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TENCHI MUYO! THE MOVIE |
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Released on 20 April, 1996, the TENCHI MUYO! movie is an excellent animated film providing good
animation, a solid storyline, and the wonderful characters we remember
form the OVA and TV series. It also presents a significant departure
from previous Japanese animated movies in that an American composer
wrote and performed the soundtrack. The story begins with the escape of a
super-criminal, Kain, from a special Galaxy Police holding facility.
Racing to the Sol system, he falls into Earth's atmosphere and
disappears. At the Masaki house, Tenchi is showing Aeka, Sasami, and
Ryoko old films of his mother Achika that his father took when still in
high school. Suddenly, the images of Tenchi's mom on the celluloid
begin to disappear. Then, Tenchi begins to disappear. Fortunately,
Washuu saves the day, but just barely. The house starts to fall apart.
Washuu discovers the reason for this is that Tenchi's mother was killed
by some force that can travel through time. Even though they don't
really know what caused her death, Mihoshi, Kiyone, Sasami,
Ryoohki, Ryoko, Aeka, and Tenchi go back in time to 1970 to keep an eye
on things so they can protect Achika when the need arises.In the meantime, Washuu stays in 1996 to
figure out the details and the solution. The gang infiltrates the high
school Achika and Nobuyuki (Tenchi's father) go to, and wait. In the
meantime, Tenchi's grasp on existence is weakening by the day, making
the need to find the problem more than urgent. On top of that, the
Galaxy Police appear to be hunting down the problem as well, making
things more difficult for all concerned. Even after the problem is
found to be Kain, the question still isn't really solved. And so the
plot thickens.This movie is rather well-written, dealing
with something watchers of the OVA have never really seen addressed
before -- who Tenchi's mom really was. We get to see the first sparks
of love between Achika and Nobuyuki and how things were for them. While
there isn't much action in this movie until the end, one has to admit
that getting there is half the fun. |
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 Tenchi's Mom, Achika -- 26 years in the past. | |
Naturally the little arguments between Aeka
and Ryoko, Mihoshi's absentmindedness, and Kiyone's dumb luck are all
there -- it wouldn't be TENCHI MUYO! without them. But the writing is only a part of
this movie. The actors play their parts well (veteran Hayashibara Megumi
plays Achika), and the animation is excellent, using no computer
graphics whatsoever -- which shows the skills of the studio, Hana
Pro.The real surprise in this film is the
music. Christopher Franke, who does the soundtrack for the US Science
Fiction series BABYLON 5, does an excellent job
producing the music for this movie. The Berlin Symphonic Film
Orchestra, which also does the soundtrack work on BABYLON 5, continues its sterling work. Accenting the
film just right, Sonic Images (the company involved in the
production) definitely earns its keep.Overall, with the fantastic mix of animation, voice talent, writing, and
soundtrack, I think I can say that for now this is near if not on top of
the heap of animated movies. And without a shadow of a doubt, this film
is a must-see. I strongly urge fans of TENCHI
MUYO!, fans of anime in general, and everyone
else to watch this film if they get the chance.
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