This Week in Anime

Is There A Need for Tenchi?

Coop
Steve, for as long as you and I have been into anime, there has always been one indisputable truth: we can't escape it, ain't no use in trying... And by "it" we speak of the oldtaku favorite, Tenchi Muyo! The series has sporadically popped up over the past 30 years with continuations of the original Ryo-Ohki OVA series and a whole Tenchi universe of spin-offs—including a run of American-made comics! From the late 90s, these classic comics have garnered enough warm fuzzies (and moolah) to push the recent Kickstarter for a series omnibus way past the finish line!

I might not have the fuzzies for the comics myself, but oh boy, do I have my own particular love for this found family of chaotic characters.

There is just so much Tenchi... but here's the basic gist of the series for readers who haven't heard of it before: Tenchi Masaki is a teenager living out in the countryside with his architect dad and shinto priest grandpa. As the leaves are about to fall, a series of extraterrestrial circumstances end up opening the Masaki house to an alien princess, her little sister, a mad scientist, a pair of space cops, and a wily space pirate!

Ryoko, the space pirate, rules by the way... However, looking at the whole series through a wider lens, our formative experiences might be the best place to start.

Hearing Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen, deliver a Tenchi Muyo! plot synopsis is wild... I might have seen this specific promo back then, because I remember being confused for years on the difference between the original 1992 Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA series and the 1995 Tenchi Universe TV series. It was probably because this trailer uses footage from both. Then again, I was seven years old when the promo originally aired in 2000.

However, I remember seeing bits of an episode from the OVA series in which the resident science gremlin, Washu, dotes on motherhood while she watches after Tenchi's baby cousin.

It's funny you bring up Utena again, because Tenchi Universe is another recently discovered favorite of mine. While I'd had the series in my mind as "that old Toonami show I keep, that's always got people talking" for years, it took me forever to actually sit down and watch it. Not long after I started Dude, You Remember Macross? in 2019 with my talented friend, Dylan, he started throwing the occasional Tenchi Universe recommendation my way. A few years later, I was finally sold on it thanks to a little video by multimedia artist Hazel.

Tenchi fully came into my life at the right time as I was laid up after horribly throwing out my back in late 2021. It was probably as painful for me to walk as it was for someone to watch me do it—it was that bad! Universe warmly invited me to spend time with it and get to know its entire cast. It was doubly relieving because I'd just made a cross-country move out of necessity, and I wasn't feeling the hottest about that either.

A continuity so absurd, Funimation had to put a handy chart on the back of the most recent DVDs.

"KIYOOOOOOOONE, KIYONE WHERE ARE YOU?"

Mihokiyo till the day I die.

This is a good chance for me to say that I prefer Universe as well. The TV series has a wholesome, found family vibe that I find myself doting over regularly. I don't mind the more sexually charged nature of the OVAs, but it gets a little weird for my tastes when the audience starts to learn how everyone is related. Ryo-Ohki has a kid with Tenchi?

This Ryo-Ohki?

Well, technically not THAT Ryo-Ohki, but it's an element that's cooled my enthusiasm on the OVAs. If you're into the OVAs, dear reader, more power to you.

For sure, and I hope whoever slaved away at that paintover was decently paid! Cause damn, that's a lot of work!

It would be an insane amount of work, but this would be cool to see replicated in a future home video release. I probably just made an editor break out in a cold sweat. Anyway, the aforementioned (and still decently available for now) DVD release of Tenchi Universe is going on 13 years old as of this writing.

I wouldn't call this an amazing release, but it has character for days. From its VHS-esque video quality to the edited-on-video title overlays and occasional typos in the credits, these quirks really make it feel like a product of the 90s in all the best ways possible. It reminds me of when I popped my childhood copy of the Sonic OVA into the family VHS player growing up. I'd love a brand-new Blu-ray release at some point, but this set feels right to me.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! is interesting as it features the return of original English cast members like Petra Burchard as Ryoko and Universe director Hiroshi Negishi. However, I'll admit that Universe is probably Negishi's best-regarded work. I don't believe Burn-Up W, Divergence Eve, and Amazing Nurse Nanako are all that fondly remembered.

And that last one scarred me.

I feel the same. I mentioned this era of dubs when we chatted about GQuuuuuuX's dub a month back, but the original English Tenchi cast is the exact cross-disciplinary melting pot of actors I was talking about. There might be the occasional wonky line read, but the cast breaths so much idiosyncratic life into these characters that wouldn't be there otherwise.

That's probably why I haven't gone too far outside the Universe branch of the series. Then again, that branch treated me pretty well with a wonderful show and a pair of fantastic movies.

These DVDs might be from the era of interactive menus and chapter selection as special features, but it's one of the easier ways to physically nab these flicks today. Tenchi in Love sticks in my mind as one of the DVDs I'd see at the local video store and think "I shouldn't let my mom know I'm looking at this." That "TENCHI THE MOVIE" logo was burned into my brain for a while. And while I dig In Love for its Back to The Future hijinks, Tenchi Forever! might actually be the best Tenchi anything.

What stood out to me about Forever is how it serves as the sobering counterpoint to Universe's ending. Yes, the festival is going to come around every fall, but you might not be there. In Tenchi's case, he's looking toward what's next in his life, and the girls might not be around for all of it, even if they want to be. The main driving force of the film—Tenchi's sudden disappearance—finally pushes Ayeka and Ryoko to examine the status quo of not only their relationship with their beloved boy, but between themselves as well. The film feels like the proper next step for the series in ways that my encounters with the other entries haven't.

With the bit I've heard about the more recent entries in the OVA series, I've found myself wishing for a return to Tenchi Universe that is the same kind of "next step" Forever is. I keep thinking about a hypothetical follow-up about the wild summer Tenchi's daughter has with her weird aunts while he's away on business or the like... Giving new viewers a chance to see this world through new eyes while also showing longtime fans how these beloved characters and their relationships have changed over the years. Like Eda from The Owl House is the Aunt Ryoko that floats around in my brain.

I'll give them points for that ballsy move, but I haven't heard a lick about War on Geminar aside from its existence. Speaking of things people were asking for, I was pleased when I noticed a blurb in Comic Omnibus Kickstarter that talked a little about the future of Tenchi Muyo!. It seems to imply that the campaign was a way for the involved parties to gauge the demand for more Tenchi—be it comics, games, or a new anime series.

Those Pretty Cures could probably learn a thing or two from the OG Pretty.

This column is now a Ryoko appreciation post.

Ryoko sure does have a "Lum with a husky 90s edge" vibe. They both fly, have multiple love rivals, and can shoot lightning! It might not exactly be a "Daniel and the cooler Daniel" situation, but I can fully get behind a similar reading.

That's living the dream.