July 10th, 2017 
AstroNerdBoy Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 Episode 3
天地無用! 魎皇鬼 OVA 4 Ep. 3
Spoilers Summary/Synopsis:
Airi laments that Tennyo is headed to Earth, leaving her behind. On Earth, after breakfast, Minaho has a meeting with Washu in Washu’s lab. Aeka, Sasami, and Minaho leave for Rea’s version of a bridal shower, where the Masaki women of the Masaki Village are there to officially welcome Rea into the Masaki family and village council. At Tenchi’s home, Nobuyuki has his version of a bachelor party, with Tenchi, Katsuhito, and the few other Masaki men present. Tennyo’s boyfriend Hakuryou is also in attendance and Tenchi learns that his grandfather became a father (Minaho) while he was still a teen.
Outside Washu’s lab, Ryoko, Washu, Ryo-ohki, and Noike have their own, quite celebration. Ryoko thinks everyone should have celebrated together. Back at Rea’s party, Rea pours Tennyo some sake. Tennyo wants to know what Rea sees in her father. It is revealed by the others that when Nobuyuki proposed to Kiyone, it caused quite a stir since folks thought Kiyone wasn’t good enough for Nobuyuki. Nobuyuki lost his parents when he was young and Kiyone befriended him, making him her plaything. As it turns out, he was serious about Kiyone.
On her ship, Airi finishes her work and tries to use the teleporter to get to Earth. However, Washu has the gate closed. thwarting her. That night after the parties are over and Sasami has gone to bed, Washu, Ryoko, Aeka, Minaho, Tennyo, Noike, Mihoshi, Rea, Fuuka, Otoka, and Mizune are in the floating onsen for a soak and sake. Tennyo reveals she’d learned a lot about her father that she never knew. Minaho informs Rea that Seto has tasked her with learning more of Rea’s origins. Rea lets the others know she came from Geminar, a planet no one knows of. Rea is surprised Kiyone never let anyone know that Rea is from another universe.
The following day, Airi arrives on Earth, crying to Washu about being denied arrival the night before. Washu promises to make it up to her by letting her in on some information. She’s annoyed that Minaho isn’t around, but Tsukiko calms her down somewhat. After they finish getting Airi ready, she heads to the Masaki Shrine, where Tenchi, Tennyo, Minaho, Noike, Aeka, and Sasami are one one side while Ryo-ohki, Ryoko, Mihoshi, and Washu are on the other. Airi enters, giving Minaho and Katsuhito a dirty look before taking her place next to Washu with dignity. With that, Nobuyuki and Rea enter and are married.
Sometime after the wedding, Washu, Minaho, and Airi brief Emperor Azusa and Seto-sama on their findings regarding Rea. They start with Rea’s arrival, when Kiyone found her and brought her to the Masaki home. The parallel universe Rea comes from has a one-way path, meaning they cannot contact people on Geminar. They explain what they learned of Geminar, the Seikishi Gaia, and the fact that Tokimi is keeping an eye on the place. Rea told Kiyone things, including how Rea needed to have a child and send it back to battle Gaia should Gaia arise again. Kiyone’s sudden death kept folks in the dark longer. Azusa doesn’t like the idea of a Masaki being sent over, but he’s overruled as they will discuss things if Rea has a son.
Thoughts/Review:
For the first two episodes of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4, the view was expected to be pretty versed in the GXP novels. For the third episode of the series, the series shifts focus from GXP to Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar. However, unlike the random discussions revolving around GXP without any context, at least the War on Geminar discussions were done in a way to answer questions not answered by the War on Geminar anime.
Pre-Wedding Parties
For the bridal shower party, it was interesting to see how the women are organized, with Tennyo as their head. I was amused that Tennyo was curious to know what Rea saw in her father, Nobuyuki. While this question was amusing, things became interesting when we learned that not only did Rea see Nobuyuki as more reliable than Kiyone, but so did the rest of Masaki Village. Granted, OVA 3 revealed that Kiyone wasn’t the person Tenchi remembered in OVA 1 and OVA 2. However, getting greater details about their courtship was interesting, if all too brief.
Some of the girls having the soak in the onsen also provided the gateway for Rea’s backstory to finally get examined. I’ll speak more about that later. What really struck me about the onsen scene is that all of the members of the Masaki family were in towels, as was Noike. Ryoko, Washu, Rea, and Mihoshi were nude, which is the first time we’ve seen full on nudity (sans the very naughty bits indeed). Kajishima-sensei does love his ecchi fanservice, but here, he’s showing the difference between those from Jurai and those not from Jurai. The Juraians are shown as refined and modest while the “gaijin” are shown as immodest and not refined. 😆
For the bachelor party, there wasn’t much to that. However, we did learn that Tennyo has a Masaki boyfriend. Tenchi learned how old Yosho/Katsuhito was when Minaho was conceived.
The party with Noike, Ryoko, Ryo-ohki, and Washu held some interest to me as well. For starters, we see just how mature Ryoko has become as part of the Tenchi harem. There was a time when she would have given the middle finger to being told not to bother the other parties. She would have gone up to go see Tenchi. In that vein, Ryoko remarked on how it would have been so much better if there’d been one party rather than multiple parties. I tend to agree with her.
Family Issues
One thing that’s somewhat frustrating is that Kajishima-sensei drops more questions than questions he answers. For Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 episode 3, we continue to see the family issues between Yosho (Katsuhito), Airi, and Minaho. We know Airi did horrible things for science to Minaho. Minaho seemingly is OK with her past. Yet she didn’t want to talk to her father when she arrived. Airi was blocked from coming, probably to keep her from raping her grandson from what the series has suggested so far.
When Airi arrives at the wedding, she glares at Minaho, who simply ignores her mother. Then she glares at Katsuhito, who simply looks away. Airi gains her composure and takes her place for the wedding. However, from OVA 3, we know that Airi and Katsuhito confronted Minaho, which we assumed was about her being single still. I just wish Kajishima-sensei had explored more about the family rather than constantly have folks speak randomly about Seina and company from GXP, to include having a married woman try to go after him. 🙄
From GXP to War on Geminar
One of the frustrating aspects of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 is its demands that the viewer be versed in the early GXP novels. I’ve not cared for this as it makes all of the random conversations about things in GXP meaningless dribble to those who haven’t watched the GXP anime or read the GXP novels. Indeed, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 episode 3 continues this tendency with the married women Airi and Tsukiko placed with the proposition of being in a sexual relationship with Seina. This is where Kajishima-sensei fails for me in his push for this kind of sexual fetish.
Kajishima-sensei decided to add the War on Geminar series to the Tenchi Muyo! discussions. However, unlike with the GXP discussions, the War on Geminar talks do have direct relevance to the canon Tenchi Muyo! series through Rea. So while having watched War on Geminar would have helped a ton, it wasn’t totally necessary.
As one who did watch War on Geminar, the exploration of Rea’s past did provide some answers to questions left by War on Geminar. We now have a greater understanding of why everyone was on board with helping train Kenshi to send him to Geminar. We also got the humorous reason why Tokimi-sama isn’t doing anything about the situation on Geminar.
I liked how Emperor Azusa and Seto-sama were briefed on the Geminar situation. I was disappointed that Misaki and Funaho weren’t present. I felt they should have been as part of the Holy Council. That said, since Kenshi would be part of House Masaki as soon as Yosho’s status was revealed to be alive, this is the subtle way of showing how the Yosho announcement would impact Tenchi’s family.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I wanted to have this done days ago, but as usual, things push getting stuff done aside. And yes, it doesn’t help that I spend what little free time playing Fate/Grand Order. But so I can finally get this review done, I’ll wrap it up with some final thoughts.
- While it was amusing to show Mihoshi was out on patrol, I did note that she didn’t have a speaking part in this episode.
- In that same vein, neither Sasami nor Aeka had anything to say.
- I’ve kinda mentioned this before, but I’m weary of the heavy incestuous element of Airi apparently lusting after her grandson.
- In that same light, I’m also tired of Tsukiko’s friends trying to push her to leave her husband so she can start boffing the underage Seina. During GXP, I was OK with girls older than Seina lusting after him. After all, that’s part of the canon Tenchi Muyo! franchise tradition. But it becomes too much when we are talking about adult women pushing their friend to boff a boy whom she’s known since he was born. And yeah, I’m rehashing what I wrote earlier, but it annoys me.
- I felt that in this episode, we saw both the nutty side of Kiyone that we were introduced to in OVA 3, but at the same time there was the caring, motherly elements we knew from OVA 1 and OVA 2.
In the end, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 episode 3 allows us to see Rea and Nobuyuki get married. It also allowed us to explore Rea’s character more. Unfortunately, it still requires the viewers to know the contents of the GXP novels and preferably the War on Geminar anime series.
Posted in 
Tags: 
“I just wish Akamatsu-sensei had explored more about the family”
… at this point it’s probably kind of a running gag you’re playing on us like once per Tenchi review, isn’t it?
I’m not sure I like the implications on foreigners to Jurai being the crass and exhbitionist people while the Imperial Japanese stand-ins, the superior culture, are those pure and demure. More than worth a smiley, I find it rather awkward and borderline offensive.
Haha! I wish. No, it is more about lack of sleep thanks to work.
Jurai has always represented classic Japanese society in many ways. And Japanese society has Japanese on top and everyone else is “gaijin.” When Kajishima-sensei created the core Tenchi cast, they represented various character archetypes. Ryoko was the gainjin character — rude and uncouth. Back in the first onsen scene at Obaasan’s place, Sasami and Aeka were in towels and Ryoko was doing the “F-U, I’m not wearing a towel!”
I’m not suggesting that Ryoko, Washu, Rea, and Mihoshi are saying “F-U!” I think Kajishima-sensei is showing that in Juraian culture has certain protocols when it comes to onsen bathing.
The GXP references are most likely there to try and entice GXP readers to pick up the ova. In the time between ova 3 and ova 4 the GXP novels continued to be released. There are probably quite a few people who have read the GXP novels, but have never seen any of the ova’s.
I was never under the impression that Airi was actually interested in Tenchi. She always came off as a grandmother who wants to dote on her grandson she hasn’t seen in years. Her personality gets in the way of that a bit and she teases him a lot, but I never thought she was seriously vying for Tenchi.
In Tsukiko’s case I don’t necessarily have a problem with her being in love with Seina. You mentioned you thought it was weird seeing a woman who has known Seina since he was born be interested in him, but the same can be said for Ryouko. She watched Tenchi grow up and when she got free she started putting the move on him and he was 15 at the time. The same age as Seina. Also I’m not even sure Tsukiko has known Seina since he was born. In the GXP anime Seina didn’t become friends with Kai until he was in elementary school. I know this probably won’t change your mind on the situation, but I figured I’d mention it.
It’s also interesting that in a show where polygamy is the norm people lose their minds at women showing interest in multiple men.
Or for Japan, it is to get them to buy the novels as well. 🙂
Having watched GXP, Airi did go after Seina to a degree as well. And then based on her reactions to Tenchi in OVA 3, combined with the fact that EVERYONE was determined to keep Airi away from Earth until the last possible moment, that suggests to me that no one trusted her not to practically rape Tenchi. Not that Tenchi couldn’t handle himself, but for whatever reason, everyone wanted her blocked.
Ryoko was imprisoned and merely watched Tenchi grow up. She longed to be free and spend time with him. With Tsukiko, Seina was well known in Masaki Village. And I know Kiriko’s attraction to Seina went back to the child Seina coming over and her helping him and Kai bathe. Tsukiko, being Kiriko’s mother, lusting after the same boy that her daughter lusts after just smacks as ultra wrong to me. Further, Tsukiko is apparently married, but she’s supposed to dump Kai on his father so she can have shoutacon sex with Seina. 🙄 I didn’t like that at all, but at least Tsukiko is mature about it and brushing it off.
I know Juraians have weird cultural things, including incest, but Kajishima-sensei is pushing things to be a bridge too far in my opinion.
I had a hard time accepting the Tenchi harem ending. However, the political reasons within the story allowed me to eventually accept this outcome. That said, the issue here isn’t that a girl has interest in multiple guys. It is that a woman is willing to abandon her husband so she can be part of some teen boy’s harem fantasy.
“It is that a woman is willing to abandon her husband so she can be part of some teen boy’s harem fantasy.”
I wonder if the implicit insinuation is their husbands, at least often, do the same thing to their wives with much younger women. These beings are so impossibly long lived it’s difficult to imagine the flames of monogamous or even bigamous passion burning bright forever, especially when so many real life human marriages drift apart after a mild life crisis. Especially since so many of those Juraian marriages were only arranged for political convenience in the first place.
These must be people who literally have lived to try anything, so it’s not hard imagining they’d drift into outright perversion eventually through a combination of boredom and excessive power at their avail.
That may all be true. However, in this case, you have an adult woman, married to a man, who’s born than man children. Pushing her to be in Seina’s harem just sounds whacked to me. Of course we know it didn’t happen, but the concept just sounds like Kajishima-sensei adding an “MILF” (if you’ll pardon the term) fetish into a harem filled with various character-type fetishes.
I’ve never said it wouldn’t be whacked, just that extremely powerful and influential people with lots of time at their avail and relatively few boundaries that can be applied to them often will do whacked things to alleviate their own boredom and sate their personal appetites. That’s just part of human nature, and it seems obvious to me most of Juraian nobility aren’t exactly very pure people. Overall they are manipulative, whenever they want something they want it done their way and as soon as possible, and they have a condescending at best, downright racist at worst, attitude towards races and cultures they unilaterally deem inferior, mostly based on Might Makes Right principles.
The franchise by now points this out at several points, I think, the bad part being they never are really called out on it, or are forced to actually improve as a collective on the subject.
I’ve found this OVA series so far disappointing. It was lack cluster. Yes it’s answering questions about canon, but it really wasn’t very entertaining. I know we can’t have the action pack Tenchi Muyo! was during it’s original OVA run. However, i find this is not i had come to expect the series to turn into.
GXP tie ins are ok, but again it didn’t make sense to me how they didn’t even MENTION Senia by name some points. I don’t even have clear picture what or how his story turned out since his anime series isn’t quite same as what’s being described here.
I do think the multi-generation incestial tendency of the series is bit off. Tenchi shouldn’t be the target of his “Grandmother”. I think author has bit of a warp mentality. I understood in the old days as slap-stick humor but novels Airi Masaki was bit. I had misfortune to not have seen OVA 3 series, but i still confused how Airi was still Tenchi’s grandmother where in animation she was never on planet Earth. I was under the impression from earlier in the series Yosh was stranded on Earth. I’ve read very recenty he had travelled secretly to visit his wife.
Perhaps different versions of series are confusing me. I was under the impression Tenchi was descendant of Yosho’s human wife (i guess Universe series was different i guess.) Also i though Tenchi’s father was human and not Jurai as well, just Yosho’s daughter who was Tenchi’s mom.
I hope the series has some more action in it or at least more funny in it. It just too…dull to be called main Tenchi Muyo to me.
I agree. I was rather hoping for something like we were teased in the -If- doujinshi.
Yeah, I agree here. Not having the context from the GXP novels is a big negative. Having GXP references is one thing and there should be because I imaging folks in Masaki Village would discuss this, based on who Seina was and his success as an anti-pirate officer. But OVA 4 should require folks to have viewed that by having these lengthy discussions on Seina and company.
I think Airi secretly lived on Earth for a time. But yeah, Tenchi descends from both Kasumi (Nobuyuki) and Airi (Kiyone).
I wouldn’t count on action, though if there were to be any action, it might be the pirate attack on Earth that was mentioned in the GXP anime.
hey it’s fap. on the subject of tsukiko and airi: yeah you have to read the novels… tsukiko is not married. she even kind of hates dai, kai’s father, he is a tennan and from what i read mentaly unbalanced (like he has a serious mental disease it think) she has never loved him and she planned to marry seina because she loves seina and he would hae had no future on earth without her marrying him before he ended up in space.
she was in love with ken rabera steinbeck… who presumably is Hiroshi rara’s reincarnation, Hiroshi manada (ken sanada’s reincarnation) had a crush oh her and created miki from her personal data as a sort of dating simulator of her… and it gained sentience he wiped its memory put it in a cyborg body and raised it as his daughter miki who looks like mitsuki from dual. he was going to tell her his feeling but he got involved in some shady illegal bussiness and got busted for it and was too ashamed to tell her after that and so she went and hooked up with Ken and ken went off in to space on a mission shortly after they had kiriko and his ship was attacked by an unidentified thing that created a
as for airi. she is full on in rape mode u got that right like she goes full on crazy at this point. seina has told ryo ohki about his troubles with her and so washu know exactly whats going on with her trying to constantly throw her self at him.
in the part where seina goes back to earth and hangs out with tenchi around where katsuhito says he cant preform a luck ritual on him but will do one on the girls there is a part that was cut out that is in the novels. seina asks him if he can do anything about his wife and yosho admits that he can’t they have been back together almost 500 years and thats a long time to be monogomous so she is free to do whatever. according to him space relation ships are just like earth ones they fall apart and change with time. also apparently philosophers are all massive nymphos according to him… later on a few books later the plot line resolves when washu gives katsuhito and airi bioroid bodies of their young selves and they rekindle their relationship.
(i say bioriod because it’s explained that she did basicly what was done to d, she put their bodies in suspended animation and had their minds projecting control over artificial android bodys.)
as for tsukiko she tells seina something reiterating yosho’s statement. she finaly tells seina her feelings which is what she is debating doing in ova 4 and the afterwords of every novel up to the one where he goes back to earth, but she tells him look … for now just think of me as aunty tsukiko. relationships come and go and maybe when were older the time for you to no longer be with kiriko will come and the time for us to be together will come I’m ok with not being with you for now just knowing that. people live thousands of years we are both still young i can wait.
so if you keep up with the gxp novels… then ova 4 is a lot better.
also seina is more or less declaired emancipated shortly after the good luck fleet shows up which is about a year after he left earth.
Thanks for the info! I haven’t read any of the work you’ve done. Like many things, it is on my list of things to do, but I just haven’t done it.
also to clarify
the day after seina “captured” widow, the woman who caused a mass suicide of the airian religion that killed her father and basicly single handed destroyed airai’s civilization, airi literaly trys dragging seina away from his entrance ceremony into bushes to fuck him. thats what that novel picture of demonic looking air and angelic mitoto is about. mitoto walks up to them and diffuses the situation.
airi then spends a few more books trying to get the dicc agood amount of his time scared shitless of airi and also airi was the one who controled nb and made him do all the dirty stuff like making seina buy sex toys and lingere and that stuff with his first paycheck.
he told ryo-ohki allllll that stuff…. so washu knew.
also forgot to correct this before i posted: ken rabera kirikos dad was killed by what is implied to be something like zinv that crushed his ship into a singularity.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the info!
>My theory has been that the girls around them sense the unusual, strong power within these guys. Thus the reason these guys get a harem.
in gxp 14 washu describes it as seina and tenchi both cause massive distortion on the fabric of reality so women gather around them who have properties that stablize the phenomena they cause. this also explains photon
Interesting. That goes in with the creation of the Counteractor and her role. Thanks!
It’s for sure that most people, if not some in the Jurai family just some lust within them to the point they do some ridiculous stuff just to experience it. At times I just feel a bit sorry for Tenchi at times, and the fact that he has to find a way to get used to this situation, especially when the Earth has been his home his entire life, and now has to leave one day. Thing is, the day Tenchi leaves Earth or implied to is the day that everything that started way back as a late adolescent to pre-teen days finally concludes with this show.
I forgot to bring in more than just Tenchi, Seina, and Kenshi too. They just seem to find themselves in these kinds of predicaments, and it never seems to cease. With that said, I’m feeling a bit mixed with this OVA 4 overall. It has some explanations up and out of the way, but the series had some action to it that balanced it all out. I remember some people like Bennett the Sage having some things to point out to OVA 3, that made them look forward to OVA 4 with some skepticism.
Although I’m more stunned at the fact of how ridiculous the whole family is at times, but this is the family I watched throughout the show. Even if they are bored, they do some things that even I wouldn’t dare, besides the last time I saw someone do something like that, let’s just say certain individuals never got a slap on the wrist for their actions.
My theory has been that the girls around them sense the unusual, strong power within these guys. Thus the reason these guys get a harem.
I remember Kajishima-sensei talking about an OVA 4 even before OVA 3 was done.
Next Episode should be out soon.
Funny thing, I started watching Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures which is a distant “cousin” of the Tenchi universe, recently made part of canon with GPX. I didn’t see it when it came out on TechTV back in the day. Having seen first episode, it looks like has dna of Tenchi Muyo universe in it.
And me missing my dead PC. 🙁
As to Photon, I watched it along with every other Kajishima-sensei title (including his two hentai titles) back in the day, just because Kajishima-sensei stated that all his works were linked at the corner.