‘Aww Rawr, you’re not doing Anime reviews now, are you?’

Well…yea, yea I am. Don’t worry guys, I’m not turning into an Anime reviewer. But as you have probably guessed from my Manga-flavor Back Office comic, I am into Anime. So now I present an Anime that pissed me off no-end….

Tonight’s Crash: Tenchi Muyo! GXP

First, a little background. Growing up in Ireland, my access to Anime and Manga was pretty limited and it wasn’t until the advent of digital satellite TV that I got my hands on any of it. Even then, the best I could hope for were early morning runs of Sailor Moon (shudder), late night anime showings on SciFi (Or Syfy as it’s called now…just to be silly) and in the creamy middle (the hours while I was awake) we had re-runs of Tenchi Muyo! which was pretty fun in my opinion. Although it encouraged me to seek out much better Anime, Tenchi Muyo! gave me my first good taster of Anime, and thus got me hooked.

For those who don’t know it, Tenchi Muyo is what is sometimes known as a ‘harem’ Anime (or LovCom in Japan itself). The whole idea of a harem anime, is that there would be an ‘everyman’ character being chased and fought over by a large female cast. Most of the comedy and plot points come out of this, while our ‘everyman’ tries his best to live a normal life (and usually focus his attention on one of the girls…who’s almost always the hardest to get.)

Tenchi Muyo was pretty much this in a nutshell. Our titular hero ‘Tenchi’ was living a normal life, when one day a couple of alien women crash on him. Thereafter the girls spend most of their energies trying to jump the guy’s bones, while an occasional baddie would stop by to share a few action scenes. This was all pretty standard stuff. But what set Tenchi Muyo apart from other harem anime, was it’s presentation. As well as it being well drawn and animated, the show was very well paced. It took it’s sweet time in rolling out the plot and it never felt too rushed. Surprise elements were thrown in from time to time, but even then it was handled pretty well. The show was enjoyable to watch, even if it did spend all it’s time screwing around with an unresolvable love-triangle.

Tenchi Muyo! is also kind of a weird show, in terms of continuity. Tenchi Muyo! began in Japan as a short series of hour-long OVAs in the mid-nineties. It was very successful, and thus it was ordered to be made as a series of half-hour TV episodes. Instead of continuing the plot of the OVA, they hit the Reset button on the series and changed several part of the plot. This became Tenchi Universe, a self-contained season of Tenchi episodes using the same production values of the OVA. Following Universe, they hit Reset button again a few years later, producing Tenchi in Tokyo. That show was not as well produced, and sort of rocked the show’s format a little too much. It only lasted one season.

The series branched off several other times, including a Sailor Moon rip-off staring the show’s token chibi ‘Sasami’. But I was never pushed to watch it, so no comment on that. What I’d like to mention mostly, is Tenchi Universe. It was this and the OAV that I have seen most often, and it was my favorite version of the show. There’s one reason for this..

It was thanks to Kiyone and Mihoshi of the Galaxy Police. These two are by far my favourite comedy duo in Anime. Although Mihoshi has been around since the OVA, Kiyone only came into existence during a ‘story’ told by Mihoshi during a special about her at the end of the OVA’s run. Since that pairing seemed to work so well, they used it again in Tenchi Universe. The whole ‘Galaxy Police’ angle of the series is something I always seemed to enjoy. It sort of grounded the show a little, and gave us a break from the usual plot of the alien girls trying to rape Tenchi. Kiyone and Mihoshi filled this role perfectly, being your typical ‘buddy-cop’ pairing of a good cop (Kiyone), and a moron cop (Mihoshi)

It was also heart-warming see them trying to erk out a living in recession-hit Japan, while at the same time trying to preform their usual police duties. They were presented as real people, with relatable problems and as characters you could really give a damn about.

This pairing didn’t carry over very well into Tenchi in Tokyo…although very little of the series format did, that’s probably why it failed in my opinion. They had memorable camoes in the various Tenchi Muyo! movies but the pairing did not re-appear intact when the OVA re-launched. The Tenchi Muyo! OVA came back 8 years (!) after the original was first aired, and although I was disappointed about the omission of Kiyone, news of another series got me excited, another Tenchi Muyo spin-off…based entirely on the Galaxy Police!

This was going to be great!

This was going to be wonderful!

This was going to crash…..wasn’t it?

 

I’ll be unusually fair. GXP isn’t terrible. Actually it’s quite good in parts, and that’s not too surprising considering Shinichi Watanabe (of Excel Saga fame) was directing. It started off pretty well and was very watchable….to a point.

Spoilers ahoy! If you don’t want the plot ruined for you, stop reading here.

GXP is pretty much a copy and paste of of the original show, right down to the characters. Instead of Tenchi, we get a sort clone of him, going by the name of  Seina Yamada. He also looks very similar to Tenchi, which is an important plot point, since he’s mistaken for him by a Galaxy Police recruiter and taken to join their Police Academy pretty much against his will.

Tough luck, I guess…and that’s the also the point of his character. Apparently he’s the unluckiest boy in the galaxy…although you will begin to wonder if this really is supposed to be the case later on.

He’s taken from Earth and brought to the Galaxy Police Academy, to be begin his career with them. These early episodes are the best of the bunch in my opinion. Seina’s unluckiness is at it’s funniest then and all the potential comedy and storylines of being at Galaxy Police school are here. It’s an awful pity they ditch that idea a handful of episodes in.

Yes, alas we don’t really get to enjoy the Academy for all too long. Very soon into the series run, Seina ends up living with two members of GXP’s token harem. These girls are Amane and Kiriko (who’s childhood friend of Seina, and main love interest at this point). They enter the series as a pair of Academy instructors who, although in their ‘Twenties’, suddenly become compelled to fight over the teenage boy who’s living with them. This is especially odd, since their first few episodes with him show that they resent having to deal with him. Without any real transition, they then jump into Tenchi-mode and start trying to find ways to get some ‘alone-time’ with the kid.

At this stage, the format starts to feel a little forced. Seina also loses his student status fairly early. Why? Because he’s been promoted to Captain!

It turns out that his unluckiness is a useful weapon, which can be used to track down and defeat space pirates…..and for that, he’s been promoted to Captain of a Starship?!! It’s a stretch, but even that I can ignore…if for example the show was a lot more fun.

You see…once he becomes captain, and he starts out on space missions with his harem, everything starts to feel a bit stale. It’s like Tenchi-lite…but even then not really. One problem is the cast I feel. Seina is an everyman, and thus no better or worse than Tenchi in my opinion. But pretty much everyone else seems a little off. When I said that GXP was a copy and paste of Tenchi Muyo, I wasn’t kidding.

You see, most harem anime and manga go by a certain formula, where the everyman is usually put up against a set group of female characters. You will have:

– The main love-interest…usually slightly cute, and always murderous when seen naked by the everyman.

– The sultry older one…often displayed as older, often with short hair. Will use her sexuality as a weapon and is often only slightly interested in the everyman.

– The clutsy moron…usually cuter, oblivious to most things…may have some interest in the everyman

-The chibi girl….usually about 10 – 13 years old, will have a crush on the everyman, and is almost always a good cook.

Tenchi Muyo had these characters, and so does GXP…sort of. Kiriko and Amane fill out the love-interest and sultry roles respectively, and do an alright job at it. One character development critic I have on Kiriko is that they dick around a little too much with the whole ‘Jurai Royal Family’ plot angle with her. We got enough of that with Ayeka in the Tenchi OVA, we really didn’t need more of this ‘Jurai’-ness that Tenchi Muyo had plenty of.

Amane is alright, it’s very hard to screw up her role.

The clumsy moron type isn’t well represented in GXP. We do have Mihoshi’s mother Mitoto, which is fun. But she’s not main cast, so instead we get Ryoko Balta…a Space Pirate (no…not Tenchi Muyo’s Ryoko…this is actually someone else)..who not only spends time being a sort of ‘furry’, she also dicides to stop being evil….’cause she’s in love Seina…and even goes so far as to join the crew.

Our final type is an interesting one. It’s what I call the ‘chibi girl’ of the group. All harem anime have one, and GXP is no different. Like Sasami in Tenchi Muyo, we also have a young girl by the name of Neju…or should I say, a 900 year old midget witch by the name of Neju who is also interested in marrying Seina… In other words she wants to screw him sideways, and as a very consenting adult she could…while still being the ‘young girl’ chibi character.

This brings be to one gripe I have for the entire Tenchi Muyo series…and by extension AIC (the series’ production company). Ryo Oki….a cabbot (Cat/Rabbit), is AIC’s maskot and also a character they first showed in Tenchi Muyo. She’s also something they’ve tried to put forward a little too often in the franchise. For reasons I can’t understand, they wheeled out a clone of this character in GXP too. It’s just unneeded. GXP should be a different show,  not an identikit copy of Tenchi Muyo. I’ll understand that there will be similarities, but there should be some differences.

That is the root of this concept’s crash. GXP is a copy and paste of Tenchi Muyo…but lacking the delivery or style of it. GXP should have tried to be different enough, but instead got stuck into the Tenchi rut of having Jurai princesses and Ryu-oki starships/cabbots.

I had hoped that the Galaxy Police elements of Tenchi Universe would have been expanded upon in this show, but instead we get typical Tenchi nonsense, out of it’s normal setting.

GXP isn’t a terrible show by any means, but considering the source material it had to deal with, a better job was expected. We should have gotten a Police Academy / high school anime thing out of this…but instead we just got ‘Tenchi Muyo…iiiiiiiinnn Spaaaaaaace! (with the Galaxy Police)’

And that is why, I feel, the concept of GXP was crashed.

By all means watch GXP if you can, you’ll probably enjoy it. It just annoyed the hell out of me for promising Galaxy Police fun…and getting something else entirely.