Sure this revelation comes about five years too late. But Tenchi Muyo GXP, while it has some of it’s own decent qualities, looks as if it was designed to fail. The animation is substandard for the time it was produced, the music is terrible, the main character looks exactly like Tenchi, and there is a space Pirate named Ryoko. They had a chance to really explore and develop the areas of the Tenchi universe that are only background details in the three OVAs, and they still might. I’ve only watched four episodes out of the 26th episode series.
I don’t know they thought this show could attempt to stand on its own while relaying on visual and dialog reminds the viewer of the original. I want to see if they are able to capture some of the qualities of Tenchi, the humor; the well developed characters; or the awesome villains. These four episodes seemed to only have established the premise and set everything up. So hopefully now that they are entering into the actual meat of the story some of those characteristics will start to bleed though.
I can’t help but think there might be a flaw in exploring the greater universe of Tenchi. Leaving the actions of the background and focusing on the actions of these very important and powerful characters in this rural Earth setting is what made the show fantastic. The great space operatic events were set in the background, except when the threat breached the peace of the Misaki household. Which is strange considering that normally the viewer demands to see those epic moments. The viewer demands to know details about this interesting Universe that he is only given a small taste.
It makes me want to go back and watch the OVA and really look at the narrative style in depth. Meanwhile I’ll be making my way though Tenchi Muyo GXP, hopefully under my own will.