Mention the name “Tenchi” to modern anime fans, and you’ll probably get one of three reactions: A cheerful grin, an eyeroll, or a shrug that says “who?” Once one of the pioneers of anime harem comedies, at least to a western audience, the Tenchi franchise’s value now lays with nostalgic fans.
Once upon a time, somewhere in the early ‘00s, a younger me picked up the Pioneer DVD box set of Tenchi Muyo!, the starting point for the franchise. Flash forward a decade and a half or so, and this was the comedy/romance anime that I picked to watch with Adventure Girl after we finished Ouran High School Host Club. All things considered; it wasn’t a bad choice.
For folks unfamiliar with why the Tenchi series matters, a little history: in the ‘90s, Tenchi Muyo was one of the shows that Cartoon Network picked up and ran in somewhat edited format on Toonami. For a lot of ‘90s teens, this was one of our first exposures to anime, and certainly our first exposure to the harem genre. As such it was kind of ground breaking, even if most of the content is pretty ordinary in retrospect.
The show revolves around the titular hero, Tenchi, a teenage Japanese boy who lives with his father and grandfather and helps take care of a local shrine. Through a series of wacky hijinks, he comes to be surrounded by a bevy of otherworldly beauties, most of whom have the hots for him on some level or another. The main conflict for his attention comes from the space pirate Ryoko and the Princess Ayeka.
What’s striking about going back and watching the original OVA series is that it strikes a much more balanced approach between comedy and drama than the later series entries. While there’s certainly a fair bit of the girls making doe eyes at Tenchi, there’s also a pretty serious villain to be dealt with, and Tenchi is a generally competent, if often confused, protagonist. Then again, if as a teenager you found out that you were actually half-alien, with crazy combat powers you didn’t understand, and having three or four beautiful women competing for your affections, you’d probably be a bit confused at times too. The teen years are difficult enough as it is.
Fan service also isn’t really specifically called out. Sure, it happens, but it’s not like “Oh hey, we’re going to the beach for no particular reason, everyone wear swimsuits!” Even the hotsprings episode has a couple of highly relevant plot points.
The Tenchi Muyo series would go on to spawn a myriad of spinoffs, retellings, and OVA movies, some of which are well worth watching, and some of which are just… why?
For me, the show brings back fond memories of staying up and tuning my grandparents massive satellite dish to Cartoon Network to catch new episodes on Toonami. I can’t watch the show without getting a smile on my face from pure nostalgia. Based on the reactions of (Not-So) Mini-Me and Adventure Girl, however, the show still holds up for a modern audience of roughly the same age. They both enjoyed it quite a bit, and immediately slotted in Tenchi Universe! as our next comedy/romance show once Muyo was over.
The old Pioneer box set also holds up pretty well. Obviously, the show is in 4:3 format, but it looks decent, and the English dub was solid for the time. It doesn’t feature the Cartoon Network edits/censoring either, which was a big deal back in the day.
Anyone looking to purchase the set for the first time, however, would probably be better off picking up the newer Blu-Ray collection release. (And if anyone’s inspired to pick up either set off these links, well, I’m an Amazon Affiliate, so the links help me a bit.)