No Need to Review Tenchi: What This Is and How it Came to Be

Welcome to my blog.

So in the past year or so, I have recently been reacquainted with an old friend. One who was there for me when I would come home from school and one who I never saw myself seeing again. I had grown and long since forgotten this friend, but it somehow found a way of working its way back into my life.

Given the title of the blog, I assume you realize that the friend is Tenchi Muyo!. 

I've never understood why Kagato was wearing a straw hat in this image.

Now this may be odd given the nature of this show, but I am not what I would consider to be an anime fan.

Pilate crucify him! Crucify him!

Now please, before you up and leave the blog before it began, let me clarify. I recognize the merits of a lot of anime and know that they are beloved by millions of people around the world. I am just not interested in most of the shows that come out of Japan. If I were to compose a short list of the anime/manga franchises that I enjoy(ed), it would probably look like this:

Dragonball

One Piece

G Gundam (which, to be fair, I have not seen in ages, but I loved that show.)

And, of course, Tenchi!

Now I’m 25 years old and was an avid watcher of Toonami when it first aired on Cartoon Network. Hence I was the perfect age to catch Tenchi when it had its initial run on the block. My first memory of the show happened to be catching the tail end of the episode “Sasami and Tsunami” at my Grandmother’s house and having absolutely no idea what the hell I was watching. 

It took me about a month before I managed to catch this mysterious show again. I forget what episode it was, but I finally had a name and some notion of what was going. It helped that I finally saw the Toonami promo they put out for the show, narrated by Peter Cullen. You all know Peter Cullen right?

You know, the voice of the Red Skull? I don’t think he did anything else of importance. 

But what IS Tenchi Muyo!? I can tell you in one word: complicated.

We in America are used to shows potentially spawning off new franchises based on the same characters. In the span of twenty years, we have seen Batman the Animated Series, The Batman, Batman: Brave and the Bold, and Beware the Batman. That is four different Batmen on four different shows (discounting Kevin Conroy’s appearances in Justice League, Superman, and Batman Beyond). They all have their own animation style and it is clear that they are very different shows involving the same character.

This is Steve Blum.

I own that shirt too Steve, but I will never get to do that. Well played sir.

This man is a rather prolific voice actor. What is probably his most famous role? 

Great part, but no.

Memorable, but no.

Damn good job, but no.

Well, this one could be argued.

There you go.

Blum, who coincidentally worked on the first Tenchi movie, has been Wolverine in over 20 Marvel projects. But while you can clearly draw the line between this:

And this:

Some lines are a lot harder to blur. When it came on, people had no idea if Avengers Assembled was a sequel to Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. What was a common link? Blum as Wolverine appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man, which is cannon with Avengers Assembled, but not Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes despite all of the shows sharing the same voice actors for Hulk and Spider-Man as well, which is in continuity with both Wolverine and the X-Men and Hulk Vs.

Oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.

What does any of this have to do with Tenchi? Well, more than you think.

You see, when Toonami aired Tenchi, it promoted Tenchi as a whole. As in, one continuing franchise. The problem that you may not see, dear reader, is that there were three separate Tenchi shows at the time. Each show had its own origin and backstory, but shared several of the same characters who were voiced by the same voice actors (mostly) and the same basic premise, which boils down to this:

Tenchi Masaki is a teenager from Okayama, Japan who leads a very dull, but peaceful, life. He lives with his father, Nobuyuki, and his grandfather, Katsuhito. His mother, however, died when Tenchi was a child. On a day unlike any other, Tenchi encounters a space pirate named Ryoko, who ends up living with him and his family. This leads to several other alien women coming to live with the boy, and nearly all of them have the hots for him. Some of these girls include:

Ayeka Jurai: The oldest princess of the Planet Jurai.

Sasami Jurai: Ayeka’s younger sister. She likes to cook.

Mihoshi Kuramitsu: A clumsy member of the Galaxy Police. She may or may not have a partner named Kiyone Makibi.

Washu Hakubi: The greatest scientific genius in the universe. She may or may not have pre-established ties to Ryoko.

Ryo-Ohki: A cabbit (half cat, half rabbit) that turns into a spaceship and eats carrots. Yes, you read that right.

And that’s really where the similarities in premises end. 

But what is it about Tenchi that works, especially to a person who by all accounts should not be interested in this? What makes Tenchi interesting?

I am honestly not sure.

Is it the giant Star Wars influence? Perhaps. The similarities between this show and Star Wars will become readily apparent and be sure to expect me to point them out. 

It is not this blatant, but it is close.

Is it the harem aspect? Holy hell, no. That is my least favorite thing about this franchise, which is odd because it is a driving force behind it. I can honestly say I do not enjoy this franchise for its romance.

Which is good to an extent, because the romance in the OVA is screwed up beyond all reason *Image taken from AstroBoyNerd's Tenchi FAQ. Get used to that URL, it will come back again.*

The key to understanding and enjoying Tenchi, I think, is that it is less about plot (for the most part), but about the connections between characters. Tenchi is, well, a bland character. He is nice and well mannered, but that’s really it. At least, on the surface. In fact, that’s the joke. In Japanese, Tenchi Muyo! translates into No Need for Tenchi, as in “Tenchi is kind of useless.” That’s an actual joke in the great Manga offshoot, and it is wonderful. The reason Tenchi is like this is mainly so the audience can relate to him. People want to think that if they are kind and live a good life, good things can happen. What good things happen to Tenchi?

Well, he discovers that he has an important destiny, hidden powers, and gains anywhere between 5-7 new female housemates. All in all, a pretty sweet deal, if that’s what you are into. This is a sweet deal for us, because each female house guest brings their own personality to the table and our enjoyment is watching these characters interact with each other. 

Which raises up a fantastic point about this series: what do people think about where the relationships will end up? There are a grand total of five outcomes for the franchise. These are:

A)     Tenchi chooses one girl (typically either Ryoko or Ayeka).

B)     Tenchi marries every girl (in what is known as a harem ending).

C)     Tenchi does not choose and continues his adventures together as a united group of friends.

D)     Tenchi does not choose any of the girls, but settles down with an Earth girl once the adventures are over.

E)      Tenchi dies.

Now of all of these, you might be asking which choice I would go with. If I had to pick one, it would probably be Option C. Why? Because I don’t like this series for its romance. I like it for the characters and the situations they end up in. This show may be considered part of a “harem” genre, but it really isn’t. There isn’t any actual adult content in the show. The nudity that is present is there because several of the stories are a slice of life tale. Ryoko is doesn’t wear a towel in the onsen episodes because that is her character, while Ayeka wears her towel because she is a prude. It is the small things that make this show enjoyable, at least to me.

I think this is a good place to get started with the actual recaps. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to continue to discuss the franchise’s importance throughout this blog while I try to truly figure out what it is about Tenchi that I really connect to, but I want to dissect this series episode to episode. Specifically, I want to look at the main Tenchi universes and see how well they hold up. That means Tenchi Muyo! (the OVA), Tenchi Universe, and *shudder* Tenchi in Tokyo. Of the three, I have the least experience with Tokyo, so that one will be a new experience. So coming up next we have the first ever episode of Tenchi Muyo!: “Ryoko Resurrected!”