So who here has watched an episode of Tenchi Muyo?

Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Yup, that's about right. Most anime fans from about '96 or so on up have seen at least a little bit of the show. If not on video, or at a convention, you may have seen some censored (and they were extremely censored) episodes on Cartoon Network. Indeed, Tenchi Muyo used to be required watching to be considered an anime fan. It was up there with Ranma, Sailor Moon, and Akira. This was Pioneer's flagship title, the very story that put them on the map.

Up until recently anime fans had been clamoring for a release of the long unfinished OVA 3. Something to wrap up the hanging plot threads that have been trailing around since about '98 or so. We've had in its place two TV series, only the first of which is widely considered watchable; the Pretty Sammy OVA and TV series spinoffs, both well worth watching; and three movies, which the fanbase is so widely divided on their opinion that you won't find a true consensus among even the closest of friends concerning it. A small exception is that the first one is generally considered to be a good movie among most fans; it's a few of the details that garner its argument.

But we got OVA 3, right? You'd think anime fans all over would be celebrating in the rafters! However, from the boards of SomethingAwful to the near nonexistent offerings of fansubbers, there's been no such thing. One can't help but ask...why? I mean, it IS what we wanted so badly. Right? RIGHT?!

Like anything else, it's not only what you get, but how you get it. For some, it was everything they ever wanted, ever hoped, and dreamed for. However, for others it was just the opposite, and as such, a great number of the english speaking fanbase just up and vanished almost overnight.

How could there be such a division? All fandoms have their arguments. Hell, some of them are quite a bit meaner than the Tenchi fanbase (I'm told the Gundam Wing fandom fits this description). But to have such a great many fans throw their hands up in disgust and leave? Even passing fans just up and lose their interest? This, one of the "All Time Great Animes You Have to WATCH, or You're not Anime L33t?" Something doesn't ring right, does it?

Let me take you along my journey into and through the fandom. Perhaps we may all gleen some insight into what occurred...or perhaps we'll simply be as confused and disgruntled as before. All will judge accordingly.

It all began back in '95 or '96. I was in the Nuclear Power Program in the Navy (located in Orlando, Florida), getting the living hell kicked out of what passed for my pride and sanity. I was not alone in this, everyone in class got the same treatment. You had to blow off steam, you just HAD to. Some did Laser Tag. Others went out and drank. I was one of the few who walked down the road and went to a shop called Enterprise. This was a sci-fi/fantasy shop, and there, on one wall, was anime. Boxes and boxes at $30 per tape, one tape per episode, of anime. Even a nice collection of LDs, which was good if you were made of money and could buy that device. I knew what anime was, but I had no idea what to get...there were so many, after all. So I picked the one with the prettiest box art. This happened to be the first episode of the Oh My Goddess OVA series released by AnimEigo.

I was hooked, right from the start. Belldandy was a godsend, in more ways than one. I quickly acquired all the other tapes and watched them...must have been nearly 20 times that month. Pissed of a few of my roommates, let me tell you. I had to have more, but what to get? The internet was in its infancy back then, so I had to make do with the cover art and whatever someone put on the back of the box to give it some sort of description. I indulged in many types of anime, from Fist of the North Star to Urotsukdouji (funny story about that one, but I'll wait to tell that if I ever review it). During all this time, I kept seeing these cute little boxes of Tenchi Muyo. The back descriptions made no sense, but the cover art and characters depicted on back in weird situations looked highly intriguing. Finally, I bought the first two the same day I found a copy of Transformers the Movie at a video store downtown.

After I was done, I blinked, went to bed, and the next day I beamed myself right back to the Enterprise and purchased every other tape that they had, including the first tape containing the first two episodes of OVA 2 on a single VHS tape. It should be explained that this was unheard of back then, and I nearly fainted getting so much more for my money. They were only $25 too, talk about a deal!

Tenchi Muyo was like nothing I'd ever seen before. In only six eps, they introduced a fantastic situation, gave us likable and deep characters that we got to know so very well, wrapped itself up completely, and still left enough for future expansion. It was no wonder fans would be begging for more, and OVA 2 was just what the doctor ordered. I have to admit that when the first bars of Sharon Scott's I am a Pioneer, rang out, I nearly cried tears of joy.

Around the '96 time frame I moved on to a different part of the school over at Charleston, SC. Shortly thereafter, I wound up seeing Tenchi Muyo in Love on the Sci Fi channel, the day before it was released on video, ironically enough. Here I wound up confused, though entertained. What I saw had little, if anything, to do with the OVA series I had invested such heart and soul in.

It wasn't until I went to the local fanboy store, the Green Dragon, that I found out from the proprietor the difference between an OVA and a TV series, and how sometimes they don't match up. An alternate universe then? No big deal...I could handle it.

I'll stop the exposition there, but basically at this point I was well indoctrinated into anime, and was well into being a nearly incurable Tenchi Muyo fan. There were alternate universes, spin offs (such as Pretty Sami, which I found awfully weird, but fun), movies that didn't quite match up to each other...honestly, you'd almost have had to start from the beginning to keep them all straight. I didn't care though, I was so in love with the story and their characters, I just had to have more.

The internet was something I was given access to in '97, onboard the USS Boxer, and was shown how to use it by my supervisor, Petty Officer Second Class Everette Denny. Here, I discovered something called online fanfiction, and with it, other fans. Fans who knew things I did not. Fans who had access to things I did not. Things like novels, articles, and the Tenchi 101. With different fans came different points of view based on the poorly understood novels of both Kajishima and Hasegawa, the articles and interviews of the various peoples responsible for the series, and even different ideas concerning the badly translated Tenchi 101...not the least of which was Pioneer's heavy handed smackdown on that fantranslation, but that's a different story.

Oh, the arguments we had concerning Tenchi Muyo were the stuff of LEGEND! Everything from Sasami's feelings concerning Tenchi and their validity, to the very nature of cannon and what the overall fan (or even a significant number) means concerning a company's product and point of view. They went on for weeks...months...Hell, even in some cases YEARS! And those arguments only served to strengthen my love for the series, and solidify it into a near unbreakable obsession. I wanted more...I wanted ALL!

Be careful what you wish for, I've often been told. To celebrate my fandom, I wrote several really shitty fanfics, started a fanfiction review site with Navaash, a fellow fan, and even a fanart site which is still operational, but hasn't been updated in over a year due to a serious lack of submissions. I put a lot of work and love into this series, while always staying abreast of current developments and information, not to mention joining every club for every character I could.

During the course of this, it was known that there was a section of the fandom which believed that the only real driving force behind the anime was a man known as Masaki Kajishima. He is listed as co creator, a fact which I'm sure irks this particular faction to this day. No matter how they try to downplay it; no matter how they try to trivialize the roll of the other creator, Hiroki Hyashi; no matter what new 'facts' they bring up to the table, Masaki Kajishima is only the co creator of the series. Hiroki Hayashi is the other creator, and his contribution is argued to this very day.

The reason for the argument is very simple: Masaki Kajishima went on to work on Dual, a Tenchi/Eva fusion; and Photon, a retelling of Tenchi; Agga Rutta, a hentai version of Tenchi. In fact in every work he's ever done, a Tenchi Masaki clone is the main character, and the basic story line of Tenchi Muyo is simply modified a little for the work in which he was involved in. Hiroki Hayashi, on the other hand, went on to do, among others, El Hazard, arguably Tenchi influenced, but very different in execution; Pretty Sami, the magical girl spinoff of Tenchi Muyo for whom Sasami is the main character; Bubble Gum Crisis 2040 a cyberpunk anime; and Battle Athletes, an anime based on a game about girls pushing themselves to the utter most physical limits of endurance to see who's the best.

You see the problem here? Masaki Kajishima has a very limited scope of story telling. Conversely Hayashi has worked on many and varied projects, so it's really wondered just what each person contributed to this story. We'll probably never know. The reason for such analysis I'll explain in a bit.

It was also believed, for the longest time, that Naoko Hasegawa, the script writer, put quite a bit of her own input into this anime. This was further backed by the fact she created a series of novels based on the Tenchi Muyo OVA series, and with it, fan favorite Kiyone Makibi, not to be confused with Kiyone Masaki...whole other ball of chaos there. Recent findings by the dedicated Kajishima fanbase seem to indicate that her involvement with Tenchi Muyo was tertiary at best. Is this true? It's unlikely we'll ever know for sure, but it's truthfully hard to believe her involvement was as small as the Kajishima fanbase claims it to be. Perhaps it was though...maybe Naoko Hasegawa simply saw a cool story, worked on it a little, and decided to try her own take on it.

The biggest reason for this sort of fan lawyering was the validation of certain points of view concerning Tenchi Muyo. The major factions, if they can be called such, were the fans of Kajishima's works, the ones I mentioned before, and those that are not fans of Kajishima's works. There were others, such as some of those who joined the fandom after watching Cartoon Network, but for the most part the two previously mentioned made up the bulk of the fans. The fans of Kajishima's works believed that he was damn near the sole arbitrator of every last bit of originality to come from Tenchi Muyo; everyone else's contribution was minimal or signatory to Kajishima's stamp of approval.

Those that aren't Kajishima fans, can't believe this to be even remotely the case considering his works after Tenchi Muyo were rehashes of Tenchi Muyo (and in one case, fused with Evangelion). To them it was a serious lacking of anything remotely resembling creative ability.

This is also coupled with what was thought to be a massive divergence of how Hayashi, Kajishima, and even Hasegawa believed that Tenchi Muyo should be. Hayashi had his interview with Viz that seemed to indicate a differing with Kajishima, a man whose ideas on Tenchi you could probably gather from the fantranslations/summaries of his novels, and later on his interviews on the AIC website which blatantly told you what he was going to do with the series...not to mention OVA 3 itself. Then there was Hasegawa's poorly understood novels, which seemed to attempt to make Tenchi out to be someone actually worth the attention of the girls fighting over vice his current state of just kinda...being there like any other harem anime protagonist. Mind you, that last observation would get massive argument from the Kajishima fan's faction. Opinions on even such a small point differ violently.

But you're talking around the subject, K'thardin. What are a few of these points of contention? Well, glad you asked. Tenchi Muyo, is now above all, a harem anime. But was it always? Harem animes are there for the express purpose of a lonely fanboy being able to paste his features upon the main character's lackluster presence (both in character design and personality), so he too can love one, many, or all the girls that are hopelessly adoring of the main character for any one of several shallow reasons. Yes, you heard me right: there are many girls for that one guy. Usually one girl for each fetish the original writer has...though some writers include certain female character archetypes for maximum impact into the fanmarket, and thus, maximizing profit. The thing is, while Tenchi Muyo may have shared in the harem anime aspect of many girl adoring the main character to varying degrees, it didn't start out AS a harem anime. In fact, the first OVA is more of a Mystic/Sci Fi story that just happened to have a bunch of girls. Tenchi himself had personality, and was willing to put it all on the line for what he thought needed done. He interacted with the girls constantly; showing that he too was a character in the show, with his own personality and point of view. He showed there he was trying to figure all this stuff happening out as best he could along with the girls that just kept popping up. This is not a harem anime by any stretch of the imagination.

This much can be agreed upon by just about everyone, surprisingly enough. It's what happens NEXT that tends to get everyone's passions riled up, and what it means for the girls in question.

You see, there are two of the girls who are very vocal about their intended courtship of the boy in question: Ryouko and Aeka. This is not disputed, nor typically is the reason why they are into the boy. No, in their case it's the moral validity of their love for Tenchi that's disputed...and that varies from person to person. However, this argument pales in comparison to the arguments concerning the other girls of the series.

Several in the Kajishima fan's camp already had 8 year old Sasami practically married to Tenchi based on her feelings. Those that are not Kajishima's fans have only seen, at most, what equates to a school girl crush based on Tenchi being fairly nice and probably the only guy she's ever associated with outside of family. The arguments concerning this young lady's feelings for Tenchi and those around her have ranged from the emotional maturity of her age, to whatever effects her assimilation with Tsunami might be imparting unto her. This is one of those arguments I told you about before that went on for YEARS!

Washuu, the red-head scientist, is introduced in the very last episode of the first OVA series. In fact, she only has about 5 minutes of screen time, at best. It is also made known at this point that she is Ryouko's mother who just happens to know everything about her feelings for the boy. Yet, there at the end...she says she wants to make Tenchi hers. Her characterization goes on into the 7th episode as being mischievous and very devoted her scientific work. That's where the agreement between the factions end on her characterization. The side devoted to Kajishima have Washuu completely and utterly devoted/infatuated with the boy to the point she would probably be willing to kick her own daughter to the curb for him (she has about this much concern for Ryouko in OVA 3 by my perspective). To the side who dislikes the works of Kajishima, Washuu likes to pull pranks, likes to make people feel uncomfortable, likes to be smarter than everyone else, and wouldn't mind a good roll in the hay with the boy, but that seems to be the extent of her feelings on the subject.

Mihoshi kinda fell out of the sky and went, "Gosh, Tenchi saved me! He must be my destiny!" To those who are in the camp of Kajishima's fandom, she is meant for Tenchi as well, just based on this. To those not his fans, this is a very shallow infatuation, and nothing more.

There is a sixth girl, who oddly, is probably the most debated of them all: Kiyone Makibi. Now, I'd get into Kiyone, but you know something? Because of her place in the property, and what has now happened to her in the mythos (I.E. Noike) , she deserves her own article. This should tell you how sodomized her position in Tenchi Muyo has become.

These arguments were fervently debated over the course of several years during the various TV series, specials, movies, and whatnot. To an extent the 'science' of Tenchi Muyo was speculated on as well, but not nearly so much as the characterization of the girls of the series. Note: it was only the girls. There was some argument concerning what had happened to Tenchi's character, but that was drowned out over the heated debates about the personalities, as well as validity and intensity of feelings, the girls had concerning Tenchi and, to a lesser extent, each other.

Well, you can be glad of one thing. These arguments are over now and forevermore. They aren't settled by any stretch of the imagination...they're just over. You see, the thing the entire Tenchi fandom has been craving finally happened. OVA 3 was released almost 8 years after OVA 2 finished. It put to rest the big nagging question of what was going to happen when the goddesses finally meet again; which was started in a very shocking and prophetic dream of Sasami's in OVA 7. That was about it, however. Everything else it did...well....

One must understand, everyone else that had any really big input into Tenchi Muyo had left for bigger and better things, leaving only Masaki Kajishima in any sort of creative control of the series. Therefore, every last thing he ever joked about, jotted down, or even hinted at he was thinking, just became a reality; continuity, characterization, and consistency be damned. His fans, of course, loved every bit of it. The argument about the characters became secondary, due to the shear and unbridled MESS that OVA 3 brought to the table. Everything from the continual and complete worfing of Ryouko to the utter erasure and recreation of Kiyone Makibi into Noike, from the revelation of Tenchi's sister to the conclusion of the goddess situation, and from the way it went into a true harem anime to everything else that happened; it all went to Hell one way or another.

As usual, by those that were Kajishima fans, not only was what happened considered to be cannon, it made perfect sense by their perspective. Nothing was out of place, it all fit with what came before, and he never led anyone astray as to what he was going to do. Ironically enough, the part about him never leading anyone astray is absolutely correct...it just has different meanings for the factions. On the other hand, for those that are not Kajishima fans, what was presented in OVA 3 was a complete invalidation of every last bit of the Tenchi OVA that came before Tenchi Muyo OVA 3, and worse, couldn't even keep continuity with itself. It was a complete mishmash of shit just thrown together in the hopes that maybe it would stick and no one would realize just what a hack job it really was. As for the characterization...who were these people again? This was almost as bad as what happened to them In Shin Tenchi Muyo where they were completely different people wearing the names and faces of the characters we had loved for so long.

In the end however, there was no point for those who were not Kajishima's fans to continue any struggle. Tenchi Muyo was no longer, and never would be again, the cool thing it was by their perspective. So, they've all pretty much faded into other anime fandoms. Much like an enemy who has been destroyed by nuclear fire, it does not matter that their perspective was right or wrong or even VALID in any way. The series they loved was incinerated. What good would it be to continue arguing against something that had already been decided upon? It didn't matter if it was right or wrong, it had simply come to pass that this was the direction the series was being taken...and for those that were not Kajishima's fans, it was no longer compatible with their viewpoint.

Interestingly enough, the fans of Kajishima are not quite content with this victory. It's not enough they're in the right at present, they must always have been in the right. They really must prove that the point of view that used to exist was never valid and those that held it never had a truly logical or moral foot to stand upon. To this end, they continue to dig up the same questionable evidence both sides were doing before OVA 3, and put their own slant upon it, as both sides have always done. It's not enough that the other point of view is just gone; it must be discredited. Its adherents must be converted or morally destroyed so that everything that they ever believed or loved about the series would be shown to be a lie of their own making.

That's where the fandom stands presently. At best you can argue within the bounds of Kajishima's viewpoint, but may the gods and/or God help you if you think you saw something outside of that context and try to point out this is what you think you saw happen by your own logic and/or moral standpoint.

But you know what's funny? You can probably tell I was a member of the faction that disliked Kajishima's point of view. We knew this was coming...no matter how hard we fought, we knew this was coming. We knew exactly what Kajishima's view point was. We knew what he was going to turn Tenchi Muyo into. It was exactly what he said he was going to turn Tenchi Muyo into, and exactly what he DID turn Tenchi Muyo into.

Before it wasn't just Kajishima's show, no matter how much anyone wishes to believe otherwise. Maybe those that worked on it at the beginning had a point of view that was similar to Kajishima's or maybe not. In any case, with them around the series was a completely different one than the one we have today.

However, that just doesn't matter. In the end, with so much of it out there, you're going to get out of Tenchi Muyo what you decide you want to get out of it. You can watch the various series, get the book summaries, the CD dramas, and acquire whatever else you want. You can join the fandom and the not-so-great-anymore-debate, stay on the sidelines and use their work as references, or not join it at all. You can take on and defend one of the established points of view or form your own, much as some few who watched Cartoon Network did back in the day (and believe me, we got some weird ideas from a few of those individuals). In the end, it'll always be up to you.

If I may offer one piece of advice before closing, when you get what you need out Tenchi Muyo, remember it, talk of it fondly, but don't be afraid to walk away from it. Because, if you're not having fun, why the Hell are you doing it? Sometimes, you've just got to tell yourself, as I finally had to:

In the end, it's just anime.