Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 37

In the last InoBato, Sagami warned Sayumi that she wouldn’t win the battle for Jurai by playing clean, and whether or not he’s right about that, Fuka Yuki seems to be of the same mind when it comes to winning the StuCo presidential election. Starting with falsifying her ‘assets’ in her sexy election poster, and now bribing voters with counterfeit meal tickets, Yuki is doing whatever it takes to win, with the greater goal of having the resources to unearth the treasure her mysterious contact demands.

Well, the incumbent StuCo won’t stand for this corruption, and once Touri connects the decreased cafeteria revenues and Hana goes undercover to get a ‘handshake’ from Yuki, it doesn’t take long for the crimes to be exposed.

Rui is also caught red-handed making fake meal tickets. Yuki’s response is to produce a fake bug which freaks out not only Touri, but makes Rui flip out, giving the candidate the diversion she needs to slip away. She even digs her hole deeper by gluing Hana to a bomb (which is really a firework, but still, dangerous!)

Thanks to some quick thinking from Tenchi, Beni, and Hachiko, the firework goes off in the sky, but Yuki still must be found and dealt with.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 36

You know, I’m glad I watched this right after Gundam Recon in G, because this particular episode of ATM! demonstrated how Sci-fi Bureaucracy meeting should be done: with clarity, irreverence and humor, and above all, with speed. The show tells us these guys are after Washuu in the space of less than a minute. Brevity is the soul of wit. Don’t waste my time. ATM! doesn’t.

Back down on earth, Touri and Hachiko are working on most important part of the upcoming presidential elections: the poster. Hana rejects their goal to make a sexy poster, making them do something more conventional. She knows they have to be on their guard where the Science Club is concerned.

Ironically, Fuka Yuki goes right down the very avenue Hana rejected, photoshopping her slight bust into something far more, well, Hana-like in scale for her sexy poster. The gloves are coming off. The bras, too!

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 35

35 episodes in, I’m wondering, is Takahashi, Okayama satisfied with their arrangement with this anime? Do they feel they’re getting their money’s worth? I mean, the wooded environs of Junai High seem like a nice enough place, but they don’t feel like a specific place; they feel pretty generic, to be honest. I guess it depends on how much money they contributed, of if the “sponsorship” was more of a ceremonial thing. In any case, I’m not quite sure how this show is promoting tourism.

That aside, we haven’t had an episode in which students try to have a sleepover at Tenchi’s house yet, and this episode rectifies that by having Momo, Touri, Hachiko, and Hana insist on spending the night in case the Science Club decides to kidnap him again.

If ATM! excels at one thing (it actually excels at more than one thing, but bear with me), it’s consistency of its characters. Momo has the innocent good girl with a heart of gold; Hachiko is deeply loyal and up for any challenge; Touri is highly analytical, except where Samami is involved, with whom she’s almost disturbingly smitten. In fact, let’s leave out  the almost! And Hana, well, she’s a fujoshi, but also a masochist in her interactions with the older, stronger Ayeka. Everyone makes sense as a character, and watching the wildly clashing personalities is a lot of fun.

I also like the idea of Ryouko, Momo, and Hachiko getting all gung-ho about a cook-off, but spend so much time preparing, Tenchi, Ayeka, and Sasami make do with cup noodles instead. It’s a nice little bait-and-switch. Also, Touri seems to derive all the nourishment (and pleasure) she needs (and wants) by plunging her face in Sasami’s bathwater, which…GROSS.

In other news, the Science Club’s secret contact urges them to continue their efforts to recover the treasure, even though the caverns have collapsed. The contact suggests they become active in the upcoming election to choose a new Student Council. We also learn that Kurihara-sensei is a member of the Galaxy Police, and both Momo and Beni are in her crosshairs as ‘time anomaly suspects’ or some-such. Between her continued investigations and the upcoming election, ATM! seems to be in for more upheaval in its home stretch.

Note: Again, I don’t count the “Looking Back” recaps in my episode numbering. But if I did, this would be episode 43, with at least one more recap in store. So we kinda are in the home stretch despite this being only the 35th ‘real’ episode. Here is a handy episode list to clarify what the heck I’m on about.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 34

Wait, I don’t understand, what the heck is going on?

It’s really quite simple, Fuka-san: Momo and Beni activate a new search app on the smartphone that shows them the treasure they’re looking for is directly beneath them, despite the face they were standing on a totally random spot. Also, Touri has a thing for Sasami. Upstairs, Ryouko destroys Hachiko’s swords, inadvertantly turning her into a bawling child. I guess she hadn’t overcome that weakness after all!

They dig and hit paydirt: a Juria Sword, which when grabbed by both Momo and Beni completes the tripartite sword that unlocks the Jurai starship buried below; the very ship that brought Momo and Beni to the planet to begin with. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Like Ryouko, Ayeka has no trouble making her opponent tap out (and swear fealty). Then they feel the upheaval going on downstairs as if it were and earthquake. The earth does indeed quake and rend below, and Beni must make a choice between grabbing the sword and ‘taking back who she really is’, or accepting Tenchi’s hand and accepting who she is, who Momo loves regardless. She choses the hand, and the ruins and the building above them collapse. Perhaps it was for the best.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 33

Hachiko and Hana take on Gouriki, demonstrating that x-acto knives and wooden swords are curiously effective against killbots while allowing Momo and Touri to get to the caves.

Down there, the Science Club and Tenchi’s crew join forces to try to find the treasure, whatever it is. Yuki points out that while she just wants money, the treasure is more important to Beni. Also, as things would work out, Momo happens to land her tush on Tenchi’s face and bounce into Beni’s arms.

Above ground, Ryouko and Ayeka take up arms against Hachiko and Hana in Tenchi’s name, and Hana even pisses off Ayeka by calling her ‘Auntie’. Down below, having seen the photo of Tenchi and Sasami, Touri throws the smartphone at Tenchi, but misses. It ends up in the hands of Momo and Beni, who start to glow, then Washuu elatedly reports that “It’s happening!”

What’s happening? Not sure. Temporal re-alignment? The reveal of the treasure? We must watch on to find out.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 32

Another piece of the puzzle falls into place, as Mihoshi explains her reason for being in the mines: she came to investigate a possible time crime, and decided to give Yuki a hand trying to find a treasure, even though she doubts there’s anything there.

Yuki begs to differ, and flanked by Beni, Rui, and Gouriki, offers to show Tenchi and the others proof. Meanwhile, Touri, Hachiko and Hana are convinced Tenchi was taken away for nefarious purposes and formulate a rescue plan as an incredulous Momo looks on.

Yuki produces a smartphone that was found deep in the caverns and has determined it is from 1,300 years ago, making it an OOPArt (not ‘oppai’, Ryouko. That was too easy). This, of course, is the phone Tenchi dropped into a chasm when he was in the past.

When Yuki switches it on, everyone is less shocked that Tenchi is on the 1,300 -year-old wallpaper than they are skeeved out by the fact he’s posing shirtless with a loli swimsuit-wearing Sasami.

Up above the caverns, Touri, Hachiko and Hana begin their mission, starting with getting past an improved Gouriki. How far will they go before they realize they’ve got the wrong idea?

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 30

This is RABUJOI’s 3,000th anime review!

Wow, has it already been thirty episodes? How time flies when you watch something four minutes at a time. For the first twenty-nine, we’d only gotten the slightest hints about what exactly was going on, and not much at all about precisely what Tenchi was up to.

Now we get those answers all at once in an episode that does wonders for the cohesion of the overall show. The events of this episode take place before all the Junai High stuff, so it would have worked just fine as the first episode, in fact, but that would have been too dull. No, I like it right here, three-fifths of the way in, after we’ve already gone through many adventures with Tenchi and his students.

As it happens, Momo and likely Beni, are “temporal castaways” Tenchi was sent into the past to rescue and return to their rightful time and place. When that mission failed and another temporal rift opened, he found himself back in Washuu’s lab, while Momo and Beni ended up in the present day at Junai High.

Washuu convenes a family meeting with Tenchi, Ryouko, and the Jurai sisters, and formulate a new plan: Tenchi will infiltrate the school posing as a student teacher and gather information. That brings us to the actual, baffling first episode of the show, with Tenchi ending up in the middle of the forest. (Ha, I thought Kurihara-sensei was Washuu…what a FOOL I was!)

So yeah, this was a very informative episode that puts everything we’d seen before in a new and more coherent light, and will inform the show’s final two-fifths.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 29

So now we know the school administrators (if there even are any) are so cheap, the leave the roof repairs to Tenchi. Tenchi does his best, but he’s no roofer. Meanwhile, down below his home harem prepares a barbecue to cheer him up.

Normally no non-students are allowed on dorm grounds under any circumstances, but Sasami’s over-the-shoulder smile is enough to melt Touri’s heart, and allows the incursion.

It’s not just a barbecue for Tenchi, but for everyone (presumably there are no vegetarians among the main cast), even the science club, who happens upon the party. Yuki tries to graciously retreat, not wanting to start another fight but Momo invites them to join them; the more the merrier. Not to mention Aoi can’t resist the smell of the meat, nor can Beni pass up the opportunity to duel with Ryouko — with meat (and without collateral damage) this time.

It’s another gesture that speaks to Momo’s inherent decency, diplomatic skills, and desire not to be alone like she once was in the past. She never wanted war with the science club. It’s a lightweight but feel-good episode, and as is usually the case, the grilling meat made my mouth water.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 28

There’s a basic sincerity to ATM!. For all the panty shots, unintended compromising positions Tenchi ends up in, and occasionally clunky delivery of plot or exchanges of dialogue, it’s heart is almost always in the right place. It’s not just here to titillate us or make us laugh; it wants us to care about its characters too, because they care about each other. Specifically, Tenchi cares about his students, and won’t sit by while one sits on the roof suffering.

Kinojou Beni’s story isn’t complicated: she came to this planet charged with protecting Momo and hence possessing immense strength, but she lost her memories and fell in with the sworn enemy of Momo’s Student Council. She knows she’s not a normal human, and she fears truly hurting someone someday with her power. Someone…not Tenchi.

When Tenchi arrived, it set something into motion for Beni: suddenly, there was someone else with freakish strength, who stands (or tries to stand) alone, above all the warring clubs and school rivalries. Only unlike her, he almost never uses them, except to prevent harm or protect others. She resents his passivity, and wont say anything to him unless he demonstrates his strength, which means swinging her spiked club at him.

Tenchi won’t rise to her violence, however, and the precise thing she fears occurs when Momo suddenly pops on the roof to see what the ruckus is about. Tenchi manages to block the terrifying blow, and he and the two girls end up on the ground, and appear to be sharing a loving embrace, but we know Tenchi is only holding them to protect them. Such subtleties do not move Kurihara-sensei, who drags Tenchi away.

That leaves Beni with Momo, who takes her hand, concerned about her cuts. In that moment, Beni gets a flash from the past of a baby clutching her finger in apparent friendship. But Momo backs away from Momo, either unready to remember or unwilling to risk hurting her again. What she hasn’t grasped yet is that maybe it’s okay to be friends with Momo.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 27

The higher-pitched flute during the title card announced that this would be the first “period” episode of ATM! since the 13th, but it decided to go back even farther than that to show us the connection between Momo and Beni. Beni, AKA Kurenai, was appointed the guardian of a baby Momo and the Jurai Royal Family gave her a spaceship, which she proceeded to crash land on Earth.

Tenchi, it would seem, hasn’t been as clueless as we thought, and once his mission of finding both Momo and Beni is complete, he hits the Reset Button on his smartphone (God, I love it when literal reset buttons pop up in shows!). An error occurs (he probably forgot to update the OS), everything goes dark, and a tear in the sky appears, sucking Tenchi and Momo in.

You gettin’ all this? Good. I guess the show will pick this back up in episode 41.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 26

Tenchi patrols the hallways after lights-out, notices lights on, and discovers Yuki and Rui bent over some contraband ramen like a couple of junkies. However, they offer him a cup and he goes easy on them. As they tuck in, Tenchi learns a lot more about the Science Club girls.

For instance, while Fuka built Gouriki’s basic structure, she has no idea what powers him; that Kinojou isn’t technically a club member and has no memory of her past, and Fuka and Rui are simply helping her look for…something. Gouriki’s head’s “treasure detector” indicates is below their dorm, but they find nothing and Yuki shoos Tenchi away.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 25

For some reason, Tenchi’s duties as Dorm Supervisor include cleaning the girls’ bath dangerously close to bath time. Why can the girls keep their own bath clean? Like Lost, Ai Tenchi Muyo! isn’t interested in answering questions, only posing new ones, like ‘Why doesn’t Tenchi simply stay out in the open and explain his innocent presence there?’

How about ‘Why is Hana massaging Momo’s boobs when Momo’s boobs aren’t really that small at all?’ It’s not all that surprising the innocent Momo isn’t upset to find Tenchi in there at all, but it is rather odd that the other three student council members don’t notice the fully-clothed guy lurking behind her, especially when he and Momo talk. It’s as if just because those characters are out of that particular shot, they cannot see or hear anything going on three feet away from them!

Anyway, enough with cataloging the illogic; somehow, Momo gets Tenchi out of there without him being detected (or drowning). And while he’s in there, Tenchi gains another piece of the school’s puzzle: the student council and science clubs are locked in a struggle for some kind of “treasure”, treasure he may or may not also be looking for. This may be another case of being in the dark because this is my first exposure to the franchise and I have no idea what Tenchi is really up to, but unlike Hatoko, I’m content to stay in the dark and see what happens.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 24

Tenchi has come to a dangerous place, fenced in by barbed wire and covered in “No Trespassing” and “No Boys” signs. Tenchi may be a boy, but he’s also the dorm supervisor, and as such, he must brave the dorm, no matter what horrors await him.

Momo shows him around, and everything is pretty docile, and then they cross paths with Hana and Beni taking full advantage of the lack of a dress code (not that they follow it that closely at school!). Hana seems to be trying to impress Tenchi, while Beni has a perfectly reasonable explanation for her near-nudity: she’s going to take a bath. Thus, Tenchi’s demands that they put clothes on fall on deaf ears.

A less showy plot is also afoot: perhaps in an effort to blackmail/seduce Tenchi to their side, Yuki uses poor, shapely, innocent Rui for nefarious purposes, telling her to accidentally fall off a ladder and into Tenchi’s arms. When a real spider descends in her face, she loses it, clutching Tenchi so close to her chest he passes out. Yup; definitely a dangerous place. For him. For the girls, it’s just home.