Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-ohki

Original Title: 天地無用! 魎皇鬼
Romanized: Tenchi Muyo! Ryououki
Literal: This End Up! Dark Emperor Demon

Plot Synopsis

Tenchi Masaki appears to be a relatively normal high school kid (if you don't count the fact that his grandfather is the caretaker for an isolated shrine and is training Tenchi in some sort of ancient martial art), and his life is pretty quiet. Quiet, that is, until he decides to disobey his grandfather's orders and ventures into a cave near the shrine rumored to hold a demon. One thing leads to another, and before long Tenchi is caught in the middle of a feud between Ryoko, a superpowerful space pirate, and Ayeka, princess of the planet Jurai. As the series progresses, poor Tenchi ends up with quite a harem of live-in aliens: Mihoshi, a ditzy but diligent Galaxy Police officer, Sasami, Ayeka's younger sister, Washu, a diminutive mad scientist and the greatest genius in the galaxy, Ryo-ohki, the cute and cuddly offspring of RyokoÕs spaceship, Tenchi's enigmatic grandfather, and Tenchi's dad, who's only hobby seems to be peeping at the many new female acquaintances of his son. This whole crew has only two things in common: they all seem to have the hots for Tenchi for some reason (father and grandpa excepted, of course), and they're all living in Tenchi's house.

The first OAV series, Earth Chapter, introduces the cast and eventually covers their run-in with Kagato, bent on discovering the powerful secrets of the Jurai Royal Family so he can take over the universe or some such villainy.

The second series, Space Chapter, delves into the past of some of the crew, and introduces a whole new villain, a semi-competent mad scientist with powerful (and quite mysterious) backing, in the form of the entity Tokimi. Cruising around in a ship called the Goddess, he cooks up a clone of Ryoko and sends her off to replace the real one and take care of Tenchi.

Quick Review

Rating: 5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-09-05

Created expressly by Pioneer to appeal to anime fans and once one of the biggest franchises in the business, Tenchi Muyo is what it is: Cute, funny, fun, and not much else. If you don't go for that sort of light entertainment, then you probably won't like it. However, it's absolutely loaded with little bits of creativity and life that make is something special. From the colorful and distinctively voiced cast of characters, to a wide variety of truly wild technology (much of which is functionally magic), to some spectacularly creative mechanical design, the imagination is evident everywhere, yet it's all "just there"--little is explained, and wacky stuff is tossed in as offhandedly as much of the humor. On that note, the series isn't always hilarious, but it's consistently light and fun without ever going overboard with silly or dramatic material. The only downsides, as far as I'm concerned, are the tragically unfunny dub and that the plot is left wide open at the end, something that wasn't properly remedied until a decade later.

Tenchi Muyo is about as much fun as you're likely to have watching anime. Usually funny, frequently exciting, occasionally touching, sometimes intriguing, and always lots of fun, it's everything you could ask for in an action-comedy. The characters are among the best in anime, and the offbeat humor practically defines the genre, even if it didn't create it. If you enjoy classic wacky anime fun, then this is the one to get.

US DVD Review

This DVD set is called the Ultimate Edition, and with good reason--Pioneer went all out on this one, though it's not the first time, since they also did a two part LaserDisc set of the same material a while ago. To start with, the box is gorgeous; the three discs are in one long fold-out case that fits into a clear plastic slip cover, and from the moment you fold it open, you get the felling you got what you paid for--the surface of the video discs is even gold. The discs are remastered to THX specs and the Japanese audio track has been remastered into Dolby 5.1, and it shows. The video has a very minor flaw--when there is a large black area on the screen, you can see some blockyness in the subtly different shades of black. But other than that, it is absolutely pristine. The audio has a small problem in that the Japanese in the first episode or two is only 4-channel, rather than 5.1, and there is a hint of a hiss, but other than that it's crystal clear and beautiful.

The Tenchi Encyclopedia 3.0 (which comprises the entire 3rd disc of the set), is also a must-see for any Tenchi fan. It includes some info (from Washu's perspective) and several video clips (in your choice of languages) for each major character in every series and movie, some "secret" info about a lot of the stuff throughout the Tenchi universe, a thorough walkthrough of the Masaki complex (ever wondered exactly where everybody sleeps in Tenchi's house?), and even a music video and short interview with the Japanese voice behind Sakuya (from Tenchi in Tokyo). This encyclopedia was a little different from the version included with the second movie; it looks better and is better organized, but not as well cross-referenced, and doesn't have individual sections on any of the Tenchi hardware. Still, it has more material (and a choice of language), and is definitely an improvement overall.

I would be lax if I didn't do some nitpicking and point out the flaws in this set, though. Other than the minor things above, the problem isn't with what's there, but with what isn't. Having the two LD sets as well, I've used that as a baseline for what a set like this could have had. First off, and most noticeable, the DVD set does not have the Mihoshi Special--an episode between the two halves of the series with Mihoshi's tale that spawned the whole Pretty Sammy thing. It wasn't part of the continuity per se, but it seems odd to have left it out, particularly considering that the LD set (which was much cheaper, actually) included it. Also missing is a little goody included at the end of the 2nd LD set, a short string of interviews with several cast members from both the Japanese and English Tenchi cast. Surely it wouldn't have hurt to include that on the encyclopedia somewhere--they did have one interview, after all. Also a bit odd is that the credits are exactly as they appeared in Japan (no English at all, even in the subtitle track), and the set's credits, which are on the Encyclopedia disc, only cover the stars. Also during the credits, there is no subtitling on the theme songs. Finally, the main program discs are minimal--just a language selector and chapter index, which is OK, except the episodes aren't broken up internally by track at all; you can't even skip the credits. Oh well.

All that may sound like I didn't like it, but I just wanted to be sure and point out every flaw I spotted--after all, this set is designed for serious Tenchi nuts, and it's good to know exactly what to expect before you plunk down upwards of US$100 for it. In all, this is a beautiful DVD set, and I highly recommend it to any Tenchi fan. A final note: The LD set had a problem in that the captioning (subtitles) in the first few episodes were the English captions, rather than the more literally translated subtitle text. This set does not have that issue, of course.

Content Guide

Notably raunchy humor here and there, and a few oddly casual nude scenes, but generally deserving of the 13-up Pioneer gave it. The one or two nudity-heavy episodes would more appropriately garner a 16+, though. There's also an "all ages" edited version with quite a bit edited out.

Violence: 2 - Quite a bit of fighting, but nothing at all graphic.

Nudity: 3 - A fair amount of nudity in a couple of episodes, but it's mostly casual.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Mostly light romance; occasionally an offhanded but very raunchy joke.

Language: 1 - Nothing noteworthy.

Notes and Trivia

Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-ohki is composed of two separate 6-episode OAV series, although both have the same name and they were produced pretty much back to back, so I'm considering them part of the same whole. Depending on how you count, the 7th episode is the Mihoshi special (available on DVD along with the Pretty Sammy series that it inspired) that was produced between the two series and fits, although being that it consists of Mihoshi telling a rather wild story, it has very little to do with the continuity. There is also a "14th" episode at the very end, a short audio-only bit of explanation and humor accompanied by some more or less static drawings. There is a third OAV series (also subtitled simply "Ryo-ohki") that is part of the same continuity and continues the plot produced a decade later (and released in the US by FUNimation).

Tenchi Muyo isn't based on anything; it was cooked up by Pioneer and company specifically as a marketing tool. None of the subsequent TV series have anything to do with this one--they all share the same cast, but each follows its own continuity. The comic series (also available in English), however, does follow this continuity, taking up roughly where the OAVs left off.

An edited version of the series was produced for Cartoon Network, which lacks a few scenes and has the content of others changed (in particular, Ryoko's penchant for wandering around without clothing has been altered with some bathing suits).

As is commonly pointed out, the title is a multi-layered pun. "Tenchi Muyou" is actually an extremely common (and very old) phrase used to label boxes, meaning simply "This End Up." Read literally, it means "No need for Heaven and Earth," which also sort of applies to the series, and finally, it could be read to mean "No Need for Tenchi" (since Tenchi's name rather appropriately literally means "Heaven and Earth"). The OAV series is subtitled Ryou-ouki (as opposed to each of the TV series and movies, which have different subtitles), referring of course to the cute critter, whose name read literally is rather un cute: "Dark Emperor Demon."

Availability

Available in the US from Geneon (formerly Pioneer), currently on a bilingual DVD box set called the Ultimate Edition, as well DVDs of the edited version shown on Cartoon Network. Previously available on compiled VHS tapes or two sets of two bilingual LDs each (Book of Heaven and Book of Earth). Before that, was originally available on 14 individual subtitled or dubbed VHS volumes, or on individual bilingual LDs.

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