Fall 1981

Ataru Moroboshi's legendary bad luck reaches a planetary scale when alien invaders choose him to represent Earth in a contest against Lum, their beautiful horned princess. He wins the game of tag, but a badly timed remark convinces Lum that Ataru intends to marry her. She accepts enthusiastically and installs herself in his home before he can explain otherwise.That single misunderstanding destroys any hope of an ordinary adolescence. Lum can fly, fire electricity, and attract relatives and aliens whose problems routinely land in Tomobiki. Ataru remains hopelessly interested in every attractive woman he sees, while childhood friend Shinobu is caught between anger and disbelief. Love triangles quickly become polygons, science and folklore collide, and the town learns that when Ataru and Lum are involved, even a minor argument can escalate into a public catastrophe.

Kenichi Mitsuba is an ordinary schoolboy whose life changes when Hattori Kanzo, a young ninja from the Iga mountains, comes to stay with his family. Hattori attends school in secret while using his ninjutsu to help Kenichi through problems that would normally be far beyond him.Hattori is soon joined by his younger brother Shinzo and the ninja dog Shishimaru, making the Mitsuba household even livelier. Their greatest nuisance is Kemumaki, a rival Koga ninja who hides behind the image of a model student and schemes with his cat Kagechiyo to outwit Hattori and embarrass Kenichi.

Middle schooler Hiroshi is as hot-blooded as ever, but his strangest companion is still Pyonkichi, the stubborn frog flattened onto the front of his shirt after an unlucky fall. Pyonkichi can talk, argue, eat, and interfere in Hiroshi's life with enough force of personality to make being a living shirt seem almost ordinary.Between clashes with friends, teachers, neighborhood troublemakers, and Hiroshi's long-suffering mother, the inseparable pair stumble from one ridiculous problem to another. No matter how fiercely Hiroshi and Pyonkichi quarrel, their unusual friendship keeps pulling them back together for another loud and chaotic day.

Penguin Village faces two unusually large disturbances, and Arale approaches both with her unstoppable energy and complete disregard for common sense. Senbei, Gatchan, and the village's eccentric residents are swept into scientific mishaps, heroic misunderstandings, and escalating jokes where saving the day may be indistinguishable from making the disaster worse.