Monday, December 23, 2019

Techi Muyo! In Love - Before Streaming Services Made Sequels


Achika (37K...Scanned from the VHS Box)Techi Muyo! In Love - Tenchi the Motion Picture

Genre: comedy/sci-fi fantasy Length: 95 minutes (Theatrical Film) 
Audience Age: 13+
Opinion: A great video to view and to introduce those who are unfamiliar with the series.

This is a review of the dubbed VHS version (close captioned).

© 1996 AIC • Tenchi Muyo Committee • Pioneer Entertainment (USA) L.P.

Tenchi and company are watching an eight-millimeter film of Tenchi's mother, Achika, on her high school field trip to Tokyo (it is 8mm film because that was what they used in the 70's for home movies. The film has nothing that would have anything Nicolas Cage would need to investigate). Suddenly, our protagonist starts to disappear and the entire house starts to fall apart. Luckily, the self-proclaimed, most brilliant mind in the galaxy, Washu, is able to prevent our hero from vanishing and explain what is going on. By looking at each individual frame of the film, the group sees that Achika is slowly disappearing from the reel, so something must have happened in the past to cause this.
At the same time Tenchi and company are learning about this wrinkle in time, the Galaxy Police Headquarters is destroyed. The final transmission:
Class A Criminal Kain...
Who is Kain? Does this have something to do with the time trouble? No matter what this villain's involvement in this dilemma is; Tenchi, Ryoko, Ayeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, and Kione must go back in time to 1970 to prevent anything from happening to Achika. This is the only way to save their future, and to buy some cool souvenirs from the past.
The plot of Tenchi Muyo! In Love seems to put too many responsibilities on the Tenchi cast since they have enough problems handling normal situations in the "Tenchi Muyo! OVA series", but you know some how they will pull it out. I think the only other flaw with the film's screenplay is that like all other anime motion pictures ("Sailor Moon S: The Movie" as an example), it just comes across as overly dark and dreary. 

Beside for that script weaknesses, everything else about this film is great except for the hit and miss soundtrack by "Babylon 5's" Christopher Franke. I figure if you are going to get a Sci-fi, Western Society composer, get one with "Star Trek" experience or John Williams (for any of those nerds who feel I'm insulting Bab 5, e-mail me at bitemeotakus@animeflow.cubs). All of the technical aspects of this film have really been stepped up from the prior series, "Tenchi Muyo!" and "Tenchi Universe", which is a real treat for those established fans of the Tenchi series.
The numerous qualities of Tenchi the Movie make this a great video to view and to introduce those who are unfamiliar with the series since all the characters' quirks overcome the need for exposition about them. Personally, this may be the strongest Tenchi title since I was willing to buy a new copy after a anime tape-viewing marathon/fumbling incident destroyed my first copy. If that is not a great testimonial, I do not know what is.





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