Remembering A.I. : TENCHI MUYO

[takahata]

AI: TENCHI MUYO had turn out in my opinion to be a good series.  The series had its share of flaws. One of the flaws was the excessive fanservice. While AI was a harem series, it should have the necessary amount of fanserivce.  Most of the reasons for the paradox which threaten the universe were very clear. The paradox was created as a result of Momo coming to the future after Washu had taken the pre-Tenchi Mihoshi and Ryoko and return them to their normal times.

The paradox was terminated after Momo was sent back to the past. In the last scenes, we have learn that Momo was one of Tenchi Masaki's female ancestors.  Momo was staying at the Masaki Family Shrine.  Momo's key is one of the important relics of the Masaki Family Shrine.

AI: TENCHI MUYO was part of its own canon.  It was set somewhere in Takahashi City Japan. Until OVA 4 comes out,  Takahasi City remains as a candidate for the city where the Masaki Family Shrine is located in.

[WarOmnimon]

*Takes a deep breath*  Alright, here goes.  The two words I like to associate the most with Ai Tenchi Muyo are as follows... WASTED POTENTIAL.  Yeah, you heard me.  Ai gets hated on huge by the fanbase (Myself being one of the many who just can't stand it), but at the same time, we need to take note that AIC could have actually done something cool with it and actually made it a good series that wouldn't have gotten so much hate, and maybe actually get a legit positive following.  It all comes down to the fact that they didn't execute it correctly.  Here's what I would have done in a nutshell - make the episodes 30 minutes long as they did for Universe and Tokyo, and make the episode count around the same number.  That way, they'd be able to do several things...

-They wouldn't have had to worf Ryoko, Ayeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, and Washu to Hades and back, and they also could have included Ryo-Ohki, Azaka, and Kamidake regularly instead of just as a cameo at the end of the final episode.  Heck, this could have even allowed Noike to be involved.

-They would have been able to tell an actual good story with clear character development, buildup to the conclusion, and so forth.  The whole thing was just flatout rushed, and doing a regular TV series like Universe / Tokyo would have allowed them to NOT rush the story.

-Every fifth episode would NOT be a recap.  Aside from the excessive fanservice and worfing the original cast, that's one of the general details of Ai that REALLY rustled my jimmies.

The whole problem really does lie in the fact that every episode was 5 minutes instead of 30.  They had a good idea, but they didn't want to deliver so they took the cheap way out - the moment I heard that every episode was 5 minutes, I was like, "yup, this series is already doomed".  And yeah, as takahata said, the fanservice shouldn't have been so frequent.

On top of that, doing Ai correctly would have allowed AIC to use it as a "gateway series" to bring newer fans into the rest of the Tenchi franchise, kind of like what Toei is doing with Digimon Universe Appli Monsters, making that a "gateway series" to bring newer fans into the rest of the Digimon franchise.  Let's look at the biggest comparison... Ai's new girls are based on the female lead tropes in modern harem series, while Appmon is making references to stuff that is popular and in play huge now but wasn't when Digimon first started, such as YouTube (Called AppTube in Appmon) and so forth.

Short version - Ai could have legit worked, but it didn't.  All because of the fact that it wasn't set up and executed properly.  And that's a shame.  They could have done so much more with it and beat Toei to the "gateway series" trope punch, but like I said, AIC took the cheap way out.

EDIT And I just noticed my Useless Points went up by 2 after this post, looks like a couple of people have given me the "now you're catching on!" treatment - thanks folks.  Seriously though, let that be a reminder that constructive criticism like I did here is always more appreciated by all parties than just saying something like "OMG THIS WHATEVER THE HECK IT IS CAN DIE IN A FIRE" and stuff like that without pointing out the flaws and so forth.  I don't normally edit my posts to respond to such things happening, but given Ai is a major source of negativity within the Tenchi fanbase, I had to do it this time when for once, we were able to try and look at how things could (And in this case should) have gone. 

[جبريل 無道]

I really liked Momo and Hachiko.  Hana was okay in her 2-3 minutes of spotlight... but that's about it.

[Gaston]

- I just like Rui and Yuki among the new characters. Some of the new characters didn't seems important to the plot.

-The only thing that really annoying me about how the old Tenchi characters are treated is how Tenchi get punched by Ryoko. That the main reasons why I don't hate Ai Tenchi Muyo compare to, said, Tenchi Universe who destroyed characters I likes.

-I still wonder where was the tourism.

-The filler episodes were better than the more importants episodes. Seriously I had the more fun when it was about the president election. The plot would have probably better in a 25 minutes episodes format thought it has few chance the plot would be great anyway.

-The artwork is okay.

-WHY THEY SHOWED RYOKO'S BOOBS AND NOT AEKA'S!?!

[Dr.Soviet]

Also agree it was wasted potential, Would have been better used on more Tenchi Universe content if they wanted to do something non canon

[Tenchi Ryu]

I still gotta watch it