Tenchi Muyo Confessions!

Ryoko Hakubi

Magical Girl Pretty Samy Part 2 - In the Julyhelm

©️ TamTam / Pioneer 1997

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 her son’s head when he 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”

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