Tenchi Muyo - In Love

A Parent's Guide to Anime
Rated: PG

Parental Guidance Advised

Reviewed by Greg Powell:

This is the first Tenchi movie which was released after the end of the Tenchi Muyo! TV series in Japan. While I had done a lot of research into Tenchi on the web before viewing, it seemed very easy to get to know each of the characters rather quickly, so I don't think viewing the rest of the TV series is neccesarily a prerequisite...but it'll probably answer a lot questions you'll have by the end. :)

The recently-escaped super A1 class criminal, Kain, is involved in a plot to destroy the intergalactic soverign House of Jurai. His plan, to go back in time 26 years and destroy Tenchi's mother, the only person capable of wielding enough Jurai energy to capture Kain in sub-space once more. Flash forward to the present day (1996), the beloved hero Tenchi is beginning to vanish. If his mother dies in 1970, Tenchi will never have been born! So now the gang must journey back in time to save Tenchi's mother, Achika.

I thought the animation quality of this title was excellent. I can't think of ANY complaints I would have about any part of the movie in that respect. I saw/own the special edition DVD so I've seen both the sub-titled and dubbed version, and this is some of the best dubbing I've heard in all of anime. Some of the voices don't really fit the characters well; Ayeka, the teenage princess of Jurai, sounds a little too much like a little old lady for my tastes.

Parent's Guide Rating:

yellow (parental guidance advised)

None of the violence in the movie seems to have any semblence of realism. Though Kain tears apart an odd cyborg Galactic Police operative and there is a short view of his bloodied corpse, it is very breif and I didn't even recognize who/what it was till future viewings. Kain, a supernatural being of some power, gets cut up pretty bad in the conclusion of the movie. However he bleeds odd-looking purple "blood" that doesn't even seem real. This is also one of the least-violent anime films I've ever seen. There is a brief view of Achika nude from behind during her transformation sequence. Also Kiyone is shown naked once in the film but it is far from full-frontal because she covers herself totally. There is one scene where the gym coach is shown "scratching himself" and I would like to say that it was done tastefullly, but can any scene involving a man scratching himself be tasteful? Anyway it's pretty brief and it quickly fades from memory. Oh yeah, there is one scene where Ryoko, the space-piratess, attempts to borrow Ayeka's gym clothes while Ayeka is still wearing them. This basically shows Ayeka's stomach and that's all. Profanity is very mild. I think there are about two or three "Damn it!"'s in the film, and that's all. No other sort of profanity or vulgarity.

This film was action-packed (without gratuitous violence which I thought was awesome), humorous, and had a great plot. Truely a unique accomplishment for any film. It's not really "for" anyone below middle school age and I think adults would probably enjoy it. I myself was in 9th grade when I saw it and I loved it and was not offended by anything in it.

Summary: Little violence (what little there was was rather tame if you ask me), Some blood and a tiny bit of gore(one scene in particular in which a cyborg/alien GP officer is torn apart, very brief viewing of the body though), No nudity worse then that on popular american TV, no real sexual situations, mild profanity. Middle School aged kids and up. Adults may enjoy it also.