Masako Fujinami (藤波真砂子, Fujinami Masako?) is an unseen character in Urusei Yatsura. As should be obvious, she is the mother of Ryūnosuke. She is mostly unseen during the course of the series.
Biography[]
Little is known about Masako Fujinami, for she has been gone for many years and the only source of information on her is her husband, who is a notorious liar and of somewhat dubious sanity.
Ryūnosuke's mother first met her husband while they worked at an amusement park, as actors in a superhero stunt show. They fell in love, and quickly married. These facts are the only confirmed details we have about her, as they have been verified on a lie detector machine by Lum.
After Ryūnosuke was born, Masako either disappeared or died, leaving Ryūnosuke to be raised solely by her father. Ryūnosuke's Father has claimed that she died, but has also been seen on a television show dedicated to reuniting family members pleading for her to return.
However they came to be separated, Masako's husband devoted himself to trying to forget her, even going so far as to ask random young women to pose for photographs with himself and the infant Ryūnosuke. Because of this campaign, he ultimately succeeded in forgetting many things about his wife, most prominently losing all memory of what she looked like and thus becoming unable to distinguish which of the women's photos in his albums were of the real Masako.
Trivia[]
- Her name Masako means "real, genuine" (真) (ma), "sand, grit" (砂) (sa) and "child" (子) (ko).
- Initially, her name was intended to be ambiguous, as her husband uses several names during chapter 176 to refer to his wife; Yukie, Yoko, Kayoko, and finally Masako. It was this last name that Rumiko Takahashi chose to canonize, as it is the name that Ryūnosuke's mother is referred in all subsequent chapters.
Media Appearances[]
Manga
- Chapter 176
- Chapter 177
- Chapter 193
- Chapter 194
- Chapter 251
- Chapter 302