AstroNerdBoy

Just so we are clear, my “haters” remarks were not targeted at the people of this forum. I’m led to believe that there IS a forum filled with haters, whom after all these years still wallow in their hatred for how TM!R turned out. Obviously, that is not a forum I would be a part of.

Now that I’ve said my peace about that, I think I’ll wade into the fray (rationally of course! 😆 ).

First, I fully acknowledge the validity of ANB’s point that the lack of Japanese materials is a LARGE barrier to entry for western fans, especially with respect to the “new” characters.

To widen this out a bit, the real problem is in how the Japanese do canon stuff vs. how we in the West do stuff. For example, the Star Trek franchise canon consists of the original TV series, the TNG TV series, the DS9 TV series (my personal favorite), the Voyager TV series, the Enterprise TV series, and the various movies up through the remake (where a new continuity starts). All of the novels that have been written are not considered canon, thus everything related to the Star Trek story is displayed on screen. That’s how most of our franchises in the West work.

There are small exceptions, like the Babylon 5 franchise, which consists of a TV series, several TV movies/specials, and the aborted canon-spinoff, Crusade (bloody TNT executives at the time). Everything we want to know is tied up in what we see on screen. However, there are a few canon novels (as either written by, or endorsed by series creator JMS) which help flesh out certain things, such as the technomages. However, if you don’t read these novels, are you missing anything? I can’t say for sure since I’ve not read them (I do have the technomage trillogy but just haven’t taken the time to read them).

In Japan, they believe in a true, multimedia presentation of a canon story. As such, part of the story may be told in a novel. Part of it may be in an anime. Another part might be in a video game. Still more might be in a manga.

Take the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha franchise. This was spun out of a hentai video game called Triangle Hearts 3, where Nanoha’s older brother and female cousin (who’s basically adopted into Nanoha’s family) are two of the three main stars. Although Nanoha retains some elements of the game, such as Nahoha’s family structure, the rest is ditched. That being said, the franchise has produced a few canon manga titles and the like. For example, the manga Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS THE COMICS was made to bridge the time gap between the Nahoha A’s anime series and the StrikerS anime series. If you watch StrikerS without having read the manga, you will notice that there are things eluded to but never revealed in the anime. That’s because the production team assumes that the Japanese audience (remember, most anime isn’t made with us in the West in mind) will have read that bridge manga and know what is going on, or will simply go out and buy the manga to learn the truth.

Unfortunately for us in the West, we almost never get access to this additional material that in Japan is easily available. Plus, the mindset in Japan is that REAL fans will buy EVERYTHING story-related to a franchise. Their whole blasted economic model for anime, manga, and light novels is based on this, and getting the otaku to collect other things too (figures, cards, other collectables). We don’t have that mindset in the West. We expect a TV series, whether animated or live-action, to play out completely in that format (discounting adaptations, such as a movie being made from a novel). We don’t want to have to buy six comic books, two novels, and a fan guide book on top of the DVDs/BDs we purchased in order to get the whole, canon story of a specific franchise.

In that light, I completely understand Tenchi fan frustration with things, especially if they weren’t aware of the materials in the novels, doujinshi, etc. That was why I took over the FAQ from Death Quaker in the first place, to give fans at least some tidbits that I’d learned so as to make their Tenchi experience more enjoyable.

That being said, however, I felt that the “new” characters were a drag on the show purely based on their own faults.

Interestingly enough, when FUNimation first started releasing OVA 3, the FAQ traffic went WAY up, which is understandable. I used to get a lot of e-mail from people who were introduced to TM!R through OVA 3. When OVA 3 was fully released, I did ask some of these folks their opinions. It is purely anecdotal, but what I discovered was that when people were introduced to TM!R via OVA 3, they didn’t have a problem with any of the characters. I attributed this to the fact that they hadn’t had years to develop deep attachments to other characters, and so were more accepting of these “new” characters.

I felt that the Seto and Noike characters were the embodiment of Mary Sues; they were perfect and right %100 of the time, purely because that was their role in the series.

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I never felt that way about them. Having watched GXP, I never saw Seto as perfect, though she was sadistic and very manipulative in order to get her way. With Noike, I saw the girl who’d run the household since Sasami-chan is too young to do so. Having her be the officially arranged wife makes it easy to have her be the “head wife” since it was clear that Kajishima-sensei was going to have a harem ending. There too, I didn’t see her as “perfect.”

Airi and Tenyo were a bit better in that they provided some comic relief/entertainment, but they were really just one-trick ponies and offered little of substance to the show itself.

Well, their main function was to show Tenchi, who clearly felt quite alone after his mother’s death, that he had more family than he knew — an older sister and a whacky grandmother. As such, he wasn’t as alone as he had thought (and that plays into the question that Funaho raised in OVA 2 episode 6 regarding this new “family” of Tenchi’s, should Jurai decide to force Aeka and Sasami to come home).

Little girl Kagato seemed to me to be thrown in purely because Kajishima thought it was cool/wanted to make a connection with the novels, no matter how unrelated to the matter at hand.

Even before GXP was created, Kajishima-sensei had promised that Kagato would return, even if not in the same form as we’d known him before. The thing is, the novels were Kajishima-sensei’s way of fleshing out the massive backstory that lead to Tenchi’s being born. In many ways, what he did was very similar to what J.R.R. Tolkien did for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

A spin-off should be propped up by its parent show, not vice versa.

Blame that on AIC. They were the ones who insisted that Kajishima-sensei had to do GXP first and that it had to be successful before they’d allow OVA 3 to be created, and since they were paying the bills, that’s the way it had to be.

OVA 3 could have benefited from more episodes to (1) accommodate Kajishima-sensei’s passion for “day in the life” stories and (2) allow for better story flow. That being said, I still say that the Japanese mindset that I described earlier would have trumped, thus even with more episodes, Kajishima and the production staff may still have punted on some things, expecting fans to know things from either GXP and/or the novels and doujinshi.

The problem here is that they WEREN’T established in the Anime, which precedes everything else

, also keep in mind, that just because Kajishima released a few hundred Doujinshi, that doesn’t mean every Japanese person watching the show is going to know the in’s and outs of everything, that’s like introducing someone from the Star Wars novels, most people don’t have a flipping clue who they are (and don’t care really) and saying “OH WELL, insert variable about being a fan, etc”, Sure GXP Introduced them, but thats GXP, they were NOT first introduced with the rest of the main cast, and I’ve never liked that because their is always, ALWAYS going to be a feeling of disconnect, which really hinders character dynamics (especially when our already established cast are anything but their former selves), so that’s not a legitimate defense to a poorly scripted OVA.

GXP is part of the canon. It was aired before OVA 3 was even allowed to be made. I can promise you that Tenchi fans in Japan saw GXP and were well acquainted with Seto, Airi, and even Noike, since she’s shown with the gang in episode 17. Back on the old AIC boards, it used to be heavily discussed as it was coming out in Japan. However, I am aware of the fact that a number of fans refused to watch GXP because it wasn’t “Tenchi” in their mind.

Of a damned show, it has been quite profitable for AIC, VAP, and FUNimation. ^_~

The Titanic was pretty profitable too, before it sank, lol

Heh! The problem with your analogy is that OVA 3 hasn’t sunk, which is why Psycho still rants and raves, and why haters are going to hate. 😆

Yeah, there’s that for sure. OVA 3 should have been twice as long.