Tenchi Universe is my favorite Tenchi series because it has a good combo of humor, epic space battles, Tenchi’s growth, best version of Kagato, movie tide ups, and a better mother of Tenchi: Achika.
I agree since I grew up with Tenchi Universe as well, along with Tenchi in Tokyo. Universe definitely had its flaws and while I'm not a huge fan of Tenchi, it was still a good run especially compared to Ryo-Ohki 3. Mainly in regards to Kagato and Tenchi' mother. I never saw Ryo-Ohki 3 cause I thought Tenchi ended with Tokyo. I only found about it years later and was surprised Tenchi was still going on. So I got a little curious about it, until I started to here a lot of mixed to negative opinions on it. I decided to watch a review and its turns out a lot of people including this youtuber are right. When I found out Kagato(the ONLY real villain in the franchise) was the male half a clone that swapped into 2 genders and that Tenchi mother Kiyone, fake her death just to pull a prank, I was more annoyed than anger. I don't mind the mother being flawed, but when its something that petty it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Its now wonder a lot of western fans like Universe better. Another thing Universe did well was giving us 2 original characters in Kiyone & Nagi. The only two main females who have no mantic interest in Tenchi.
Just watched this video, lots of comments (VERY LONG POST)... For some of us, we are older and discovered Tenchi years before Toonami was a thing. I discovered Tenchi shortly after it was released in the US in the early 90s when it was available on VHS (or Laserdisc if you had one). In my city, Tower Video had a good slate of anime titles to rent and sometimes buy. Suncoast Video in the malls had great anime too. So after renting it a few times, Tenchi was one of the first anime titles I purchased along with the other OG of harem anime, Ranma 1/2 and one of my personal favorites, Project A-ko. The first OVA was nearly perfect which is why it was so popular. It was a reverse-isekei so to speak where Tenchi's world gets turned upside down by him unwittingly freeing Ryoko which in turn summoned Ayeka and Sasami and eventually got the attention of Kagato, easily the best villain of the franchise. The anime forced you to just accept some pretty bizarre things like super long lived aliens living among us (and Tenchi's own family members), cute cabbit creatures that could transform into massive battleships and enough incest to make a royal family (spoiler alert...it is a royal family). Yikes. Still it was entertaining and even though years later Toonami edited the nudity of Ryoko and Ayeka for kids television, the incest stayed. Yikes again. OVA 2 was also good with introducing the Chosin goddesses and their interest with Tenchi, Dr Clay, Zero and the introduction of the Jurai royal family visiting Earth. And lastly, the abortive battle between Tenchi and Seriyo Tennan played strictly for laughs and introducing a major character in the later Tenchi Muyo GXP. I liked Tenchi Universe because it took the same concept characters and threw them in a bit in a blender....the alternate universe strategy of screenwriting. What it ended up leading to was the Tenchi Muyo! in Love movie, out of the same universe and not the OVA timeline. This allowed a story keeping the new long suffering popular Kiyone character and doing a Tenchi's mother story that ended up being better than what the OVA would do many years later. A fun fact.....Tenchi Muyo! in Love was one of the first anime DVDs to be released, if not the first since Tenchi was a very popular title back then. It was released in a CD case instead of the larger DVD case which would end up being the industry standard to this day. Tenchi Muyo in Love was a good film with a very different soundtrack courtesy of Michael Frankes of the Jazz Fusion band Tangerine Dream. Even though I was a big Sailor Moon fan, I never got into the Pretty Sammy stuff. I have it in my collection but don't feel a need to rewatch it. And Tenchi in Tokyo was pretty awful. The animation was the cheapest of any Tenchi title to date and the story wasn't much better. Daughter of Darkness was strange but forgettable. Tenchi Forever was just weird and very non-Tenchi in tone. And it was controversial in that it ended the post credit scenes with Tenchi choosing Ryoko over Aeka and breaking her heart. If you want to understand why the OVAs in later years went with the strategy of not breaking up the household, look no further than the end of that movie. At first, Dual just seemed like a stand alone thing....a battle robot isekai with lots of Evagelion nods. Then light hawk wings gets introduced toward the end and you realized "wait, this is a Tenchi universe thing after all???". But it took literally until OVA 5 to cement that as canon. Sometimes unless you are reading the manga, you have to wait a LONG time for Masaki to fill in all the connections to his different shows (looking at you Photon and Rutter). Unlike you, I actually like GXP. It basically reboots the entire concept inside of the Tenchi OVA timeline with the premise "what if Tenchi went out into space first and didn't stay on Earth". And that's basically GXP with Seina instead of Tenchi. Lots of comedy, enough drama to make it interesting, girls and fanservice...all the things that made Tenchi charming. And Seina takes the "luck vampire" problem of Mihoshi and turns it up to 11, so much so that it becomes a major part of the plot and ends up being a superpower. There's even a remark about it in the show about Seina being worse that Mihoshi and Mitoto. Speaking of Mihoshi, please don't refer to her by the "R" word. I have a 20 year old autistic son and I think we've moved past using that as a throwaway pejorative. Mihoshi is a well meaning but naive and scatterbrained nepo-baby. :) OVA 3 spent some time connecting the GXP and OVA storylines, bringing Lady Seto into the main story as a big political player. One missed opportunity with Season 3 is Noike. She's introduced as someone to shake up the household dynamic and ends up being a minor role player. Introducing Airi (who was already a major character in GXP) to Tenchi was another mind blowing thing as he begins to understand why he was kept in the dark about the broader family secrets. It's a Masaki rule until the child becomes of age and you could easily understand why. Which brings us to Tennyo. Yes, because Tenchi's sister is 80 years old, this is why he's not met her yet....she's been in space not physically aging. And yes, Yosho's apparent aging is a complete ruse for the same reasons. And Rei was introduced, a necessary character for the next chapter. War on Geminar is an interesting isekai story as a standalone but you had to literally wait a decade to learn much of the details on how that story unfolded in the broader Tenchiverse. And again, it took its cues from earlier mecha anime including Dual from years prior. OVA 4 was boring. All politics, no action....just a setup for OVA 5 and Geminar story. Honestly, I wonder why OVA4 and 5 didn't come out at the same time. The best part of OVA 4 was the last episode (only 4 in the season) which lays the groundwork for Geminar and delivers more gratuitous fanservice since GXP first debuted. OVA 5 is better...and still maddening. And we cannot talk about OVA 5 released in 2020 without talking about GXP 2, introduced in 2023 after this video was released. On the good side, OVA 5 was better because consequential stuff actually happened....namely that Tenchi decides to get married...TO ALL SEVEN HAREM GIRLS. And if you're a fan of this show since the beginning, it makes a lot of sense to begin with except for the fact you have to accept a number of things. 1. Tenchi is marrying two of the three Chousin goddesses. By this point Tenchi already has such godlike powers that you basically can't write for him anymore since he can't be challenged. And marrying Washu and Sasami/Tsunami pretty much guarantees that a young farmer in rural Japan is king of the universe. 2. He's marrying two sisters related to him...Ayeka and Sasami. Yikes. 3. He's marrying a mother (Washu) and two engineered daughters, one of whom is more animal/AI than humanoid (Ryo-ohki). Not to mention that Mihoshi is a great-descendant of Washu. Double-yikes. At least Ryoko makes a little bit of sense here since she was early in the Ryoko vs Ayeka competition. And Ryo-ohki has aged from a child to a adult (???) in a very brief amount of time. Noike is the one that doesn't have a problem in this scenario but what the hell, 7 is a lucky number and that matches rhe number of wives Seina took although four of them were political marriages.According to blogs, the first children sired will be from Ryoko, Ayeka and....Ryo-ohki. So Tenchi likes furries. But back to OVA 5 and GXP 2. OVA 5 is frustrating since it introduces characters that they assume you already know crossed over from the GXP Tabletop island story but you don't get that story since GXP2 didn't arrive unti 2023. Yes the pandemic likely had a role in the production time gap but OVA 5 and GXP 2 aren't even linear to one another. GXP 2 begins with Kenshi younger than the end of OVA 5 and ends with him older than OVA5. At this point, the OVAs and GXP are so intertwined that you can't tell one story without the other since both are trending toward the Geminar and Pirate Battle story arcs that involve Tabletop Island, But the non-linear storytelling where some characters in the later GXP2 get better introductions than when we first saw them in OVA 5 (like Jovia). More than a few times I wondered "who is that? Did I miss something??". Which is easy in an overall series universe with dozens of characters to keep track of and you can't write off characters from the 90s/2000s since you might see tham again. Just like we got reincarnated version of Dual characters back in this story....which forced me to rewatch that whole series over again. But Kenshi does leave for Geminar at the end of OVA 5 which is emotional. And the end of GXP 2 has an interesting cameo with Yosho speaking to some world leader about a recent attack on Tabletop Island warning the guy that he's way out of his league and that humans will be allowed to participate in the space technology when they are ready and that may not happen for decades or centuries. So to answer the question....do at least some of the world governments knows about the Masaki village? Yes but they can't do anything about it. Then there's AI Tenchi Muyo. I've yet to finish this. It never holds my attention long enough and again, the non-linear storytelling is frustrating especially when each episode is only five minutes long. So do I still love Tenchi? Yes. But 32 years into the series, the new stuff assumes you have been here for the entire ride so fewer and fewer fans are still left paying attention. And now both Tenchi and Seina are so overpowered that you can't write anything where they will be in actual danger. Its only love and politics from here on out.
I loved Tenchi back in the day. Back then tho we had no clue about these types of series. Seeing the same cast in another type of series, it was just new.
Fantastic review. The Tenchi OVA story line is my favorite, but I also enjoy Universe and the first movie. Dual is excellent. One of the best for sure. If I’m not mistaken, but El-Hazard is like a sister anime to Tenchi. If you haven’t checked it out then give it a chance. It’s my favorite out of this huge Tenchi/El-Hazard/Dual Universe. Keep up the great work.
dude i know these videos take a long ass time to make and this was helpful. I've been curious about this anime for a while, but mostly stayed away due to how confusing it was. glad to see you're back! also nice editing in the vid. looking forward to future videos.
The energy I felt, becoming in tune with Tenchi is one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had. And I've successfully connected with psilocybin mushrooms.
I watched Tenchi over 20 years ago and loved it! Now I’m overwhelmed with all the different versions, I’m on a mission to find which one it was I had been obsessed with. Thanks for the run down.
You certainly covered everything. Me personally I enjoyed watching Tenchi Universe and a bit of Tenchi on n Tokyo, and GXP. Didn’t really watch the movies, OVA’s, and or spin-off series. The two series you mentioned being set in the “Tenchi Universe” were new for me since I’ve never heard of either one of them but now I do so thanks for mentioning them. Keep up the good work.
I grew up watching the first 2 series of Tenchi through toonami. I eventually discovered the manga which carried the same charm of the show. But its crazy to think this franchise is still running. I just recently discovered GXP has a new series coming out.
I found this channel via /r/retroanime. You have an awesome voice! Looking forward to discovering/rediscovering some classic anime here. Ryoko has great style and I loved her voice in the 90s english dubs. I think a lot of Tenchi sets up some very cool stuff that it fails to follow through on, but it had some laughs and cool moments.
Hey there! Glad to have you in the family. Yeah I find Tenchi Muyo has a really good appeal, regardless if certain entries are actual quality or not. Thanks for watching
I rented both Rio Oki and Tenchi in Tokyo from a blockbuster and was in love with the style of slice of live mixed with sci fi, naturalist and a lingering sense of mystery surrounding Tenchi’s family. So good 😊 I haven’t rewatched so ty for the awesome content and review of the series and it’s accompanying material.
Hey man thanks for making this video, I love this franchise and look forward to new entries. I would say my favorites are the first 3 ryo ohki OVAs, tenchi universe and then gxp. I only liked gxp because I first saw it in high school but I rewatched in college and kinda saw the plot holes and writing choices that definitely put people off this series. I still need to watch seasons 4 and 5 of the ryo ohki series, war on geminar and the gxp sequel that came out recently. Honestly they need better PR for this franchise cause the last 3 entries did not get a lot of press and kinda feel like they came out of nowhere. Thanks for shouting out photon and dual, I watched those in high school and they were fun to watch but I haven't seen photon in forever so I may be remembering it as pretty bland in comparison to dual and another tenchi inspired series I watched before it. The tenchi inspired series is a franchise called el hazard. It's an isekai series made by the same creators as the tenchi muyo series. I really enjoyed the first few series and the reimagined series, wanderers, was good too. Thanks again for making this video it was an enjoyable watch and adventure down memory lane.
The original was my cup of tea! 😂 and I also enjoyed the sound track. Damn! I just got back from the Middle East, and was stationed in Japan when I got wind of this anime. 1992 😂 Before I got shipped out to Kuwait, back in high school my siblings friends all called me the Anime God...cause by then I racked up a sizable anime collection. But as time passed its gotten expensive to collect vhs LD and DVDs. Thank God for streaming. 😂 Love the series. I'm now watching the latest Tenchi series, and I have to admit I'm fucking confused with it. 😂
You know, right off the bat. Since you mentioned LN on the beginning, there are LN series called True Tenchi Muyo (which is written by the creator of the series) which ties in to the Ryo-ohki time line (Which also ties in with Photon, DPTA, GXP and War on Genimar) mostly focusing on planet Jurai, Yosho and Washyu. There are manga's but they are a stand alone like Tecnhi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo and of a different timeline.
I remember watching the first episode of Tenchi Muyo on Toonami.. wow! What an amazing episode.. and I re-watched it multiple times when I recorded it.
It didn't even work out in Ocarina of Time cuz once Link pulled out the Master Sword he left the gate to the Sacred Realm wide open. And in came Ganondorf to grab the Triforce and plunge Hyrule into seven years of darkness😅
I'm curious to know what you think about the last season that came out and about who Tenchi finally "chose" as his bride. Not gonna spoil it here of course.
I just started watching universe and I really enjoy it so far. I’m just now starting this journey I have a feeling I’ll like all of Ryo ohki more. Because even if 3-5 are decisive I love exploring lore no matter how convoluted, and am desperate for more anime with a sci fi asthetic I connect too. My favorite type of sci fi is stuff like Yamato, Votoms, Harlock, legend of galactic heroes, as opposed to gundam or dbz. tenchi has spaceships, my favorite thing in any sci fi story. It’s the reason ovas like big wars as hated as they are appeal to me a lot. gxp I think I’d like for that too and for a more specific reason. I really love excel saga and nabeshin is a funny guy. But after reading excel sagas manga has eclipsed the anime for me, because the comedy and the arcs that didn’t get adapted speak way more to my interests Battleships, sentai power suits, and like tenchi lore connecting to another Koshi rikudo series. Not to say I still don’t love the anime it’s one of my favorites too. But I think gxp would work a bit more for his style of directing. What I find crazy is the three series you mentioned aren’t even all the anime supposedly connected to tenchi. Based on my research Masaki Kajishima has this habit, of any separate anime he makes he decides, even years after they came out that to connect them to the tenchi multiverse. Photon, Dual, aga rutter, Battle programmer shirase, Masqeurade all connect to tenchi in some huge way similar to the ring of time principal leiji Matsumoto has or turn a gundam, because he felt like doing this. Does it work? I haven’t seen them all yet. But I guess it depends on the type of tastes you have. I think the reason tenchi works for me just based on what I watched is tenchi isn’t overly perverted and gets everything rewarded to him (highschool dxd and heavens lost property) or so naive no matter how nice it’s ridiculous (infinite stratos, cat planet cuties and many many other modern harems) He’s just a chill nice guy who cares for people and sees the best in them. And the dynamic isn’t really the harem aspect even tho it’s there most of the girls just thought he was cool and decided to hang out as his place, it’s really only ever Ryoko and ayeka making up the bulk of the dynamic, it’s similar to macross in terms of the love triangle. That’s what’s beautiful about long running franchises one of them will speak to you even if something you love the majority of the fanbase hates or something you hate and the majority of the fanbase loves. There’s at least one that’ll appeal to you in all likeliness. Anyways I’m glad to start this journey and hope I can fish it all! My watchlist is pretty big. I think I’ll enjoy this good video in explaining the orders and series
Nice Video. The main OVA timeline is still ongoing, but man does it get confusing. Since the anime asumes you have read all the novels and LN that teh creater started after the first ova, lol. GXP is currently getting new episodes, and again, it skipped a whole isikai arc and just asumes you read it, lololol. Add in teh Geminar universe which is where Photon talkes place, and the Duel wihc is in teh far past of the main universe. Its not easy to grasp it all. And thats just teh OVA timeline.
Soooo... Basically first is only good? Also did you gloss over tenchi in love? I think is saw that on sci-fi channel one Saturday morning and my first memory of anime
i played the shit out of game-hen when i was a kid it was in one of those snes game packs and i was so excited when i saw it i had to force my sister to play it with me because i sucked at reading back then like super dyslexic kid i remember my sister hated watching anime with me because i would always ask her to read it or keep pausing every line so i could read it but i would have to say my favorite would still be the original ova because of nostalgia but man watching this video im surprised how many of these i have seen
Personally, I recommend the original 2 ova, the last two series ova 5 and Tokyo. I do not recommend the universe and its sequel Tenchi Muyo! Love 2 because I don't like Tenchi's behavior, at the end of the universe, he decided to go to school instead of looking for Ryoko.. Ending of Tenchi Muyo! Love 2 annoys me because Tenchi decides to stay with a girl who lied to him in another world and he knew that she was lying to him, and then his grandfather comes and solves the problem, Tenchi has no development. P.S I think Ryoko deserves better than Tenchi.
Anything with this pristine 90s gloss & low-stress animation is bound to have a cult following. Same with Outlaw Star. There's countless amounts of forgettable animations released in the "polished" time period of 2005+.
I love how old school anime like Urusei Yatsura and now Ranma are getting remakes. I feel like Tenchi definitely needs a remake. Seasons 4/5 were definitely a let down. Especially the soundtrack. Was really missing the touch Seikou Nagaoka had for the first two series.
I think the issue is in Japan, all of this is in the form of light novels. There is not enough money in the world to animate all of it. So, if you want the whole story, learn Japanese and get the books.
The 3rd OVA wasn't even that poorly received. Not like Tokyo or the non-canon movies. The 3rd-5th OVA of Ryo-Ohki were unfortunately hampered by the success of GXP. Before GXP everyone assumed the universe was basically the same as Tenchi Universe, just with slightly different events. The GXP comes in saying, "Yes, but also no." By adding in a number of other space nobles and increasing relevance for the Galaxy Police & the university Washu used to work at while keeping many Universe elements for the Juri. The it really jumped the shark in the canon manga and made GXP have an isekai season. Oh, and also GXP is how they tied in Dual! Then here comes Geminar which also does pretty well so now they have to add space politics, interdimensional travel, and real freaking MAGIC into a world already brimming with Clark's worst nightmare of technology so advanced it seems like magic. And through it all they have to finally explain Tenchi's mother's death in context to everything else she's been tied to, which still came out to be the laziest part of the story. A practically Demi-Goddess, semi-immortal alien who gave birth to literal God dies to old age and a fever while her 100% human Great Great Grandmother is running around the galaxy 1000 years after hooking up with an alien Prince.
I didn't like the new harem member for Season 3 of TMRyo ohki and its whole time loop thing but aside from that it wasn't bad, I liked the whole cosmic/lore side of things. and Yeah TMRyo ohki Seasons 4 y 5 felt more like a trailer/ad for war in geminar, I like it a bit but meh I didn't like how they constantly remind me "hey there is going to be this thing in the future", yes lore wise it makes sense that "Hey my little brother is going to be sent into a world at war and I need to prepare him for him not to die" but the biggest plot hole that exist is why didn't they just send him and then bring him back 10 minutes later? Washu is a cheat so it kinda didn't make sense, I liked that in season 5 Ryoko and Ayeka got pregnant and had their babies, I didn't finish war in geminar... i left after the bunny/cat graduation suit. Also the whole joker mom canon rewritten was really stupid imo.
Watched it back in it was in prime loved the ova and universe and I rather enjoyed some parts of tenchi in Tokyo. But it was around this time that the series lost it's way. In my opinion they really should have just ended things after tenchi forever when it could have ended in glory. Now it's just a shadow of what it once was. What or it's now is just very bad fanfiction of itself written and made official by it's own creator. This series used to be over of my all time favorites, I'm sad to see it have devolved into the state it is correctly in
The show is too Drama-Centric and uses Harem=Comedy trope to an annoying extent. If there was something about Tenchi and it focused on that, the show would be better. But all we got is that he is a secret God. So I am guessing Washu's original, original husband or her creepy, creepy Dad. You know since Washu originally was a Goddess similar to the Triad in various other mediums. So either Tenchi created Washu or the two co-existed and some relationship they had as Gods somehow carried into the mortal realm. How the other women got entangled is a bit of a mystery that is not taught about, probably it is creepier than Washu being Tenchi's daughter.
I've followed Tenchi Muyo Ryo Ohki since the 90s in VHS. If I were to recommend it I would say just stop watching at War on Geminar and don't get into season 4, 5, and the recent GPX continuation. The animation quality nosedives into Bleach filler territory and it's the most confusing and boring shit ever. It's 3 seasons of nonstop tell don't show, lots of new characters who are at this point variants of existing characters and I can't give a shit about them. There's like a sort of unnatural lack of flow to everything, like they picked parts of the novel and just glued them together without any kind of cinematography. I came to hate it in its current state, which is sad because I have fond memories of it. I just wished they never continued it if this was going to be the treatment.
Tenchi Universe is my favorite Tenchi series because it has a good combo of humor, epic space battles, Tenchi’s growth, best version of Kagato, movie tide ups, and a better mother of Tenchi: Achika.
Achika and Kagato are why I loved Universe. Excellent versions
I totally agree! I was obsessed with Universe for a long time.
I agree since I grew up with Tenchi Universe as well, along with Tenchi in Tokyo. Universe definitely had its flaws and while I'm not a huge fan of Tenchi, it was still a good run especially compared to Ryo-Ohki 3. Mainly in regards to Kagato and Tenchi' mother. I never saw Ryo-Ohki 3 cause I thought Tenchi ended with Tokyo. I only found about it years later and was surprised Tenchi was still going on. So I got a little curious about it, until I started to here a lot of mixed to negative opinions on it. I decided to watch a review and its turns out a lot of people including this youtuber are right. When I found out Kagato(the ONLY real villain in the franchise) was the male half a clone that swapped into 2 genders and that Tenchi mother Kiyone, fake her death just to pull a prank, I was more annoyed than anger. I don't mind the mother being flawed, but when its something that petty it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Its now wonder a lot of western fans like Universe better.
Another thing Universe did well was giving us 2 original characters in Kiyone & Nagi. The only two main females who have no mantic interest in Tenchi.
Just watched this video, lots of comments (VERY LONG POST)...
For some of us, we are older and discovered Tenchi years before Toonami was a thing. I discovered Tenchi shortly after it was released in the US in the early 90s when it was available on VHS (or Laserdisc if you had one). In my city, Tower Video had a good slate of anime titles to rent and sometimes buy. Suncoast Video in the malls had great anime too. So after renting it a few times, Tenchi was one of the first anime titles I purchased along with the other OG of harem anime, Ranma 1/2 and one of my personal favorites, Project A-ko.
The first OVA was nearly perfect which is why it was so popular. It was a reverse-isekei so to speak where Tenchi's world gets turned upside down by him unwittingly freeing Ryoko which in turn summoned Ayeka and Sasami and eventually got the attention of Kagato, easily the best villain of the franchise. The anime forced you to just accept some pretty bizarre things like super long lived aliens living among us (and Tenchi's own family members), cute cabbit creatures that could transform into massive battleships and enough incest to make a royal family (spoiler alert...it is a royal family). Yikes. Still it was entertaining and even though years later Toonami edited the nudity of Ryoko and Ayeka for kids television, the incest stayed. Yikes again.
OVA 2 was also good with introducing the Chosin goddesses and their interest with Tenchi, Dr Clay, Zero and the introduction of the Jurai royal family visiting Earth. And lastly, the abortive battle between Tenchi and Seriyo Tennan played strictly for laughs and introducing a major character in the later Tenchi Muyo GXP.
I liked Tenchi Universe because it took the same concept characters and threw them in a bit in a blender....the alternate universe strategy of screenwriting. What it ended up leading to was the Tenchi Muyo! in Love movie, out of the same universe and not the OVA timeline. This allowed a story keeping the new long suffering popular Kiyone character and doing a Tenchi's mother story that ended up being better than what the OVA would do many years later. A fun fact.....Tenchi Muyo! in Love was one of the first anime DVDs to be released, if not the first since Tenchi was a very popular title back then. It was released in a CD case instead of the larger DVD case which would end up being the industry standard to this day. Tenchi Muyo in Love was a good film with a very different soundtrack courtesy of Michael Frankes of the Jazz Fusion band Tangerine Dream.
Even though I was a big Sailor Moon fan, I never got into the Pretty Sammy stuff. I have it in my collection but don't feel a need to rewatch it. And Tenchi in Tokyo was pretty awful. The animation was the cheapest of any Tenchi title to date and the story wasn't much better. Daughter of Darkness was strange but forgettable. Tenchi Forever was just weird and very non-Tenchi in tone. And it was controversial in that it ended the post credit scenes with Tenchi choosing Ryoko over Aeka and breaking her heart. If you want to understand why the OVAs in later years went with the strategy of not breaking up the household, look no further than the end of that movie.
At first, Dual just seemed like a stand alone thing....a battle robot isekai with lots of Evagelion nods. Then light hawk wings gets introduced toward the end and you realized "wait, this is a Tenchi universe thing after all???". But it took literally until OVA 5 to cement that as canon. Sometimes unless you are reading the manga, you have to wait a LONG time for Masaki to fill in all the connections to his different shows (looking at you Photon and Rutter).
Unlike you, I actually like GXP. It basically reboots the entire concept inside of the Tenchi OVA timeline with the premise "what if Tenchi went out into space first and didn't stay on Earth". And that's basically GXP with Seina instead of Tenchi. Lots of comedy, enough drama to make it interesting, girls and fanservice...all the things that made Tenchi charming. And Seina takes the "luck vampire" problem of Mihoshi and turns it up to 11, so much so that it becomes a major part of the plot and ends up being a superpower. There's even a remark about it in the show about Seina being worse that Mihoshi and Mitoto.
Speaking of Mihoshi, please don't refer to her by the "R" word. I have a 20 year old autistic son and I think we've moved past using that as a throwaway pejorative. Mihoshi is a well meaning but naive and scatterbrained nepo-baby. :)
OVA 3 spent some time connecting the GXP and OVA storylines, bringing Lady Seto into the main story as a big political player. One missed opportunity with Season 3 is Noike. She's introduced as someone to shake up the household dynamic and ends up being a minor role player. Introducing Airi (who was already a major character in GXP) to Tenchi was another mind blowing thing as he begins to understand why he was kept in the dark about the broader family secrets. It's a Masaki rule until the child becomes of age and you could easily understand why. Which brings us to Tennyo. Yes, because Tenchi's sister is 80 years old, this is why he's not met her yet....she's been in space not physically aging. And yes, Yosho's apparent aging is a complete ruse for the same reasons. And Rei was introduced, a necessary character for the next chapter.
War on Geminar is an interesting isekai story as a standalone but you had to literally wait a decade to learn much of the details on how that story unfolded in the broader Tenchiverse. And again, it took its cues from earlier mecha anime including Dual from years prior.
OVA 4 was boring. All politics, no action....just a setup for OVA 5 and Geminar story. Honestly, I wonder why OVA4 and 5 didn't come out at the same time. The best part of OVA 4 was the last episode (only 4 in the season) which lays the groundwork for Geminar and delivers more gratuitous fanservice since GXP first debuted.
OVA 5 is better...and still maddening. And we cannot talk about OVA 5 released in 2020 without talking about GXP 2, introduced in 2023 after this video was released. On the good side, OVA 5 was better because consequential stuff actually happened....namely that Tenchi decides to get married...TO ALL SEVEN HAREM GIRLS. And if you're a fan of this show since the beginning, it makes a lot of sense to begin with except for the fact you have to accept a number of things.
1. Tenchi is marrying two of the three Chousin goddesses. By this point Tenchi already has such godlike powers that you basically can't write for him anymore since he can't be challenged. And marrying Washu and Sasami/Tsunami pretty much guarantees that a young farmer in rural Japan is king of the universe.
2. He's marrying two sisters related to him...Ayeka and Sasami. Yikes.
3. He's marrying a mother (Washu) and two engineered daughters, one of whom is more animal/AI than humanoid (Ryo-ohki). Not to mention that Mihoshi is a great-descendant of Washu. Double-yikes. At least Ryoko makes a little bit of sense here since she was early in the Ryoko vs Ayeka competition. And Ryo-ohki has aged from a child to a adult (???) in a very brief amount of time.
Noike is the one that doesn't have a problem in this scenario but what the hell, 7 is a lucky number and that matches rhe number of wives Seina took although four of them were political marriages.According to blogs, the first children sired will be from Ryoko, Ayeka and....Ryo-ohki. So Tenchi likes furries.
But back to OVA 5 and GXP 2. OVA 5 is frustrating since it introduces characters that they assume you already know crossed over from the GXP Tabletop island story but you don't get that story since GXP2 didn't arrive unti 2023. Yes the pandemic likely had a role in the production time gap but OVA 5 and GXP 2 aren't even linear to one another. GXP 2 begins with Kenshi younger than the end of OVA 5 and ends with him older than OVA5. At this point, the OVAs and GXP are so intertwined that you can't tell one story without the other since both are trending toward the Geminar and Pirate Battle story arcs that involve Tabletop Island, But the non-linear storytelling where some characters in the later GXP2 get better introductions than when we first saw them in OVA 5 (like Jovia). More than a few times I wondered "who is that? Did I miss something??". Which is easy in an overall series universe with dozens of characters to keep track of and you can't write off characters from the 90s/2000s since you might see tham again. Just like we got reincarnated version of Dual characters back in this story....which forced me to rewatch that whole series over again.
But Kenshi does leave for Geminar at the end of OVA 5 which is emotional. And the end of GXP 2 has an interesting cameo with Yosho speaking to some world leader about a recent attack on Tabletop Island warning the guy that he's way out of his league and that humans will be allowed to participate in the space technology when they are ready and that may not happen for decades or centuries. So to answer the question....do at least some of the world governments knows about the Masaki village? Yes but they can't do anything about it.
Then there's AI Tenchi Muyo. I've yet to finish this. It never holds my attention long enough and again, the non-linear storytelling is frustrating especially when each episode is only five minutes long.
So do I still love Tenchi? Yes. But 32 years into the series, the new stuff assumes you have been here for the entire ride so fewer and fewer fans are still left paying attention. And now both Tenchi and Seina are so overpowered that you can't write anything where they will be in actual danger. Its only love and politics from here on out.
Toonami have really introduced me to this harem series in the early 2000’s.
1st Harem I discovered
I believe it’s considered one of, or the original harem anime.
Golden boy.
I think it was the first Harem for a lot of people, including me.
I loved Tenchi back in the day. Back then tho we had no clue about these types of series. Seeing the same cast in another type of series, it was just new.
Fantastic review. The Tenchi OVA story line is my favorite, but I also enjoy Universe and the first movie. Dual is excellent. One of the best for sure. If I’m not mistaken, but El-Hazard is like a sister anime to Tenchi. If you haven’t checked it out then give it a chance. It’s my favorite out of this huge Tenchi/El-Hazard/Dual Universe. Keep up the great work.
You're right!
I wish those two had a crossover.
_photon_ is hilarious
Oh man, this takes me back man! Great video. Loved the entire tenchi series back in the too am I days.
dude i know these videos take a long ass time to make and this was helpful. I've been curious about this anime for a while, but mostly stayed away due to how confusing it was. glad to see you're back! also nice editing in the vid. looking forward to future videos.
Yeah it took a while haha, thank you bro!
One of the best 90s anime. So nostalgic
The energy I felt, becoming in tune with Tenchi is one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had. And I've successfully connected with psilocybin mushrooms.
This anime is good!
I watched Tenchi over 20 years ago and loved it! Now I’m overwhelmed with all the different versions, I’m on a mission to find which one it was I had been obsessed with. Thanks for the run down.
You certainly covered everything. Me personally I enjoyed watching Tenchi Universe and a bit of Tenchi on n Tokyo, and GXP. Didn’t really watch the movies, OVA’s, and or spin-off series. The two series you mentioned being set in the “Tenchi Universe” were new for me since I’ve never heard of either one of them but now I do so thanks for mentioning them. Keep up the good work.
Definitely recommend dual and photon! Thanks for watching
I grew up watching the first 2 series of Tenchi through toonami. I eventually discovered the manga which carried the same charm of the show.
But its crazy to think this franchise is still running. I just recently discovered GXP has a new series coming out.
I found this channel via /r/retroanime. You have an awesome voice! Looking forward to discovering/rediscovering some classic anime here.
Ryoko has great style and I loved her voice in the 90s english dubs. I think a lot of Tenchi sets up some very cool stuff that it fails to follow through on, but it had some laughs and cool moments.
Hey there! Glad to have you in the family.
Yeah I find Tenchi Muyo has a really good appeal, regardless if certain entries are actual quality or not.
Thanks for watching
I rented both Rio Oki and Tenchi in Tokyo from a blockbuster and was in love with the style of slice of live mixed with sci fi, naturalist and a lingering sense of mystery surrounding Tenchi’s family. So good 😊 I haven’t rewatched so ty for the awesome content and review of the series and it’s accompanying material.
No worries, thanks for watching
I loved this show on Toonami! It just smelled like Cheese Pizza 😅I can see why it was short lived
Haha
Tenchi Forever is still one of my favorites, it was also my very first DVD.
Hey man thanks for making this video, I love this franchise and look forward to new entries. I would say my favorites are the first 3 ryo ohki OVAs, tenchi universe and then gxp. I only liked gxp because I first saw it in high school but I rewatched in college and kinda saw the plot holes and writing choices that definitely put people off this series. I still need to watch seasons 4 and 5 of the ryo ohki series, war on geminar and the gxp sequel that came out recently. Honestly they need better PR for this franchise cause the last 3 entries did not get a lot of press and kinda feel like they came out of nowhere. Thanks for shouting out photon and dual, I watched those in high school and they were fun to watch but I haven't seen photon in forever so I may be remembering it as pretty bland in comparison to dual and another tenchi inspired series I watched before it. The tenchi inspired series is a franchise called el hazard. It's an isekai series made by the same creators as the tenchi muyo series. I really enjoyed the first few series and the reimagined series, wanderers, was good too. Thanks again for making this video it was an enjoyable watch and adventure down memory lane.
Doesn't matter if u hate or love tenchi series but all of us gotta agree that tenchi muyo theme songs always goes bonkers.
I never knew that spaceship agga ruter was related to tenchi muyo
Yup
I think Tenchi Muyo and Pokemon were my first animes. Thank You Toonami and KidsWB
I think tenchi as a series is popular because it literally has everything
Great breakdown. Love OVA 1+2 and Universe.
The original was my cup of tea! 😂 and I also enjoyed the sound track.
Damn! I just got back from the Middle East, and was stationed in Japan when I got wind of this anime. 1992 😂
Before I got shipped out to Kuwait, back in high school my siblings friends all called me the Anime God...cause by then I racked up a sizable anime collection. But as time passed its gotten expensive to collect vhs LD and DVDs. Thank God for streaming. 😂
Love the series. I'm now watching the latest Tenchi series, and I have to admit I'm fucking confused with it. 😂
Awesome story!
You know, right off the bat. Since you mentioned LN on the beginning, there are LN series called True Tenchi Muyo (which is written by the creator of the series) which ties in to the Ryo-ohki time line (Which also ties in with Photon, DPTA, GXP and War on Genimar) mostly focusing on planet Jurai, Yosho and Washyu.
There are manga's but they are a stand alone like Tecnhi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo and of a different timeline.
⭐️TENCHI MUYO the GOAT⭐️
Yessir!
I remember watching the first episode of Tenchi Muyo on Toonami.. wow! What an amazing episode.. and I re-watched it multiple times when I recorded it.
This dude sounds like he’s gonna drop some grace of air and earth binds.
Well now I've found out that war on Geminar is basically a side show now I have to watch them all
It didn't even work out in Ocarina of Time cuz once Link pulled out the Master Sword he left the gate to the Sacred Realm wide open. And in came Ganondorf to grab the Triforce and plunge Hyrule into seven years of darkness😅
Tenchi ova is my fav second is dual then war those are my favorite!
I got most of the collection all im missing is ova and the movies and i heard a rumor that gxp is getting a part 2
Oh hey, I remember Magical Project S! I had that one on DVD and watched it soooo many times!
Dopee
I'm curious to know what you think about the last season that came out and about who Tenchi finally "chose" as his bride. Not gonna spoil it here of course.
💩
I just started watching universe and I really enjoy it so far. I’m just now starting this journey I have a feeling I’ll like all of Ryo ohki more. Because even if 3-5 are decisive I love exploring lore no matter how convoluted, and am desperate for more anime with a sci fi asthetic I connect too. My favorite type of sci fi is stuff like Yamato, Votoms, Harlock, legend of galactic heroes, as opposed to gundam or dbz. tenchi has spaceships, my favorite thing in any sci fi story. It’s the reason ovas like big wars as hated as they are appeal to me a lot. gxp I think I’d like for that too and for a more specific reason. I really love excel saga and nabeshin is a funny guy. But after reading excel sagas manga has eclipsed the anime for me, because the comedy and the arcs that didn’t get adapted speak way more to my interests Battleships, sentai power suits, and like tenchi lore connecting to another Koshi rikudo series. Not to say I still don’t love the anime it’s one of my favorites too. But I think gxp would work a bit more for his style of directing. What I find crazy is the three series you mentioned aren’t even all the anime supposedly connected to tenchi. Based on my research Masaki Kajishima has this habit, of any separate anime he makes he decides, even years after they came out that to connect them to the tenchi multiverse. Photon, Dual, aga rutter, Battle programmer shirase, Masqeurade all connect to tenchi in some huge way similar to the ring of time principal leiji Matsumoto has or turn a gundam, because he felt like doing this. Does it work? I haven’t seen them all yet. But I guess it depends on the type of tastes you have. I think the reason tenchi works for me just based on what I watched is tenchi isn’t overly perverted and gets everything rewarded to him (highschool dxd and heavens lost property) or so naive no matter how nice it’s ridiculous (infinite stratos, cat planet cuties and many many other modern harems) He’s just a chill nice guy who cares for people and sees the best in them. And the dynamic isn’t really the harem aspect even tho it’s there most of the girls just thought he was cool and decided to hang out as his place, it’s really only ever Ryoko and ayeka making up the bulk of the dynamic, it’s similar to macross in terms of the love triangle. That’s what’s beautiful about long running franchises one of them will speak to you even if something you love the majority of the fanbase hates or something you hate and the majority of the fanbase loves. There’s at least one that’ll appeal to you in all likeliness. Anyways I’m glad to start this journey and hope I can fish it all! My watchlist is pretty big. I think I’ll enjoy this good video in explaining the orders and series
Great overview thank you 👏🏽👏🏽
No worries
The main problem was that most of the later tenchi muyo anime was just to add onto the lightnovel
Welcome back!!
Flex! Thanks man
Watch all of it 😅
0:21 I need that collection man
Nice Video. The main OVA timeline is still ongoing, but man does it get confusing. Since the anime asumes you have read all the novels and LN that teh creater started after the first ova, lol. GXP is currently getting new episodes, and again, it skipped a whole isikai arc and just asumes you read it, lololol. Add in teh Geminar universe which is where Photon talkes place, and the Duel wihc is in teh far past of the main universe. Its not easy to grasp it all. And thats just teh OVA timeline.
And Tenchi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo are all alternate universe?
Pull the sword, get the ultimate waifu. Win win.
A fun recap on a harem that used to be good!
I wish know, timeline and how Tenchi is ending the story? And continue of 3 Goddess.
It was my first harem. It's confusing as hell. Universe is my favorite.
Is this you Oakdice?
Also great video
I remember watching this along with Outlaw Star over DBZ.
Soooo... Basically first is only good? Also did you gloss over tenchi in love? I think is saw that on sci-fi channel one Saturday morning and my first memory of anime
i played the shit out of game-hen when i was a kid it was in one of those snes game packs and i was so excited when i saw it i had to force my sister to play it with me because i sucked at reading back then like super dyslexic kid i remember my sister hated watching anime with me because i would always ask her to read it or keep pausing every line so i could read it but i would have to say my favorite would still be the original ova because of nostalgia but man watching this video im surprised how many of these i have seen
So just watch: Tenchi Muyou! OVA 1 & 2, UNIVERSE & 2 movies [in love & Forever], Tenchi in Tokyo & Ai Tenchi if you want? Skipping OVA 3-5.
this anime is so funny and cute love it 😍🥰
This series skewed my entire perception of how life would be in school. It made me think harems were a normal thing.
I'm not much of a tenchi fan ether >.> *looks over at giant pretty sammy movie poster and cabbit plushies"
So is war on geminar a spinoff?
lot of cute girls in this anime 😍🥰😘
9:35 motherfucker you're really gonna dump on tenchi in tokyo like that!?
Def
I just bought tenchi universe and got flame of recca for 60 bucks
Nice man!
you got 2 good anime love 💕 it you need to see better man anime it so good 😊
Personally, I recommend the original 2 ova, the last two series ova 5 and Tokyo.
I do not recommend the universe and its sequel Tenchi Muyo! Love 2 because I don't like Tenchi's behavior, at the end of the universe, he decided to go to school instead of looking for Ryoko..
Ending of Tenchi Muyo! Love 2 annoys me because Tenchi decides to stay with a girl who lied to him in another world and he knew that she was lying to him, and then his grandfather comes and solves the problem, Tenchi has no development.
P.S I think Ryoko deserves better than Tenchi.
Yooo is the giveaway still going on?
Lol wait, got to end of the video and saw the winners was picked at the end of Feb
RIP
Whats ur information
Anything with this pristine 90s gloss & low-stress animation is bound to have a cult following. Same with Outlaw Star.
There's countless amounts of forgettable animations released in the "polished" time period of 2005+.
I love how old school anime like Urusei Yatsura and now Ranma are getting remakes. I feel like Tenchi definitely needs a remake. Seasons 4/5 were definitely a let down. Especially the soundtrack. Was really missing the touch Seikou Nagaoka had for the first two series.
I think the issue is in Japan, all of this is in the form of light novels. There is not enough money in the world to animate all of it. So, if you want the whole story, learn Japanese and get the books.
Yes, GxP is one of the weakest entries. But it's also one of my favorites, though that may just be nostalgia talking
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
The 3rd OVA wasn't even that poorly received. Not like Tokyo or the non-canon movies.
The 3rd-5th OVA of Ryo-Ohki were unfortunately hampered by the success of GXP. Before GXP everyone assumed the universe was basically the same as Tenchi Universe, just with slightly different events.
The GXP comes in saying, "Yes, but also no." By adding in a number of other space nobles and increasing relevance for the Galaxy Police & the university Washu used to work at while keeping many Universe elements for the Juri.
The it really jumped the shark in the canon manga and made GXP have an isekai season. Oh, and also GXP is how they tied in Dual!
Then here comes Geminar which also does pretty well so now they have to add space politics, interdimensional travel, and real freaking MAGIC into a world already brimming with Clark's worst nightmare of technology so advanced it seems like magic.
And through it all they have to finally explain Tenchi's mother's death in context to everything else she's been tied to, which still came out to be the laziest part of the story. A practically Demi-Goddess, semi-immortal alien who gave birth to literal God dies to old age and a fever while her 100% human Great Great Grandmother is running around the galaxy 1000 years after hooking up with an alien Prince.
I HATE Tenchi in Tokyo.
I didn't like the new harem member for Season 3 of TMRyo ohki and its whole time loop thing but aside from that it wasn't bad, I liked the whole cosmic/lore side of things.
and Yeah TMRyo ohki Seasons 4 y 5 felt more like a trailer/ad for war in geminar, I like it a bit but meh I didn't like how they constantly remind me "hey there is going to be this thing in the future", yes lore wise it makes sense that "Hey my little brother is going to be sent into a world at war and I need to prepare him for him not to die" but the biggest plot hole that exist is why didn't they just send him and then bring him back 10 minutes later? Washu is a cheat so it kinda didn't make sense, I liked that in season 5 Ryoko and Ayeka got pregnant and had their babies, I didn't finish war in geminar... i left after the bunny/cat graduation suit.
Also the whole joker mom canon rewritten was really stupid imo.
Watched it back in it was in prime loved the ova and universe and I rather enjoyed some parts of tenchi in Tokyo. But it was around this time that the series lost it's way. In my opinion they really should have just ended things after tenchi forever when it could have ended in glory. Now it's just a shadow of what it once was. What or it's now is just very bad fanfiction of itself written and made official by it's own creator. This series used to be over of my all time favorites, I'm sad to see it have devolved into the state it is correctly in
Shame the newer adaptations pretty much killed it compared to the original run which was better
Agreed
The show is too Drama-Centric and uses Harem=Comedy trope to an annoying extent.
If there was something about Tenchi and it focused on that, the show would be better. But all we got is that he is a secret God. So I am guessing Washu's original, original husband or her creepy, creepy Dad. You know since Washu originally was a Goddess similar to the Triad in various other mediums. So either Tenchi created Washu or the two co-existed and some relationship they had as Gods somehow carried into the mortal realm. How the other women got entangled is a bit of a mystery that is not taught about, probably it is creepier than Washu being Tenchi's daughter.
Hello give me my video
What?
Go watch Golden boy and grow up
I've followed Tenchi Muyo Ryo Ohki since the 90s in VHS. If I were to recommend it I would say just stop watching at War on Geminar and don't get into season 4, 5, and the recent GPX continuation.
The animation quality nosedives into Bleach filler territory and it's the most confusing and boring shit ever. It's 3 seasons of nonstop tell don't show, lots of new characters who are at this point variants of existing characters and I can't give a shit about them. There's like a sort of unnatural lack of flow to everything, like they picked parts of the novel and just glued them together without any kind of cinematography.
I came to hate it in its current state, which is sad because I have fond memories of it. I just wished they never continued it if this was going to be the treatment.
I saw 11 mins of this and you say 0 things about the actual story.
This was fun until you felt the need to call Mihoshi, the “R” slur. Gave up after that.
OVA 3-5 get way too much hate
No they dont