Introduction
Seventeen-year-old Tenchi Masaki grew up hearing stories about how his ancestor used a sword to seal a demon inside a cave seven hundred years ago. When curiosity gets the better of him, Tenchi goes to the cave and stumbles across the sword from the legend. Thinking that the story is nothing more than a fairy tale, he removes the blade and inadvertently releases the demon, who turns out to be a space pirate named Ryouko Hakubi. Furious about being trapped for so long, she attacks Tenchi, but he is able to repel her with the sword, awakening his inner power. After seeing this, Ryouko takes an interest in her unlikely savior and decides to crash at his place.
As if it were a chain reaction, more alien women—Aeka Jurai Masaki, an uptight princess from the planet Jurai; Sasami, Aeka's sweet younger sister; Mihoshi Kuramitsu, a ditzy Galactic Police Officer; and Washuu Hakubi, a wisecracking genius—gradually come in contact with Tenchi and begin living with him. Through his encounters with these five women, Tenchi begins to learn more about his ancestry, newfound power, and the looming threat lurking beyond the skies.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
16 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Cool_Hand
Although technically a harem anime, the show is so chock-full of action and laughs unrelated to the women pursuing Tenchi that Toonami broadcasted an edited version for children.
The show succeeds because it places the harem elements second, almost incidental to the plot. Even plots driven by the girls fawning over Tenchi end up using him more as a MacGuffin, an excuse to tell a story wholly unrelated to their Tenchi-worship.
Ryoko and Ayeka are the two most frequent initiators of these arguments but each loathes the other so fully that it doesn't feel like a sleazy male fantasy. Each of the women are distinct and fully-fleshed out. They have lives and motives outside chasing Tenchi.
Tenchi Muyo maintains this atmosphere for the first two seasons. I highly recommend watching those for t…
Read at the sourcePrashantttt
Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki
I watched it after Tenchi Universe, and honestly this Ryo-Ohki version is almost the same. Only a few small things are changed, otherwise both versions feel identical.
Everything I said about Tenchi Universe applies here too, and in some parts it even feels worse.
There, Tenchi was a bland dead MC. Here, he is slightly more decent, but still nothing special. He still lacks strong personality and mostly just stands around while everything happens.
The story is again the same trash and boring setup. In the beginning, two girls are attacking the MC, and in the very next episodes it suddenly turns into a lifeless harem with no bonding and no emotional connection between characters.
It’s just two girls fighting over one guy with no logic. Ryoko was literally trying to…
Read at the sourceemberreviews
Tenchi Muyo! Rho-Ohki sits squarely within the aesthetic and genre trappings of 90s anime. Quirky sci-fi adventures, anime girls with big hair, solid action scenes across a variety of scenarios, and a bumbling, but good-hearted protagonist combine into a delightful, yet inconsistent experience. It was a pleasant surprise to see misunderstanding comedy that resulted from characters deliberately messing with each other for laughs rather than having them immediately jump to conclusions based on half information, and the central cast have incredibly strong comedic and antagonistic chemistry, though the romance is extremely hit-and-miss in regards to how quickly romantic feelings seem to pop up with certain characters. Tenchi isn’t exactly the most unique or standout MC, but he still comes acro…
Read at the sourceVaguelyweebish
The definitive Harem anime that spawned a boatload of tropes! And best of all--the fanservice is relatively minimal!
This bizarre but thoroughly fun Science Fantasy rom-com is sadly not widely known by a lot of young folks nowadays. It's definitely not for the kids since there is some nudity, though it feels far more natural and less gratuitous than the cringe-worthy breast physics present in today's trope-filled torrent of junk we need to sift through nowadays, plus some dialogue can get EXTREMELY suggestive. ("I need a sperm sample! How should I get it?" Give the poor kid some privacy!) Every character, from what I can tell, is the root of every tsundere, kuudere, (soft) yandere, deredere, and "loli." Plus there's a heccin' cute space puppy-kitty that is also a spaceship and can morph i…
Read at the sourceAnimaniac2020
First of all, I love old school harem anime and would rate El Hazard, made by the same company (AIC Pioneer) at around the same time, an 8/10. I had heard of Tenchi Muyou! for decades and finally decided to watch the first two seasons.
What a disappointment. It was just bad...on so many levels. The only reason I can think of to explain the very high reviews is nostalgia. But if you're watching this for the first time, be forewarned. The story fails on the most fundamental levels. The harem aspects are poorly crafted and most of the screen time is devoted to the girls fighting amongst themselves.
It is as if the writers did not understand the basic importance of conflict at the heart of all great stories. Tenchi is forbidden from entering the family temple by his grandfather but he steal…
Read at the sourceNeimaj
*SPOILER FREE*
I haven't been making many reviews, recently. I've been going through some personal issues, as of late. I was in rehab for a couple of months, because I got addicted to soap, but now I'm clean. HA! You see, that's how you start off the new year, son! Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki. My second favorite harem show next to the Monogatari series. At first glance, Tenchi Muyo seems like a trashy harem comedy that just happens to be a sci-fi. However, if you peel back all of the layers and take a deeper look you get...a trashy harem comedy that just happens to be a sci-fi. In all seriousness, Tenchi Muyo's story and lore is so unbelievably dense that you could use it as a weapon and bash the skull of a Puma. There's a lot to explore with this one. Let's get into it.
Many centuries ago, a…
Read at the sourceHina901
I grew up watching the Tenchi Muyo series, at least the edited/censored version that was on Toonami back in the early 2000s and well, I really enjoyed, but is the first Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki OVA really as great as I remember it being? Let's find out!
Story:
Given that this is an OVA and there's only like 6 episode, I'm gonna say that there's not much of a story being told, at least not like most other harem animes or sci fi animes youi'd find nowadays. What's the story? 17 year old Tenchi, who is your seemingly normal average high school teen, decides to sneaks into a cave that his grandpa claims is the sleeping/resting place of an evil demon named Ryoko, and that "demon" was sealed away by Tenchi's ancestor, Yosho. Of course, like almost all other male protagonists of a harem, Tenchi deci…
Read at the sourceSeekingWaylander
Tenchi Muyou Ryououki is a classic cult must watch no matter how much you will like it or not.
It's most plot devices come from the golden era of 80s anime, the art is magnificent, the story simple and alien in its originality.
The art is magnificent and original. Well drawn. Introduces all sorts of new things you can't grasp and you can't take your eyes from, things that are beautiful and which do not follow any kind of anime pattern.
The characters are not over exaggerated, even though most of their lines from time to time are forced, they connect with each other as if they were real. They do their humor antics from time to time and they don't fall into ridiculous. The story revolves very well around them, it's fluid.
And the Opening is legendary.
Read at the sourceAngry_Anime_Nerd
While I`m biased since I don`t like harem anime, I thought this was a formulaic series with nothing much special going for it. There`s little to be interested at here besides Ryo-ohki, who is a sweet and cute cat-rabbit animal with a personality and the first episode when compared to the rest of the episodes in the series was okay. This also had some good music, though I disliked the dub, the actors sounded like they were just reading their lines and Ayeka`s voice sounded too old for her physical age. It started off great and interesting until Ryoko came along. I was interested in what will happen next but once that grouch Ryoko came up, the series started dropping the ball more and more. There is not much of a plot here and all it focuses on is silly comedy and melodrama.
Why is everyone…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Do note that my review for Tenchi Muyo covers the full length of the OVAs as they aired during the 1990s, meaning this covers the first 13 episodes of the OVA series. That said, let us get on with the review.
Focusing on Tenchi Masaki's interactions with several alien girls living at his household, the Tenchi Muyo OVAs are well known among older anime fans for having popularized the harem genre and would go on to spawn a number of spinoff titles throughout the 1990s thanks to its immense popularity with fans. Tenchi Muyo sticks out rather prominently from many titles of the harem genre as it does things for it that the majority of modern titles utilizing the tropes of the genre are lacking in.
The first thing it does effectively is providing fleshing out its world and characters. Many m…
Read at the sourceAarronin
History is here. The Grandfather of Harem Anime. And yet There's No Need For Tenchi?
Despite the short length of episodes, Tenchi Muyo is a great OVA series for those looking for the sci-fi comedy. Oh there's action and romance but you will stay for ladies.
Story: It runs a gambit of many things but sci-fi comedy really is the best description. You'll get a laugh out this crazy bunch and some might even make you cry once you learn more about them.
Art: The character design is a superb work for a nineties anime. While some may be a bit more round than what you'd expect, it's more of minor detail in the grand scheme. The backgrounds do help in establishing where and when things are happening and at time, you do wanna take in the scenery.
Sound: Oh my god the OST is beautiful. It just mak…
Read at the sourceAniJournal
Tenchi Muyo! An anime I've grown up on. Going back and re-watching it, even though it was a favorite growing up, I have to give it a fair review. This series received a seven in my book.
Story: Though it isn't fully explained in these six episodes, Tenchi Muyo! has a very complex story line. There are many back stories that link together, but the stories are hard to tie together until the viewer has learned about most of them. Even to this day I don't know many of the mysteries of Tenchi Muyo! even though I have been watching this series since I was 12-years-old. This particular series though, falls short of having a 9 rating because though the initial story is interesting, a person can't grasp what's going on fully within these six episodes. There's just too much to explain in such a sma…
Read at the sourceMS06FZ
I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of relationship comedy anime outside of a few exceptional examples (for me, those would be Nodame Cantabile's first season and Maison Ikkoku) but I did thoroughly enjoy this OVA. The jokes hit the mark more often than they don't and the way in which it mixes a mock-serious sci-fi story with a bunch of very silly subplots is what makes it stand out.
To begin with, the plot. It's a somewhat standard "hopeless boy surrounded by diverse girls embodying different fantasies" comedy on the surface, although the girls are a more interesting bunch than "cute one, tsundere, sister figure etc" by virtue of also being parodies of sci-fi anime archetypes; alien princess, super-strong killing machine, child genius, futuristic special forces. On top of that there are a…
Read at the source5tardust
This has got to be the best series I have ever seen, it's a combination of almost every single genre and I guarantee that anyone watching will get attached to the genre that they find most interesting.
The story is great and it reels you in from the first episode, where Tenchi stumbles upon Ryoko.
The art is also different from other anime series and there are a lot of backgrounds that are really well done, as well as the character designs.
The sound is amazing, the voice actors for the English version have really given their characters personality (the same could be said for the Japanese voice actors), and the music in the series is decent, but some of the vocal songs are somewhat unmemorable.
The characters are the main reason I was hooked on this series, each one has a distinct…
Read at the sourcechuckles79
I'm writing this review about episode 1-13 of the original OVAs.
The last 7 episodes were written in order to accomodate the GXP storyline and were created over 10 years later, so I personally consider them almost a separate series.
This is my favorite anime...period. I know I'm not in the majority on this, but it succeeds on every level. It is the definitive "harem" anime, while maintaining a great plot and fascinating universe/backstory. The fact that each of the women have complex and fascinating pasts and facets to their character is something unique to this genre. It's heartwarming, romantic, raunchy, funny, dramatic, and even is a mystery at times.
Story: The story starts with Tenchi, mischievous grandson of a shrinekeeper, stealing the keys to the shrine from his grandpa. He then…
Read at the sourcegenshiken195
The prevalent younger age demographic of today's anime viewer may not be familiar with this classic title... but for the slightly older fan this series brings back the memories.
Like the many generic" harem animes" studios seem to spit out every season... this series too has an unlikely hero who suddenly finds himself surrounded by a multitude of hot babes... but that is the only common factor that this classic shares with its modern brethren of failures.
This series is an example of a harem done right with enough story and action to propel it into the category of "something special."
Read at the source