Summary: >

Tenchi Misaki was a rather ordinary guy, or so he thought at the time. But after he discovered a demon in a cave things began to change. Pretty soon the demon (Ryoko) took a liking to Tenchi. Not long after, Ryoko's rival Aeka who was a princess from another planet ended up taking a liking to Tenchi too. It wasn't so long ago that Tenchi lived alone with his dad, but with a demon, two princesses, a genius mad scientist, a galaxy police officer, and the cute cat-like creature/space battleship all living with Tenchi, he found that his life wouldn't be so normal ever again.

But even though it seems like Tenchi is just an ordinary guy, there is more to him that meets the eye. Not just with his courage, but with his heritage and latent power as well.

Thoughts: >

This is the first installment in what would emerge to be 800lb gorilla Tenchi franchise. And I'm not kidding when I say franchise, as Tenchi Muyo has kicked off a huge amount of sub series and spin-offs. This is where it started however, and not surprisingly; the Tenchi OAV is quite good and is well deserving in its seat in anime history.

The animation isn't mind blowing but it's quite good, and well adjusted to do its purpose. Character designs are a strong point for this series. And as far as that goes, characters are a strong point in general. Ryoko is the demon entity, party girl, exhibitionist all rolled into one. In contrast you have her rival Aeka who is the demure well behaved princess with latent S&M tendencies. Having these two girls fight over Tenchi is a core aspect of much of the comedy. Aeka's younger sister Sasami, the mad scientist Washu, and the ditsy galaxy police office Mihoshi all round out this wide variety in characters.

And as far as action goes, Tenchi has plenty of that as well. Much of it is along the lines of swords and lasers, but the other half is mainly larger than life spaceship fights. And larger than life is a good way to describe some aspects of Tenchi Muyo. Many anime try to convey that super powerful, or big feeling and fail; yet this title manages to pull it off in ways that are quite interesting.

There are a couple drawbacks here however. First of all the OAV series as it was originally started was never finished. Later the series was claimed to be finished in a third Tenchi OAV however, as there is a significant gap in the series I will reserve the review for that in a separate section. As such you don't really get the satisfaction in closure that some may desire, but it isn't completely left hanging either so I'm okay with that. The other factor is this is a harem anime, and may have been one of the first series to really kick off that genre in anime. Personally I only tend to think of Ryoko and Aeka, and the rest as background characters, but there is an odd male to female ratio going on here. True that there are other guys in the house, but they are conveniently unavailable due to their age.

Anyway Tenchi Muyo gets a thumbs up from me. Good comedy. Good romance. Good action. this series is just so well rounded that it's hard to pass up. As a full fledged anime classic, it's something that every anime fan should probably at lest check into.