Tenchi Muyo: Ultimate Edition Pioneer 420 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 06/01/1999

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So here we go. I knew it had to come sometime, but I really didn't want it to. Tenchi is the longest thing I've needed to re-review, clocking in at a rather impressive 13 episodes of a show I only peripherally enjoy, mostly for its character designs. That means that I have to sit there for about six hours straight watching a show that I don't really want to watch, but I have to lest you see the shameful stain that was one of my very first anime reviews (And probably by far my worst). I'm currently hitting about episode ten, and I decided to just throw reviewing ethics to the side and get this started because nothing really happens after this point anyway. That's something that always irks me about these shows. I can do episodic, I can do big drama-style stuff...but I really hate it when people but the two together. Up until episode eight there's at least some semblance of an ongoing story, a bad dude breaks out of prison and the whole crew (including lusty space pirates!) has to stop him and save the universe! (That may've been the Tenchi Movie though. Evil space dictators kind of run together after awhile, you know?) But once all that's over all of a sudden this crew of hardened warriors (and badass space pirates) are suddenly off to take care of babies and trapsing around nakedly at the hot spring.

 

Fair enough, the hot springs episode happened before the main story arc ended, but it still pissed me off and I wanted it somewhere. So great, I get seven episodes of fairly reasonable space adventure and six episodes of OMGWHACKYHIJINKS!?!?!LOL!!!!!!! In case you didn't know (and I would hope you did know) whacky hijinks aren't exactly my cup of tea. They did the same thing at the end of Bubblegum Crisis, a show I liked, and THAT totally killed the last two episodes for me, so you can imagine that Tenchi really doesn't have much of a chance in hell at this point. But hey, it's still Tenchi, so you really can't say too much against it. If nothing else, it kick-started a pretty big thing in the anime style, especially over on this side of the world. That doesn't mean I have to love it when it suddenly gets obsessed with jokes about peeing (and believe me, it does!), and I don't have to like it when there's multiple naked bath scenes in the span of the show, but like I said...it's still Tenchi. I've never dug on the concept of harem anime, it doesn't do a thing for me...but at least Tenchi doesn't pander AS MUCH as some of these other ones do, you know?

 

The story of Tenchi, if you've lived under a rock since you were born and are only now emerging to face the daylight and the marvels of this modern world, is of the high school boy that is the title character. Young Tenchi is enjoying his summer vacation at his Grandfather's shrine when he's finally given the opportunity to look inside a forbidden cave that he's been hanging around his whole life. What he finds in there is a crappy rusted sword and a decrepit-type mummy. He flees, jokes about it the next day, and falls asleep on the roof of the school. That's when the mummy (now a super hot space pirate!) comes back to settle the score for seven hundred years of being pent up in a dank cave. Only Tenchi gets away and she follows him home and all of a sudden she's totally in love with him. What the fuck? The first time I saw this show, years and years ago, I had to do a double take. I was like fourteen at the time, but I still knew something was wrong with the whole concept of this. I mean, come on! What kind of moral is that? Run away from a hot chick trying to kill you and you'll totally score the next night? Sure, maybe, but what really pisses me off is, mid-way through the series, Ryoko (the space pirate) reveals that she's been watching Tenchi her entire time in the cave and she's grown quite fond of him.

 

Quite fond of him, right? That's almost verbatim (No it's not, but pretend it is). Well that's weird...because usually when I find myself attracted to a member of the opposite sex I don't often try to BLOW THEIR ASS UP WITH LASERS IN THE FIRST EPISODE. That might just be me, I'm not a spikey haired space pirate (whose costume in this picture is half the reason I've watched the show) but it would seem like pretty logical reasoning, if you ask me. This would have to be about the biggest act of retconning in the history of modern cinema. But don't mention it to any fans, you might go about regretting it. You know, I wanted to do this boxed set in two seperate reviews (it would've been much safer for my general constitution) but I decided I'd rather just get it out of the way now instead of letting it linger. I don't think I have it in me to do another write up for this show. I can just see it now: "Another evil space scientist? Holy shit, I'm shocked!" Both you and I are fortunate that we don't have to go through it. If you like this style of comedy show, or whatever, Tenchi's certainly for you. If you like seeing a weird green haired robot/space pirate naked more often than she is clothed then you've probably got more problems than harem anime. That's something we'll save for some other show though. By the way guys, the pee jokes? Classic.