2017 Legacy Articles

[WarOmnimon]

I did these for my Facebook fan page used to promote my streams and so forth (I will link to this page in my signature eventually!), but I figured that you folks would also want to see these articles, so I'm gonna post them up here.  General discussion, because this includes video games, anime, and tokusatsu all in one go.

Anyway, these are little quick articles I'm doing for everything on an anniversary this coming year, whether obscure or not, and YES, the Tenchi Muyo! 25th is one of them.  The format for the posts here is a bit more streamlined than my FB page, given I can attach more pics in one go in a much more organized manner.  For the most part, this will be copy / paste from my page, and I'm going to post the Tenchi 25th article first because, well, that's the subject of this forum after all.  ^_^

(Side note, be sure to click on the images for full size versions.)

[WarOmnimon]

Tenchi Muyo! 25th

Introduction

You see a lot of, well... let's say "different" things happen with anime and the fanbase as a whole even today, whether the series being discussed is about fighting, monster collecting, or even slice of life. In a way, that all started back in 1992 because of this series right here. Harem main progatonists? Tenchi started that trend. Waifu wars? Those started back in 1992. Alternate timeline stuff? Been there, done that before even Dragon Ball did it via GT.

Of course, aside from the playful prodding I did here, what we have even today is a good franchise overall, still loved by its fans today. A HUGE number of anime (Including not one, but TWO spinoffs that are actually, GASP, fully canonical!), several manga and novel adaptations, a couple of video games (The SNES one is DEFINITELY recommended!), and as of this writing three movies (Unfortunately none of which are canonical). However, let's face it... the road to finally reaching OVA 4 (Which is of course the big anniversary season!) was VERY bumpy. Nothing of note actually happened for its 20th anniversary proper, and two years later, we got the outright DISASTER of an anniversary season known as Ai Tenchi Muyo!, which completely bombed even in Japan and OF COURSE, it was another non-canonical iteration like Universe and Tokyo were. It was so badly received that it actually almost killed the franchise, but fortunately 2015 ended with the announcement that OVA 4 was happening, and with episode 1 releasing at the end of November 2016, it is definitely clear that OVA 4 is the anniversary season... so yup, another one that started early!


Anime releases
September 25, 1992 - Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (OVA 1) releases. (While sometimes listed seperately, Night Before The Carnival is officially considered the final episode of OVA 1, so that episode's individual release date is not noted here.)
March 25, 1994 - Tenchi Muyo! Mihoshi Special (OVA) releases.
September 25, 1994 - Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (OVA 2) releases.
April 2, 1995 - Tenchi Universe (TV) begins airing.
August 25, 1995 - Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (OVA) releases.
April 20, 1996 - Tenchi Muyo! in Love (Movie) releases.
October 4, 1996 - Magical Project S (TV) begins airing.
April 1, 1997 - Tenchi in Tokyo (TV) begins airing.
August 2, 1997 - Tenchi Muyo! Daughter of Darkness (Movie) releases.
April 24, 1999 (Not shown) - Tenchi Forever (Movie) releases.
April 2, 2002 - Tenchi Muyo! GXP (TV) begins airing.
September 18, 2003 - Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (OVA 3) releases. (While sometimes listed seperately, Final Confrontations is officially considered the final episode of OVA 3, so that episode's individual release date is not noted here.)
April 13, 2006 - Sasami: Magical Girls Club (TV) begins airing.
October 5, 2006 (Not shown) - Sasami: Magical Girls Club Season 2 (TV) begins airing.
March 20, 2009 - Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar (OVA) releases.
October 6, 2014 - Ai Tenchi Muyo! (TV) begins airing.
November 30, 2016 - Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (OVA 4) releases.
September 25, 2017 - 25TH ANNIVERSARY

[Dr.Soviet]

This is neat : ]

[WarOmnimon]

Awesome to see that the good doctor loved it, but now...  *In Sigma's voice*  ARE YOU READY FOR ROUND 2?

ToHeart 20th

Introduction

First things first, the way the ToHeart franchise evolved is actually quite, well... I'd definitely say that INTERESTING is the word I'm looking for here. Even moreso than it was for Utawarerumono, which was also created by AquaPlus. First thing we need to do, rewind the clock to May 23, 1997, when the original game first released on the PC - this makes May 23, 2017 the exact date of the ToHeart 20th anniversary. It was a visual novel, usual dating sim fare... and yeah, it was NSFW at first. Key words, AT FIRST. As soon as the idea was pitched to do an anime based on the game, that changed everything, because unlike many similar games which were NSFW and got anime adaptations which matched... ToHeart pulled a Tokimeki Memorial, because the anime ended up being regular school life stuff. It needs to be noted that Tokimemo as it's known as for short is the first well known dating sim that did NOT include NSFW content, hence why the comparison to Tokimemo was made, but in this case it's how they handled the anime (And console ports of the original game as noted shortly) and not the original game (And furthermore the rest of the franchise going forward save for one instance on the PC later on) itself. Of course, this changed the direction of the franchise - the original game was ported to the PS1 (The PS1 port was released on March 27, 1999, less than one week before the anime started - how convenient for marketing!), PS2, and PSP with the NSFW stuff cut out, and then the rest is pretty much history. Because this approach actually flat-out WORKED, the sequel, ToHeart 2, which is set in the same place, but at a different time with a completely different cast of characters, actually got its non-NSFW version (Which was released on the PS2 on December 28, 2004) released first. It's the exact opposite of what happened with the first game, and once again, the anime adaptation skipped out on the NSFW and was regular school life stuff. Sadly, the anime for ToHeart 2 did not receive a licensed English release like the one for the original did... surprising given that Utawarerumono's second anime got a licensed release and the fact that the cast of ToHeart 2 actually has a larger fan following than the cast of the first iteration over in Japan (I mean, save for Multi, the cast of ToHeart 2 is literally EVERYWHERE compared to the original when you see crossover games and so forth!).

Given that the last release involving ToHeart was in 2015 (Or not even a week ago if you count the AquaPlus mashup for Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, but that doesn't actually feature the characters so that doesn't count IMO), the franchise is DEFINITELY still active (Especially on the ToHeart 2 side of things as I mentioned moments ago), so YES, it is VERY likely that something will happen as we approach the big 2-0 in May.


Video game and anime releases
May 23, 1997 - ToHeart (PC) released.
March 27, 1999 - ToHeart (PS1) released.
April 1, 1999 - ToHeart TV anime begins.
October 2, 2004 - ToHeart : Remember my Memories TV anime begins.
December 28, 2004 - ToHeart 2 (PS2) released.
October 3, 2005 - ToHeart 2 TV anime begins.
December 9, 2005 - ToHeart 2 (PC) released.
February 28, 2007 - ToHeart 2 OVA anime released.
March 26, 2008 - ToHeart 2 ad OVA anime released.
April 24, 2009 - ToHeart 2 adplus OVA anime released.
September 23, 2010 - ToHeart 2 adnext OVA anime released.
June 30, 2011 - ToHeart 2 Dungeon Travelers (PSP) released.
February 22, 2012 - ToHeart 2 Dungeon Travelers OVA anime released.
May 23, 2017 - 20TH ANNIVERSARY