XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: commodorejohn@gmail.com   
      
   On Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:10:29 +0200   
   Feanor  wrote:   
      
   > In the early 2000's, an otaku friend of mine exposed me to Tenchi   
   > Muyo for the first time (probably on vhs tapes), but I didn't really   
   > like it. My main memory of the show is: girl character was mean.   
   > After many a moon, finally tried it again recently. I watched the   
   > 1993 6 ep OVA. I get it now. It's funny and fanservicey without being   
   > hentai even though it's pretty nakey. Ryoko is indeed still mean at   
   > first, but becomes not as bad as I remember. She seems to actually be   
   > okay and I want to like her. The leaps in anime logic are kinda hard   
   > to swallow, but the lore has potential outside of it's pulp   
   > randomness, so I want to try out the actual series some time.   
      
   I should give it another go sometime for the sake of re-assessment, but   
   I wasn't impressed with it the first time. TM strikes me as basically   
   the first step in the evolution of the "harem comedy" as a shared genre   
   after Ranma 1/2 established the first full example of the form* - "hey,   
   *that* was a big hit, what if we try to make lightning strike twice?"   
      
   * (Urusei Yatsura laid a lot of the groundwork, but it's a crucial   
     distinction that in the "harem comedy" it's primarily the protagonist   
     being pursued by the love interests, while in UY it's the other way   
     around 99% of the time - and for all that, there's only two instances   
     where there's ever any question of Ataru's attentions being requited.)   
      
   But as a waypoint in evolutionary history it's a pretty limp lungfish,   
   or so I recall. Ryoko's shift from psycho space pirate to loyal love   
   interest is jarring; she's too much of a bastard at first for it to   
   feel plausible, and way less interesting as a character afterward. It'd   
   have been both more believable *and* more fun if she'd ended up as more   
   the "crazy bad-influence girlfriend" type instead. Tenchi himself is   
   also kind of a bland, passive nonentity (a problem that has plagued the   
   genre since...well, Tenchi Muyo.)   
      
   It's a shame, because there is some genuinely engaging strangeness to   
   the setting/lore (spaceships that are actually trees or small furry   
   critters? That's the kind of matter-of-fact kookiness '80s-'90s anime   
   would toss out like it wasn't even a thing; I *do* miss those days...)   
      
   As far as recently watching, been very much enjoying having Ranma back   
   on the air. The original anime wasn't as seriously in need of a trim-   
   the-fat edit/remake as UY was, but it's great to see nonetheless =^_^=   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)