'Tenchi Muyo!': No Need For A Retrospective!

TV & Film

Jul 22

There have been many long running anime franchises over the years, from Yoshiyuki Tomino’s genre redefining Gundam series, to Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball sagas. In that sense, Tenchi Muyo!, created by Masaki Kajishima, can be seen as contemporary to these shows. From its start in the 90’s, Tenchi Muyo! would go on to define the “Harem” sub-genre of romantic comedy, and inspire a plethora of spinoffs, adaptations and more. Tenchi Muyo! has a complex history, surprising deep lore, and at least three major continuities, so it will take a while to sort everything out. We can start with a simple overview of some major characters and work our way from there.

The main hero is 17 year old Tenchi Masaki (voiced by Masami Kikuchi in Japanese), an average high school boy whose life is turned upside down when women from space come to live with him. His first love interest is Ryoko (Ai Orikasa), a notorious space pirate with several different abilities. She is followed shortly after by Ayeka (Yumi Takada, later replaced by Haruhi Nanao) a princess from the planet Jurai who develops a rivalry with Ryoko. Rounding out the cast are Sasami (Chisa Yokoyama), Ayeka’s little sister, Mihoshi (Yuko Mizautani -> Michie Tomizawa) a Galaxy Police officer who’s both clumsy and ditzy, Ryo-Ohki (Etsuko Kozakura) a furry creature resembling a cross between a cat and a rabbit, who can transform into Ryoko’s spaceship, eccentric scientist Washu (Yuko Kobayashi), Tenchi’s perverted architect father Nobuyuki (Takeshi Aono -> Ken Uo), and his Shinto priest grandfather Katsuhito (Aono -> Katsuyuki Konishi), who has a secret connection to Jurai. Joining them in some continuities is Kiyone (Yuri Amano), Mihoshi’s partner who is annoyed by her personality.

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Tenchi Muyo began with an OVA titled Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki, Produced by Pioneer LDC and animated by AIC. The story starts when Tenchi, ignoring his grandfather's warnings, accidentally unseals the “demon” of the family shrine, who turns out to be Ryoko. Soon, Ayeka and Sasami come to earth, seeking Ryoko and the lost Juraian prince, to whom Ayeka was betrothed, Yosho (Takehito Koyasu). This sets off a chain of events that leads to the arrival of the series main antagonist, Kagato (Norio Wakamoto), Katuhito being unmasked as Yosho, and a battle between Kagato and the mysterious Tsunami (Yokoyama), who appears to have a connection to Sasami.

This OVA was a success, and followed by two special episodes, The Night Before the Carnival and Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special. This was followed by another series of six episodes, which fleshed out the characters, answered some lingering questions, and introduced a new villain, Dr. Clay (Seizo Kato), who is working with the mysterious entity Tokimi (Yumi Tōma), and has his robot Zero (Orikasa) capture and impersonate Ryoko. These series would be lumped together for broadcast on Toonami, minus the Mihoshi special, complete with an English dub by Pioneer’s American branch; voice actors included Matt Miller, Petrea Burchard, Jennifer Darling, Sherry Lynn, Kate T. Vogt and Ellen Gerstell. The OVAs featured a mix of action, comedy, romance and some surprisingly deep lore; the above picture is a family tree, taken from the OVAs.

The next major incarnation of the Tenchi Muyo series would be a 26 episode television series co-produced with TV Tokyo, called Tenchi Universe in the west. The story was a loose rewrite of the storyline of the first series of OVAs, split into three chapters, one focused on the earth, a three episode story centered on what if scenarios, and a story arc centered on space. It simplified much of the story and lore, and Kiyone was added to the main cast.

The show was a hit, and a follow up was sure to follow. Another 26 episode television series, this time with Sotsu, would air in 1997, titled Shin Tenchi Muyo! or Tenchi in Tokyo in English. Tenchi moves to Tokyo to apprentice at a local shrine, causing some friction with the woman living in his house, not helped when he meets a new girl, Sakuya Kumashiro (Mayumi Iizuka), all the mysterious Yugi (Akiko Yajima) begins a new plot. Despite being the most plot intensive of the shows, the show was also the silliest yet, and had no connection to the prior continuities. This, alongside low production values, has caused many to label In Tokyo as the weakest of the main continuities. Universe fans, however, had already gotten a more proper followup.

There were three movies based on Tenchi Muyo!: Tenchi Muyo! in Love, Midsummer’s Eve (Daughter of Darkness), and Tenchi In Love 2 (Tenchi Forever). The In Love movies take place in the TV timeline, while DoD is based on a novel and comes across as a mix of OVA and TV. In Love features a galactic criminal who breaks out of prison and goes to kill Tenchi’s mother Achika (Megumi Hayashibara) in the past, dragging everyone else in. Daughter of Darkness focuses on Mayuka (Junko Iwao), a mysterious girl who claims to be Tenchi’s daughter. Forever features Tenchi being transported to another world, where he has a sexual romance with a mysterious individual. Of the three, In Love is generally the most well regarded, with many fans latching onto Achika as Tenchi’s mother.

With the 2000’s came a new series. Co-produced with Nippon Television and VAP, Tenchi Muyo! GXP was a 26 episode television series in the OVA timeline. The series focused on Seina Yamada (Shigeru Mogi), an unlucky classmate of Tenchi’s, who ends up press ganged into the Galaxy Police and forming his own little “harem”. This was followed by a new OVA season, in which an incident with the Galaxy Police slowly unravels into a new plot involving Tokimi, the mysterious warrior Z (Eiji Hanawa) and a new girl, Noike (Naomi Shindō), who may have a connection to an old foe. GXP is not needed to watch this new series, though GXP does reference some events that took place.

Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, released in North America as Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar, would be a spin off of the OVA timeline. Taking place 15 years after GPX, the story centers around Tenchi’s younger half brother Kenshi Masaki (Hiro Shimono), who is transported to the alien world of Geminar. The nations of Geminar wage war in mecha called Sacred Mechanoids; through various events, Kenshi is made the bodyguard of the young ruler Lashara Earth XXVIII (Madoka Yonezawa), and would be sent to train as a Sacred Mechanoid pilot, gaining the attention of female pilots. This would in turn be followed by two more series of the OVAs, produced by productions committees that included Pony Canyon, both of which directly tied into War on Geminar, while the fifth featured the long awaited marriage of Tenchi to every girl in his harem, bringing his story to an ending, at least for now.

While Tenchi’s story was being told and re-told, Sasami had her own set of spin-offs. Magical Girl Pretty Sammy was an ova series that placed her in a parody Magical Girl setting, something introduced by the Mihoshi Special. Tsunami, here reimagined as an inhabitant of Juraihelm, chose Sasami to act as her representative on Earth, in her bid as queen, Ryo-Ohki served as her mentor and “mascot”. Tsunami’s rival Ramiya (Maya Okamoto), aided by her younger brother Rumiya (Tomoko Ishimura) try to upstage her by brainwashing Sasami’s shy friend Misao Amano (Rumi Kasahara) into Pixy Misa, who serves as the primary foe for Pretty Sammy. THis premise would be recycled in the television series Magical Project S, though several characters and details are different between the two. Sasami: Magical Girls Club would also reuse a similar concept, but bore little resemblance to the previous incarnations.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! is a curious thing, as it was produced to promote tourism to the city of Takahashi, Okayama, as well as celebrate the franchise’s 20th anniversary. A series of 60, 4 minute shorts aired on Tokyo MX, Ai Tenchi Muyo! revolves around Tenchi posing as a teacher at an all girls’ school, in order to stop a potentially life ending crisis. Though this is the final incarnation of the story, this is not getting into other mangas, books and more, which expand upon the universes of Tenchi Muyo! in many ways.

As stated before, Tenchi Muyo! was a pioneer of the “Harem” sub genre of anime romantic comedies, which may be part of why it's not so popular anymore. In the 2000’s and 90’s, Tenchi Muyo! was popular in Japan and one of the first titles to be popular in the west, however, it’s become less popular and the latest installments have been targeted mainly at nostalgic adults. The harem genre has become more popular, with shows like Love Hina!, Girls Bravo and (partially) Negima! Magister Negi Magi taking inspiration from Tenchi Muyo! while being popular in their own right. Despite this, Tenchi Muyo! maintains a following, and new spin-offs have been released as late as 2023. There may not be a need for Tenchi, but his presence is certainly unforgettable.

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