Tenamonya Voyagers

Original Title: てなもんやボイジャーズ
Romanized: Tenamonya Boijaazu
Literal: Tenamonya Voyagers

Plot Synopsis

Ayako, a freshly graduated high school teacher, and Wakana, a star athlete on a sports scholarship, arrive at their new school only to find that it's gone out of business. That leaves them broke and stranded on the far side of the galaxy, with nowhere to go but back to the middle of nowhere--Earth. Fortunately for them, Paraila, another "high school student" falls out of the sky (literally) and just happens to be going to the same place. Of course, in her case it's because an obscure legal loophole erases the criminal record of anybody who sets foot on Earth, but that's an unnecessary detail. That puts two clueless Earthlings and one of the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy on the run from both the police (including the madwoman who commands them) and the gang that Paraila's unsuccessful coup de tat was supposed to make her the boss of. Add one more young gangster trying to show her worth, and you've got four women up against a good portion of the military might in space.

Review

Rating: 3 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-07-12

Tenamonya Voyagers is a short, expensive-looking, goofy comedy that parodies itself as well as a mountain of old Japanese pop culture. It's distinctive and keeps threatening to turn into something really hilarious, but suffers from comedy overload--too many jokes (half of which will be completely lost on non-Japanese), too little time. It's passably fun, but that's all.

The characters aren't self aware or un-solid enough that it's apparent at first, but the in-jokes and parodies are so dense that after a while it's clear they're the point of the whole exercise. What little plot there is random, confusing, and utterly pointless, but it doesn't matter--basically, the series is a string of comic situations.

The cookie-cutter characters are a functionally likable bunch. Ayako, the meek, naive schoolteacher, is my personal favorite. At 22, she's a rare "babe in space" between 19 and 300 and, refreshingly, acts (slightly) more mature than the usual crowd of 16-year-olds. Her gentle chastisements of the major crimes the bunch commits and beleaguered, see-no-evil approach to their adventures are both cute and funny, although at times her dazed whining borders on annoying. Her Japanese voice, in particular, captures a hilariously accurate schoolteacher attitude.

The main trio is rounded out by Wakana, the tough jock, and Paraila, the even tougher young mob boss on the run. The two of them basically argue through the entire series about how to get things done, which is lively without being grating. There's also Paraila's underling, but she doesn't do much. The obsessed policewoman villain, however, is impressively vicious and determined--I would have said too serious for this series, except her pathetic situation in the final episode turns that into one of the best jokes in it.

The Japanese voice acting is quite distinctive considering how generic the characters are (thanks in part to a boatload of colorful accents), and all things considered the dialogue is surprisingly natural-sounding.

The dub has a more mature-voiced flavor, but is cast reasonably well. The acting is very broad but adequate. Sadly, it's not all that funny. The problem is that Tenamonya Voyagers is one of those series that can't be translated smoothly into English, let alone spoken English, and there's not much effort to replace the untranslatable jokes with something more dub-friendly.

That gets at the main issue with the series: Assuming you go for silly parodies, will you think this one is funny, and how many of the jokes will you even notice?

Volume certainly isn't an issue: Tenamonya Voyagers starts silly, ends with a big joke (of the "now that I think about it..." sort), stuffs lots of gags in between, and tosses more in the background for good measure. Drama is nowhere to be found.

However, the humor operates on several levels, barely half of which the average English-speaking viewer is likely to appreciate.

To start with, there's the kind of humor that's more or less universal: Slapstick, general silliness, and good old-fashioned stupidity. Although much of the parody-type humor is subtle or offhanded (they don't point it out or wait for a rimshot), the rest of the gags are not--basic blunt stupidity.

It never slacks off or waxes dramatic, but it's also not as funny as it should have been, because the rhythm and all-important comic timing are off. Not to say that the jokes aren't funny, and it gets better toward the end, but the humor suffers from rushed punch lines and time-compressed gags. Taste means a lot in comedy so it won't bother everyone, but it let some of the air out for me. (Actually, I found it funnier the second time through, since I was more tuned in to the timing.)

Next up are parodies of all things sci-fi. If you're wondering if there's any creativity or actual "sci" to it, the answer is no. Other than a weird mecha supercharger disk, the technology and setting are semi-functional but little more--lacking in solidity and way too sloppy to appreciate as anything but a staging ground for the humor.

Some of the SF send-ups are straightforward--the last episode features a classic "survive the malfunctioning spaceship before it crashes into something" trek loaded with outright stupid challenges. Elsewhere classic sci-fi scenes are juxtaposed with old-movie standbys. For example, after a massive space battle, the police chief boards a criminal battleship in a Japanese police car flanked by huge spider mechs as part of a riff on '70s crime dramas.

That brings up the most distinctive feature of Tenamonya Voyagers: It parodies dozens of very old Japanese TV shows. Some of these are anime classics (sports anime, Galaxy Express), but others (such as the opening and end themes) are from much more obscure series or live action TV shows that most people outside of Japan (and under 30) have probably never even heard of. These references might be very funny, but for most non-Japanese only those few that relate to anime or obvious live action genres (samurai films, most notably) are likely to register.

To go with that, the Japanese dialogue is loaded with puns, old pop culture references, funny gangster accents, and general goofiness (children's games and silly ways of saying things). If you don't speak Japanese (and well at that), all but a handful of these will go right by you. The subtitles cover a few of the dialogue-based jokes (a word game, for example), but the translators let most of it slide (including that same word game in another scene).

If this had been, say, an AnimEigo release with obsessive liner notes and meticulous translation, there would have been volumes to read through, but Bandai just didn't try that hard, so for most this chunk of humor will go unappreciated or unnoticed entirely.

The dub has its own funny moments, but there isn't a major effort put into clever dialogue or replacements for the jokes that don't translate. This entire category of the humor is more or less nonexistent in that version.

That covers the funny, but there's one more thing: Fanservice. The jokes are clean, and while the series is sprinkled with awkward camera angles and compromising positions it's not noteworthy. Until, that is, the last episode, a malfunctioning-climate-control-induced parody of the must-have hot spring episode. The four main characters (and one more, for good measure) spend very nearly the entire episode--a fourth of the series--naked. Or, rather, wearing makeshift bikinis made up of an ever-changing array of just about everything you can think of: Baseball equipment, cooking utensils, and, my favorite, goldfish in a plastic bag. Humorous, probably; Titillating to some fans, definitely; In extremely poor taste, your call.

Moving on, Tenamonya Voyagers is a surprisingly attractive and incredibly expensive-looking series. It is absolutely loaded with creative camerawork: Odd angles and several highly stylized scenes with moody lighting (all parodies of more serious fare--it's otherwise a very colorful series). The art is detailed and the background richly painted (though some are too abstract for my taste). The sharply drawn character designs aren't quite as memorable, but the leading ladies are comely and relatively distinctive.

Every single bit of the animation is fluid, but the high budget is half-wasted: The visuals match the random and chaotic plot too well. The action scenes in particular are so furious that it's hard to tell what's going on. The chaos elsewhere is more restrained but still bad enough to contribute to the weak comic timing. I also didn't like some of the character animation--facial expressions that, while not particularly exaggerated, were stylized in a cartoony way that was not to my taste.

The background music is grand and fairly good, with a crooning classic end theme and a catchy instrumental march for the opening--you might be stuck humming that one for a few days.

All in all, Tenamonya Voyagers is a hit-and-miss pure-comedy romp. On the up side, there's no annoying plot or drama to get in the way, and the silly humor and parodies of sci-fi and classic anime are certainly funny for fans of either. On the down side, the world lacks solidity, a large percentage of the classic pop culture humor is going to be totally lost on a non-Japanese audience, and considering the volume of stupidity in the show, laugh-out-loud moments are rather sparse.

It's not a bad straightforward comedy, and fans of quirky parodies might love it, but if you can't stomach straightforward silly girls in space action, don't even touch Tenamonya Voyagers--you might have an allergic reaction.

Related Recommendations

Very similar to Yamamoto Yoko: Starship Girl, though that series is less wacky. Project A-ko is also in a similar vein, but is more consistent, features a much more solid world, and the references are mostly anime-based so easier to get. A lot of it also reminded me of Battle Athletes Victory, and it of course has something in common with just about every comedy involving a bunch of girls in space.

US DVD Review

The DVD isn't remarkable except for its low price (even when it was initially released, and it's cheaper now), but is another solid Bandai production. The only extra is an image gallery, but the menus are cute and the disc features a very sharp video transfer and crisp 3-channel Dolby audio in Japanese and English, plus of course a subtitle track.

Content Guide

Mostly quite clean, but the vast not-quite-nudity in the final episode easily brings it into the 13-up category, if not 16-up.

Violence: 2 - Lots and lots of fighting, and mass havoc, but nothing bloody or very serious.

Nudity: 3 - You don't technically "see anything", but the sheer volume of skin (and fetish-like items used to cover the rest) in the last episode rates a 3 at minimum.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - An off color joke or two.

Language: 2 - Paraila has a bit of a dirty mouth, but the language in the subtitles isn't too bad.

Notes and Trivia

This series is absolutely loaded with in-jokes, parodies, and references. A couple of major ones that most non-Japanese viewers will totally miss: The opening theme is the "Geba Geba March", the opening theme from "Geba Geba Kyuu-juppun," a live action sketch comedy series that was very popular about 30 years ago (but taken off the air on account of being a bad influence on kids). Similarly, the end theme is a very old classic pop song.

Making a list of the rest would be an interesting pop culture exercise, but would also take a very long time. The Galaxy Express 999 train will most likely ring a bell, and if you're well versed in old anime, you may notice other references.

Availability

Available in the US from Bandai on one hybrid DVD volume.

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