Review: Tenchi OAV3
The local sources of anime:
Suncoast got in 3 (as in THREE) copies of TM OAV3 and sold out.
Target had nothing
Best Buy took two days to find the two copies they had.
I bought one of those today.
This is why I am writing this today and not Tuesday night.
And work schedule was involved.
Let’s get right to it.
The voice acting is sub-standard. Mona Marshall is no Petrea Burchard. Thank god it seems she isn’t trying to be. But the change is a nagging thing, impossible to overlook. Matt Miller didn’t find his ‘Tenchi’ voice until half-way through the first episode, so much so that I was almost half-convinced it wasn’t really him. It got better and better, but it shouldn’t have been bad in the first place. Damn the cost, but I would have re-dubbed the beginning a second time once Miller had done enough to get back in the character’s intonations.
Rebecca Forstadt did such a good job of replacing Ellen Gerstell in the second and third movies and in Shin Tenchi that it really didn’t matter. But since then she’s done a number of very high-pitched simple-minded characters (The tachikoma in Stand Alone Complex) that she now seems unable to play Mihoshi at any speed. That was more distracting than the Ryoko replacement.
Also from those movies and Shin Tenchi is Bob Pappenbrook playing Nobiyuki and Katsuhito, though don’t close your eyes while they’re on the screen, cause he doesn’t have the range to do both. The one scene where those two characters are alone talking to each other is confusing not only because the script indulges in ‘cryptic/mysterious’ but also because it sounds like one man talking (and answering) himself, which, I guess, it is.
Bringing back English voice actors from the last of the Tenchi dubs (movies 2 & 3, + T i T) is, you realize, a bald-faced lie on the part of FUNimation. They promised ‘All the old actors except one’ but really, several of these people have never been in the OAV before. So it isn’t the old crew. It isn’t even a majority, unless you count the two guys who do Azaka and Kamidake.
Exceptions go to K. T. Vogt, Debi Derryberry, Sherry Lynn, and my sweet Jennifer Darling. I’d send roses to all, except I can’t afford it, I don’t know how, and I’d probably get hit with some anti-stalking court order if I did.
Peggy O’Neil as Tenchi’s sister reminds me of Grace Zandarski, (Lady Funaho on OAV2 and Achika in the first movie) with the lovely melody of her voice. I wish her role was larger. And finally, there’s Kari Wahlgren, playing Tenchi’s perv of a granny, Airi (a character I hope is gone for good) and playing this series’ entry in the Sakuyo Poser’s Club, Noike. She gets a bit more slack from me, due to my enjoyment of her work as Kotoko in Chobits and as Haruko in FLCL. I’ll be interested in how her role develops.
The background music is uninspired, and often is at odds with the mood. This is especially true in the flashbacks in the first episode. The closing song is enjoyably forgettable, but I do like the opening theme.
I’m not a big fan of the drawing style, but it’s a big improvement over Shin Tenchi. The differences are most notable between the flashbacks and the new material. And I can’t say I like the facial distortions.
The story is okay. That’s it. Okay. Tenchi OAVs wander around for four or five episodes, then have the big action episode. Or two. That’s just the nature of the story.
And while his household has a merry lunacy, I’d say the female side of his family is the home of true mental illness.
But
It was a Tenchimuyou story. It would go along, then just hit these moments that were that are unique to this body of work, unique to these characters, unique to this family. I’d be watching, and making these mental notes, and then all of the sudden, Washu would just be Washu (I distinctly remember her smothering Sasami and smiling like I was seeing family members too long been away) or Ryo-Ohki being Ryo-Ohki (trying to climb the tree) and in seeing these things, remembering that this series touches me like nothing else on film. Yes, I’ll be critical, as we can be of family. But in the end, home never stays the same as we remember it, or wish it could be. What makes it home, what makes it truly your own possession, are those little things that speak only to you, in a family’s private language. And I haven’t heard this particular language in way too long a time.
And so, in all the things I may have wished for, they matter not at all. I have more Tenchi. And happily, more is coming.
Suncoast got in 3 (as in THREE) copies of TM OAV3 and sold out.
Target had nothing
Best Buy took two days to find the two copies they had.
I bought one of those today.
This is why I am writing this today and not Tuesday night.
And work schedule was involved.
Let’s get right to it.
The voice acting is sub-standard. Mona Marshall is no Petrea Burchard. Thank god it seems she isn’t trying to be. But the change is a nagging thing, impossible to overlook. Matt Miller didn’t find his ‘Tenchi’ voice until half-way through the first episode, so much so that I was almost half-convinced it wasn’t really him. It got better and better, but it shouldn’t have been bad in the first place. Damn the cost, but I would have re-dubbed the beginning a second time once Miller had done enough to get back in the character’s intonations.
Rebecca Forstadt did such a good job of replacing Ellen Gerstell in the second and third movies and in Shin Tenchi that it really didn’t matter. But since then she’s done a number of very high-pitched simple-minded characters (The tachikoma in Stand Alone Complex) that she now seems unable to play Mihoshi at any speed. That was more distracting than the Ryoko replacement.
Also from those movies and Shin Tenchi is Bob Pappenbrook playing Nobiyuki and Katsuhito, though don’t close your eyes while they’re on the screen, cause he doesn’t have the range to do both. The one scene where those two characters are alone talking to each other is confusing not only because the script indulges in ‘cryptic/mysterious’ but also because it sounds like one man talking (and answering) himself, which, I guess, it is.
Bringing back English voice actors from the last of the Tenchi dubs (movies 2 & 3, + T i T) is, you realize, a bald-faced lie on the part of FUNimation. They promised ‘All the old actors except one’ but really, several of these people have never been in the OAV before. So it isn’t the old crew. It isn’t even a majority, unless you count the two guys who do Azaka and Kamidake.
Exceptions go to K. T. Vogt, Debi Derryberry, Sherry Lynn, and my sweet Jennifer Darling. I’d send roses to all, except I can’t afford it, I don’t know how, and I’d probably get hit with some anti-stalking court order if I did.
Peggy O’Neil as Tenchi’s sister reminds me of Grace Zandarski, (Lady Funaho on OAV2 and Achika in the first movie) with the lovely melody of her voice. I wish her role was larger. And finally, there’s Kari Wahlgren, playing Tenchi’s perv of a granny, Airi (a character I hope is gone for good) and playing this series’ entry in the Sakuyo Poser’s Club, Noike. She gets a bit more slack from me, due to my enjoyment of her work as Kotoko in Chobits and as Haruko in FLCL. I’ll be interested in how her role develops.
The background music is uninspired, and often is at odds with the mood. This is especially true in the flashbacks in the first episode. The closing song is enjoyably forgettable, but I do like the opening theme.
I’m not a big fan of the drawing style, but it’s a big improvement over Shin Tenchi. The differences are most notable between the flashbacks and the new material. And I can’t say I like the facial distortions.
The story is okay. That’s it. Okay. Tenchi OAVs wander around for four or five episodes, then have the big action episode. Or two. That’s just the nature of the story.
And while his household has a merry lunacy, I’d say the female side of his family is the home of true mental illness.
But
It was a Tenchimuyou story. It would go along, then just hit these moments that were that are unique to this body of work, unique to these characters, unique to this family. I’d be watching, and making these mental notes, and then all of the sudden, Washu would just be Washu (I distinctly remember her smothering Sasami and smiling like I was seeing family members too long been away) or Ryo-Ohki being Ryo-Ohki (trying to climb the tree) and in seeing these things, remembering that this series touches me like nothing else on film. Yes, I’ll be critical, as we can be of family. But in the end, home never stays the same as we remember it, or wish it could be. What makes it home, what makes it truly your own possession, are those little things that speak only to you, in a family’s private language. And I haven’t heard this particular language in way too long a time.
And so, in all the things I may have wished for, they matter not at all. I have more Tenchi. And happily, more is coming.