Tenchi The Movie: Tenchi Muyo In Love!

Tenchi. The popularity of the Tenchi animated series continues to skyrocket as the shows are now showing up on this side of the ocean. For the uninitiated, the Tenchi series has two (somewhat) distinct starting points. The earlier is the hilarious and gorgeous OVA (Original Video Adaptation – just think of it as a series that didn't make it to television), which is what started the whole series. Taking what parts from the OVA series that were deemed important, the Tenchi Universe TV series was started (26 episodes on 8 DVDs or 13 tapes) and continued in the popular Tenchi in Tokyo series (also 26 episodes on 8 DVDs or 13 tapes). Tenchi The Movie is from the Tenchi Universe timeline, where all of the characters live in the house by the family shrine.

The characters are the usual motley crew: Tenchi (the main character, a high school boy who discovers his true nature as part of the Jurai royalty and is subsequently a channeling point of great power), Ryoko (a space pirate of superior power who is enamored with Tenchi), Ayeka (a Jurai princess who is also in love with Tenchi), Sasami (Ayeka's much younger sister who surprise, surprise is in love with Tenchi), Washu (a demon of extreme power whose grasp of science and physics makes her a powerful being - not at all in love with Tenchi, but wants to learn more about his abilities), Mihoshi (a Space Police officer who doubles as an idiot and a walking disaster), Kiyone (Mihoshi's suffering partner who is paired with 

her in the futile attempt to keep her out of trouble), and Ryo-Ohki (the carrot-lovin' cabbit/battleship who is usually perched on Sasami's head; Ryo-Ohki also loves Tenchi, but mostly because Tenchi brings carrots).

The story begins with the utter destruction of the Galaxy Police (GP) headquarters. The super-criminal Kain escaped his subspace prison, caused the explosion and quickly headed to Earth and 

traveled into the past, circa 1970. His plan: to cause maximum destruction to the people that imprisoned him – the Galaxy Police and the assisting Jurai Royal Family. Washu discovers the disruption of subspace when Tenchi begins to dematerialize, they realize that something must have happened to Tenchi's mother, Achika. To Washu's lab! Using her unperfected time machine, Tenchi travels back to 1970 along with the girls to save his mother. At this time period, Achika is a beautiful girl in high school who has eyes for the introverted and really shy Nobuyuki (Tenchi's lecherous father), and in order to keep an eye on her, the girls don disguises and infiltrate her life (Ryoko and Ayeka as transfer students, Mihoshi as the most inept substitute teacher ever, and Kiyone working as a janitor).

Without giving anything away, this story mostly centralizes on Achika and Nobuyuki and how their personalities must have influenced Tenchi. This movie falls into a realm of the Tenchi series that I don't feel is a strength: action sequences. Although the idea of a common boy intertwined in the lives of super-beings is amusing and many jokes are derived from it, the movie completely ignores that side of the series and focuses only on the tension in the situation. It feels really out of place to watch a Tenchi show without laughing at least a few times, the humor is completely missing from the movie, which is a real shame.

The animation? Superb. This film was made in '96 and despite its age (remember that animation ages at 50 times the speed of other movies, go watch the Macross series again and you'll see what I mean) it looks really good. Music? Excellent. The movie was scored by Christopher Franke, formerly of Tangerine Dream and really does help the movie flow nicely. Dubbing? Arrgghhh! Watch the subtitled version… don't even listen to the dubbed version, they must have found the worst possible voice for Mihoshi (at least it wasn't the 310 pound African-American linebacker they use for Kerobus on Card Captors!).

Tenchi The Movie: Tenchi Muyo in Love! is the kind of movie that will appeal to Tenchi fans but will be sort of inexplicable to people unfamiliar with the series.

Reviewed by Tazman

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