LAMU' MONOGRAPHIC FEATURE - URUSEI YATSURA Welcome to this July issue of Nippon Shock Magazine. As such, we wanted to highlight a character suited to the season's scorching heat: Lamù. Inspired by the beautiful swimsuit model Agnes Lum (more on her later), she's the perfect character for the summer heat and a break from previous issues' featurettes, which focused on characters more suited to a male audience. Lamù is actually a versatile character; everyone loves her. She's also quite relevant, given the new series airing on Prime thanks to Yamato Video. We therefore wanted to delve into everything related to Urusei Yatsura, trying to highlight both the cultural significance of this series, but also the curiosities and characters that have made it a success, even in Italy. Above all, given that several interviews with Rumiko Takahashi have been published over the years and that fans are well aware of her statements on this matter, we thought it more useful to present an interview with Mamoru Oshii, director of many of the TV series' episodes and the first two films, now a giant of Japanese animation. He recalled his experience with Urusei Yatsura with anecdotes and information, some of it totally surprising. However, we couldn't leave out Takahashi, who is the protagonist of an extraordinary and previously unpublished piece, of great cultural importance for those who love her and her character: it is a live interview recorded during the creation of a specific chapter of her most famous manga. We wanted to include it because it represents and clarifies the method through which Takahashi sought and found paradoxical solutions to the narratives of Urusei Yatsura. We tried to leave nothing out, although in 80 pages it is impossible to touch on the vastness of what is a truly "imaginary world." It wasn't our intention to cover the entire issue with just Lamù, but in the end, precisely because of the vastness of the character and her cultural ramifications, it turned out to be a "Monograph." It would have been criminal to "split" it into two parts or cut off part of the content. I announce that the August issue will be very special, a true Art Book on the great classic characters in magazine format (to satisfy all those who had asked us for it, and there were many of you), while the editorials will resume with the September issue (#12).