Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (2024)

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (1)

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki is a thirty-episode collection of OVAs produced by AIC, initially released in Japan in 1992. The first two OVA series were later licensed and distributed in North America by Pioneer LDC (later Geneon), with FUNimation Entertainment taking over the rights for the third (and latest) series (FUNimation later rescued the rights to OVAs 1 and 2).

The distribution of the first OVA series was originally started in September 1992, and released six episodes that lasted until 1993. The first series was so successful that a seventh special episode was released in January 1994, followed by a second OVA series with six additional episodes that begun distribution in September 1994, and lasted for one year until September 1995. However, the second OVA series ended on a cliffhanger, and it wasn't until nearly eight years later in 2003 that a third OVA series was distributed in Japan. The third OVA series ended the Tenchi Muyo! OVA storyline with six episodes, followed by a special episode released in September 2005 that concluded the storyline. A fourth OVA series began to be released during Fall 2016.[1][2]

Contents

  • 1 Broadcast history
  • 2 Trivia
    • 2.1 Title
    • 2.2 Cover-Art Counting
  • 3 References

Broadcast history

In the United States, the English-dubbed versions of OVAs 1 and 2 were originally aired on the San Jose, California PBS superstation KTEH in the late 1990s, as part of its Sunday Late-Prime (9pm-after 12) Sci-Fi programming block.

In 2000, it was picked up by Cartoon Network for broadcast on its US and European Toonami block. The Toonami version, retitled simply Tenchi Muyo!, was edited for content and featured custom opening and closing credits. Its first airing ran from July 3-19, 2000. Tenchi Universe began airing the next day. The sixth and final Toonami broadcast of Tenchi Muyo! ran from December 31, 2001 to January 16, 2002.[3]

After Cartoon Network's rights to broadcast the show expired, the International Channel picked up the rights to air the dubbed version in 2004.

On April 1, 2012, Episode 19 of OVA 3 was aired on Adult Swim during the evening's one-off revival of Toonami.

Trivia

Title

The show title "Tenchi Muyo!" is packed with meaning, wordplay, and also, language puns. The rest of the series names also often work as types of wordplay.

  • The most literal meaning of the title, when read in two parts, Tenchi (天地) and Muyo (無用), is "No Need For Tenchi"
  • However, if combined as Tenchimuyo (天地無用) the phrase has a completely different meaning, and is a phrase previously used on shipping packages in Japan which means "This Side Up."
  • Tenchi written by itself (天地) can mean "Heaven and Earth" or "Top and Bottom."
  • Muyo written by itself (無用) can mean "Having no use," "useless," or "unnecessary."

Cover-Art Counting

  • The cover artwork of each physical release of the OVA episodes follows an increasing number sequence corresponding to the number episode it is in the series overall. The only episode to not be numbered in sequence is the standalone OVA "The Night Before the Carnival", the seventh episode overall. Each OVA series uses a different technique to count up:
    • OVA 1 counts by the number of fingers that characters are holding up from 1-6.
    • OVA 2 counts by the number of Ryo-Ohki clones there are from 8-13.
    • OVA 3 counts the number of carrots characters are wearing on them from 14-20.
    • OVA 4 returns to counting fingers but makes a change in the counting rule. Each of the four covers now features two characters each holding fingers that represent the two-digit number of the episode, one of them is always holding up two fingers, while the other one holds up the number of fingers corresponding to the second digit, forming 21-24.
    • OVA 5 uses the same counting rule as OVA 4 but returns to counting carrots, as in OVA 3, from 25-30. Like OVA 2, the ones wearing the carrots are, with one exception, cabbits.
  • In the DC Comic book series Kingdom Come, the Japanese Tenchi Muyo logo appears as graffiti on a wall. It is known that the Painters have added this logo in the final draft.
  • The Light Hawk Wings have made appearances in several works done by Masaki Kajishima, one of the co-creators of Tenchi Muyo.
  • The Toonami version of the ending uses a 47-second version of the opening.

References

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (2024)
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