Tenchi Muyo The Movie #2:
Daughter Of Darkness

Pioneer

60 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
03/31/1998

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When I watch Tenchi I almost feel bad, because I'm watching something that the vast majority of anime fandom loves with a passion and the only thing that can make me half-care about it is drunken space pirates, and even that's a fleeting placebo at best. I do feel a little bad, yeah, but then I think that many of these people like crap like this. That's just about the time when I stop feeling bad for not being totally in love with the series that is Tenchi. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a group of people out there who like the Tenchi continuity AND are normal at the same time, but they're probably mostly dudes and I'm not going to go out of my way to meet them.

For all that though, there's no way I could feel bad about not like the second movie, Daughter of Darkness as it is known on this side of Pacific Ocean. I'll lay it right on the line for you, Daughter of Darkness is far and away the worst thing I have ever seen in the so called "Tenchi-verse" (Though I have yet to take in Tenchi in Tokyo with all its cellphone-monstery goodness). It's boring, it's trite, it feels too long at only an hour, and they already did it. In case you weren't paying attention when you last read that part, let me repeat it for you. THEY ALREADY DID IT! They already did this and they're doing it again!

 

Sure, they want you to think it's different, but it's really not. The skeleton plot is this: Someone hates a main character and sends a wolf in sheep's clothing out to kill them because they're all grumpy because of something that happened thousands of years ago. The only problem is that their "wolf" suddenly falls in love with Tenchi for no reason other than that he's Tenchi (hey, it worked for every OTHER character in the show) and that's just what you do when you're around the guy. Now the 'creator' person is all mad and makes the clone/fake lover do their job and then everyone wants to save the clone/fake lover even though they tried to kill the person that they're all in love with, Tenchi.

This might not immediately sound familiar (though the 'we'll all band together and protect you even though you tried to kill our friend' thing is a refrain I'm really getting tired of in the animated medium) but think back to the end of the Tenchi OVAs. Remember the one about the doctor who makes the robot that looks like Ryoko to go kill Tenchi so he can piss Washu off? What the hell! Just replace 'doctor' with 'evil Christmas Elf'' and 'Washu' with 'Tenchi's grandpa' and it's basically the same exact thing! Except Mayuka, the assasin, isn't a robot.

 

You're saddened, I know, I was too. But she's not a robot, no, she's TENCHI'S DAUGHTER. I know that whoever made this decided that this slight change was plenty enough for them to pass it off as something totally new and cool, but I'm on to them. I've seen enough Tenchi now to know what's going on. Hell, I've seen enough Tenchi now that even Ryoko's mistreatment of everyone in the show has started to wear thin on me. When I start having trouble liking even the space pirates in a show, that's when you know there's a storm'a'brewin'.

So Mayuka comes to town and there's the requisite scenes. First everyone hates her, except Tenchi. Then she gets all latched on to Tenchi and everyone else hates her even more. Then Ryoko tries to hurt her (for other shows, just replace Ryoko with the fiesty one). Then, for no real reason, everyone decides that they want to be friends with her. I could've written the script for this movie before I even watched it, that's how painfully predictable it is. Everything happens when it happens, I just kept hoping for the "Hero has a moment of doubt before someone pops in and gives them the power to go on scene" to come so I could start doing something else. It's rare that an anime isn't really bad, just incredibly boring.

 

You know, I'm not the biggest Tenchi fan in the world, but I certainly don't -hate- the series either. I had a passable interest in the first movie and the only reason I didn't really like the original OVAs is because when I watched them for review I did it all in one six hour mega-marathon, so I wasn't really too interested in seeing anything else involving the cast and crew ever again. The sad thing is, now that I'm reflecting on it, I think I'd actually prefer watching those six hours over again than dealing with this sixty minutes.

No I wouldn't, that's a total lie, but it illustrates a point. I don't want to have to watch this -ever- again. As humorous as the idea of evil teddy bears are, I don't think even that is enough to call me back to this. When I want evil, bladed bears, I need to look no further than Silent Hill. Then all get all the horror of children's toys come to life without having to deal with a series that retreads -itself- and little villains who look like they'd be more suited as a plush doll than they would causing any trouble in the real world. Last week I said I was tired of anti-heros constantly cropping up in anime, I'm also tired of cutesy stupid villains popping up too. It's almost an anime law that a show nowadays can't exist without a villain that's half covered in fur or one who wears pointy shoes. Is it too much to ask for a villain without a ridiculous hat or a ridiculous beard once in awhile? Done right, it can be hilarious. Don't wrong though...it's absolutely tragic. The simple existance ofDaughter of Darkness exists is sadder than a thousand MacBeths.