"A definitive UY site which would encompass everything I love about the series. A one stop shop for all your UY needs."

- Mason Proulx

Urusei Yatsura


Urusei Yatsura is a popular comedy manga from the late 70s and 80s. It is Rumiko Takahashi's first big hit, and is known for its ridiculous situations, adorable characters and cheezy puns.

The story centers around the relationship between Ataru Moroboshi, an normal guy with extremely bad luck, and Lum, a bikini-clad alien princess who has fallen in love with Ataru, as they interact with a colorful supporting cast in a town called Tomobiki.

Introduction

Tomobiki-cho, the Urusei Yatsura part of Rumic World, is the oldest (March 1996) of all the subsites.

Created by Mason Proulx, Tomobiki-cho was originally launched at ottawa.net. After several redesigned, Tomobiki-cho relocates to tomobiki.com in 1997. Mason was a big part of early anime fandom on the internet, and his website can be seen as one of the "pillars" of the online anime community.

In early 2002, Harley and Dylan invited Mason to join a collective which would become Rumic World. Months later, Mason reads the email and agreed. After another redesign, Tomobiki-cho is finally re-launched with the other fansites under the collective umbrella of Rumic World.

Layouts

Tomobiki-cho version 6 Tomobiki-cho version 7
Tomobiki-cho version 6 Tomobiki-cho version 7
Mason's Rumic Page Index
Mason's Rumic Page Index - Another side page to the old Tomobiki-cho. It was part of Mason's attempt at having a general Takahashi site, but it never followed through and was left as a sub-section of Tomobiki-cho.

Mason's comment on the older desigsn:

Versions 1 through 4 of Tomobiki-cho were very short lived. Over the course of a few months in 1996, I was learning how to do web sites and in the process I remade the site several times before settling on the blue-orange-yellow scheme it had for years. I barely remember what 2 to 4 looked like since this was 11 years ago and each one only lasted a few weeks.

I recall one was dark blue, one black and one had yellow and black tiger stripes. Version #1 lasted the longest out of the four. That was called "Mason Ikkoku's Urusei Yatsura Web Page" It was mostly a long page of running text on a light-green background pattern made up of photoshop embossed UY logos. There were several 2nd level pages, mostly under construction. The characters section was the very first thing I worked on, since I was unimpressed by the shallow descriptions that existed on the only other UY web page out there.

Once I had finally created some decent content, I finally made a proper web site with version 5. Version 5 was very similar to 6, but more stripped down. The graphics were less polished, and the site was a little disorganised. The most obvious difference would have been that the color scheme was blue-orange-white, not blue-orange-yellow.

Version 6 involved me restructuring the site, rewriting most of the info, adding a wealth of new content and pictures, making the graphics look slicker (differnt fonts and flourishes) and adding a yellow background. I'm not sure exactly when this change was made. I believe it was some time around 1998. That design remained until 2002.