Hey everyone

[Warmaster]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Tenchi and anime as a whole. I watched one of the Tenchi series years ago on Toonami when it was part of Cartoon Network and just forgot about it as time went on. Well a month or so ago I just had a weird flashback to some cartoon I used to watch where the guy had a knock off lightsaber. After digging around I found out what it was called and after watching the OVA I'm hooked.

I just can't figure out why this series is so charming. I've had no interest in anime in the past but now I'm obsessed with this one show.

Seems like I came back at a good time also with OVA 4 coming out, how long will it take to be localised?

Cheers

[DeusChex ^////^]

Hellooo and welcome.  Glad to see more and more people becoming interested in the series even 20+ years after it first came out.  The OVAs are my first & favorite anime that I've ever watched.  Manga's pretty good too.


Sad to say OVA 4 will probably take awhile to be localized due to a few things (I could possibly be wrong on a couple things though) [I'm also assuming by "localized", you mean distributed in the west / dubbed in English]:

OVAs typically come out on an episode-by-episode basis.  The OVA1 episodes came out about a month apart from each other.  OVA2 came out over the course of a year (around 2 months in-between each episode release).  OVA3 came out in the span of 2003-2005.

Also, depending on who will own distribution rights in the west (viridian, i believe, owns OVA1 & OVA2/ funimation owns OVA3, tenchi in tokyo, tenchi universe [which by the way is the one you watched on toonami I believe], war on geminar/ idk who owns GXP - whoever owns the S.A.V.E. collection). 

If if becomes owned by funimation, there will mostly like be a wait for the english dub to be finished.  Funimation almost always does a dub since that's kinda their schtick.  Especially since Tenchi Muyo has a very well-liked, iconic english cast that for the most part stayed with the multiple continuities all the way through the years (except Ryoko's voice actor [who's name escapes me at the moment] for GXP and OVA3.  Some other woman replaced her and although, I was fine with the replacement's performance, fans in general didn't like her, especially her GXP performance).

Another thing about distribution would be the way anime is marketed towards the west (America especially).  When the first two Tenchi Muyo OVAs first came out on VHS in the USA, it came out on 4 VHS tapes which held either 3 or 4 episodes each.  Same with Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, OVA3 and GXP - except i believe GXP & OVA3 only came out on DVDs since this was years later (GXP & OVA3 came out in the mid-2000s, first two OVAs came out in the late-1990s).  Nowadays, that wouldn't be profitable.  So for pretty much every series now, they come out in "complete collections" which includes the entire series on 4 dvds, 3 blu-rays, whatevs.  This is what funimation did with War on Geminar which came out on two different collections (part 1 & part 2) in a dvd/blu-ray combo.

Although, with the way anime is heavily watched on sites like crunchyroll, hulu, netflix, funimation has it own thing, etc. - the company with the the distribution rights could release each episode shortly after it comes on in Japan using one of these methods.  Thank God for simulcasts these days.

Taking these things into consideration, plus the general wait for localization that comes from not being in Japan, the wait will probably take 3ish+ years for the first few episodes to be done and out on the web. (Again, I could absolutely be wrong on the wait.  There's just a lot of things to be considered.)

[DeusChex ^////^]

Also, if you're having trouble with the several different continuities and how what series is related to what.  (I had a considerable amount of confusion at first with this myself...).  I suggest looking at this site done by a guy called astronerdboy:

http://tenchi.astronerdboy.com/section-1-2-tenchi-muyo-continuities/

His sites fantastic!  Warning though, I'm not sure how many of the series you've watched or if it was just the OVAs, but just randomly browsing around could lead to spoilers!  This page is fine though looking over it just now.  It explains how the mutliple series are connected (or how they are not - considering that some continuities have nothing to do with each other canonically-speaking).

[Warmaster]

Well that was the news I was expecting, I suppose after a decade we can wait a few more years. Although I have to say I'm one of the people who was really disappointed to see that Petrea Burchard didn't come back to voice Ryoko, she still seems to post quite a bit of Tenchi related stuff on her FB and Twitter though, so maybe she could be tempted back to do OVA4? Kind of reminds me how Leonard Nimoy tried to fight his association with Spock for years, then just gave in and learned to embrace that it was what most people would remember him and love him for.

Thanks for the link also, yeah I'm not going to lie it took me a good hour to figure out what the hell was going on after I watched OVA 1 and 2. I was just watching them as 'Tenchi Muyo!', then because OVA 3 was sometime called TM Ryo-ohki (and now the entire series seems to be called this) I got totally lost off.

[DeusChex ^////^]

I guess Funimation just pushed the "Ryo-Ohki" part super hard and it caught on when referring to the three OVAs?  It was really confusing for me too.  Funimation/Viridian has made a mess out of selling the series which is a same.  It's very confusing since they sell a combined "complete" collection of OVA1 & OVA2, and a "complete" "Ryo-Ohki" collection of OVA3.  They don't combine them for some reason.  I'll post a pick to help demonstrate with this post. (At least when it comes to OVA3 - the tin is w/ the 3 dvds and all three separate collections have the same OVA (3) but they keep repackaging it and not combining it w/ OVA1 & OVA2).

Also, apparently Viridian is apart of Funimation.  Viridian just sells their dvd collection in more "environmentally-friendly" packaging.  Which from looking on various forum sites and owning one collection myself (pic), this seems to mean "cheaper".

Petrea Burchard to my knowledge never said WHY she didn't voice Ryoko for GXP/OVA3, and you could be right with the Leonard Nimoy comparison.  It would be awesome for her to do OVA4.  The voice she does for Ryoko pretty much sounds like her normal voice.  Hearing another voice coming out of Ryoko's mouth kinda messes with my head a little.  That's kinda the reason I don't watch subs of any of the anime that has the original Tenchi cast.

Have you watched any of the other anime besides OVA1 & OVA2?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Warmaster]

Yeah it's a bit of a nightmare. Nice collection though. But, it's even worse if you're in the UK, all the DVD's are ridiculously expensive or you have to buy imports which only work on certain players.

I've just watched the OVA's with the exception of the Mihoshi special, which I'll hopefully try and get watched tonight. I was going to watch universe next but if there's a recommended order I'll go with the flow.

[DeusChex ^////^]

I'm actually kinda curious.  If you would, could you say why DVDs are so expensive there?  I know in other countries like Japan, DVDs and CDs are like 2.5x the price of what they are in the states.  Also, I apologize for the bunch of text below, but I'd appreciate if you would humor me and read it.  It not everyday I get to talk about my favorite series to someone new-ish to the franchise and I tend to get pretty amped to explain things about it when asked hehe.


I personally watched all of the different continuities in release order, but it doesn't matter all that much once you watch the original TM! OVAs.  (By the way, when I say "canon", I mean specifically towards the original TM! OVAs.  I'm not sure how well versed you are in all of the lingo and such.)

But if you've already watched them and are watching the Mihoshi Special, I'd suggest "Tenchi Universe" afterwards.  You'll probably get a kick out of the references that universe makes to the OVAs.  After the 26ep series, there's two movies ("Tenchi In Love" & "Tenchi Forever" ["Tenchi In Love 2" in Japan] as they're called in the US).  They take place after the series and wrap it up and basically end the "Universe" continuity so don't watch those beforehand.

If you wanted to spend a couple hours watching "Magical Girl Pretty Sammy" OVA, they're not bad and take the source material in a new direction.  It's only 3eps.  The concept actually originates from a scene in the Mihoshi Special.

After that, I'd suggest "Tenchi in Tokyo" just to get the trifecta done (OVAs, Universe, & TnT).  If it fairly different, and it adds a new love-interest by the name of Sakuya.  Some people like her, other's don't.  Pretty even split on that from what I've seen.  I myself like her and the art is more "polished" - as in more frames of animation.  Tenchi did look a bit "off" for me though.  I think it had to do with the eyes.  By the way, if you're watching dubs and like the original cast, they're pretty much all here.  Same with the Japanese cast.

If Magical Girl Pretty Sammy was to your liking, there's "Magical Project S" which could be pretty hard to find, but it's the internet so probably not TOO hard the eps somewhere online.

After that, there's a movie called "Daughter of Darkness".  This was for some reason titled "Tenchi the Movie 2: Daughter of Darkness" for some stupid reason in the US.  It has nothing to do with the two other films which as I said in a post before - this overly confuses the fanbase.  It is based off of 13 novels that never left Japan.  The novel series' author, Hasegawa, is the original creator of Mihoshi's partner: Kiyone, who you'll see in the Mihoshi Special.  It takes place after the 1st OVA, I believe, and is an alternate ending (kinda) of the series.

At this point, you could read the manga by Okuda.  It very action oriented, non-canon, but pretty good.  Two different runs combining to be 22 volumes total.

If you're still interested in the magical series pretty sammy take on TM!, there's "Sasami: Magical Girls Club".  There's two seasons but idk about length.  Take note, I haven't watched this one myself, but looking at screenshots and small clips, this seems to be aimed at a fairly younger audience than any of the other shows.  So you may not like'em because of this.

After this, you could watch the two canon series that take place after OVA3.  One is "Tenchi Muyo GXP".  26ep, I think?.  It's pretty ok in my opinion.  Seina is pretty decent in my opinion.  The original creator of the show, Masaki Kajishima, didn't really have a lot to do with the series, as far as direction goes, until the end of the show which you can tell in its spike of awesomeness towards the last few episodes.

After that would be "War on Geminar", also canon.  There are 13eps, each being ~50min long.  It is the most distanced away from the original story.  New character, new setting.  If you like mecha, you'll really like this one.  Very nicely fleshed out and looks great.  It came out in ~2011, I believe.

Lastly, there's "Ai Tenchi Muyo".  This was to celebrate 20 years of TM!, and was funded by the city of Takahashi, Okayama in order to promote tourism.  The shrine from the OVAs?  That's actually based off of a real place.  I think there's a forum topic about it.  Idk where I saw it exactly.  Ai Tenchi Muyo was directed by the person who directed the "Universe" series - Negishi.  There's only speculation as to whether or not it actually takes place in the "Universe" timeline.  The character art was done by Suzuhito Yasuda, who did the illustrations for the Durarara!! novels.  I would not suggest this until you're pretty solid on the OVA lore.  Go ahead and watch "Universe" beforehand too.  This wasn't really made to new fans, but to older ones who know the references and character relationships.   There's 50ep + 10specials but each are 5min long.  You an run through them pretty quickly.

At the very end, when all is said, read, and watched, there's the doujinshi.  Oh yes!  The creator in the past several years, has taken to writing doujinshi at a faster, more robust pace.  If you're not sure what doujinshi are, they're a kind of "fanzine" done by fans of a series, but can be made by the original creators into canon material for their works.  Doujinshi are made by the group of people with their own money for the most part and sell it for profit.  Japan laws towards copyright are pretty lenient.  "No Game No Life"'s author, Yuu Kamiya (who's actually Brazilian, and the first to make it big in the Japanese anime/etc industry, but idk his actual name), does doujinshi artbooks under the group "pixel phantom" as an example.  Kajishima has only ever been involved with the original OVA continuity, so these pertain to that continuity.  There's a topic on this site where you can find links to view them.  Not all of them are translated, but his booklet-type works are mostly images anyway with a word to the fans at the beginning or end.  There's actually images of Tenchi's kids in some of these, along with a series he's been doing called "If", which could tell of what happens years down the road in the OVA timeline.  Some of it may end up in OVA4.  It's actually how he teased OVA4 in the first place.  There's a canon image of Sasami in her teen years, explanations to the "War on Geminar" universe, and images of Tenchi's potential and/or canon kids too.  All canon.  I own a few myself.  Cost me an arm and an import tax here and there but I got'em.


Well, I know this is alot, but if you've read this far, thanks for your time.  This isn't the order you HAVE to watch them in, baring things the Tenchi in Love Movies, etc., but this is what I'd recommend.  You could go ahead and watch GXP & War on Geminar, then Universe, etc., and it wouldn't really inhibit your enjoyment in the series.  That link I sent you to the astronerdboy site is a great reference to your question as well.  I know I could've just said that, but I wanted to give as complete an answer as I could.  Thanks again for your time.

[Warmaster]

Thanks for taking the time to write that, pretty informative. I was a bit unsure on the films so thanks for letting me know they're part of Universe. I find it so strange that the series is kind of 'horizontal', we seem to have the same story told numerous times (which isn't a bad thing) and a lot of alternative futures/timelines. 'Doujinshi' is also new to me, I'll take it they're like bulletin's or something.

I'll check out War on Geminar, I used to love Gundam and Tekkaman Blade when I was younger. As for why it's expensive, I can't say for sure but DVD's and Blue-rays are usually pretty cheap over here, a brand new film on blue-ray will usually be £15 or about $20. I just think it's because Europe has less of a market for anime and we're on a different media region. So PAL is pretty rare to come by and then after a few years when stuff goes OOP people know they can change high prices, ie. OVA 1 + 2 PAL is £70 ($100) second hand over here.

I see you mentioned novels also, are there any plans to translate these? I guess they're quite labour intensive for translators and probably won't be that profitable.

[Dr.Soviet]

I see you mentioned novels also, are there any plans to translate these? I guess they're quite labour intensive for translators and probably won't be that profitable.

Am in the process of talking to someone about the GXP novels to see how much it would cost

[DeusChex ^////^]

The novels I mentioned by Hasegawa were ones that will probably never seen the light of day in English.  They pretty hard to come by.  They go onto their own continuity that takes place after OVA2(?).  The ending is what the movie "Daughter of Darkness" is based off of.

The GXP novels that Dr.Soviet mentioned are still ongoing today.  The newest one (Vol.14) comes out on April 20th.  Hopefully he is able to find someone to translate these.  Kajishima, as I said, didn't have a whole lot of control in GXP's direction in the anime.  He wasn't entirely happy with the end result, so, he started to write GXP in a series of novels for the past several years.  These are more complete and somewhat differ from the anime.  The anime's still canon, it's just that the novels are MORE canon.  There's a link that Dr.Soviet posted by akirac that explains of the differences between the novels and anime up to Vol.12 so far.  I'll link it here in case it takes you awhile to watch GXP so it doesn't get thrown into the abyss that all forum sites have.  Postpone reading this though until you've seen the GXP anime.

http://www.uselesstenchi.org/Forum/index.php?topic=1041.0

[BlackAeronaut]

You know, guys, akirac seems to be reasonably proficient in written-English.  If he's willing to to the rough translation, I'm willing to go through and polish it up into American-English and torrent the sucker on bakabt.me (if no one has licensed the rights for the GXP light novels, then bakabt will do it without a problem).

It just might take me a while because I got things on my end to take care of, but it's not like light novels are all that long-winded.  *Glances warily at massive line of Edward Clavell novels in his bookshelf.*

[Warmaster]

Well I can't help with anything to do with Japanese but I have a Masters in History so if anyone wants help editing texts in English or as BlackAeronaut says polishing, I'm willing to lend a hand.

Shame about the Hasegawa novels, you'd think these days nothing is lost forever. Someone must be able to scan them.