June 17th, 2020 
AstroNerdBoy Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02
天地無用! 魎皇鬼 OVA 5 Ep. 2
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
The Kamidake II is in orbit around Earth. Inside, Kiriko, Ryoko Balta, Amane, Neju, and most of the rest of Seina’s harem discuss where to raise the children they will bear for Seina. Ultimately, it is decided to take Tenchi’s off up. As such, they will build a new home across the pond from Tenchi’s residence.
Meanwhile on board Seto-sama’s Royal Tree-ship Mikagami, TATSUKI Ringo, a Juraian working for Galaxy Police Accounting Department, questions Seto and Seto’s “mirror” self, Kuis (Quis) regarding recent expenditures. They survive and Kuis is sent to Earth. There, she greets Ayeka, Sasami, and Noike. The group then go to Noike’s Royal Tree-ship, Kyoko. Thanks to Washu’s work, this 3rd-generation Royal Tree is now the equivalent of a 1st-generation Royal Tree. Kuis informs them that she has to report this to the High Council.
Back on Earth, Nobuyuki is drafting house designs based on the specs that Kiriko and Karen provide. Nobuyuki mentions that there is a consideration in joining Tenchi’s household with Seina’s to create its own neutral faction on Earth. Kuis joins them and eventually apologizes for the trouble Seto caused Kiriko and others. She then has a private chat with Kiriko and Karen, revealing that Seto wants Seina to deal with the remaining pirates.
Tenchi joins them and they move the conversation indoors. Kuis reveals the plan to have the remaining pirate factions unite and become a legitimate country. Seina, Fuka, and some other girls will be monitors to a battle royal on Earth. To that end, a 4th-generation Royal Tree is being used to create an artificial island called Banjo Island. Tenchi and Mihoshi will handle any pirates wanting to disrupt things.
Meanwhile, Seina along with humanoid cabbits Fuka, Miki, Kirche, and “D” are on Banjo Island, overseeing its development. The next morning at the Tenchi residence, Ryo-Ohki finally manages to find Kenshi. Sasami remarks to Aeka on how Kenshi is getting better at avoiding detection. Tenchi, Kenshi, and Ryo-Ohki head to the fields. Ryoko notices an intruder, which Ryo-Ohki has not detected.
Washu says it can wait until after breakfast, but Tenchi has noticed the issue. He teleports to space and sees a cloaked, pirate ship. He teleports to the ship, then uses his abilities to send the ship to wherever Kuis wanted troublesome pirates sent. Later, Ryo-Ohki pulls her ship out of the water and goes off in it with Kenshi. Rea and Noike chat with Washu about Kenshi going to school. Washu has a solution to help keep Kenshi from blabbing secrets.
Thoughts/Review:
Well, it was a LONG summary for Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02, but that’s OK. And it has taken me a while to put together everything for this review. But that’s OK too.
GXP Continues
I’m not going to lie; I loved seeing the cast of Tenchi Muyo! GXP in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02. It was nice seeing Neju having grown up. Gyokuren was missing (I didn’t catch if they mentioned where she was at), and there were new members to the harem beyond Jovia. More on that in a bit.
That said, it was interesting seeing the girls calmly discussing raising the children they will have with Seina. There’s no jealousy within the harem. It is all just mater of fact stuff.
As with OVA 4, OVA 5 is requiring knowledge of the GXP novels in order to fully understand what is going on. I’ll discuss some aspects of this later. But in terms of story, the incident with the Renza Federation that kept being mentioned is going to be a mystery to anime-only viewers. And this is a problem.
I get that Kajishima-sensei only has six episodes to work with. As such, he’s not going to retread ground he covered in the novels. The anime is just to fill in gaps and continue onward. But for those without access to the GXP or Paradise War novels, we won’t have context for a lot of things that are discussed.
As an aside, the ONLY way to get Seven Seas to consider taking a financial risk on the GXP and Paradise War novels is to buy the True Tenchi Muyo! novels they published. Otherwise, we non-Japanese fans who can’t read Japanese are going to be out of luck.
Paradise War
Speaking of Paradise War, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02 gives us a taste of that part of the canon. If you aren’t aware of that series, it is another set of novels written by Kajishima-sensei. I think there are three novels to date (I own two). Whether there will be more or not remains to be seen.
That said, we now know how the events of Paradise War started and why Seina is detached from his harem. It would be awesome if Seven Seas would license those novels and the GXP novels. I am kinda curious to see how things went in those novels. The characters from them are slated to appear in OVA 5.
Still, if you were not aware of the Paradise War novels, some of this is going to leave you scratching your head. You may also be scratching your head over seeing characters from yet another Kajishima-sensei series.
Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure
If you are versed in all of Kajishima-sensei’s works, or have a background with anime from pre-2000, you might have recognized character designs from Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02. Rather than be from a parallel world, the events of Dual! are in fact from several million years past.
Kajishima-sensei seem to be drawing on the concept from Battlestar Galactica (2003); “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” Thus, the core characters of GXP are parallel versions of the characters in Dual! But that’s not all. We actually have reincarnations of some of the original Dual! girls in this episode. I don’t know how this works exactly, but the souls of these girls inhabit some of the cabbit clones Seina rescued in the GXP anime (and novels).
As such, SANADA Mitsuki is reincarnated as Miki Steinbeck in the GXP novels. And they have the same seiyuu. Kirche is heavily implied to be RARA Mitsuki, howbeit with somewhat different character designs. They do have the same seiyuu. And of course, there was D, who apparently has the same name. So Kajishima-sensei continues to use the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki series to umbrella all of his other works that are set within universe. And that carries over into OVA 5 Episode 02.
Seto and “Mirror Seto”
Another new character introduced in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02 is Kuis (or Quis, as fandom has been calling her). She too is another character from the GXP novels. She is known as “Mirror Seto” because during a anti-pirate mission when Seto fell into a coma, the shape-shifting Kuis was created to cover for Seto’s absence. (How this was achieved hasn’t been explained.) As such, she has all of Seto’s memories up to the point of Seto’s coma.
Once Seto was back in the saddle, Quis became one of Seto’s chief intelligence operatives. So Ayeka, Sasami, and Noike do know her. That’s where the official subtitles get a tad confusing when Kuis asks Sasami why Noike and Ayeka know her. It’s more that Kuis is asking Sasami why Noike and Ayeka know of Kuis’s involvement with the Renza adventures Kiriko and others had.
But that aside, I kinda like the Kuis character. It is interesting to have a character who’s equal to Seto in almost every way.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
As always of late, I’m insanely behind. So let me wrap up my review of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02 with some final thoughts.
- Crunchyroll’s subtitles have full Japanese honorific usage. And Ayeka’s name isn’t hosed like it is for their OVA 4 release. Outside of a couple of things that weren’t worded quite right, no issues with the subtitles at all.
- Although I mentioned this episode still has a higher entry bar, to be honest, I found this episode not only better than episode one, but better than all of OVA 4. Maybe it is because of the GXP crew.
- And yes, Tenchi’s crew does get a tad more screen time. And we also get a glimpse of why I think there will be no real antagonist in the series. After all, who can fight Tenchi or his harem?
- Finally, a blushing Ryoko is fine. 😍
In the end, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5 Episode 02 was actually an enjoyable episode despite its high entry bar. It was nice seeing the GXP crew back. And it was nice seeing Sasami actually as a teenager. Likewise Neju. And seeing Seina as a fine young man was nice as well.
Shout out to the gang at Useless Tenchi! Your’s truly had to get up to speed with the gang of Japanese and Western fans there.
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This is easily the best episode of TM!R since the last episode of OVA3. The character art designs are really nice too; the best they have looked in years.
The highlight of this episode to me though was Tenchi being super OP. The dramatic music and build up being totally quashed by the ridiculous voice of the package being received. Almost like in a game when you’ve completed a mission kinda thing. The whole thing was over in like 1 minute. lol.
So I wasn’t alone in that thinking.
People think that AIC used episode 1 to generate revenue in order to have more money for episode 2. Episode 1 sold pretty well, as I understand it, so yeah, it was nice seeing episode 2 looking so nice.
Haha. I hear ya. I somewhat suspect that this is Kajishima-sensei’s way of saying, “There’s not going to be an antagonist in OVA 5.” There’s literally no one who could go up against Tenchi, much less his harem. And if they did, the galaxy would probably be destroyed in the process. 😅
If been a while since I use the name, but then it been a while for TENCHI material to discuss.
There is one recurring discussion in this episode you missed, the talk about something between Ayeka and Ryoko. At first I thought this was about their running battle, but I have second thoughts about it, and when back to check IF I. I suspect now this discussion is about the Pregnancy of both ladies. It about the timing we saw in both IF I and IF VI. and that Sasami appearance in both Ifs seem close in the latest episode.
Now let add that Ryoko is blushing before breakfast which may mean she is sick ( make that morning sickness) and Washu is letting her off from chasing the Pirates, we may have some good series timeing clues to work with.
Add this to Senai’s harem talking about their future kids, we might have a recurring plot line.
It is very possible.
I didn’t get that impression. She blushed after being reminded of her sister connection to Ryo-Ohki and her family connection with Washu. If Ryoko is pregnant, the family aspect may be on her mind with her own child.
I do think the aspects of IF will come to play in OVA 5.
This episode brought me a lot of joy. GXP is my favorite anime of all time (I own it in three different versions) and after all these years I finally got to watch this episode which made me feel like I was watching the continuation of GXP which is something I have dearly wanted for a long time (along with a remake of the old anime with all the cut stuff from the novels, and English versions of the novels too).
I recently purchased an almost complete set of the GXP novels on eBay (1-16) even though I can’t read Japanese. Still, I like to have them anyway and I can still appreciate the art. I have heard about Paradise War but for some reason I must have gotten myself confused because I had it in my head that that was a “working name” for War on Geminar. I’ll have to see if I can find more information on it especially if it involves the GXP crew.
One thing that confuses me is the conversations the GXP wives were having aboard the ship. It was my understanding that Hakuren, Suiren, Gyokuren and Karen are all married to Seina. As long as this is actually true, I thought it was odd that the women were talking as if he’s only married to Kiriko, Amane, Ryoko and Neju. When they were discussing the wedding they mentioned the original four brides being at the Earth wedding, however if he is married to the Renza Four as well, why couldn’t all eight be included? I know Kirko discusses them having a wedding that includes the others as well, but she mentions it in the context of being in space, not on Earth.
Also, when Ryoko was listing where she felt women would raise their children, she only mentioned herself, Kirko, Amane, and Neju. If the Renza Four are married to Seina as well, wouldn’t it be expected that they would have children too? I wonder why they seem to not be included. Were they just trying to be concise in the dialog?
I will say I found it odd how the women all discussed things as if they weren’t bothered by them in the least. Through the GXP anime they often seemed combative of each other over trying to get time with Seina but here they were just like “yeah, sure, whatever we do is fine.” They also seemed to have just decided Kirko is the “head wife” which I guess makes sense since it seemed she was the primary love interest for Seina. Still, I sort of expected them to “draw straws” or argue a bit to be the one bride that would be in the wedding. I suppose at this point the group has been together for many, many years so it probably just shows them maturing as a family and getting more used to their unique situation.
[spoiler]https://tenchi.fandom.com/wiki/Seina_Yamada lists quite a few women as a part of Seina’s crew. Has he actually married them all or is it something that has been decided but has yet to be carried out? I’m interested in how things would play out for someone like Ringo who seems to need to live and work on Jurai whereas all the other women (the primary four at least) would get to live directly with Seina on Earth.[/spoiler]
Yeah, I’d love to see the GXP novels properly adapted. Ditto the True Tenchi Muyo! novels.
Actually, thanks for reminding me of this. I meant to check into this. I’ll do that now. I was under the belief that Seina married eight girls as well.
I think two things are at play here. First, I think Nabeshin added more conflict among the harem for comedy purposes. I’m not sure how much of a conflict there was in the novels.
That aside, for me, I felt this showed how the girls had matured. They’ve agreed to this polygamist lifestyle. I remember seeing an interview of a polygamist family years ago. There was a head wife for official purposes. But within the marriage, the women established a fair sharing system for the man. And because they chose and accepted this life, they had no (apparent) problems with jealousy or the like.
In that light, Seina’s harem has achieved that balance and haromony.
As to your final point, I’m not sure Seina has married every girl in his crew. I don’t think he has, but I need to follow up on this as well.
Well, it was my impression that the wedding in GPX fell apart, but that only my impression, nothing that is in print.
My I suggest you reading Robert Heinlein Novels, inculding the Moon is Harsh Mistress, all the Lazarus Long Stories and the multi-verse ( Number of the Beast) novels. If there is any better SF on the subject of the polygamist lifestyle, I don’t know of it.
Yeah, I’m not sure.
Thanks for the tip.
I’ve not gotten see the OVA yet, but sounds like it’s sort of more like family thing OVA 4 was verses a actual adventure/action thing.
Yeah, that’s probably what the entire thing will be like.