Lum: Urusei Yatsura
Lum: Urusei Yatsura, 시끌별 녀석들, 福星小子
Urusei Yatsura (うる星やつら) is a well-known late 1970s to 1990s manga (1978-1987) and anime (1981-1993) series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The show is also known as Lum/Lamu, the Invader Girl, and, Those Obnoxious Aliens. The English translation of the manga, published by Viz Communications, was short-lived, and was divided into two series titled Lum and The Return of Lum, named after the main character. The manga received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1981. The series is considered an excellent source for references to Japanese culture and mythology.
The series is very light-hearted in nature and often quite bizarre. It concerns the adventures of a group of teenagers who live in Tomobiki, an area of the Nerima ward of Tokyo on a slightly fantastical and often ridiculously surreal version of Earth. The story centers around an extremely lecherous and very unlucky high-school boy, Ataru Moroboshi, and the bikini clad alien princess Lum.
Lum falls in love with Ataru after he accidentally proposes to her, while Ataru is always chasing after every girl he sees (despite them not being interested in him) leading to Lum physically punishing him with electric shocks. Lum never calls Ataru by name, even to other people she calls him by the English word, "darling". This is the main reason for the many occurrences of the word throughout the titles and songs of the series. The series is heavily episodic, with only occasional plots spanning more than one chapter / episode. Each of these usually concerns Ataru's ill-luck, his lechery (and Lum's jealousy thereof) or the wide variety of weird humans and aliens who love, hate, or simply meddle with Lum and Ataru.
(Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. "Lum: Urusei Yatsura")
