusei Yatsura 5" and the script was approved by Takahashi Rumiko last November. It appears that it was after that that Takahashi-sensei decided to terminate Urusei Yatsura and Mezon Ikkoku.

So, it was decided that the new movie should be the last one, based on the last comic series. The new working title is "Urusei Yatsura Final Story: Boy Meets Girl". If you don't know what the story of "Boy Meets Girl" is, I can tell you if you ask, otherwise I won't spoil it.

I have all the comic books except for #34 (the final one); my friend Nojima-san has mailed me a couple of copies of #34 but they haven't arrived yet. I do have the last four episodes of "Boy Meets Girl", from "Shonen Sunday Jump" (that's how I know how it ends). I have all the movie comics, but only two of the TV comics. I have the following video programs: ""Urusei Yatsura 1: Only You" (LD), "Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer" (LD), "Urusei Yatsura 3: Remember My Love" (LD), "Urusei Yatsura 4: Lum The Forever" (LD), "Making of Urusei Yatsura 4" (LD), "TV Tunes" (LD), "Love Me More" (LD), TV series selected by Takahashi-sensei volumes 1-3 (LD), "Ryoko's Tea Ceremony" (LD), "Chance On Love" (VHS), "Symphony Urusei Yatsura" (VHS), and "I'm the Shuu-chan" (Beta). This is pretty much everything that has been issued modulo some volumes of the TV series that are only available on videotape. I was going to buy those, but punted when I decided instead to order the complete TV series on laser disc (50 in all, for 330,000 yen). I made my final payment for the LD 50 in March; I understand there's quite a waiting list...

My Japanese animation ("Japanimation") collection also includes laser discs of "Nausicaa", "Laputa", two Lupin III stories (including "Cagliostro Castle), two Dirty Pair stories (including "Affair of Nolandia"); I've also seen "Crusher Joe" and "Vampire Hunter D". I don't really go for the heavy metal stuff, as you can tell; but what do you expect from someone who was a "Lord of the Rings" fan back during its heyday in the 60's?

What movie is your favorite? I liked "Remember My Love" just because it is so much fun (and it is easy to show to Americans who don't know any Japanese). I have a fondness for "Lum The Forever" since it was the first Urusei Yatsura story I saw; it and "Cagliostro Castle" are what got me interested in Japanimation. However, my understanding is that most nihonjin prefer "Beautiful Dreamer".

Of the TV shows I've seen, I like the first one and "Lum's Lecture for Boys" the best...

-- Mark --