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tenchiforum · 2 years

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Top 10 Worst Tenchi Muyo! Episodes in 2022 #30YearsofTenchi

Original post and results

It’s finally here! The top 10 worst episodes of Tenchi Muyo! as voted on by YOU, the fans. Here’s what you chose! 10. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA5 EP3 – “Welcome to Tabletop Island”

Starting off the list is OVA5 episode 3 “Welcome to Tabletop Island”. Earlier in OVA5, the characters are told about Tabletop Island, a place that is essentially a tropical paradise that would be good for Kenshi’s development, because at this point the plot literally revolves around whether or not anything will affect Kenshi going to Geminar. This is where we are introduced to the characters from the Paradise War novels. You wouldn’t know this because they don’t properly introduce anyone and these characters are in a spin-off of a spin-off. Episode three is actually somewhat ambitious though, in that the characters actually move around instead of just sitting the entire episode. This results in one of the worst animations in the series in Tenchi “jumping” through the trees and not even connecting with them. As the episode goes on, Tenchi starts to remember that he has a large group of women around him, and has a moment with Ryoko on the beach at night. This is where the episode makes probably one of its worst mistakes. Ryoko starts reminiscing about events from OVA1, with the episode showing us the redrawn scene from OVA1 of her sitting around the fire and destruction of Jurai, reminding the viewer of when the main characters in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki were actually the main characters and they actually did anything other than talk. To end it, Tenchi says he’s “envious of Seina“, and decides the harem is now.

9. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA3 EP2 – “Fiancée”

The third OVA series of Tenchi Muyo! is often pointed to as the fall from grace for Tenchi as a franchise, and episode two of OVA3 is absolutely the prime example of why. Beginning from the cliffhanger of the first episode where Tenchi believes he sees his long-dead mother in the flesh—a plot point that has been the source of many poignant and moving moments throughout the franchise—OVA3 episode two decides to say just kidding, it’s actually his 80 year old sister who he (and everyone else) has never seen before. Her purpose? To introduce Tenchi’s fiancée of course! We’re then greeted to this green haired woman named Airi, who is also his grandmother because hey you surely must have watched GXP right? Within 30 seconds of being introduced to many for the first time, Airi singlehandedly lays out the fan favorite Ryoko, uncontested. His fiancée you ask? Noike Kamiki Jurai, Mihoshi’s “long-time partner”, who no one has ever seen before unless you, again, watched GXP—but lets be real, no one likes GXP—who then proceeds to spend the rest of the episode showing how she’s fit to be the “main” girl over the rest. If there exists a checklist on how not to introduce new characters and plot points to a well-established series, this episode checks off every single one of those boxes. Arguably the worst part of this episode is the pretension by which all of these new characters treat the older, established, beloved characters we all know and love. As Ryoko is acting predictably as Ryoko would (and should) to word of Tenchi having a fiancée out of nowhere, Tennyo says back coldly, “This was all decided long before either of you were in the picture.” As if to say nothing you can do will matter, that regardless of if you like it or not, this is how it is. A theme you’ll notice is unfortunately repeated ad nauseum and with greater intensity as the OVA continues.

8. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA3 Special – “Final Confrontations”

Final Confrontations opens up with the world being reset, again, after a failed universal reset, and finally ties up the Misao Kuramitsu arc, not before, of course, giving Ryoko another beating. Then the episode gets to probably why it was voted onto this list and very easily makes it one of the worst episodes of Tenchi Muyo! period: the complete character assassination and retcon of Tenchi’s mother. The one thing that the Ryo-Ohki OVA had never done was go in-depth on why Tenchi’s mother had died. Up to this point, we knew Tenchi’s mother as a calm, sweet, gentle soul who would do anything for Tenchi. Well, as it turns out, this characterization was all a ruse! You see, actually, apparently, everyone but Tenchi knew that Kiyone Masaki was actually a lunatic, who loved to write “idiot” on people's heads when they would get hurt, and was generally a mean-spirited, horrible person. (more on that later) Oh, and those good ol’ memories Tenchi has? (ie. the one’s all the fans have) actually those can be attributed to either his newly-introduced 80 year old sister, Tennyo, OR his new “old” not actually yet stepmother, Rea. What really puts it over the top though, is when Tenchi runs off to Ryoko’s cave to get away from this lunacy. First, Rea shows up and gaslights Tenchi into thinking that his memories of Kiyone are wrong and he should face “reality”, then Noike comes over and basically says “Oh, you think that’s bad? I was an orphan because my parents left me because my mom sucks, that’s life huh?” and finishes it off with quote “I had a chance to see her for who she really was, and I guess that sometimes that’s all we’re gonna get, right?” Imagine, after 12 years of fantastic characterization in virtually every medium from every other creator previously, writing this line and expecting people to take it seriously.

Tied for 6 & 7. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA5 EP6 – “The Max Level (?) Hero Departs”

One might think that surely, the last episode of OVA5 would be solely dedicated to the “main” characters of Tenchi Muyo! but at this point, who even are those characters, really? If you go by this OVA you would think it was the characters of the GXP and Paradise War novels, as well as the spin-off series, Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, or as Funimation knew was the only way to sell it and have people care about it, Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar. One of the most talked about things by fans of the last three decades has been who Tenchi is going to have kids with, something Ryoko fans in particular have seen could be a possibility for a long time.

Well, she does, but it’s not this supersweet moment, it’s not the house coming together to help with the birth or hearing the first cries, Tenchi holding Ryoko and the baby. No, it’s an afterthought to Kenshi’s training montages. The same follows for Ayeka, and eventually even Ryo-Ohki, yes, Tenchi has sex with Ryo-Ohki.

Anyway, back to what matters, we finally hear from Tokimi that it’s time to send Kenshi to Geminar, and we do, with Nobuyuki and Ryo-Ohki crying and the music building up to the moment where Rea’s spell is broken and she’s “free”. Only for Washu to say, not only can they watch him, but if anything happens, they can just pull him back.

So then… Why all this build-up? Does anyone really believe that if they couldn’t save Geminar, that they would really let Rea die or have anything bad happen to her? Also, why are we focusing on Geminar so much in the first place? In a series where consequences no longer exist, what effect would letting Geminar’s society disintegrate have on Earth, or even our universe that is in another dimension? Naturally, the only thing that matters now, is that Kenshi has made it to Geminar, and OVA5 has fulfilled its purpose.

& Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA4 EP3 – “Oath and Wish”

The big day for Rea and Nobuyuki is finally here. Before we can get to that, we have to do more talking, in particular getting Rea inducted into the Masaki Village Counsel (yes apparently where they live is now called Masaki Village, yes this was only brought up anime-wise in OVA4). In this episode alone there are 42 unique characters on screen.

42.

Back in the day, OVA series were able to have a unique following outside of traditional ways of broadcasting by having bigger budgets per episode and more risqué content. In 2016 however, doing an OVA means that you have no budget and can’t get any sponsors. A point made abundantly clear by the two dozen nameless women sitting right next to each other with the same exact face. The most interesting thing that happens, and arguably the highlight of OVA4, is finding out that Rea, Tenchi’s new unassuming stepmother is actually an artificial human from another dimension… And that she was sent from her world to ours without her knowledge because of a rampaging mechanoid named Gaia that was going to destroy the Final Fantasy-like prior civilization that was Geminar. She is found by Kiyone Masaki after isekai-ing, and that’s her connection to Tenchi, Nobuyuki, and Kiyone, and the reason why Kenshi goes to Geminar.

Everything I just wrote, sadly, is infinitely more efficient and interesting than how it plays out on screen, with most of that being done as, you guessed it, exposition between Azusa, Seto, and Washu.

5. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA4 EP4 – “Good Days, Departure”

The last episode of OVA4 starts off with Kenshi being born and a very quick montage of him as a child before a very jarring time skip to a few years later. This episode in particular is 29 minutes long, and 25 minutes of it is just sitting and talking about Kenshi and whether to send him to Geminar. Literally, that’s it. You switch back and forth between only two scenes of characters sitting and talking, 15 women in one and 6 men in the other.

One person on crunchyroll referred to it as quote “‘Sitting and Talking’ the anime” and that is exactly what it is. The pacing is abysmally slow and uninteresting, which is actually a feat when OVA4 manages to do this for three episodes already. It is mind-numbing to such a degree that OVA4 episode four might be the only anime episode to make fanservice and anime food look boring just by association and proximity. There’s a golden rule called “Show, don’t tell“, often attributed to Anton Chekhov, where the writer should show the reader or viewer the scene instead of describing it in words.

OVA4 and this episode in particular are the literal opposite of that.

4. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA5 EP1 – “Step Mother, Step Sister, Inheritance, and…”

One would think, seeing six brand new episodes coming out for a series would be a good thing, but in the case of OVA5, episode one wastes no time at claiming its rightful spot among the worst of the worst ever. For some reason, two whole years after OVA4 (production wise) and almost 15 years after OVA3, the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA continues to find ways to want to desecrate Kiyone Masaki. In what ways you ask? The first 10 minutes of OVA5 are solely dedicated to it as a matter of fact. Rea and Tennyo (who now has dark grey hair, because why not) sit down and talk (or more accurately, Tennyo complains) about how much of a burden her mother was to everyone. How Kiyone Masaki is now a scatterbrained genius hoarder who stole things from the academy for her research. But we have to make sure that Rea’s character gets fluffed up too, so Rea says that she should have gotten an aide. To which Tennyo exclaimed that they called Nobuyuki a quote, “god, a saint, and the ultimate masochist” at the Galaxy Academy for marrying Kiyone. She treated him so badly, in fact, that the human rights commission conducted an investigation into his well-being.

I’m gonna repeat that one more time: a human rights commission conducted an investigation into Nobuyuki’s well-being because of how badly Kiyone treated him. To which Rea and Tennyo thank each other for not being that.

Speaking of bad, this episode has some of the most god-awful art in the entirety of Tenchi. The screenshot above is also not in-between shots from the show, that's a keyframe. That's on screen for more than a second.

And before we get off the subject of Kiyone, because the show literally won’t let us now, we find out what her whole purpose was with her research in the first place. After hearing via Nobuyuki’s journals that Kiyone inflicted quote “psychological terror” in their relationship, we hear that the plan “all along” (now from Tennyo via the journals but also from everyone in OVA4) was to send Kenshi back to Geminar, but then Tenchi was born and got in the way of that and Kiyone died.

Tenchi being born got in the way of the main plot. Kajishima Good Hank‘d Tenchi Masaki in a show named after him.

This is bad fan fiction. This would give even the worst Ken Penders comic a run for its money.

3. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA4 EP2 – “The Masaki Destiny”

Continuing from where episode one left off, episode two of OVA4 does more of the same, talking about Rea’s wedding. The first 10 minutes are dedicated to characters from GXP and Rea talking about the upcoming wedding and sending Seina’s friend off. That’s one of the other huge problems with OVA4 and 5 and is a cardinal sin in storytelling, they don’t make any attempt to even tell you who some of these characters are. If you have only watched the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA and are a casual fan, or heck even if you’ve watched all of the Kajishima anime, you’re still flying blind. OVA3 at least made the attempt at explaining who a new character was and their association to the OVA from another series, but here? You’re out of luck. There’s also more changing of backstories to minor characters who are now more important. Tenchi’s aunt from the first episode of OVA2? She’s actually the sister of the old woman who runs the onsen from the earlier OVA, but if you blink you’ll miss it because she refers to her by name (which you wouldn’t know just by watching the OVA) as sister, once.

There’s also the continued degradation of Kiyone Masaki, still, 10 years after OVA3 came out, with instances like Yosho telling Nobuyuki he’s become meaner, probably by being close to Kiyone. The rest of the episode is dedicated to Tenchi’s space aunt from the first episode of OVA4 getting close to Tenchi and taking a bath with him and doing totally normal things an aunt would do. Daughter of Darkness made you wince and recoil at the incest, but OVA4 celebrates it. When Tenchi’s aunt announces that they’re going to take a bath, Ryoko and Ayeka question it. Bear in mind this episode takes place at the same time as OVA3, where just the mention of another girl with Tenchi would send Ryoko off the wall. Now? Ryoko just goes “Oh, I guess that’s how it is.” and goes back to just doing nothing.

Whatever this show is now, it is Tenchi Muyo! in name only.

2. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: OVA5 EP5 – “I am sure you have your opinion on the matter, but please consider the matter closed”

Episode 5 starts off with another time-skip and yet more exposition about how Kenshi is doing. Shocker, I know at this point. In particular, Minaho (that’s Tenchi’s space aunt who says she looks just like his mother but doesn’t look like her at all) laments about how Kenshi is being groomed to Seto’s liking, (even though everyone agreed at the end of OVA4 to do this) she is “trying” to change the direction of it, but is too powerless to change it. Remember kids, if things in life aren’t going your way, never try and change things and just suffer, because I am sure you have your opinion on the matter, but please consider the matter closed.

The episode ends with Tenchi finally getting around to making the harem ending “official”. Where despite the fact that Azusa says this will more than likely cause conflict, screw it, it’s happening. That’s one of the worst aspects of this show, is the answer to every question is “that’s just how it is.” Which, in turn, just makes the entire thing look like a contrived charade. Why does no one ever go against the grain? All this does is make you want to root against the “main” characters, not for them. Every single instance of a character showing even an inkling of controversial thinking or conflict, internal or external, is immediately hand-waived away as a non-issue and never comes up again. Everything is in service to getting Kenshi to Geminar and Seina and Tenchi settling down.

Oh, and according to Tenchi the catalyst for him getting married now is because of quote “hearing about Seina-kun’s wedding plans.”

To quote AnimatedEmpress on this episode, “The animators, the subtitlers, everyone is honestly tired of this OVA and Kajishima’s bullshit at this point.

1. Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA4 EP1 – “The Day Before the Party”

Episode 1 of OVA4 being number one on the list is fitting for a number of reasons, even though there are somehow demonstrably worse episodes that follow it. That reason could be because OVA4 represents the ultimate line being crossed in the minds of fans that can never be crossed back over, the effects of a collective Baader–Meinhof phenomenon finally playing out to its conclusion. Yet another badly animated, stilted, soulless pastiche of the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVA can no longer be seen as a fluke, it was intended. This is the world of Masaki Kajishima laid bare for all to see completely unrestrained, unhinged, and unencumbered by any other human input, and devoid of any excuse for its shortcomings one could muster from any previous tired mental gymnastics session with the Ryo-Ohki OVA. That ugly but inconvenient truth plays out here, committing multiple egregious sins in storytelling, the most important of which is that it is painfully boring when it doesn’t have to be, purely because Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki is no longer made for millions of fans around the world, it is made in spite of them, and explicitly for an audience of one.

#tenchi muyo ova #tenchi muyo #tenchiforum #30YearsofTenchi #tenchi muyo ova 3 #worst of the worst #paradise war #tenchi muyo gxp #tenchi muyo ryo ohki #worst tenchi episodes #tenchi muyo ova4 #tenchi muyo ova5

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recentanimenews · 2 years

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The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer Anime Reveals New Visual and a Bunch of Cast Members

Some big updates arrived for the anime adaptation of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer manga during a special rebroadcast of Planet With. The series is set to premiere on TV in Japan this July, and a bunch of new cast members have been revealed along with a brand new key visual.

Here's the new visual:

New cast members include:

Anima: M•A•O (Hikari Yagami in Digimon Adventure tri.)

Animus: Tatsumaru Tachibana (Yutaka Kashio in World Trigger)

Hangetsu Shinonome: Shuhei Iwase (Yasutaka in Sankarea: Undying Love)

Mikazuki Shinonome: Gen Sato (Chrome in Dr. STONE)

Soichiro Nagumo: Tetsu Inada (Nappa in Dragon Ball Z)

Yayoi Hakudou: Aya Suzaki (Mako Mankanshoku in Kill la Kill)

Sorano Hanako: Chinatsu Hirose (Matsuri Hibino in Waccha PriMagi!)

Shimaki Hyou: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Inosuke Hashibira in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba)

Coo Ritter: Nagisa Kakegawa

Shea Moon: Hyousei (Mihoshi-sensei in Sasami: Magical Girls Club)

Kiru Sonne: Ruriko Aoki (Yuko Kozuki in Muv-Luv Alternative)

Asahina Samidare: Azusa Tadokoro (Chloe in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime)

Akane Taiyo: Mutsumi Tamura (Morganite in Land of the Lustrous)

Ludo Shubarie: Shoya Ishige (Wakana Gojo in My Dress-Up Darling)

Dance Dark: Kentaro Kumagai (Rajak Kertia in Noblesse)

Lance Lumiere: Kazutomi Yamamoto (Takashi Takahashi in Why the Hell Are You Here, Teacher!?)

Lee Soleil: Mitsuo Iwata (Kuniharu Saiki in The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Loki Helios: Manabu Muraji (Shuji Sumimura in Kekkaishi)

Ron Yue: Katsuji Mori (Nephrite in Sailor Moon)

Akitani Inachika: Kazuhiro Yamaji (Hit in Dragon Ball Super)

Zan Amaru: Tetsuei Sumiya (Sirius Tenroin in Fairy Ranmaru)

Previously revealed cast members:

Yuuhi Amamiya: Junya Enoki (Itadori in JUJUTSU KAISEN)

Samidare Asahina: Naomi Ohzora (Uzaki in Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!)

Noi Crezant: Kenjiro Tsuda (Tatsu in The Way of the Househusband)

Hisame Asahina: Azusa Tadokoro (Moroha in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon)

【キービジュアル公開】6万人を超えるご視聴ありがとうございました！アニメ「#惑星のさみだれ」7月放送開始！公式Twitterをフォローして新情報をお待ちください！このあと、早速1つ面白企画をリリースします。 pic.twitter.com/CZkx55AFMI

— TVアニメ「惑星のさみだれ」 (@AnimeSamidare) April 16, 2022

Based on the manga by Satoshi Mizukami, The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer is being directed by Nobuaki Nakanishi (Mangirl!), alongside Yuichiro Momose (So I'm a Spider, So What?) and Mizukami himself on series composition. The studio tasked with animating the long-awaited adaptation, which is scheduled to begin airing in Summer 2022, is yet to be revealed.

Seven Seas Entertainment, who publishes the manga's official English version, describes the series as:

Everything about college student Amamiya Yuuhi is average: grades, looks and his blasé outlook on life. So what happens when he awakens one day to a talking lizard, who informs him that there is a gigantic hammer in outer space, poised to split the Earth into pieces, and requests his allegiance in the fight against the forces of evil? Pretend it never happened! Unfortunately for Yuuhi, a little bit of coercion in the form of a super-powered princess prevents him from returning to his mediocre life-as-usual.

In the adventure of his lifetime, Yuuhi will join forces with the unpredictable princess and seek out a motley crew of companions to fight back against an evil mage and his horrifyingly powerful homunculus before the Biscuit Hammer destroys the planet!

Source: Official website

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine and the Editor-in-Chief of Sci Fi Magazine. You can read his comics at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox.

By: Joseph Luster

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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holy-cucumber01 · 3 years

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Magical Girl Pretty Sammy

Genre : adventure, fantasy, comedy, maho-shojo, magical girl, seinen, parody

Category : OVA / Аnime series / Special

Episodes : 3 duration 40 min, (Tenchi Muyou!: Galaxy Police Mihoshi Space Adventure) 27 min / (Magical Project S) 26 duration 25 min, (Sasami: Magical Girls Club) 13 duration 25 min, (Sasami: Magical Girls Club 2) 13 duration 25 min / 7 duration 3 min

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drgeoduck · 5 years

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Tenchi Muyo: ranking the series

Excellent :

The original 6 episode OVA series

Tenchi Muyo in Love

Tenchi Forever

Tenchi: Daughter of Darkness

Both manga series by Hitoshi Okuda

Good :

Tenchi Universe (some individual episodes are excellent, for instance the final episodes of the series; while others are really terrible).

OVA special (episode 7)

Mihoshi Special

Pretty Sammy OVA

Pretty Sammy TV

OVA series 2

Not good :

OVA series 3

GXP

Tenchi in Tokyo

Not seen or read, or never translated :

Ai Tenchi Muyo (saw one episode. Quality made me sad.)

OVA 4

War on Germinar

Naoko Hasegawa's novels

Masaki Kajishima's novels and doujins

That one hentai series that Kajishima worked on that I don't recall the name and I don't want to look up

CD dramas

Radio shows

Stage play?

Pretty Sammy manga series (not the one shot by Okuda included in the main series)

Tenchi Forever manga

Video games

Not counting: Dual, Photon, or the magical girl series that dropped all Tenchi connections other than Sasami/Sammy.

#tenchi muyo

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jae-duhb · 4 years

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All of Me

An alpha!Michael x omega!Alto ABO AU where they were an established couple, and an unprotected night resulted in an unexpected pregnancy

Alto didn’t find out until the night Ranka planned to leave Frontier to return Ai-kun to his home planet.

Brera, compelled by a strange gut instinct, checked his physical condition before knocking the pistol out of his hand and subduing him rather than resorting to more violent tactics.

“You shouldn’t get worked up in your condition,” he told him, and Alto growled.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Stress isn’t good for an omega with child.”

...

Silence.

There was only a tiny gasp of surprise from Ranka, and tears broke their dams in Alto’s eyes.

It...it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be!

Oh, but it was. The proof was in Brera’s holographic screens that he so kindly pulled up to show him.

Michael left this world with all of him, but he left a piece of himself in Alto.

Notes

MihaAru’s relationship was a secret. Everybody knew they weren’t single, but nobody knew who their partners were. It was kind of a game amongst the Mihoshi students to guess who MihaAru were seeing, and there was most likely a betting pool out there.

Klan took this pretty hard. Her childhood friend didn’t choose her and was seeing some mysterious person he refused to tell her about. What was so special about them? Why keep it a secret? Did they even exist at all, or was it some kind of trick to keep all the suitors off his back?

When Sheryl asked if Alto was making excuses to his partner—perhaps that girl, Ranka—during their little outing, Alto was terse, “No, we trust each other.” That was all the confirmation Sheryl needed to know she was with a taken man. So, being the mature person she was, she didn’t make anymore advances toward him but did take every opportunity to tease him about his mystery girl- or boyfriend.

Ranka never figured out Alto was already seeing someone until that night when Brera revealed to Alto that he was pregnant. She never asked, and he never perceived her gestures as romantic. If he was seeing anyone, Ranka guessed it was Sheryl, her rival, and she continued to think that until after the conflict with the Vajra was resolved.

While Sheryl was able to deduce that MihaAru were an item just by watching them, it was revealed to Klan when Michael died, when his last words were an apology and a farewell to Alto. Ranka had to be told when she asked if the baby was Sheryl’s.

Following the revelation of his pregnancy, Alto was hysterical. The Vajra took his baby’s father, and Michael left him all alone to raise them. How could he’ve possibly thought straight regarding the Vajra after this was dumped on him?

He wanted to do nothing more than to eradicate the insectoid race with his own hands, but Klan was the one who brought him back to reality. “A piece of Michel is inside you right now. A part of him is still here,” she told him. “Don’t you dare run headlong into danger when they’re the only link to Michel we have now!”

She then vowed to him that she’d get revenge for the both of them, and that Alto should take care of himself and the baby in Michael’s name if nothing else.

After the final conflict with Grace, Klan and Alto bonded over their mutual loss and even became a couple, raising the baby together on the Frontier’s new planet.

#macross frontier #michael blanc #mikhail blanc #alto saotome #mihaaru #michael x alto #alpha/beta/omega dynamics #omegaverse #teen pregnancy #mpreg #male pregnancy #the title is from Evanescence's My Immortal #just fyi

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beneaththetangles · 5 years

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BtT Light Novel Club Chapter 11: True Tenchi Muyo! Volume 3 (Washu)

Welcome, dear readers, to the eleventh meeting of our Beneath the Tangles Light Novel Club. Up for discussion today is what is perhaps the least of the three True Tenchi Muyo! novels, but also the most satisfying in a number of ways. While Jurai and Yosho filled in important gaps that advanced the story of Tenchi Muyo!, Washu feels almost mid-story, a volume that raises more questions than answers while being the first of the books to focus on one of the main girls, and a fan favorite at that—the enigmatic genius, Washu Hakubi.

Framed in a unique way—reminiscent, actually, of the Mihoshi Special—the story begins by reminding us of “Hello Baby!”, the episode where we first got a glimpse into Washu’s sensitive side and learned that her back story was perhaps far fuller than we first imagined, far longer and deeper than any of the other girls’. The way into this tale is through none other than Mihoshi, who begins to regale the Masaki household with a family story that transitions into the main one, not realizing that her family’s account is part of Washu’s also.

Like the others in the series, Washu is a quick and exciting read. It is an absolute thrill to read about Washu’s childhood (or second childhood?) and her early years at the Academy. The story humanizes Washu, who in the original OVAs often flows between an absolutely lovable caricature of a mad scientist and a wise, ethereal being (note: only a very bit of her chousin origin is discussed here); the novel catches her during a time of innocence. In fact, the story really could be described as Washu’s loss of innocence, describing a journey from her years as a caretaker among orphans through education and her greatest loss, the one that still haunts her in the present time, as seen in “Hello Baby!” Covering so many years, the action often moves too fast and doesn’t necessarily feel like one big, coherent piece, though perhaps it wasn’t meant to—Washu continues to expand the world of Tenchi Muyo, which would of course later become larger and even more vast than fans would have imagined.

But enough from me—we want to jump into actual discussion. As we finish this series (the first we’ve completed!), I invite you all to answer the following questions in the comments. Feel free to answer some, all, or none, instead focusing on some other aspect of Washu which you’d like to discuss:

In what ways do you better understand Washu after reading this novel?

Do you see Mihoshi’s relationship with Washu differently after this novel?

Why do you think Washu prefers to stay in the guise of a child after the events involving her family and into the modern day?

Is Washu a more or less compelling character after you’ve read the novel?

Did anything surprise you about Washu’s backstory?

Do you understand Mikamo‘s decision to leave home with Mikumo?

Did Washu make the right decision at the end of the book?

Jeskai Angel, our newest club member, also read along. Having never read the previous installments in the series nor watched the show, it presented a great opportunity to look at Washu as a standalone novel. I asked him some questions from that perspective:

TWWK: Was the novel confusing since you had little context for it, having not read the other novels or watched any of the anime?

Jeskai Angel: I found the novel less confusing than I feared it might be. The very beginning features a bunch characters I’m obviously supposed to know already, but the bulk of the book focuses just on Washu and introduces new elements or characters just fine. There were occasionally other things that an experienced Tenchi fan was expected to know (light hawk wings or whatever???), but it wasn’t a big deal.

TWWK: All the light novels are surprisingly accessible, contributing greatly to the larger canon and containing plenty of fan service (the big connection you wouldn’t know, and that which set the Tenchi community on fire when it first was published decades ago now, was Mihoshi’s relationship to Washu), but working as stand-alone works. I’m glad it worked that way for you!

Jeskai Angel: I assume the big revelation that Mihoshi’s is Washu’s great granddaughter? Interesting.

TWWK: Yes! Though an astute viewer might surmise that Mihoshi had a special relationship with Washu, it was still incredible to find out that they’re related, and comical as well, since they’re on quite opposite ends of the intelligence spectrum. But onto the content of the novel! What are your general impressions?

Jeskai Angel: I think I most appreciated the humor. There was a hilarious line about cooking potatoes in a munitions factory early on, more humor as the story went on (Washu going faster and faster every time she had to run anywhere). I found the book’s overall pacing a bit odd. Sometimes you’d get a super detailed fight scene, for example, then other times the narrative skips months or years into the future with hardly any summary. It wasn’t bad, just a bit perplexing. The book also tried to cover an unusually long span of time (at least compared to other light novels I’ve read that take place over days or months at the most), which I suspect accounts for some of the peculiarities. The book also lacked resolution — specifically, it made a big deal of Washu’s mysterious origin, then dropped the subject and never came back to it. I’m sure her true nature has been explained in some other element of Tenchi media, but in the context of this book it felt weird.

TWWK: Those are good points. Vol. 3 certainly rushes through a long period of time, and is especially speedy toward the end. The mysteries about Washu, too, feel strange within a self-contained book. I guess it would be a surprise to tell you that the mysterious jewels are connected to Washu’s actual being—she is one of the three chousin, goddesses who created the universe of Tenchi Muyo. And coming back to her, did you find Washu’s story to be compelling?

Jeskai Angel: Compelling is such a squishy word, but yeah, I’d say the story was adequately compelling (enough that I wanted to read to the end, at least). The author was successful at portraying Washu as smart without making every other character a buffoon, which not all books with would-be clever protagonists pull off. And Washu turned out to be a really noble person (at least as far as this story is concerned?): her tireless efforts to see son again, plus her love great enough to let him go because she believed that was in his best interest, is quite impressive.

TWWK: Speaking of Washu’s intelligence, I wanted to get your take on this as someone also in this world—what did you think of how life was presented at the Academy versus your own experience in academia?

Jeskai Angel: In real life, grad school isn’t nearly as…hmm…zany as Washu’s experience. Also, I received some really generous financial aid, but the Juraians (sp?) took the idea of the graduate fellowship to pretty crazy extremes. I just wish real-life history PHDs were valued as highly as Juraian philosophy students. LOL. The emphasis on independent study is definitely true to life, however. That’s how writing a dissertation is, but even before that, college involves a lot of unstructured time that requires self-discipline to use.

TWWK: Interesting, though I imagine your FAFSA package didn’t provide a cavernous laboratory or office spaces, or a hundred maids and butlers!

Jeskai Angel: Yeah, my fellowships let me afford a small apartment, not a mansion or astronomical observatory.

TWWK: Alright, one more question and then I’ll give you the chance to talk about anything else you’d like. If this was just a one-volume work, what would you title it?

Jeskai Angel: Probably just “Washu.” Or maybe “Washu’s Love”? Nice ambiguous title with multiple meanings.

As for other thoughts inspired by the book… Can I just take a moment to rant about what a scummy coward Washu’s erstwhile husband was? Let me get this straight: you marry a woman, but are too cowardly to tell her your real name. You marry this woman, but instead leaving father and mother to cling to her, you still prioritize dear old dad’s political situation ahead of your wife. You marry this woman and have a kid with her, but instead of telling her you’re abandoning her and why, you just disappear with your son and never communicate your wife / your son’s mother ever again. And then when you this woman has come to visit, you hide so you won’t have to face her. Am I missing something? Is this guy not scum? He seems as much a jerk as Washu seems a noble, loving hero. I feel sorry for both this guy’s wives.

On a totally different note, the idea of wooden space ships makes no sense but sounds super cool. The casual reference to self-mutilating surgery as if it’s normal and reasonable (i.e. gender “reassignment”) was a little disturbing. The equally cavalier mention of porn was likewise problematic. It reflects the acceptance of porn as normal that I’ve noticed in various anime. If pornography is really as normal as Japanese media seem to imply, that says their society has serious trouble. Not that America has anything to boast of…

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And that’s it for us this time around! We highly encourage you to pick up the volume if you haven’t yet, and Jurai and Yosho as well, which I would describe as better written works and nearly as compelling. And stay tuned next week, as we announce our twelfth (!) selection for the BtT Light Novel Club!

Featured illustration by スギシン (reprinted w/permission)

#light novels #tenchi muyo!#true tenchi muyo!#washu hakubi #btt light novel club #articles #author: twwk #Author: Jeskai Angel

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