Friday, September 20, 2019

FIF#92-Tenchi Muyo GXP




Seina Yamada lives a carefree life with his family, well as carefree as can be when youre whole life is unexplained bad luck.  No matter where he goes, Seina doesn’t have it easy and everyone else suffers for it.  One day, a spaceship crashes in a lake and nearly drowns Seina.  He’s saved by a beautiful woman who offers him a chance to join the elite Galaxy Police Academy in outer space.  Seina decides to embrace this new opportunity.  But if Earth can barely handle this walking apocalypse that is Seina Yamada, what chance does the rest of the universe have?

I was really into the world of Tenchi Muyo back when it was on Toonami.  The first two Tenchi OVA series were very different and very fun ventures from the norms of Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, more focused on solid character arcs and humor than all out action.  Tenchi Universe introduced one of my favorite Tenchi femmes, Kiyone, and gave us a truly complete Tenchi romp across the universe (The OVA’s wouldn’t wrap things up for quite a bit).  Tenchi in Tokyo is where I started to fall off due to the terrible animation and how it handled most of the Tenchi cast.  And yet that wasn’t the end of Tenchi.  Besides the aforementioned conclusion to the OVAs, there were two more stories set in the Tenchi Muyo Ryo Ohki universe (what was known for us as just “Tenchi Muyo” here in the states).  We’ll be looking at the first episodes of both over the next couple of weeks, starting with Tenchi Muyo GXP.  I know this series has its fans but…I don’t know why that is.

First off, the premiere indicates that this will have next to nothing to do with the titular ladies man.  Instead GXP introduces Seina Yamada, a hapless youth who is the personification of bad luck.  He’s so blissfully unaware of the harm said bad luck causes others, nevermind himself.  Seina also wasn’t very amusing.  Seriously, the whole bad luck schtick wore itself out pretty fast and there was hardly anything else endearing to him like the ever lovable Tenchi.  I know we’re supposed to feel bad for poor Seina and all the chaos he cause throughout the premiere.  But honestly, I just felt annoyed barely halfway through.  I spent more of the first episode wondering what Tenchi and the gang were up to and was only rewarded with one criminally brief appearance by everyones favorite demonic space pirate Ryoko…then it was back to Seina losing most of his bike again…damn.

Truthfully, watching GXP’s debut just had me continually thinking about the very first episode of Tenchi Muyp Ryo Ohki I ever watched.  Tenchi resurrected Ryoko by accident and engaged in a game of cat and mouse that almost leveled his school.  Tenchi’s go get em attitude and Ryoko sultry bad assery fueled immediate interest.  Seina inspires none of their and neither do any of his supporting cast of beauties who are introduced (also WTF CARETAKER LADY STOP BRUSHING HIS DAMN HAIR ITS ANNOYING!!!).  I get the feeling GXP is going to go for a more comedy centric approach to the Tenchi saga rather than trying to do both compelling scifi drama and romantic comedy like most other entries have done.  I wasn’t chuckling and more must counting down the seconds until it was finally finished.  Seina may be headed towards a bright future with the Galaxy Police…but I don’t think I’ll be joining him. 

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