Introduction:
For some folks, if you want
to see the best in the Tenchi Muyo franchise, then look no further than the
first television incarnation of the series. It’s got it all, tons of alien
girls, explosions, starship battles, catfights, not-quite lightsabers and of
course Tenchi, who is just as bland as ever.
Summary:
This might sound a little
familiar. Tenchi Masaki (Matt Miller) is just a normal high school kid, who
happens to live near his grandfather’s Shinto shrine. One day while heading to
school he runs into a hot blue haired girl who falls from the sky. Her name is
Ryoko (Petrea Burchard) and she brings a whole mess of trouble with her. Before
you know it, a ditzy blonde galaxy police officer, Mihoshi (Ellen Gerstell) is chasing
her down. Then the purple haired crown princess of planet Jurai, Ayeka
(Jennifer Darling) and her little sister Sasami (Sherry Lynn) arrive as well.
Turns out the intergalactic mad scientist Washu (Kate T. Voigt) was hidden away
in a cave (don’t ask), and is freed. Then Mihoshi’s long suffering partner
Kiyone (Sherry Lynn again) arrives to round out the cast.
After an incredibly silly
adventure through time and space (thanks to one of Washu’s wacky inventions)
the group finds themselves hurtling through the cosmos as intergalactic
fugitives. Turns out the new Emperor of Jurai may be the infamous Kagato
(Michael Scott Ryan). His goal is to remove anyone with the blood of Jurai from
his path. This includes Ayeka, Sasami, Tenchi’s grandfather and of course
Tenchi himself!
Good Points:
- The expansion of the interstellar kingdom of Jurai is interesting
- Kiyone is a great addition to the cast
- Some of the multiple episode storylines are fun
Bad Points:
- The cat fighting between Ayeka and Ryoko is mind numbing
- Mihoshi is worthless in just about every way
- The humor starts to feel really stale all too quickly
Overall:
For me this series just
doesn’t hold up. Poor pacing in the storytelling and weak execution of humor
really makes this series drag on and on. Mihoshi is the main source of my pain,
with nearly every plot point or story line involving her making things hurt
more. There are some fun moments here. The second half is much better than the
first but as a whole this series just fell flat.
Scores
(out of 5)
Visuals: 4
Sound: 3
Acting: 4
Script: 2
Music: 3
Direction: 2
Entertainment: 2
Total: 2
In Depth Review
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| Ryo Oki the Cabbit signals the commercial break. |
When it comes to the Tenchi
Muyo series, there are those who prefer the OAV series, and those who think Tenchi Universe is the king. Obviously
I’m a fan of the first OAV series (and choose to skip the second series when I
can). But it’s hard to deny the fact that Tenchi’s most popular incarnation
tends to be this first television series (a second series called Tenchi in Tokyo is usually on the
bottom of most anime fans ranking of the franchise). Two of the three films
followed this continuity, and most of the merchandise I’ve seen for Tenchi
usually points toward this story line.
Visually the animation in Tenchi Universe is about what you’d
expect from an anime of the period. It gets a little sloppy here and there.
Crowd scenes lack detail, and there’s some reuse of animation. But for the most
part it is solid. The character design is virtually the same as the OAV. Some
scenes, like Ryo-Oki’s transformation from Cabbit to spaceship are taken right
from the OAV.
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| Princess Ayeka attempts to make a deal with Ryoko. |
The second half of the
series features the cast fleeing across the universe, and so we get to see a
bit of a shake up in the design. Some of it is interesting, mostly the Galaxy
Police headquarters and the new fleet ships from Jurai. Other planets are less
interesting, ending up being typical anime tropes: the space port looks like a
Japanese mall, the “resort” planet is one giant beach, and so on.
The sound is also taken
right from OAV. That means you’ve got the same raiding from Skywalker sound
here as before. It works well enough. The music is also lifted right from the
OAV, with some new material by composer Nagaoka Sikou. It’s good stuff, but
very similar to his work on El Hazard.
As usual the opening and
ending songs are a bit of fun. The opening song really takes the cake being
pure fun 90s style J-pop. It’s called “Tenchi Muyo” and performed by the group
Sonia. But the English version performed by Kit Thomas is just as addictive and
is amazingly similar sounding in style. The end themes are light affairs. The
show would alternate between the two and while they are pleasant enough neither
makes much of an impression.
The acting in Tenchi Universe is still excellent. By
this point the English voice cast well secure in their roles. Since the story
is basically a rehash of the initial series, there wasn’t much new ground. All
that was needed was for the gals to go a bit more extreme in the acting. Both
Darling as Ayeka and Burchard as Ryoko get to shout and rant and rave quite a
bit more in this series. The side effect is that Darling becomes more shrill
and has been known to cause ear bleeding. Burchard can bellow with the best of
them. When these two get going, well let’s just say it’s been known to drive
some folks away from the show.
One of my favorite new
voices is Sherry Lynn’s performance as Kiyone. I never knew until this review
that Lynn was doing both Sasami and Kiyone – two characters that are on
opposite ends of the spectrum. Sasami is cute as a button and her voice
matches. Kiyone is a tough and dedicated Galaxy police officer, and Lynn
changes her voice to match. She helps build Kiyone’s ass kicking personality,
making her my favorite character in the series.
 |
| Tenchi, bland in any incarnation. |
Sadly, as awesome as Kiyone
is, the script just keeps failing to deliver for her and just about everyone
else. Since this is basically a retelling of the first OAV series, there are
few surprises in the story. Sure little things like, how Mihioshi arrives, or
who Kagato turns out to be are slightly different. But the overall story is the
same. Tenchi meets girls. Girls cause trouble. Kagato threatens everyone.
Tenchi faces Kagato and wins. Everyone is happy ever after - fighting over
Tenchi. The big issue here is the poor balance of plot and comedy. Yes, the OAV
series had its lighter moments, and the second series was mostly played for
laughs. But things just go to the extremes here.
There are whole episodes in Tenchi Universe dedicated to filler.
Nearly all these filler episodes contain a fun moment or two, but mostly they
consist of the following: Ryoko and Ayeka bicker, Mihoshi does something really
stupid, Kiyone rues her lot in life, Washu laughs like a loony and shows an
invention, Sasami and Ryo-Oki are cute, Tenchi is exasperated, Ryoko and Ayeka
come to blows and things explode. This kind of thing plagues the first half of
the series. The writers attempt to shake things up a bit with a bounty hunter
named Nagi (Julia DeMita) pursuing Ryoko and making things complicated. But in
the end she has a heart of gold, so no real threat there.
 |
| Sasami gets to play Sailor Moon in her alternate reality. |
The first half does end with
a fun three part story where one of Washu’s inventions sends the gang into
their own ideal parallel worlds. While parts of it do drag a bit, some of it is
very funny. I love Kiyone’s perfect world without Mihoshi (don’t blame her at
all there). Sasami’s perfect world where she is a super hero like Sailor Moon is a blast. This storyline
also gives Mihoshi and Ryoko a bit more to do than normal. Ryoko actually has a
poignant moment in her world that plays out well. Washu fans will be disappointed;
she ends up sitting around trying to fix her machine throughout the episodes.
The second half Tenchi Universe starts off well, with
Jurai forces arriving on Earth to arrest Ayeka and Sasami for treason. Ryoko’s
reaction to this is priceless. This type of comedy, built off the situations
and not falling into pure catfights is what the writers should have gone for.
Yes, Ryoko and Ayeka are rivals for Tenchi. Yes they are opposites, and don’t
like each other. But unlike the OAVs, neither one gains respect for the other.
The endless bickering and fighting end up dragging whole episodes down. This
can’t help but affect the series as a whole.
 |
| Kagato is just as evil in this incarnation. |
A few episodes are spent
getting the heroes into space and escaping from the Galaxy police. Those work
well enough, but the middle portion of the second half, as the characters
wander around, falls on tired formula. One of the worst offenders is the “we
have no money and can’t eat or power the ship” storylines. This occurs in at
least three episodes in this series and was a staple of space travel anime in
the 1990s (it was a running gag in Cowboy
Bebop and Outlaw Star and wore
out it’s welcome just as quick there). Anyone looking for fan service will
enjoy the episode where the gals enter a bathing suit contest on the resort
world. But most of the time, these episodes are pointless and dull. One
exception was a nice episode where Sasami meets a ghost on an abandoned ship.
The story has a nice resonance and gives Sasami a bit more of a personality.
Things pick up a great deal
when the crew reaches the checkpoint around the borders of Jurai controlled
space. Tension is raised from that episode forward. Revelations about Tenchi’s
past build on the story and Kagato finally takes some action himself, instead
of letting the galaxy police or Jurai military do all the work. These final
five episodes are some of the best in Tenchi
Universe and make you realize how entertaining the series could have been
if it had toned down the humor and built a solid storyline from the beginning (kind
of reminded me of George Lucas’ approach to the prequels of Star Wars actually).
The other huge benefit with
the second half is that there is a full-blown antagonist actually creating
conflict. Including Kagato in the story and having him actually attempting to
thwart our heroes makes you realize how empty the first half feels. Now don’t
get me wrong, I enjoy fun encounters and more humor based shows. But even
something like Ranma ½ knew that
including some kind of antagonist was key to helping the characters grow and
create some momentum in the plot.
 |
| Kiyone is just as annoyed by Mihoshi as I am. |
I already mentioned how old
the cat fighting gets, but my other huge problem with this series is how they
used Mihoshi. In the OAV series, she was blonde, a bit dense but still aware of
what she needed to do as a Galaxy police officer. Yes she was a klutz, but she
could pilot her ship well enough, and still managed to get her cases completed.
But this version of Mihoshi is beyond dumb: she’s rock stupid.
There is no way
in hell this woman would be in any position of law enforcement, no matter how incompetent
they were. Yes, I understand it’s supposed to be funny, but it is so against
any common sense, I can’t laugh at it. If the character was a ditzy actress or
something like that I’d be able to deal with Mihoshi. But the fact that she’s
supposed to be an officer and the fact that she is teamed with Kiyone is just poor
story construction. The writers basically create Kiyone as a foil to Mihoshi,
but she is actually a much more interesting character. Mihoshi is just painful
in this series, and her constant screw-ups that move the plot of the episodes
forward feel like a really bad writer’s crutch. The worst thing of all, as dumb
as she is here, she’s even worse in Tenchi
in Tokyo. Yeah I didn’t think it was possible either.
 |
| Ryoko is the queen of this series. |
The writing combined with
some really poor pacing within the episodes keeps me from enjoying this series
too much. In some ways, I can see why folks enjoy Tenchi Universe, more than the OAV. The world is expanded beyond
what the OAV eventually did. The second half has a momentum that the OAV series
never really got right. Some of the stories are pretty solid and entertaining. Some
of the humorous episodes really work, like the festival episode or the time and
space adventure series. But I think this might come down to the issue of which
one you were exposed to first. I started with the OAV series and the Daughter of Darkness movie. That
version of the characters seems the truest to me. Folks who started with this
series or the movie Tenchi in Love
often complain how flat the OAV characters are.
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