Tenchi faces his toughest challenge yet: fighting for screen time against a bunch of cute girls.
Welcome back for the final installment of my retrospective on Tenchi Muyo! and the second of the series’ two story arcs. This arc is less organized than the first arc; in fact I’m not really sold on calling it an arc at all. It might be more accurate to call it a series of stand-alone episodes that vaguely tie together, with a two-parter in the second half. As such, the overall plot advances only in short spurts in each episode, with the rest dedicated to sitcom-ish humor. It stands in contrast to the first arc, but that doesn’t make it bad. Really, the humor of the series is one of its major selling points, so the construction of these episodes is still pretty solid.
One major drawback, though, is the new opening theme song, “Pioneer”. I mentioned in part one that the first theme worked because it was understated and in keeping with the tone of the series. “Pioneer” is neither of those things. For one thing, it’s not exactly a subtle point that Tenchi Muyo! was distributed by a company called Pioneer Entertainment. The song is basically the company’s ballad of its own awesomeness, and that’s never endearing. Much worse, the music no longer sounds anything like the tone of the series. It’s a song about growing up and defining your own identity, which is more what one would expect from a show about young girls. Just from hearing the song, one might genuinely wonder if Sasami had been made the primary focus of the series, and astonishingly this was exactly what they were going for. If the music wasn’t enough to sell the idea that this is all somehow about Sasami (and it is) the visuals accompanying the music would remove any doubt. About half of the shots in the sequence feature Sasami, and check out where she’s standing in the group shot:
And let’s make sure we’re not unclear about this point: with this bold declaration of Sasami’s new dominance in the series plastered onto the beginning of all but one episode in this arc, how many episodes feature her in a prominent role? One. Yes, a whopping one out of six, that’s all. For Christ’s sake, Washu, Ryoko, and even fucking Ryo-Ohki get episodes centered around them in this arc, too. Who the hell decided that Sasami was so god-damn important that she had to take over the introduction to the show? It’s like if Act I, Scene I of Hamlet consisted entirely of the castle guards talking about how fucking badass Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are.
Anyway, after the Sasami-fest that is “Pioneer”, the second arc begins with an episode by the title “Hello Baby”. Thankfully, this isn’t one of those episodes where everyone thinks that one of the girls is pregnant, but it turns out to be a misunderstanding, and the kisses are hers and hers and his, three’s company too. That’s a sitcom gimmick I’ve never much cared for. Instead we get an actual baby, a relative of Tenchi’s named Taro. That’s not that much better in terms of gimmickry, but whatever. The episode starts off with Sasami returning from a visit to Tenchi’s aunt’s home. Why Sasami and only Sasami had gone is never explained, but I don’t suppose that’s particularly odd, and it’s not important. Sasami acts pretty weird in this scene, hiding from Tenchi like she’s afraid of him for some reason. I don’t get it. Tenchi invites his aunt to come by with the baby some time. Sure enough, she comes by almost immediately and drops Taro off in Tenchi’s care, then vanishes in a puff of smoke. OK, not a literal puff of smoke, but there might as well have been one.
Sitcom humor ensues, revolving almost entirely around 1) babies are cute, and 2) babies have no bladder control. Neither of those categories of humor appeals to me much, so I’m going to gloss over that aspect of the episode. The only bit I kind of like is the scene of the baby crying causing Mihoshi to cry as well, prompting the baby to stop crying and pat her cheek comfortingly. The main point is that the girls do their best to take care of the baby, but they just can’t handle it. Oddly, there’s a scene of Ryoko trying to feed him, which causes Tenchi to ask what she’s trying to give him “this time”. There was no previous incident for the audience to recollect, so I can only assume that there’s a deleted scene somewhere of Ryoko trying to get the baby drunk. I kinda would have liked to see that. Anyway, the girls all fall asleep from exhaustion and Taro wanders into Washu’s lab. Since no one else is able to take care of him, Washu is forced to. She takes a bath with him and… wait, you guys tell me, what the hell is she wearing here?
Is that swimwear? Body paint? Does this constitute nudity? I am genuinely unsure. It was shown on Toonami uncensored, whatever that tells you. Either way, we then get a musical montage of Washu and the baby, to a sickeningly sweet song about babies being awesome. Washu grows close to the baby, only for Tenchi’s aunt to come back to pick him up. When Taro is gone, Washu tells Tenchi that she had had a baby once. His father had taken him from her and left her due to her lower social status, and that was when she decided that if such things were so important to adults she would rather be a child. When Tenchi tries to console her she returns briefly to her adult form and (what else?) starts hitting on him. As Ryoko and Ayeka start fighting with her over him, the episode ends with a zoom in to Sasami watching them from a window inside the house, as creepy music plays. So… WHY IS SASAMI ACTING SO FUCKING WEIRD IN THIS EPISODE??? Seriously, even if we call it foreshadowing, why would she just suddenly start acting differently, sitting in her room for the entire episode and just watching everyone through window while creepy music plays? And what made her suddenly get so nervous around Tenchi? Is she embarrassed about stealing his thunder in the opening credits?
The new closing theme is drastically more appropriate than the opening. It’s sadder than the original ending, but I think I like the song a bit more than the original song. It could well be that I just can’t stand bouncy, sugary J-Pop anymore, and the second song is more subdued. It’s about individual tastes, I suppose. In terms of animation, it sadly doesn’t deliver like the first closing did, and feels more generic. Still, I can’t say it’s bad.
Episode 9 is “Sasami and Tsunami”. It’s the Sasami episode I mentioned, and it finally puts some context behind that revelation in episode 6 that Sasami owns the most powerful space battleship in the universe. It starts with a return to the hot springs resort from episode 4. I again have to ask why they bother making the trip when there’s a magic, flying bath house hovering right next to their house, but let’s just chock it up to the sake of tradition. When they arrive, the owner puts them to work, revealing that she only invited them back so that they could repair the damages caused by their last visit. As for the other stuff these guys have blown up, that doesn’t get addressed until the third OVA that came out over a decade later, but at least for now we have a sense of continuity with regards to the bath house. As the men work on the repairs and the girls prepare dinner, they all see glimpses of a ghostlike figure.
They gather together and tell Tenchi about it and Katsuhito tells everyone a ghost story he’d heard about a woman who died 600 years previously. He then admits that he made the story up and everyone laughs it off, until Tenchi realizes that that still doesn’t explain what everyone saw. He then encounters the ghostly woman himself and runs away in fear, and since he’s the pimp lord that he is, he manages to run straight into the women’s bath, where all of the girls are bathing… even though the owner just told them all to get back to work. I suppose it was naïve of her to think that a space pirate, a spoiled princess, and Mihoshi would actually be able to follow directions. Tenchi finally sees that the woman he was running from was really Sasami. Mihoshi then notices that Sasami’s reflection in the water is of Tsunami. Before they can ask why this is, Sasami runs away. Everyone goes to look for her and Ayeka finally finds her. Sasami reveals to Ayeka that she isn’t the real Sasami, and that the real Sasami fell to her death on the day that Ryoko attacked the Jurai palace.
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The planet with the most powerful space battleships in the universe has yet to master guard rails, safety regulations, and not building things out of hovering platforms hundreds of feet in the air. |
She goes on to say that she is really Tsunami, who has taken Sasami’s place. Ayeka tells her that it doesn’t matter if she’s the real Sasami or not, because what matters is that they love each other. Relieved, Sasami falls asleep, at which point Tsunami herself appears. Tsunami explains that Sasami doesn’t know the whole truth; she is in fact the real Sasami after all. Tsunami didn’t take her place but saved her life by assimilating with her. She hasn’t told Sasami any of this so that Sasami could learn Ayeka’s feelings. At this point, Tenchi’s father finally fixes the electrical system and the lights come on. Clearly subscribing to the Al Czervik philosophy of life, the crew decides this is a perfect excuse to start partying, despite the unfortunate lack of Journey’s “Any Way You Want It”. But Ayeka sits away from everyone else and looks pissed off about something. Ryoko joins her and asks what’s bugging her, and she explains that Sasami is going to grow up to be identical to Tsunami. Tsunami reappears and reassures them that she will retain both Sasami and Tsunami’s memories. Ryoko and Ayeka yell at her that they weren’t worried about that, and are more concerned that Sasami will grow up to be prettier than them, which visibly stuns Tsunami.
Wait, let me make sure you got the full impact of that. They are so amazingly petty and self-centered that it throws a fucking deity off her stride.
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“…Uh, guys? I’m kinda revealing some mind-blowing shit over here. Could you maybe focus a little?” |
Episode 10 is titled “I Love Tenchi”. Maybe I’m just a softy, but I believe a “d’awwwwwww” is in order here. Although to be honest, the title only kinda makes sense. The episode begins with Tenchi going through his old clothes and finding a kimono that belonged to his mother. When Tenchi steps out for a while, Ryoko finds the kimono and tries it on. When Tenchi sees it, he tells her she looks pretty, and God bless him he clearly means it.
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And it’s not like I ever had a huge anime crush on Ryoko or anything, but let's take a moment to reflect on how much we agree with him |
But the cute moment ends abruptly when Ryoko tears the sleeves off the kimono, one accidentally and the other to balance it out. Tenchi gets pissed and yells “I hate you!” just as Ryo-Ohki enters the room. Thinking that Tenchi was yelling at her, Ryo-Ohki runs away. Tenchi chases after her and finds her in the carrot fields, where he explains the misunderstanding and offers to cheer her up by bringing a lot of carrots home. As they’re carrying the carrots home, Ryo-Ohki tries to help by levitating Tenchi off the ground, but when a car passes by she has to drop him and they spill the carrots. They return home to find a despondent-looking Ryoko waiting for them with the kimono, which she has shoddily sewn the sleeves back onto. She cut herself a few times during this project, judging by the band-aids on her cheek and fingers, and if you recollect that Ryoko has instant regenerative abilities you are forced to conclude that she left the injuries intact to elicit sympathy from Tenchi. At least, if nothing else, this proves that she inherited a bit of Washu’s manipulative genius. Tenchi forgives her and she happily helps him carry the carrots inside.
The next day Tenchi goes back to work in the fields again. Ryo-Ohki wants to go with him, but he tells her to stay at home. So instead Ryo-Ohki wanders into Washu’s lab and stares at some blob-like creatures that Washu is keeping in a big fish tank. Washu explains that they are creatures called mass, and that they were used to create Ryo-Ohki (and also Ryoko). At that moment, they get called to lunch and leave the mass unattended. And while they watch some weird soap opera about… um… weeble penguins… the mass clump together into a humanoid shape and break out of the tank. The show gets interrupted by a news report that the Galaxy Police cruiser Shunga has been stolen, but no one except Mihoshi pays attention because surely that won’t concern them at any point in the near future. Washu calls everyone together for a meeting when she finds that the mass have escaped. She summons a classroom (because yeah, she can do that) and gives a brief lecture on the mass, stating that they are passive creatures who follow the strongest will in their group, but if threatened can cause explosive damage because they are composed partially of antimatter.
That’s right, antimatter. If you don’t know much about quantum physics, let me explain. Antimatter is the exact opposite of the matter that composes everything we know, and if it comes into contact with normal matter, they destroy each other, releasing extreme amounts of energy. The ships in Star Trek use it as a power source, and “breach in the antimatter containment field” is pretty much the show’s go-to “FUCK! Shit’s getting real!” bit of technobabble. So if the mass get spooked by, say, Tenchi’s innate “warp the laws of reality” power, things are going to get nice and ugly nice and fast.
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| I blame the Weeble Penguins. Damn you, Weeble Penguins! |
Washu deduces that the mass were influenced by Ryo-Ohki’s will when they briefly interacted through the tank, and so reads Ryo-Ohki’s thoughts to see what command she had given them. She finds that Ryo-Ohki’s desire was to help Tenchi, and so realizes that the mass have gone to Tenchi. They run to the fields to find that the mass have indeed followed him there, but Washu warns everyone not to move or the mass will get frightened and attack. Everyone stands still until Ryoko distracts the mass (getting a blast of antimatter to the face in the process) and Ryo-Ohki jumps onto the mass’s back. Ryo-Ohki assimilates with the mass, becoming a humanoid.
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| Harem count: 6 |
OK, maybe Ryo-Ohki doesn’t count as part of the harem, since this is the only scene of an adult Ryo-Ohki. For the rest of the series, she alternates between her usual cabbit form and a child humanoid form, since she can’t get the hang of walking in her adult form. Still, you know this whole scene was for the sake of fan service, so I’m counting it.
The climax of the second arc comes in the two-parter, which begins with episode 11, “The Advent of the Goddess”. This is another title that really doesn’t make any sense, but there is a goddess in it, so I guess I’ll forgive it. The episode begins with a man named Dr. Clay and his robot servant Zero (the ones who stole Shunga) visiting Lady Tokimi, Clay claiming to be able to help her find a person she is looking for. Tokimi promises Clay an entire galaxy to rule if he can bring Washu to her unharmed. Tokimi’s very presence is enough to frighten Zero, who isn’t even supposed to be capable of fear, because her existence is theoretically impossible.
Zero then appears on Earth, capturing Ryoko and copying herself in Ryoko’s image, as well as copying her memories. Her copy of Ryoko’s gem explodes and she is forced to take the real one, but since the technology is supposed to be able to copy anything at all, Clay takes an interest in Ryoko and takes her captive instead of killing her. Zero then takes Ryoko’s place so that she can get close to Washu. But Zero is unable to handle Ryoko’s feelings for Tenchi, and gets distracted any time he is around. Mihoshi gets a call from the Galaxy Police, informing her that the battleship Shunga has been detected in the Solar System and ordering her to investigate. After a few attempts to capture Washu fail, Washu and Zero take a bath together and Washu notices a strange mark on Zero’s ass. Finally, Dr. Clay gets tired of Zero fumbling her mission on account of Tenchi and orders her to kill him. In the episode’s closing segment, Zero sneaks into Tenchi’s room while he’s asleep – and I should note that her somewhat eerie and otherworldly theme music is playing over this whole scene to great effect – and stabs at Tenchi’s head with an energy blade.
This is another cliffhanger that really fails at being suspenseful, like the end of episode 5. Tenchi’s the main character. He’s not going to die. But the scene is still well done and I can’t say I fault it for being a bit predictable. Another plus is that while the standard end credits music is again used after the cliffhanger, it’s not so jarring as it was in episode 5, since it isn’t quite so upbeat.
Episode 12, “Zero Ryoko”, thankfully skips the dreadful intro music and starts straight into the episode by repeating the Zero-stabs-Tenchi sequence. We see that Zero couldn't bring herself to kill him after all, and intentionally missed. Well, that surprised all of nobody. As she leaves Tenchi’s room she finds Washu waiting for her. Zero decides to finally capture her so that Tenchi won’t have to be killed, but Washu manages to evade her by replacing herself with a doll. The commotion wakes Tenchi, and his appearance confuses Zero, causing her to run away… for some reason. Honestly, I can’t quite figure out why she runs away, and why she decides to return to Dr. Clay without completing her mission. He’s not the type to just shrug that off. There will be repercussions, is what I’m getting at.
Washu gathers Tenchi and Ayeka, and uses Ryo-Ohki to fly into space after Zero. Mihoshi is already there, and is under attack from the Shunga. She’s in a tight spot, so Tenchi and Ayeka launch themselves onto the Shunga, but Washu opts to spend some time locating Clay first. Tenchi and Ayeka arrive to find that Mihoshi is all right, but they can’t reach Dr. Clay from their location. Washu, on the other hand, is able to find him immediately due to taking the time to search him out. This works out fine for Clay, since he can destroy the section of the ship Tenchi and the others are in with the push of a button, and he has Ryoko trapped in a tube, topless, because I guess there was a mandatory nudity clause in her contract.
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| “My agent asked if I wanted to play a space pirate, and I was all, ‘Space pirate? Hell yes!’ and then… well… here I am.” |
With Washu right where he wants her, Clay asks what the gems are, but Washu says that she doesn’t know, and that they’ve been around for as long as she can remember. Clay then says that he’s going to take her to someone who wants to see her. And right here, if you’re unlucky enough to be watching the Toonami edit, wave goodbye to the chances of the rest of the conversation making any fucking sense. See, Toonami cut the rest of the dialogue in this scene because at this point Washu goes on a lengthy rant accusing Clay of being a pedophile. Unfortunately, not only is this scene awesome, it also contains important information, namely that Washu doesn’t recognize Tokimi’s name because she doesn’t remember anything beyond the last 20,000 years (isn’t it sad when their memory starts to slip like that?). She also says that she’s been locked up for the past 5000 years… which is also how old Kagato was supposed to be… and that would mean Ryoko is at least 5000 years old even though Ayeka mocked her for simply being over 1000. Continuity headache…
Clay asks how Washu knew where to find him, and also how she found out about Zero, and Washu nonchalantly explains that it’s because Clay compulsively puts his logo on everything important to him. That wanders into the realm of absurdity for someone trying to be discreet, but sure, why not? Clay decides to trap Washu in some goo and copy her memories to see if she really knows anything about Tokimi and the gems, then using some ridiculous Dan Brown logic decides that the gems must have the same power as Tokimi, since he doesn’t understand either of them. Zero arrives before he can copy her memory and turns on Clay, demanding that he let Tenchi go and allow her to continue living as Ryoko. Clay responds by deactivating her. Nice plan there, Zero. Zero gets off one last blast, which breaks Washu out of the goo. She attacks Clay, but he sets the ship’s self-destruct sequence and flees as she tries to cancel it, unsuccessfully. The half of the ship where Tenchi and the girls are condenses into a black hole, but Tenchi saves them all by summoning the Light Hawk Wings again to rewrite the laws of physics and escape.
Clay is captured by Ryo-Ohki as he tries to escape. Washu saves Zero by combining her and Ryoko into one body. Ryoko protests, but ultimately accepts it. Meanwhile, Tokimi tells a shadowy figure that this dimension is perfect for him, since it is home to both Washu and Tsunami. The figure has the image of five Light Hawk Wings around him. Have fun sitting on that for ten years, because this is a big-ass cliffhanger that doesn’t get resolved until the third OVA.
The final episode is titled “Here Comes Jurai”. It begins at Galaxy Police Headquarters where some truly incoherent dialogue takes place, the main point of which seems to be that Mihoshi’s report on Kagato is far too long-winded to be of any use. We then cut to Earth where Tenchi is approached by a strange woman, who turns out to be Funaho, Yosho’s mother. Ayeka sees Funaho, and realizes that her own mother, Misaki, must be around as well. They’ve come to Earth in response to Mihoshi’s report. Ryoko meets Misaki, who mistakes her for Sasami because she’s a total airhead. Ayeka shows up and… hey, remember way back in episode 2, when I said that there was a payoff in the last episode? Here it is: Misaki speaks to Ayeka like a little girl and insists that Ayeka refer to her as “Mommy”. Now, think back to that line about the queen setting a bedtime for Ayeka. Makes more sense now, right? EPIC CONTINUITY‼
Funaho insists that Yosho drop his disguise, and he does. It turns out that he really hasn’t aged at all since arriving on Earth. As far as plot twists go, this one genuinely took me by surprise. They took the time to actually explain why he was older, back in episode 5, but it turns out that was all sleight of hand. Cool. Yosho explains that Ryoko’s gems gave power to his tree, so his life was sustained even though he wasn’t on Jurai. This means that the gems have the same power as the trees, and theoretically that Ryoko can generate Light Hawk Wings just like Tenchi, if she has all three of them. Damn, sure would have liked to see that. Maybe in the third OVA? No? Fuck.
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Above: the most unstoppable military force in the entire fucking universe. |
The king of Jurai himself finally appears, and his role in this episode is obvious from the beginning: another serious straight man who gets thrown off his stride by all the wackiness around him, like Tsunami, and Dr. Clay, and Yosho… hey, the writers know what works. The king demands that Ayeka and Sasami return with him to Jurai, but they protest that they would rather stay with Tenchi. He reluctantly agrees, under the condition that Tenchi wins a duel against the man he has chosen as Ayeka’s fiancé, Seiryo. Seiryo’s voice in the dub really irks me, because the actor goes out of his way to make him sound like a flaming homosexual, which is confusing if he’s supposed to marry Ayeka. This is a case where the Toonami edit actually improved the dub, because they instead made him sound like a pompous douche, which works like the original script intended. So Tenchi and Seiryo stare each other down, and Mihoshi’s ship suddenly crashes into the lake, creating a wave that knocks Seiryo into the water but leaves Tenchi standing. Tenchi is declared the winner of the most anticlimactic duel of all time, and after an emotional goodbye the Juraians return to their ships and leave Earth. This is where I feel the series should have ended, but sadly they decided to tack on one final bit where the king vows to cause trouble for Tenchi until the girls agree to return to Jurai, ending the series on a cliffhanger that wouldn’t even be resolved after the ten-year break between the series proper and the follow-up OVA.
If you bought the series on DVD, there’s actually an extra scene, sloppily pieced together with unanimated still shots and sloppy acting, which doesn’t add much of anything to the story (it hints that Washu’s memory has been erased by someone, which could have been guessed anyway) and depicts Washu being strangely cruel to Ryoko. All in all it’s unnecessary, hardly even worth paying attention to.
So there you have it. Tenchi Muyo!, a classic and defining work in anime history. Watching it again after all this time, I realized that there are some gaffes and continuity issues that weaken it, but I still genuinely enjoy it. It’s a fun show, and I never tire of the characters; silly as they are, they have real depth and really do make you care about them. The story, while confusing, isn’t just slapped together – it’s interesting, and well worth the forgiveness of a few small holes here and there. In the final tally, Tenchi Muyo! is well worth watching, and deserving of the “classic” label. The title may translate to “No Need for Tenchi”, but I respectfully disagree.
Tenchi Muyo! and all related images and characters are property of Geneon Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment, Anime International, and Masaki Kajishima.
Tenchi Muyo! and all related images and characters are property of Geneon Entertainment, Funimation Entertainment, Anime International, and Masaki Kajishima.
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