History
Lum is royalty and the daughter of the Oni alien Invader and is capable of flying and generating massive electrical discharges. She generally wears a tiger-striped bikini and Go-Go Boots which highlight her shapely figure, and has two tiny horns on her head that, when sprayed with a special solution, can be shaped to resemble barrettes. When these horns are removed (or when specially blessed yellow ribbons are tied around them), her electric and flying abilities disappear and she becomes a regular girl. Lum's appearance and clothing (and that of her family) draw heavily on the Japanese god of thunder, Raijin.
She grew up on her homeworld Oniboshi a precocious girl and attended primary school with Benten of the Oni's rivals, the Lucky Gods, Oyuki, the ice princess, and Ran. There the four of them developed a reputation for causing massive amounts of trouble. Ran often got roped into their mischief and then took all the blame, while Lum got off unharmed, which later lead Ran to seek revenge. In junior high school, Lum, Benten, and Oyuki's reputation grew into them becoming a school gang. Lum later got engaged to a handsome Oni named Rei, but rejected him because of his dullness. When she was seventeen, the Oni attempted to invade the planet Earth, an event that would change her life forever.
That day, Lum met Ataru Moroboshi for the first time. He had been randomly selected by computer to face her in a game of tag with the fate of the earth on the line. Ataru had been promised marriage by his then-girlfriend Shinobu if he could win, which spurred him to success, but upon catching Lum he declared "Now I can get married!" Lum misinterpreted this as a proposal to herself and accepted it. Because engagements are sacred on her planet, she is determined to be married to Ataru for the rest of her life. Since then, she has forced her way into his life as his "loving wife," much to his chagrin because it compromised his ability to flirt. The relationship between Lum and Ataru has been called "a humorously exaggerated parody of a common Japanese husband and wife dynamic."
Read more about this topic: Lum Invader
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)