May 9th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy Hey gang!
I finally had a weekend off, so I decided just goof off and have some fun. As a result, I’ve got to see both the dentist AND a medical specialist this week. π (I shouldn’t laugh, but thankfully, it isn’t worse than it is.)
Anyway, the medical harm of done to myself not withstanding, stuff I had planned to post yesterday and today are out the window. We’ll see if I can get back on track tomorrow. (I guess it depends on how many follow up trips to see doctors I have this week, to say nothing of my workload from my job.)
As a result, here’s an image post for the few of you left who haven’t seen the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 art.
I find it interesting that the first promo art from the new series is to have a young Rea (Tenchi’s step mother), and older Rea, an older Tenchi (with Ryo-ohki-chan), and Tenchi’s aunt, Minaho. Minaho only got a brief cameo in OVA 3, and had a small roll in GXP, serving on KAMIKI Seto Jurai’s staff. I wouldn’t mind seeing her get more screen time and more development as a character. (I doubt the series would take time to explain the great lengths her mother Airi went through to make sure Minaho was born and not killed prior to birth.)
Since Rea is Tenchi’s step mother, it doesn’t surprise me that she’s featured. However, she’s featured twice, so it is possible that OVA 4 may further explain how and why Tenchi’s half-brother Kenshi was sent to Geminar (Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar).
Folks have asked me about my expectations of OVA 4, so I’ll post some thoughts here.
- With the story of who Tenchi is being resolved (for the most part) in OVA 3, I don’t expect we’ll see some massive villain the likes of Kagato or Z. We might get some pirate action though, especially if there are kids involved. π
- I strongly suspect we’ll mostly get “day in the life of the Masaki home” stories, which will show Tenchi and his harem as well as their children. (Based off of the -If- doujinshi.)
- I wouldn’t mind the series showing Tenchi and his harem moving to Jurai at the end of the last episode. That’s supposed to happen sometime after Sasami graduates from high school.
Beyond that, I really don’t have a lot of expectations.
Am I looking forward to the new OVA series? You bet. And I hope Kajishima-sensei learned a few lessons about story structure from OVA 3 (but I’m not holding my breath there).
I really wish Kajishima-sensei would get his Shin Tenchi Muyo! novels animated, and then have his GXP novels animated properly so that we get the story he wanted to tell, but for which Nabeshin mostly trashed.
Still, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on all of this. What expectations do you have? Post in the comments. Remember, don’t attack others who have a differing opinion.
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I’ll stand by my original opinion that the introduction of Noike was a mistake and a bridge too far that seriously reinforced the impression that Kajishima-sensei has nothing interesting for his characters to do anymore. I really don’t mind slice-of-life but Noike didn’t add anything to the Harem that couldn’t also have been achieved by allowing the other characters just a bit more development. And her introduction did make it almost impossible to let those other characters have enough screen time for my liking. A Space Pirate is a terrible thing to waste!
And of course, there’s all the other structural problems you’ve already pointed out.
I’m still glad to see more Tenchi but my expectations are fairly tempered.
Noike was the element that forced the other characters to get in line. Aeka and Ryoko put aside their differences because Noike was a threat. No other character could keep Mihoshi in control until Noike showed up. And Sasami had help in the kitchen as well. Plus, Noike’s marriage to Tenchi means a strengthening of the political ties between House Misaki and House Kamiki. And it allows Seto to more easily keep tabs on Tenchi. π
Don’t get me wrong — OVA 3’s poor structure is to blame for most of the problems. But when I recently rewatched OVA 3, I couldn’t help but think that with some additional tweaking, Noike’s character would be a better fit.
I’m forced to hold my breath about this. I love the original Tenchi story line prior to being stopped when Pioneer got sold. It was mix space opera / adventure / scifi / comedy / then-newly invented harem/ with slice of life added.
I do NOT have alot faith in this. Anime Tends/tastes and other things have radically changed what i liked about franchise. It’s gotten too far and away it’s roots for my taste. OVA3 was lifeless to me in comparison to early releases. Sorry sound so harsh, but i was greatly disappointed.
Spins off have had different takes on the franchise, driving it to different directions. Such as Tenchi Muyo TV and Universe. Ai was not so great. It could been better, but them’s the breaks. It was nice they grew up more.
Hopefully this isn’t going too crazy with the slice-of-life side of harem comedy.
Hoping for the best.
Just out of curiosity, how versed were you with the doujinshi and such prior to OVA 3’s release?
I’m rather neutral to more Tenchi. I don’t really feel as betrayed by OAV 3 like most of the other fans felt. I also feel the people who don’t like OAV 3 were kind of “conditioned” on the more grounded TV continuity with the presence of Kiyone, Tenchi officially choosing a girl, and Achika being a stronger presence in the franchise thanks to “Tenchi Muyo in Love”. Basically the old school Tenchi fans were exposed to the first two OAVs and then all the alternate continuity stuff in such a way that after a decade when we went back to the main continuity it felt kind of like they were retconning and re-enforcing TV elements back into the epic space opera that is the OAVs.
Of course the OAV is the proper story and the prime continuity but after GXP and OAV 3 it did feel like the Tenchi family tree was growing increasingly absurd. While I like the more dramatic and involved backgrounds and legacies of all the characters involved everything does come across as too many cooks and it does seem the growing cast takes away the focus from the prime characters. Since we do have GXP and War on Geminar factor into the continuity it will be interesting what stories are going to be told.
Overall I like Tenchi enough that I’m looking forward to this but it does feel like they are dragging things out with the franchise.
Question is are they still canon? GXP was suppose to be part of the original OVA canon. It was far off enough from main story, that it’s events didn’t effect anything. Though it’s reality was bit….zany for epic story-feel of first ovas projected.
War on Geminar is too wild of story for the original canon.
Whatever OVA4 is suppose to be about, it still up to debate. Question is how much
of it needs to be “updated” to compete with Japanese fan’s tastes.
Or is it intended to be geared towards for western audiences?
GXP is considered canon in that it is set in the canon universe. That being said, the novels trump the anime in terms of canon since Kajishima-sensei wrote a whole ton of them after being displeased with how Nabeshin treated the series.
War on Geminar is canon, but set in another universe (or something). Its only ties to TM!R are the fact that Kenshi is the son of Rea and Nobuyuki, making him the half-brother of Tenchi. (Oh, and Tokimi sent him there.) As such, it can do whatever it wants as that establishes a new universe with ties to the old.
I think the franchise has always been geared toward the Japanese. I don’t think it will have much of a problem capturing Japanese fan tastes. After all, the franchise as a whole (canon and non-canon) keep generating enough money for AIC to spring for the more expensive OVA route.
I agree here. Plus, a lot of these fans weren’t as hardcore as someone like myself. At best, a lot of fans were only casually aware of the doujinshi and other materials that Kajishima-sensei wrote during that drought period. So while he was being the J.R.R. Tolkien of Japan in creating this massive world of Tenchi Muyo!, we in the West didn’t have a lot of access to that and thus that caused more problems. (Plus, we tend to have a resistance to getting the “whole” story via mulit-media formats, though Star Wars may be changing that with the canon novels, comics, TV series, movies, etc.