Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Tenchi Muyo! Galaxy Police Mihoshi’s Space Adventure

October 9, 2004 on 11:26 pm | In Tenchi Muyo! | Comments Off on Tenchi Muyo! Galaxy Police Mihoshi’s Space Adventure

The Tenchi Muyo! franchise is something that anime people either love or hate. Allegedly it’s one of the prime examples of the harem genre, but it’s really just a wacky space adventure. With onsen here and there. Despite the original OVA not being about anything in particular, it was enjoyable. The “love triangle” was not explored very well, which was actually a mercy, and it puts a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
Mihoshi’s Space Adventure is a one shot OVA set loosely in the original universe. At 25 minutes, it’s brief but enjoyable. The DVD is padded out by a two hour dosage of Pretty Sammy.

After waking from a day dream, Mihoshi wants to appear of some use to Tenchi and his group by telling them of a case she solved as a member of the Galaxy Police. She’s not too clear of the details, however, and casts her friends in the roles (“to make it easier for you to follow” she explains to her audience). Space pirate Ryoko kidnaps Tenchi while stealing ultra energy something-or-other, and Mihoshi and beleaguered partner Kiyone are asked by desperate self proclaimed fiancée and “old woman” Ayeka to rescue him. Sasami and Ryo-Ohki go along for the ride too, to make tea.
Just how much of this is true is anyone’s guess; I doubt that Mihoshi would deliberately represent herself as that stupid, and Kiyone actually does exist. It was a nice way of writing her into the Tenchi continuity and explaining her absence at once.

It’s a simple OVA, which is mainly just about comedy. The story is coherent without being overly important, and the jokes are fast and never laboured. It also features what is probably the first documented appearance of Pretty Sammy, which makes three different Sammy continuities – and the way this one is just thrown in for the sake of it makes it more credible and hilarious as Mihoshi’s story. Comedy stories are mainly made of jokes, when they don’t have character development and overarcing stories to support them, so there’s little point in going into more detail short of saying this is nice and sweet.

This has the standard OVA production qualities, and Mizutani Yuko does an excellent job of the faux-serious Mihoshi. The only thing that is freaky is Pretty Sammy’s nude-transformation sequence, which is really par for magical girls. It’s brief and unrevealing, but definitely weird. The OP is a great fairy tale dream sequence about Mihoshi and Ryo-ohki going on an eating adventure, and the ED is the genesis of a Pretty Sammy story with entirely different villains to the other two versions. It would probably have done better without the periodical real world interventions, but it’s fine as it is.

Mihoshi’s Space Adventure is humble Tenchi Muyo! fare, and recommended for any who liked the OVA series. Well, not really. Tenchi fans can be a bit crazy and inconsistent … (rather like the franchise itself, allegedly). It’s just a random bit of fun, and not harmful in the slightest.