Shelf Life

Rose Garden

Apparently they made a new Tenchi Muyo anime a few years ago without me noticing. I mean, technically Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar is a spinoff, since it stars Tenchi's younger half-brother Kenshi, and it's set on some different world, but it mostly just feels like one giant self-insertion fan-fiction. The story is set on Geminar, where people battle each other with ancient Sacred Mechanoids that they excavated from some ruins somewhere. In comes Kenshi, who somehow appeared from Earth, and was tricked into piloting one of those Sacred Mechanoids in an assassination plot against a princess. He chooses not to kill her, and instead, ends up accompanying her to the Holy Land as her pretend servant.

Kenshi, who looks like Tenchi, in that he looks like some Mario Lopez-looking goofball with a rat tail, is good at everything. Absolutely everything. He's great at cleaning, he's great at cooking, he's great at endurance sports, he's great at hunting and fishing and gathering, and he's great at kendo. Hell, he's soooooooooooooo good at giving massages that when he's hypnotized into giving all the ladies of Holy Land massages, all of them just explode with orgasms. I mean, of course. There is literally nothing he isn't stellar at, so all the gals are super into him, including the hot, sexy Dark Elf, and the hot, sexy teacher lady (whom I'm preeeeetty sure sexually assaulted him at one point), and just about everything with two legs and a vagina. Which is funny, because there is absolutely nothing interesting about this guy, but whatever.

There is… SOME story. Somewhere. I mean, we're introduced to Kenshi in the midst of an assassination plot, so that's always just vaguely percolating in the background, but for the most part, the first part of this OVA series is utter fluff. Like I said, it's just one big self-insertion fic where the dashing (but come on, not really) hero makes all the panties drop with his sick housekeeping skills and his magic fingers. I assume that in the latter half of the series, things actually get serious (and maybe even crazy??), but for the time being, it's mostly just snippets of exposition here and there.

For Tenchi Muyo fans, there are some winks. Kenshi constantly references the people he grew up with, making mention of his grandfather, as well as all the girls. For the most part, though, everything is a totally new story, on a totally new world. Only in the last couple of episodes in this set, though, are we really introduced to the characters who will become the primary antagonists of the series. That's when I imagine we'll see the actual war on the Holy Land and when we'll find out what Kenshi is really doing in this world… but six of these seven episodes on Part 1 mostly exist to establish what a bad-ass Kenshi is. To his credit, he's completely oblivious. In fact, it's one of the most endearing things about him—even as the ladies of Holy Land are going gaga over him, he's just an awkward goof who neither notices nor cares. In one scene, in which the women insist that he join them in the bath, he just cries softly in the corner.

Tenchi Muyo: War on Geminar is a little clunky in the first seven episodes. The vast majority of the setup is unceremoniously dumped in the first episode, with the next several just being fluff, but there are signs that the rest of the series will kick things up a notch. While the show itself has a healthy amount of fanservice (as one would expect from a show that has the Tenchi Muyo name on it), it's not terribly egregious, and Kenshi's reactions to much of it is actually somewhat amusing. If anything, Part 1 is a solid Meh+.[TOP]

You know, if I had to choose between A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun, I would choose the latter. There are parts of both that I enjoyed, as well as parts of both that I actively disliked, but as a unit, A Certain Scientific Railgun feels more cohesive and enjoyable—especially when it gets to the Level Upper arc. If I could have, though, I would've launched a nation-wide petition to make Kuroko about 200% less annoying.

Based on a manga spinoff of A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun mostly follows electromaster Mikoto Misaka and some of her gal pals. Amongst them is lecherous and irritating teleporter Kuroko Shirai, who fills the stereotype of the crazy, obsessed stalker girl who tries to grope Mikoto, and peek at her panties, and all that other wild stuff that girls who like each other do (I guess). I think how much you like her might be related to how tolerant you are of aggravating individuals, and how sick you are of characters like that. My tolerance is pretty low, and I'm pretty sick of characters like her, so… well, if she had died in a mysterious accident, I'm not sure I would've shed too many tears.

Aside from her, though, the other characters are relatively charming, although Mikoto is my favorite. She was my favorite even in A Certain Magical Index (although Toma lovers will be pleased to see that he makes appearances in this show as well), so having an entire show focused on her was a bonus. We also get to see a lot more of her power, which is much more interesting and intricate than what's shown in Index. Not having her compete for screentime with Toma also makes her more of a three-dimensional character, rather than a token tsundere (despite there being a throwaway tsundere gag or two). Together, she and her friends absolutely make this series work. Unlike Index, which jumped from one serious arc to another, Railgun has a lot more standalone episodes and mini-arcs. Even so, because of its nuclear cast and the filler scenes where they interact and hang out, it feels more complete. When we reach the climax of the Level Upper arc, it means a little more because we've previously felt the pangs of Level 0ers like Mikoto's friend Ruiko.

Even though the world of Index is much more complex, and we meet more characters with huge backstories, there's something simplistic about Railgun that, to me, makes it more entertaining to watch. Obviously, when you're adapting a spinoff about one character, you're going to have a big shift in the storytelling approach than if you're trying to adapt a light novel series with multiple arcs, but while Index is great for fans of the novels, Railgun is a lot more user-friendly. And, if I'm being biased here, I think Mikoto is a more interesting character than Toma, who seems to largely fit the role of the Generic Nice Guy.

Having now been privy to both series, I would argue that knowledge of Index is not required to understand or appreciate A Certain Scientific Railgun. Obviously, if you want to know more about the world in which the stories are set, or see how Academy City works, then yeah, you should check out the original series. And I do think that the Index arc itself is worth watching (and maybe even deserving of its own 12-episode spinoff), but if you're interested in seeing the multiple Railgun series that make up the franchise, I would encourage you to just jump right in.[TOP]