You are welcome to look at the talkback but please consider that this article is over 5 years old before posting.
Forum - View topicNEWS: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki OVA Series Gets 5th Season
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
pachy_boy
Posts: 1336 |
|
|||||||||
|
I'm very mixed on this news.
I'm still a die-hard Tenchi fan to this day--although in the long run, I realize what I'm actually a fan of is the original first-season OVA and all the non-Kajishima series (yes, including Tokyo). Kajishima may have been the original creator, but I've long stopped caring about the direction he's been taking the characters (he intentionally rendered the female characters as so weak once he took complete control during Season 2) and as of Season 4 it was like he stopped caring to keep his own series interesting (and Tenchi himself was almost literally just air). He's had all the opportunities to take the OVA storyline into an intriguing, epic direction outside of just being a harem series (which Universe was more successful at), but by this point it's clear all he really cares to set up is for Tenchi to just marry all the girls so they can be one big, happy family. And yet despite my misgivings, if there's a way to watch this 5th season I'm likely to check it out regardless--hence my mixed reaction. I'll just watch it once for curiosity's sake, then pay a refreshing revisit to either Universe or Tokyo. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
tootbrush
Posts: 232 |
|
|||||||||
|
Don't even care about these characters anymore (haven't since the 3rd one tbh). Give more Seikishi instead.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
curtisd88
|
|
|||||||||
|
I hope this and Season 4 eventually get licensed by Funimation
|
||||||||||
|
Thespacemaster
Posts: 1167 |
|
|||||||||
|
I just want them to at least focus on the main gang again and try to introduce less so many new chaaracthers in one go. S4 of the ovas biggest problem i had with it was that there were so many characthers introduced and to keep up it became so confusing on all that dump info of lore was hard to focus and tenchi and the gang had almost no focus at all, i will say this tough they did a good job of tying up the ove series with war on geminar as before ova 4 war on geminar connection with the ryo ohki verse was vague at best
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6281 |
|
|||||||||
Maybe it's me but I don't really remember Universe being "epic" just kind of weird with the fact it was basically an alternate retelling that added a couple of new characters and had a fake out ending that invalidated it's setup. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4630 Location: Gainesville, FL |
|
|||||||||
You're putting the blame in the wrong place. OVA 3 was supposed to be 12 episodes, AIC cut the order and the end shoved way too much content in the last episodes. If you look into what actually happened and search out the novels (The GXP series is quite large) you see he does have large grand plans that he hasn't been able to adequately explore in the anime since OVA2. I only appreciated OVA4 after reading (fan translations of) GXP- as it really is just a bridge between the novels, Geminar, and well... probably this series. That image is intriguing. The show may actually be going into a direction only shown in a Dojinshi. One I predicted recently would be the only way that would make sense to go forward considering what has been revealed and the way the series has progressed. spoiler[OVA4 expressed the desire to retrieve Kenshi- but the Geminar universe runs at a faster rate than the Tenchi universe- so even the months portrayed in that show would represent decades in Tenchi's life. Every Jurian and GXP connected character have life-spans of thousands of years. Some of what was dealt with in OVA3 had to do with future versions of Tenchi (and MIsaki).] That very well may not be Kenshi there. This is probably post time-skip and that is probably spoiler[Tenchi's son.] To explain who the woman is gets confusing but she is an important link to the past and future. She is kind of featured in the first True Tenchi novel. What I wonder about is if they explore much of what goes on in-between. We may actually get a romantic resolution -of sorts. Remembering that Kajishima is fully committed to the "harem solution." But don't expect a lack of "new" characters. part of the "grandiosity" of Kajishima's story is a galaxy of characters and factions.... admittedly those are not easy to shove into a handful of episodes. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
nDroae
 Posts: 382 |
|
|||||||||
|
^ That spoiler guess about the timeskip is assuredly correct: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1759500
That setting alone will make this worthwhile to me. GXP resolution is not exactly ideal, but dammit, this was my first anime, I want to see Tenchi settled down. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
LuckySeven
 Posts: 587 Location: Georgia, USA |
|
|||||||||
|
As a long time Tenchi fan (like, still owns some VHS tapes), I'm happy to hear about this, but I wonder if anyone besides the die-hard fans are gonna care at this point? I can't even say if I remember hearing about FUNimation or anyone else licensing OVA4. I really wonder if I should get my hopes up at all.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4630 Location: Gainesville, FL |
|
|||||||||
|
If OVA 4 is released , it probably should be released at the same time or even bundled with this next one. As you've heard, it doesn't have a good reputation and those that do appreciate it, like me, like it as a part of the whole, not on its own. It's prequel or a supplement. If it did get a release it would have to get a title that denotes that it really is not a story on its own. It's a wedding and a weighty discussion- nothing more.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
AstroNerdBoy
 Posts: 413 Location: Denver, CO |
|
|||||||||
How so? It's women who run Tenchi's household and one woman that runs his harem. Its a woman who basically rules Jurai from behind the scenes. A woman is in charge of Galaxy Police. A woman is in charge of Galaxy Academy. In Kajishima-sensei's creation, women rule everything.
OVA 4 has problems, but that's partially because we aren't Japanese fans. Kajishima-sensei has been doing what Star Wars does now--make things on multi-media platforms canon. So OVA 4 was basically his way of telling the wedding story for Rea and Nobuyuki, as it related to where his GXP novels' story would have been at that time. And then he proceeded to tell why Kenshi had to be sent to Geminar in the War on Geminar series. Since Kajishima-sensei isn't interested in retelling things he's already told, OVA 4 suffers from us having to have read the GXP novels up to volume 8 (if my sleepy brain recalls correctly). I personally didn't care for Tenchi's grandma wanting to boff him. I also didn't like that some of the Juraian young women who came to Earth for Rea and Nobuyuki's wedding were trying to push Kiriko's mom into leaving her husband and boffing the 16 year old Seina, even though Kiriko was part of Seina's battle harem (but prior to him marrying her and the other girls).
Did you read the True Tenchi Muyo! novels, as published by Seven Seas? Because that's exactly what those books do (and why some complained, "Tenchi and company only get a cameo nod in each book's beginning!"). The GXP novels are still Seina and his harem at heart, but these too expand out the universe that Kajishima-sensei created. As to OVA 5, we've known this was in the works for ages now. But I guess AIC only just officially confirmed it. So any qualms we non-Japanese fans have about the OVA 4 wasn't shared by Japanese fans. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5182 |
|
|||||||||
|
You can count me in as someone who also prefers the alternate universe and spin off shows over the Kajishima canon. Kajishima has basically become like George Lucas was with the Star Wars prequels to me where he's been given so much control over the franchise and no one will him no or that something is a bad idea. The OVAs have become too convoluted and alienating to anyone who isn't a hardcore fan. The fact you need to read supplemental light novels that haven't been licensed in English for years now to make sense of the story isn't really a point in favor of the Kajishima canon when most casual anime fans aren't going to have easy access to this material.
I still bought all the True Tenchi novels to support the other novels being released in English but I don't know how well the True Tenchi novels sold for Seven Seas for them to consider licensing the GXP novels. The appeal of Tenchi Universe to me is that it is a simplified streamlined story that anyone can watch without any extra lore knowledge or having to be a diehard superfan to make sense of the story. You can just watch it all in one go like most normal anime. Fans who grew up with the show on Toonami that are expecting Tenchi to exclusively pick Ryoko are probably going to be disappointed and I have a lot mixed feelings myself about the idea of the whole Tenchi Solution thing being actually animated. At least a time skip solution seems like a way to avoid showing the more awkward parts of that doujin. I'm not looking forward to having to explain to casual fans why Ryo-ohki spoiler[has a daughter though.] At this point though they really need to consider rebooting Tenchi or at least making another new AU show without Kajishima's involvement to make it easier on modern casual fans. Both the OVAs and an AU show could easily co-exist with each other so the hardcore fans can still enjoy all of Kajishima's lore heavy stuff but there's still something to introduce new fans to the franchise that's more streamlined and has broader appeal. I'm also wondering when is AIC going to finally give us more news about that new Pretty Sammy sequel? They announced a Pretty Sammy sequel awhile ago and never followed up with that initial announcement with any news about how it's progressing. Last edited by Cardcaptor Takato on Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:47 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3965 Location: New York state. |
|
|||||||||
|
I'm a bet iffy on whether or not I have interest in this OVA series. Been a bit ho-hum on recent Tenchi Muyo installments since they weren't as solid in storytelling as many of the 90s installments of the series or alienated fans by making nods to extra media material (doujins and light novels) from Masaki Kajishima that has mostly never gotten a stateside release. True, we now have the True Tenchi Muyo light novels getting a stateside release. But other material like the GXP novels and various doujin have never been released outside Japan and even as a Tenchi fan, I can see where not having this material easily accessible in any legal means can make things frustrating for the less savvy Tenchi fans when trying to follow the OVA continuity of the Tenchi franchise.
With how expansive the OVA continuity is for its world, there's a good deal of potential to expand it beyond being a harem series. But at least within the past decade or two, I get the sense AIC has been phoning things in some with later installments of the Tenchi franchise and has focused too much on the harem element of it considering how things fared with Seina and Kenshi for their respective titles, in spite of them being based in the OVA timeline. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Cyan Bloodbane
 Posts: 117 |
|
|||||||||
|
I'll definitely be checking it out, but it feels like the OVA's have been a bit meandering. There's no real action to speak of anymore either. I can't remember the last time Tenchi popped light hawk wings, or the crew had to deal with metaphysical things.
The last time the series felt like Traditional Tenchi was probably the 3 movies. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
pachy_boy
Posts: 1336 |
|
|||||||||
I can admit "epic" may have been an overly strong word, but what I was talking about was that in that story Tenchi and the gang go on a galactic journey to fight against/take down an evil force. In OVA 3, the biggest it gets is the revelation of the three goddesses, which I'll admit was very intriguing. But once that's done, it just felt like everything was done, everyone just settles down with no indication of any other big things happening around the corner.
Watch the "DO you Know Anime?" video on Tenchi, and you'll learn that Kajishima wasn't pleased with how Hiroki Hayashi depicted the female characters in OVA 1. After driving Hayashi away, he openly admitted that he altered their personalities in OVA 2 because it's his belief women do not have strong personalities in real life. This is screamingly evident with Ryoko--although she exhibited some vulnerability with Tenchi toward the end of OVA 1, she was still overall the tough girl she started out as. But starting from OVA 2 and onward, she was reduced to an undignified punching-bag character, showing what Kajishima really thought of her from the first season. Yes, you're right that the series is filled with women-in-power characters--but are they for the right reasons? When I watched OVA 4, it seemed ever so clear the reason why Kajishima has multiple women-in-power characters is just so we could see an entire crowd of easy-on-the-eyes women only ever talking about one of two things--how great Tenchi is and how greater he can be. The Bechdel test just doesn't exist here at all.
Yes, I have. I appreciated the novels for filling in some background gaps on the characters (in accordance to the Kajishima mythos), but after OVA 4 and before hearing news on this 5th season it just didn't seem like he was going to go anywhere with anything. That's just my personal feeling.
Sadly I think it might've fallen through, but as a fan of all the Tenchi spin-offs, including the original Pretty Sammy TV series, I would love if this happened, and would vastly prefer this over the OVA continuation.
Ironically two of those movies were part of the Universe timeline, which again Kajishima had little involvement with. Maybe I'm jumping the pessimistic wagon, and there's a chance that Kajishima will surprise me with something new and exciting with this new season. I don't know and I'm just waiting either way, I'm just not getting my hopes up too high. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
FLCLGainax
|
|
|||||||||
|
Looks more like Photon the Idiot Menace Season 2.
Just end the franchise already. The show never recovered after the 1990's. |
||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group