Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki

Director
Hiroki HayashiHiroki Hayashi, Masashi Abe
Production
AIC, Pioneer
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
13 episodes
Year
1992

Tenchi Muyo! Volume 1

By Adam Cook
14th Jun 04

Tenchi Muyo is a series that has continually been edited and expanded upon in order for the franchise to prolong its longevity well passed its use by date. In this first volume we get to see the beginning of the whole Tenchi story and to be quite frank I am baffled how this series ever became remotely popular.

The story centres on our titular character Tenchi Masaki a young teenager that lives with his father and grandfather. His life gets turned upside down when he releases a creature from the family shrine (which his grandfather forbids him to go near). The creature released is a female space pirate by the name of Ryoko, a chain of events introduces another new female character called Princess Ayeka that happens to hate Ryoko due to a past incident. Both characters are attracted to Tenchi and vie for his affections. Tenchi must contend with fending off the amorous women in his life whilst also protecting them from villains from their past. I will leave the story description there as it is incredibly convoluted with a number of other female characters being introduced all having crushes on Tenchi. Needless to say the concept of the series is largely a situational comedy that revolves around Tenchi and the women that he attracts whilst also having a melodramatic angle as he begins to fulfil his destiny.

Considering all the hype surrounding the series and its comedy I was expecting at least a few jokes to be of any decent calibre, sadly the series is incredibly flat. These 'unwelcome guest' anime seem to be hugely popular with the likes of Oh My Goddess sharing similar themes yet they always leave me wondering where the appeal lies as most are dull, cliche driven nonsense. The first volume features the first five episodes of the series and over two and a half hours worth of supposed 'entertainment'. In all that time only one joke was remotely amusing with a discussion on the finer points of sadists and masochists, all the other jokes were obvious and standard anime gags that have been seen in countless anime before (and I fear will be seen after too). One of the biggest problems is the fact that these series rely on strong and interesting characters to progress the story, especially strong female characters that try and compete for Tenchi's attention. Sadly I was irritated by all the characters in the series, they were all type cast to the standard attitudes that anime like to adopt - the feisty female with an attitude, the clumsy yet good natured woman, and the quiet and sensitive type. It's all just so predictable and tiring watching such unoriginal characters. Even when Ryoko and Ayeka begin to spark off each other and begin to develop their relationship it is still handled in a very clumsy and heavy handed manner.

The backdrop to the story is continually drip fed through the use of various flashbacks (often in dream sequences) and whilst it is effective at uncovering more information and details about the character it feels incredibly contrived. In fact the whole story is so convoluted and contrived it got to the point where I began not caring about the characters on screen as I knew there would be a new one appearing in a short while to further add to the 'crazy' mix. The series heaps on more and more characters yet would have been more enjoyable if they had kept to the three core characters instead of perpetuating the agony of having to be introduced to more and more walking and talking stereotypes. For a series that so heavily relies on an audience to want to watch and care about its protagonists it makes the mind boggle why they are so awfully generic. Of course in such an obvious and mediocre list of characters there has to be a cute animal which comes in the shape of a cat-rabbit hybrid (that turns in to a spaceship no less). This vomit inducing animal further compounds what a hideous and onerous series this actually is.

The comedy (and I use the term very lightly) is punctuated by brief action sequences and melodramatic subplots. The action is perhaps the only standout aspect of the entire series and that is only because they are mildly entertaining but in comparison to the rest of the show they are positively amazing. The melodrama is obvious with many of the supposed twists becoming apparent within the first two episodes even though they are not revealed until much later. Everything about the series is predictable and obvious because it has all been seen in superior shows before. Tenchi Muyo offers nothing new to what was already a tired genre.

Whilst it is obvious I did not enjoy the content of the series perhaps the animation and sound can save the day? Well sadly that wasn't going to happen. This show is ugly. The animation is very poor with often stilted animated sequences. The character design is what you would expect - generic in the extreme. No thought or artistic creativity has been lavished on this series at all, and even light sabres are stolen from Star Wars.

Sadly it gets worse as the music, sound affects and voice over are risible tripe. Both the music and sound effects appear as if they have been lifted from those cheap animated TV series that were commonplace in the 1980s. The music is dominated by horrible and weak piano ditties and irritating synthesiser tunes. The Japanese voice over is adequate although some major characters grate after only a short time, however it is nothing compared to the truly awful English dub. If you feel you must watch this series please heed my advice and stay well clear of the English language version as it really is a shameful excuse for a dub.

Tenchi Muyo volume one is simply an awful DVD. Perhaps someone out there will find enjoyment in this type of show yet for me Tenchi Muyo offers nothing more than a perfect study of how following conventions and stereotypes will always lead to a very shoddy and unoriginal series.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: Japanese 5.1 surround sound: English 2.0 stereo sound: Trailers

Release information: 10th May 204, MVM

Notes: The extras are as few as the jokes in the series.

-- Adam Cook 14th Jun 04

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki Images