There was a time when I would have deemed Rumiko Takahashi's URUSEI YATSURA "mythic" just because the creator was so skilled at creating bizarre characters. But over time I've realized that only in a handful of cases did Takahashi use those characters for what I deem a "symbolic discourse."
The first adventure, given the English title "A Good Catch" in translation, was rife with such discourse about adolescent sexuality and the ways of Japanese "oni" demons (albeit reworked into science-fiction aliens). Ataru Moroboshi, the typical horny youth who wants every pretty woman he sees, is selected to save Earth fron an invasion of these alien oni, but only if he can defeat the aliens' representative, the vivacious babe Lum, in a game of "tag." Despite false starts, Ataru attempts to be a good guy and win the contest, in part so that his girlfriend Shinobu will marry him. By somewhat crooked means, the young fellow "tags" the elusive Lum, but he makes the mistake of yelling something about marriage. This causes Lum to think he's proposed to her, and the story ends with Ataru due to be frog-marched off to Lum's planet and put through a ray-gun wedding.
The second URUSEI story doesn't mention Lum at all, but by the third, the creative/editorial decision had been made that she was to be added to the cast. Lum comes back to marry her "darling," but he denies that he ever proposed to her. Legalities mean nothing to the lovestruck alien, and for assorted reasons she talks her way into staying at the Moroboshi house, decorously occupying Ataru's closet. No matter how many times Ataru proclaims that they're not married, Lum maintains that they are so bonded-- though over time she makes a point of trying to drag him to the altar, to make it official.
"On the Horns of Passion," the twenty-fifth story in the manga, is the closest Lum ever comes to trying to wring a "secondary promise" out of her love-mate. At the time of this story, Shinobu-- who for half a year tried to get between Ataru and Lum whenever possible-- finally gives up on her inconstant Romeo. Not long before "Horns," Takahashi introduced to Ataru's class rich-boy Shutaro Mendou, who's just as girl-happy as Ataru but has both wealth and good looks with which to enchant high school girls. Shinobu is one of those who admire Mendou, though they're not yet dating in this story, and Mendou seems more interested in laying claim to Lum.
Lum, who has not yet enrolled in Japanese high school, flies to Ataru's classroom looking for her "darling." Informed that he was last seen in the company of Shinobu, the jealous alien goes looking for the couple. As she departs from a high window of the school, Mendou just happens to be in the process of showing his great wealth by parachuting onto the school grounds. The two of them get entangled and fall.
It just so happens that on the ground beneath, Ataru has been trying to talk Shinobu into forgetting Mendou and coming back to him, slamming Mendou for the upper class refinements that separate his kind from ordinary people. Shinobu buys the argument, but then the tangled bundle containing Lum and Mendou falls atop Shinobu and Ataru. Mendou in particular lies prone upon Shinobu, and though he doesn't make a pass at her like he does with Lum, Shinobu seethes with juvenile passion for the handsome millionaire and runs away. Ataru, deprived of his conquest, storms off, linking Lum and Mendou together in his mind as people far beyond the workaday world. Mendou tries to further the rift by telling Lum that she and he are "above the mundane world." However, for all her faults Lum isn't conceited, and she thinks of herself as an "ordinary girl" who just wants love and marriage.
It's hard to credence that Lum's never noticed how often Ataru is turned off by all the weirdness she brings into his life, but as far as this story is concerned, this is the first time the thought occurs to her. So the affable alien dons a school uniform and uses a chemical to make her horns retract into her skull. She shows up at class next day, and no one recognizes her, so that all of the boys, particularly Ataru and Mendou, are mesmerized by the "new girl." Shinobu apparently thinks she still has a claim on Ataru despite having refused him earlier, so she gets furious at him, and then at Mendou, even though, as mentioned before, Mendou hasn't even asked Shinobu out yet.
Lum keeps the deception going a little longer, but Mendou, again seeking to undercut Ataru, mentions the fact that to date this new girl (whose name no one even mentions) would be "cheating" on current girlfriend Lum. Ataru, who can only focus on one hot girl at a time, offers to let Mendou take custody of Lum.
Even though Lum's tigerskin bikini is concealed, it doesn't take much effort to see the "tiger" struggling to burst forth from beneath the facade of the "ordinary girl." There can only be one compensation for having heard her love-mate offer to callously trade her to another man like a baseball card. She must get him to willingly "swear to be faithful unto death," and Ataru, still besotted with passion, does so without a second thought.
Ataru pays for his lustful nature when Lum reveals her true nature, her normally tiny horns elongating three times their normal length, just to signal how mad she is. Yet she doesn't shock him or even punch him, but only pins him to the floor, repeating the promise he's now made to her, "Unto death, darling! Unto death!" The similarity to the English phrase "until death do us part" may not be in the original Japanese. But her act of pinning him down suggests that this time he's bound himself to her, as if she were a demon who had to be invited to take possession of her victim. And she's triumphed over Shinobu as well. At the start of the story, Shinobu may not be actively trying to win Ataru any more, but Lum sees that the Earthgirl has an advantage in being what an Earthman considers "ordinary." Lum's masquerade screens out all the extraterrestrial aspects that "alienate" the boy she's chosen for her own, and this proves that Lum can beat Shinobu in a contest of purely ordinary feminine charms.
On a semi-related note, the last panel also sets up future "eternal quadrangle" action, in which Lum pursues Ataru, Ataru pursues Shinobu, Shinobu pursues Mendou and Mendou pursues both women, but Lum more than Shinobu.
In all likelihood, had I the ability to read Japanese, I strongly doubt that I would find a single later reference to this story anywhere in the rest of the URUSEI corpus. Takahashi has continuing characters noodle over past actions in her more soap-operatic MAISON IKKOKU, but not here. Still, though HORNS makes absolutely no reference to Ataru's non-proposal in the first tale, the overarching history of the characters makes HORNS more mythic than the average "current girl pretends to be new girl" folderol. I won't say that Takahashi felt the need to "justify" Lum's almost unshakable devotion to, and obsession with, her Earthbound choice. But I think it suited Takahashi's perverse sense of humor to put Ataru in the position where he has an immediate response, almost on an instinctual level, to Lum's insuperable glamour, once all of the associated weirdness is put out of the way. The very fact that Lum affects Ataru so deeply may be part of the reason he keeps chasing women who can never mean as much to him.
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