Review of Tenchi Muyo: The Movie Tenchi In Love

Introduction

Tenchi Muyo is a lighthearted action anime that originated as an OVA (Original Video Animation) series in Japan. It was a great success, so the production company quickly produced a second OVA series, which was also a great commercial success. With a fan-base already in place, a TV Series quickly followed though this was essentially more of the same.

Tenchi`s a lucky guy. Young girls seem to throw themselves at him at every opportunity. His most ardent admirers include Ayeka (an Alien Princess) and Ryoko (a Space Pirate) and much general amusement arises from their constant arguments and battles for his attention.


Seemingly this movie picks up where the series left off and frankly, with little knowledge of the Tenchi phenomenon prior to this, it takes a while to get a grip on the plot. (Is it just me that thinks a lot of Japanese anime appears to be slightly off-kilter and surreal? Has something got lost in translation? Are the cultural differences between east and west so profound that we somehow (creatively) don`t quite connect? I guess in a way that this is very much part of their charm for many of us, and they certainly make a refreshing change from the norm!).

In this feature-length cinematic outing, we learn that Kain (a hugely powerful crook) has escaped from Galactic Prison. Unlike just about every other anime I`ve seen, he doesn`t go into `sub-space` (a creative catch-all for, well, anything really) but rather travels back into the past to 1970, an age when Tenchi`s own mother and father were just in their teens.

This starts to have a weird effect on the present where people (including Tenchi) start to rapidly `digitise` before fading away. There`s an intriguing scene where Tenchi and his crowd of female friends view some old 8mm footage of his mother filmed by his father. It`s only when his mother seems to `digitise` off the celluloid image that Tenchi and crew figure that something`s wrong.

Washu decides that they need to travel back in time to prevent Kain interfering with his parents chances of getting together. If they don`t then Tenchi`s own birth is in jeopardy, which would account for the effect the interfering is having on him in the present day. Confused? Well, it`s probably the way I`m explaining things. It all seems to make some weird sort of logic when you watch it!

There`s plenty of humour, and there`s a nice feel to the animation too with highly inventive use of unusual POV`s (such as extreme close-ups or helicopter views of the action).

Video

The quality of the image here is better than most OVA`s that I`ve seen, but not as crystal clear as we have now come to expect of theatrically released animated features. There is very little sign of wear and tear, though really fussy close-up viewing will reveal very slight pixilation which generally means a slight softness to the image overall.

Audio

The audio, on the other hand, is really very impressive. I watched the movie in English 5.1 but then tried out the Japanese 5.1 and wished I`d watched the whole thing that way, despite the irritating yellow subtitles. Both versions were really impressive with remarkable spot effects and great washes of techno music, scored by ex-Tangerine Dream keyboard meister, Christopher Franke (he of `Babylon 5` theme fame). Occasionally, in common with much anime, the sound is lacking in a full atmos layer and sounds a little too good, a little too dry. This is accentuated with the very precise placement of isolated spot effects, though there`s no doubt that one or two will make you jump from your seat!

Features

Some of the extras here seem a little superfluous. We get a whole host of trailers, including Cinema and TV spots - though they`re all very similar and singularly unimpressive, not featuring (in my view) the most dramatic scenes.

There`s a `Directors Comments` feature which is NOT the same as a `Director`s Commentary`. In fact, it amounts to 5 or 6 pages of text, though is interesting enough.

There`s an interview with Christopher Franke included here, which may be of interest to `Tangerine Dream` fans. This is a very `Germanic` overview of his approach to writing the score, though the results are impressive enough.

Conclusion

Without really being able to put my finger on why, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It`s fairly standard anime, with a complex and off-kilter plot that will really take some imagination to get engaged with, though it seems to have a charm often missing from the genre. I guess it`s the gentle human interest that makes the difference, with a cast of likeable characters who you really end up caring about - and who seem to care about each other. The soundtrack is really outstanding and the video perfectly acceptable. I guess the really telling thing will be whether this ever makes it back into the DVD tray, and I`m guessing it just might. But next time I`ll use the original soundtrack and put up with the sub-titles.