Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 46

Things start to get a little weird on ATM! this time around, with Tenchi traveling to different times and places like an animated Desmond. His first stop is a snowy, black-and-white world where he’s the only one in color, aside from the red umbrella of a Momo how doesn’t recognize him until they come into contact, which causes Tenchi to jump to a new place.

Back in the world we know, Beni is gung-ho about descending into the ship she and Momo first arrived in, and Ryouko is there to make sure she doesn’t fall to her death. Meanwhile, Washuu is in custody, but the Galaxy Police is running into complications what with time being out of joint, the earth being cleaved into at least two parts, and earthquakes raging. Washuu sits in her cage, unconcerned and pompous as ever.

Tenchi ends up in a colored world this time, though the school before him is unfamiliar, and a young Momo sits on a swing. This is clearly not what he had in mind when he wanted to set things straight. I wonder if the Galaxy Police will swallow their pride and release Washuu…or if Beni getting to her ship will do anything.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 45

ATM! is best described as a show in which a lot of stuff happens. That stuff doesn’t always make sense or have any kind of narrative substance to it, but it does happen. There’s so much crammed into the show, apportioned a few scant minutes at a time, most everyone is bound to find something interesting. And I do, just about every time.

ATM! throws stuff out there and sees what sticks. The Alien-inspired “facehugger” scene is one of its funnier pop culture references, and it only takes up a few moments.

Less subtle is the lightsaber ‘duel’ between Tenchi and Momo, with ‘duel’ in quotes because they’re not really fighting; he’s trying to stabilize her physical form…or something.

Like Washuu’s Alienesque booby trap, there’s an attempt to repurpose well-known icons to fit the bizarre story.

Meanwhile, we’re meant to root for Washuu, even though she’s kinda guilty of murder on a mass scale…or crimes so diabolical there aren’t even laws in place for them. And in a nod to the show’s penchant for irrationality, Washuu is arrested by basically failing to account for Mihoshi’s utter lack of rationality. Airheads have baffled eggheads since time immemorial!

That brings us to the big finish: the entire world appears to be halved, or possibly split between two dimensions. Tenchi and Momo are dangling precariously over the fissure, from which spouts peach flower petals. It could just be my depraved mind, but I can’t get over the possibility this is all elaborate symbolism for a ‘girl entering womanhood’, with Momo’s protector Beni being unable to ‘stop nature’.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 44

With only five minutes left till the warhead hits its target, Ryouko is having trouble grabbing the dimensional controller (her body is too voluptuous to fit through the gap in the rock, ironically). While waiting, Momo’s body appears to de-compile before Tenchi touches her with his lightsaber, which cures her, at least temporarily. He’s trying to keep her together, but a more permanent solution is indicated.

With Yuki and Rui in custody, Kurihara continues her reign of terror, but is stopped by the Jurai sisters, who exercise their authority as members of the royal family. Kurihara is unmoved and calls for their arrest too…

…and then Gouriki shows up. Forgot about that guy! Washuu has him absorb the wreckage of a building to grow to enormous size and brandish a bat with which to knock out the warhead. He makes contact, and there’s a huge explosion, which the caves are shielded from — but the warhead remains intact and embedded in the earth. Crisis averted…for now. But now will be over soon.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 43

The Galaxy Police SWAT team starts to besiege Washuu’s hideout in the old school buiding as Tenchi, Momo, Ryouko, Yuki, Rui and Beni arrive. The latter three learn who the voice of the monolith is as she recruits them to launch a counterattack.

Outside, a veteran GP officer tells a rookie that Washuu is responsible for the disappearance of several planets and solar systems, and should neither be taken lightly nor shown mercy.

The SWAT team neutralizes Washuu’s booby traps, but Yuki is ready with some kind of cannon, while Rui has been fitted with a small spider dangling in front of her head, causing her to go into berserk mode on anyone in range of her stick – all to buy time for the others heading to the caverns.

Tenchi tells Momo and Beni that they’re really aliens who crashed there 1,300 years ago. He enlists Ryouko to climb through the fissure in the rock, where she finds the glowing, dildo-like “dimensional controller” that is supposedly the key to fixing everything.

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 42

As Ryouko surveys Takahashi from a high vantage point, you get the sense she senses something’s up. So when Yuki turns out to be absolutely right about there being a big government conspiracy (though people always sound crazy when they say that) and Kurihara has the Science Club and Momo arrested, Ryouko doesn’t stand idly by.

Kurihara puts a lightsaber to Tenchi’s throat, insisting she’s done with his games, but Ryouko busts in and uses her diversionary magic to allow Tenchi to escape with the girls.

Meanwhile, the GP Commander in charge of the operation to extract the “singularity points” finally zeroes in on Washuu, as the warhead is less than 45 minutes from reaching its target. But Washuu isn’t concerned…that is, with anything other than the fact these GP jokers are on her turf. Time and Space are her ‘playground’, and she won’t have interlopers. So what’s she got up her sleeves?

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 41

Half of this episode is spent aboard the Galaxy Police flagship now in orbit around earth, which has come to arrest the “singularity points” (Momo, Beni, and Washuu) before the “dimensional deficiency” they’re causing rises to catastrophic levels and the entire universe implodes. Are these stakes high enough for ya?!

There’s a great Star Trek-like feel to these space proceedings, helped not just by the barely-coherent technobabble, but by the prominent presence of okudagrams, which, to the non-Trekkie crowd, are cost-effective yet sleek and futuristic displays invented by technical adviser, scenic artist, and Japanese-American Michael Okuda.

The going-over of the mission is also a clever way to name-drop the show’s sponsor, Takahashi, Okayama, I believe for the first time.

Okayama is where the GP is headed, and in cooperation with the government, has created an entire cover story for the operation: a old Russian space station’s orbit decaying. The debate and election are cancelled and the school is evacuated by what look like JSDF troops but are really GP officers in disguise.

The student council stops being a counter-scheming squad and fulfills their actual duty as student authorities. But when the last people besides them who have yet to evacuate are the Science Club of Rui, Yuki and Beni, Momo and Tenchi go after them…just as the GP launches a space-time fluctuation warhead. And those, my friend, are not something to be trifled with. I guess?

Ai Tenchi Muyo! – 01

“‘Scuse me, Ma’am!”

My very first taste of this new project by a franchise celebrating its 20th year is a mere sliver of the first day of school for trainee teacher Masaki Tenchi. For some reason he ends up stranded on a mountain where his compass goes haywire. There, he bumps into one different color-haired girl after another, all of whom end up attending the class he’s teaching back at school.

I’m guessing this is Hakubi Washuu.

Without any research, watching this is a waste of my time. But I did find out a few interesting things, like the show’s plot, from a trusted source:

In this story, the world is in chaos, thanks to Washu. Now in order to save it, Tenchi Masaki must go undercover as a student teacher at an all-girls school. Unfortunately for him, trouble always comes his way.

Oh, so he’s undercover? The episode didn’t make that clear, but I’d probably know that if I knew the character from other stuff, of which there is much. And he does look a little out of sorts at school.

As for the world in chaos, well, it’s certainly chaotic for me, being new to the franchise. And that class had Sayonara Mr. Despair written all over it: full of eccentrics. It kinda begs the question: how does teaching at this all-girls school save the world? I imagine I’ll find out.

I also learned that the series (which will consist of 50 5-minute episodes) is sponsored by the city of Takahashi in Okayama Prefecture, in order to promote tourism for the city. That is an awesome idea. I want my city in an anime.

But yeah, this is just an introduction, and it wasn’t interested in cluing noobs in on what was happening. That being said, I can’t say I disliked it. So I will see where it goes.