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Tenchi Muyo!: Mihoshi Special
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Title Info
- seen: 1 of 1
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- made: unknown
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
I honestly think that simply reviewing all of the TM spin-off's and derivatives is worthy of a page in itself...although come to think of it there probably are lots of these. Anyway, this relaxed little stand-alone episode begins as another lazy day in tenchi-ville. In response to Ayeka's needling Mihoshi points out that she's a celebrated detective who's solved many difficult cases. This is met with indifference or disbelief by the rest of the cast, although the most difficult response comes from Sasami who wants to hear the story of her greatest case. Placed on the spot mishoshi tells her story, of piracy and adventure in space, using the cast to stand in for the characters in the story. During the story there are occasional returns to the present time, generally when one of the cast objects to their `role' in this `flashback'.
It's a clever solution, allowing the character designs to be re-used while keeping the fans of each character entertained. While the characters are fairly true to their established personalities (suggesting that it is an invented story) the new situations and subtle differences are entertaining enough. This extends upto re-using craft and environments from other TM material. However it is also fairly obvious that this re-use is due to this being a fairly casual anime. The story, situations and dialog are pretty basic, and given that the pleasure of tenchi is in the character interaction that's a fairly serious blow. Even for Tenchi Muyo this is pretty lightweight stuff. Whether you consider this `charming' or `lazy' will probably play a major part in determining how much you enjoy the title. Although it also helps if you find Mihoshi's ineptness amusing, which I must admit I don't. However, while casual it is entertaining and skilled enough to be fairly watchable.
The animators seem to have taken things fairly easy as well, although the production is still pretty reasonable. The main reductions are in the design elements (since everything is re-used), the small scale of the scenes and using only a few frames to suggest, rather than animate, the action. Given this it is strange that the opening and closing sequences have new and interesting stuff unrelated to the main anime. The opening has all the characters as fairy-tale figures and is cute, while the closing is a little pretty-sammy adventure. I watched the dub, including translated songs, which is highly characterised and shown at its worst with the simple dialog in this production (especially Ayeka). This anime also included the first appearance of pretty sammy, so you are allowed to be confused when she bursts into the story.
None of the sites I source from have a review of this title, probably because they don't consider it important enough to deserve one.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009