Why do people hate the 3rd OVA?

[MariaTenebre]

Thanks Ms Anthrope for the welcome I hope to make many friends on this forum. However I found another article that pretty much reflects my feelings on the 3rd OVA.

http://otakurevolution.com/content/third-times-no-charm-the-problem-of-tenchi-muyo-ova-3

[Tenbac86]

Wrote a review for it some time ago:

http://myanimelist.net/profile/Aarronin/reviews

Short version: first time viewing is jarring but going back with an open mind and its all good.

[takahata]

The only thing which I had like about OVA 3 was that it had included the origins of Tsunami, Washu, and Tokimi. OVA 3 could have been done better.  I hated how The death of Tenchi's mother was treated.  Tenchi's mother had simply died of old age.  I believed that Kiyone had a very rare genetic condition which didn't enable her to live a much longer life.  She did live for 248 years.   

[MariaTenebre]

The only thing which I had like about OVA 3 was that it had included the origins of Tsunami, Washu, and Tokimi. OVA 3 could have been done better.  I hated how The death of Tenchi's mother was treated.  Tenchi's mother had simply died of old age.  I believed that Kiyone had a very rare genetic condition which didn't enable her to live a much longer life.  She did live for 248 years.

It just sucks that we were given such a cool origin for Achika and then for Kajishima to make a mockery of Tenchi's mother. It especially makes no sense because in OVA 1 Katsuhito says that Tenchi was the serious type "just like his mother."

[جبريل 無道]

Achika's story where she's from though, the Hasegawa novels, don't really match up with Tenchi Muyo in Love.  So which version did you prefer?

[MariaTenebre]

Achika's story where she's from though, the Hasegawa novels, don't really match up with Tenchi Muyo in Love.  So which version did you prefer?

Tenchi Muyo in Love is what I prefer.

[BlackAeronaut]

I hated how The death of Tenchi's mother was treated.  Tenchi's mother had simply died of old age.  I believed that Kiyone had a very rare genetic condition which didn't enable her to live a much longer life.  She did live for 248 years.

Really?  I thought it was because she had not bonded with a Royal Tree, as that is what causes the royalty of Jurai to live such long lives.  Otherwise, if normal humans had access to Juraian medicine, they'd live about as long as Kiyone did.

Another thing to bear in mind is that it's hinted that Kiyone was suffering from the Juraian equivalent of Dementia towards the very end there.  Of course, I could be mis-remembering.

[shades of blue]

It especially makes no sense because in OVA 1 Katsuhito says that Tenchi was the serious type "just like his mother."

Yosho is a troll.

a) raises grandson to take his place
b) baits Tenchi into opening up the tomb
c) lets his sisters think he's a shriveled up old man
d) trolls Tenchi
e) trolls Aeka
f) molests Ryoko
g) trolls Kagato (both mentally & physically)
h) trolls Aeka & Ryoko
i) tries to deceive his own mother
j) his whole relationship with his estranged wife
k) etc.

Notice a pattern here? Yeah.... Perhaps clinging to some line Yosho used in jest is not so smart. But hey, what do I know. Maybe Yosho is really an old geezer and not the deceitful manipulative piece of shit he appears to be.

[KobayashiRiku]

I'll play the Devil's Advocate here and say that I rather liked OAV 3. The Animation was absolutely gorgeous, the music was good, the story did its job, and I rather liked Tennyo, didn't mind Misao, and Machisu didn't bother me either

However, that doesn't mean its at all perfect. Rea was well... meh. And the whole way they handled Kiyone was absolute tripe, admittedly a huge "WTF" moment for viewers. In my personal opinion, I think that they should have left Kiyone a mystery if anything, and while admittedly we were all expecting Achika out of Kiyone, I can understand why Kiyone =/= Achika.

Thats my two cents anyway.

[takahata]

Before I had watch OVA 3,  I had thought that Kiyone was a lot like Universe's Achika.  When the truth of Kiyone's death was disclosed to Tecnhi, it was treated as a practical joke.  To me, it is starting to seem that Kiyone was trying to do her best to please her son Tenchi by writing the book.  The practical joke part wasn't necessary.  Kiyone was a lot like her mother. Her sister Minaho is a lot serious like her father Katsuhito. Oddly, Minaho and Katsuhito like to play practical jokes on occasion.

I do wonder why Kiyone had died at the age of 248 years.  Since Airi and her family have long life spans, it would have been normal for Kiyone to have a long life span. I did suspect that Kiyone had a rare genetic condition which simply prevented her from having a long life span.  Now, there is starting to seem that something else had cause Kiyone's life to be short.  Since Achika had died at a young age,  it seems that Kiyone was destined to have a short life. 

OVA 3 is likely the last OVA in the Ryo-Ohki series.  We can only suspect that there will be an OVA 4.  I want OVA 4 to be a sequel to the Ryo-Ohki Seires.

[Tenbac86]

Putting more into it: I never actually hated OVA 3. I never actually cared.

See the thing is, the first time I watched OVA was a long while ago and back then I was just watching for the sake of it/just putting things in my fun brain. Whatever negative things I had for Noike and the story was more from hearsay and me just absorbing the fan reaction from where I was. 

I think a lot more people unfortunately get stuck in this rut and never move out of it, either content in the group think or just too lazy to do the research/enjoy the show.

Which makes me appreciate this site and my recent purchase of OVA 3 alot more. Now I just gotta get GXP and I'll more or less have the complete Kajishima canon.

[Kagato3]

Since this is my first post on this website I will state where I am coming from. First of all let me start with saying that I am a fan of the OVA series particularly OVA1 and OVA2 I also liked Universe although I hated Tenchi in Tokyo. So I was very much excited for OVA3 I thought that it would be an amazing continuation. I was sadly disappointed for one the story over all was pretty terrible. The Mihoshi's family plot was poorly executed, there were plot holes because it was pretty much stated in the earlier OVAs that Katsuhito/Yosho had pretty much no contact with the Jurai royal family and yet all of a sudden he has a Airaian wife and it seems like everyone in space knew he was on Earth.

Except  it was pointed out by Yosho'a mother they had known where he was the whole time. Also the novels  pretty much explain that yes Ari was out there and was one of the reasons he ran off in the first place cause he wanted to be with her.

I also must disagree with Tenchi Ryu on Kiyone Masaki. It was stated earlier by Katsuhito that Tenchi was serious "just like his Mother" now all of a sudden she is some practical joker. I mean we had the amazing story for Achika in the Tenchi Muyo in Love movie and his Mother was reduced to being some deranged joker. Not only was that bad writing honestly it seemed like something a troll would write.

Never mind the one time we see his mother  in the first 2 OVAS she is trolling both Tenchi and Ryoko  as she looks right at Ryoko  and asks if Tenchi who also noticed her if he sees a demon . Yes it would have been clearer if we didn't have the translation  mistake  that called her grandmother .

To be honestly Kajishima shit on Tenchi's Mother's legacy. Rea and Tennyo as well came out of left field and I found it strange how all of a sudden they were trying to make Rea as if she was some constant part of Tenchi's life when this is the first time we ever saw her.

Given we saw about 5 minutes of Tenchi's  home life before his house was forcibly  move next to his grandfather's  and after that rarely saw Noboyuki  Rea could have easily  been there the whole time and we would never have known about her and the releaseday dojinshi  hint Kyone  was working  on setting  the 2 up in part because  she knew Rea's mission 

The Female Kagato stuff came out of left field as well and the idea of Kagato being a hermaphrodite who hated Women just sounded ridiculous to me.

Again  most of this come as little  surprise  if you had information  about the Washu  novel 

The ending was rushed and honestly a bit ridiculous and hard to follow. I also did not like Noike she was basically Kiyone mixed with Sakuya aka a Mary Sue. I don't know why Kajishima did not just use Kiyone as she was an amazing character. There are tons of good shows that incorporate characters form other canons of the show. Look at Harley Quinn, she was created originally for the Batman animated series but she was so popular she eventually got put in the comics and now you can hardly find a Batman or DC series without Harley Quinn. I think that Kajishima missed a golden opportunity by not including Kiyone Makibi in the OVA canon. Plus I feel like I read somewhere that even in Japan OVA3 didn't do that well. Over all the OVA 3 had a chance of being great. Like dealing with the Goddess Sisters etc but it didn't turn out to be up to my expectations.

Noike  had been a planned character  for years with published  pictures  of her as far back as 1996 and some hints she was designed  during the second OVA if not earlier . TU Kiyone  does not fit with the OVA setting a large part of it is Mihoshi is far from incompetent  she's scatter brained  but still able to solve near impossible  cases and give reports that are way too detailed.


Basically  this post hits the nail on the head and it is one of the reasons older starwars fans hate the prequels. It  seems the bigest issue is that it doesn't  fit their head cannon, in part because we didn't get all the information .

[Drillmaster]

There is a lot of great information in this thread.

I'm a person who typically places OVA Tenchi above Universe Tenchi for its initial stronger characters. There are several problems with the OVA in my mind, true, like the incest and the slow decline of characters like Ryoko, but OVA 1 is just wonderful. OVA 2, in my mind, tried and failed at times to capture that magic. Episodes like Night Before the Carnival or I Love Tenchi are examples of episodes that really didn't flow well due to an odd place or readjusting Kajishima's ideas for the storyline (this hurts Night Before the Carnival the most). We had three episodes that had Sasami's period for some reason.

But then you get quality humor like in Here Comes Jurai or Sasami and Tsunami, or the character moments like Tenchi looking at his Mother's kimono or Sasami's emotional breakdown. It's a mixed bag as a whole, but there is a lot to love.

On the flip side, the first half of Universe is weak. Certain moments work well, like Kiyone's introductory episode, or the increased focus on Nobuyuki's relationship with Yosho and Tenchi. Nagi and Kiyone work as they are foils to Ryoko and Mihoshi. That being said, as much as I love Kiyone, it doesn't work as well with OVA Mihoshi since she is actually competent.

The second half had balls, though. Tenchi has always debted itself to Star Wars, and that section is pure space fantasy. On paper it is great. But people forget that half of those episodes are basically filler, including the worst Ryoko episode of all time. However, from the second Azaka and Kamidake get introduced, it turns itself around and becomes wonderful. It is the polar opposite of the OVA, which started very strong and diminished over time.

This brings me to OVA 3. Now I did not hate OVA 3 as strongly as others, but I was disappointed by it. I thought there was so much more that could be done. The girls got reduced screen time to make up for Noike, Kiyone was reduced to a joke, Tennyo and Nobuyuki's scene, and Rhea just kind of appeared, though Nobuyuki's infrequent appearances could allow for it. Are these things annoying? Yes, but not really any more annoying than the abrupt tonal shift of Sasami and Tsunami or the attempted rapes of Tenchi.

My biggest issue for me was, hands down, the lack of accessibility that was in the show. If I am watching a show, looking at books and novels that I can't read should not be required material. Red Letter Media brought that up in their Star Wars reviews and it's true. The Shin Tenchi Novels should be more like Easter Eggs used for light world building, not the only reason for Misaki's sudden appearance or Naja/Kagato's female side. Those things need to be built up in story to get the proper reaction.

Is OVA 3 as bad as people make it out to be? No. Is it good? No. All I know is I'm very interested to examine each episode in depth.

[AstroNerdBoy]

I'll add another point to this thread, which applies to us outside of Japan.

When one looks at OVA 3, one sees that Kajishima-sensei didn't feel like covering old ground, or at least, not that much. While he sets up the fights for Ryoko and Aeka, he doesn't show us the fights. I think that this is because in his mind, we've already seen Ryoko and Aeka fight Kagato, thus there's no reason to see them fight again because he's been there, done that. You know they are going to win, and that's that. He did show the Sasami fight since we've never seen her battle before, but there too, it was after the fact and likely in his mind, he's thinking, "You know she's going to win, so what does it matter when I show it?"

Unfortunately, this is a terrible narrative decision. You don't set up awesome fights, then not show them happen. Even if they are the heroes and are going to win, you don't just show the fight as a flashback immediately after they emerge triumphant from the aforementioned fight.

But beyond that, I honestly believe that Kajishima-sensei expected the Japanese fans to have read the Shin Tenchi Muyo novels and that they would likely be versed on information from the doujinshi and other sources (including the GXP anime). With that in mind, he doesn't bother to set up Rea or other "new" characters to the anime. So Drillmaster has a good point when stating, "If I am watching a show, looking at books and novels that I can't read should not be required material."  Unfortunately, Kajishima-sensei didn't write it for folks outside of Japan, and he didn't write it for those who weren't fans.

Not to just pick on Kajishima-sensei, but this "spread the story over multiple formats" thing isn't that uncommon in Japan. It is part of the "fleece the otaku out of every yen we can get" marketing that Japanese companies do. I think Kajishima-sensei is someone who does this more than most, but in his case, I think it stems from the fact that he just doesn't want to retell a story he's already told. I think in his mind, if you want to know what happened with Azusa's vow at the end of OVA 2 episode 6, you'll read the prelude of the novel "Washu." There's no reason for him to rewrite it for OVA 4 (as an example).

(The exception to this rule would be the GXP novels, which initially started as him "fixing" the things he felt Nabeshin screwed up, but then it became a platform for him to tell a much more elaborate story.)

[Harls]

if you want to know what happened with Azusa's vow at the end of OVA 2 episode 6, you'll read the prelude of the novel "Washu."

Jurai, actually.