her sleep. Lum is considered the embodiment of the struggle facing modern Japanese women: how to be independent and still fulfill the traditional role of loving wife and mother. While she is very independent minded, she continues to be supportive and loving of Ataru no matter what happens throughout the entire series. Lum's relationship with Shinobu was initially very stormy, as Lum considered Shinobu to be Ataru's "mistress" and went to extraordinary lengths to disrupt the relationship between Ataru and Shinobu (including using her UFOs to jam Ataru and Shinobu's telephone calls and claiming that she was pregnant with Ataru's child). Eventually Shinobu realizes that Ataru really does love Lum and gives up on Ataru (eventually finding love with Inaba), and her and Lum's mutual hatred cools down into a somewhat terse friendship, though the two never do become close. Although Lum sees Mendou and Megane and his gang (Lum's Stormtroopers) as good friends and values their company, she does not return the affection they have for her, and makes it clear that she loves only her "Darling." Speech Lum refers to herself in the first person as , which is a trait of the western Japanese dialects including the Kansai dialect, and is famous for usually ending her sentences with or simply , which is a trait of the Sendai dialect. When used by itself, "daccha" means "Yes". This speech type is a rather saccharine, "cute" type of speech. A similar speech pattern appears in Takahashi's debut work , where the add at the end of all of their sentences. AnimEigo's English dub of the first two episodes of the TV series, Those Obnoxious Aliens, attempted to approximate Lum's "daccha" speech pattern with "icha," which in English means nothing. None of the other American- or British-made dubs of Urusei Yatsura TV episodes or movies have tried a similar English approximation of "daccha." Reception Lum is a well-known and popular character in Japan, and has been described as "the original Otaku dream girl". On 4 April 1982, Lum and other characters from Urusei Yatsura appeared in two public service announcements for the Kansai Electric Power Company regarding being careful with kites and koinobori around electrical lines. Fumi Hirano, the voice actress of Lum, did the main voiceovers for the commercials. Merchandise featuring Lum continues to be popular, and her image appears on a wide variety of printed, commercial, and electronic