Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting Review
天地無用！GXP パラダイス始動編
Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Shidō-hen

As longtime readers of the blog know, I’m a HUGE fan of the canon Tenchi Muyo! franchise. So even though I’ve had disappointments with Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 and Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 5, I still had excitement for the new Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting OVA series. EXNOA takes the reins from AIC, but can they do a better job than the original Tenchi production company?

S P O I L E R S !

The Story, in Brief

YAMADA Seina returns to Earth on board his ship, the Kamidake II. His core wives are still on missions elsewhere. With Seina are his NB replacement AI unit Nayuta, cabbits Miki Steinbeck, D, Fuuku, Kirche, and the reincarnated human Jovia Jovis, who’s now a mage. Since Seina’s best friend (and brother-in-law) Kai is engaged to Seina’s sister, it is decided that Seina should stay with his mother-in-law, Tsukiko. There, Seina learns that before he went into space and joined GXP, the women of Masaki Village appointed Tsukiko to be his wife and deal with his bad luck.

Seina and his cabbit harem work to help Masaki Village with its massive farming efforts. Jovia decides to visit her former home in Japan, where her former best friend and Jovia’s mother recognize her despite her different, reincarnated appearance. Meanwhile, Kuis arrives with a giant, Third Generation Royal Tree-Ship, which becomes the basis of the artificial land mass named Banjo Island. Seto puts Seina and his crew in charge of monitoring the time-lapse development of said island.

While they wait, Seina introduces Tsukiko to the magic subspace section on the Kamidake II, which is docked on Banjo Island. Inhabiting this space are some elves, dryads, and the Wau child Seina saved years earlier, Acha. Tsukiko quickly masters magic. Thus when Jurai sends a construction crew to build facilities on the completed Banjo Island, Tsukiko is able to magic foundations quickly. Meanwhile, the pirate guilds send their young, female representatives to the island, where Seina, now known as Minamida is in charge. Seina then goes to retrieve Shou, a teen male from Earth who’s not aware of aliens or the like.

Still a High Entry Bar

While Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting may not be as challenging to get into as OVA 4 was, there is still a high entry bar for non-Japanese folks who’ve not read the GXP novels, nor the Paradise War novels. That’s because this new OVA series is less a sequel to the original Tenchi Muyo! GXP TV series. Instead, it is designed to bridge the gap between the GXP novels (which trump the anime TV series) and the Paradise War novels.

The production team at EXNOA does make more of an effort to retread some minor ground from both novel series. In that regard, I think EXNOA does a better job than AIC did to acknowledge that not everyone might have read those series of novels. However, EXNOA comes up well short of doing a proper job in making this new OVA series stand on its own two feet. I get that Kajishima-sensei probably isn’t interesting in retreading old ground. The series is designed for the Tenchi otaku in Japan, not for gaijin markets. But to me, it is a shame that these new Tenchi titles aren’t done properly.

Expanded Lore

One of the biggest things I liked about Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting is the expansion of the lore of canon Tenchi Muyo! To that end, we learned what the women of Masaki Village had in store for Seina once he became an adult. They picked Tsukiko, who’d spent a lot of time with Seina as a child and wasn’t as affected by his bad luck, to become his wife. From a lore perspective, it makes sense that this would happen, since Seina is cursed with bad luck. Before anyone knew that he needed a team of four girls (the reincarnations of the four girls from Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure) with him to fully counteract that, the choice of Tsukiko made sense.

Another interesting lore element is how Jurai is using the Yamada Store (and Kai) to launder money in (and presumably out) of Earth. As Earth becomes more technologically sophisticated, Jurai’s plans for Masaki Village are interesting. After all, they still want to keep it secret, but now they need a plausible reason to seal off the area.

The final element of lore I found interesting was the deeper look at Masaki Village. The place gives off a commune vibe as everyone who lives here is of Jurai, either directly or through Yosho. So when Seina and his cabbits spend a day working the fields around Masaki Village to harvest fruits and vegetables with other villagers, I thought, “Man, I would not want to live here!”

Missed Opportunities and Dropped Threads

While I was not a fan of the potential Tsukiko x Seina pairing in Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting, I am annoyed that we didn’t get a resolution to that storyline. Tuskiko did not appear in OVA 5, which takes place after the GXP OVA. So there’s no indication of what happens to her. Tsukiko clearly wanted to join Seina’s harem for some reason, even though Seina’s chief wife Kiriko is Tsukiko’s daughter. I think there should have been a resolution to explain why Tsukiko gave up.

In addition, Tsukiko has a dream-memory, where she was apparently an elf, fleeing with a child. But here too, we are left hanging as nothing comes of this.

Another element that I didn’t like was Jovia. Her character is set up as comic relief, but to me, it isn’t done well. That said, I did appreciate that this OVA series did attempt to expand on her character. Unfortunately, this falls short because there’s no resolution here. To be honest, the series should have shown Jovia as a human on Earth who then dies. Then it could have shown her reincarnation on another world, and a montage of things learned from the GXP novels. But we don’t get that, nor is there a resolution to Jovia reuniting with her mom and best friend.

A HUGE disappointment in the series is that Seina doesn’t even meet his mom, dad, or sister. He only meets Kai. Even if Seina’s bad luck is a concern, there is a such thing as a phone. Not only that, but Seina has no contact with his original harem of eight wives. Again, the technology exists for him to contact them. And it would have been interesting for Kiriko to have concerns about her mom trying to get into the harem. But alas, nothing.

Finally, this OVA just ends, leaving folks dangling. That’s because the end of episode 6 is the beginning of the first volume of the Paradise War novel series. So yeah, there’s more story, but we don’t get to see it. Maybe EXNOA will properly adapt the novels into anime form.

Jangling Keys

I admit, I got excited by the various jangling keys in Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting. For a start, we have the cabbit reincarnations of the girls from Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure. Unfortunately, they just exist to do plot things when required. To that end, they are just jangling keys, even though I know there’s a lore reason (which this series doesn’t really explain, though it hints at it) for the girls to be there, including their origin.

The elves and magic elements are a bridge too far for me. Still, even if one considers elves just another alien race, what did we learn about the elves (or dryads) living on the Kamidake II? But for readers of the GXP novels, they are a set of jangling keys. And to the rest of us, the magic system and elves living on the ship don’t help the story, nor do they expand the lore.

There were lots of other jangling keys moments, but I think the biggest one was bringing Masaki Jurai into this series. As a more hardcore fan, I’ve known about Masaki for years. In one of his doujinshi works, Kajishima-sensei had Tokimi give Masaki a body. She then goes on to marry a son of Tenchi. But in this new GXP OVA series, Jovia magics Masaki a body. Then after one of the most revered figures in Tenchi lore is established, we get a cameo from Tsunami, who wisks Masaki away. After that, Masaki is turned into another comedic figure, before she’s just removed from the story off camera ’cause “she wasn’t in OVA 5“. Thus Masaki served no purpose in this story.

EXNOA Fails!

Initially, EXNOA’s production values for Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting started pretty well. Alas, EXNOA fell short in the sixth episode. I get the feeling they either ran out of money or time (or both). To that end, visually, the final epsiode of the series. looks like complete and utter trash at times. There were a lot of still shots where characters don’t move (or blink), but say a lot. Other shots had characters looking just hideous.

To that end, I wondered why EXNOA scored the Tenchi property. I mean the penniless AIC would have done just as good a job at the end. Maybe they learned that a monthly OVA release schedule is a tough one. This probably should have had a six week release schedule per episode.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting was okay to me as a Tenchi fan with more knowledge than most. However, I won’t deny that while the dangling keys would get me excited at times, there were a lot of disappointing elements for me such as dropped plot threads and characters who are there, but get nothing beyond cameos (Zinv-chan, Nayuta). I really wish these series didn’t rely on folks reading the Paradise War or GXP novels. Still, maybe EXNOA can get their act together and do an anime adaptation of the Paradise War novels before expanding into the GXP novels and the True Tenchi Muyo! novels.