Anime: Tenchi Muyou! in Love 2 - Haruka Naru Omoi

First of all, let me make it very clear that this movie is not a comedy. Oh, it starts out as you would expect a Tenchi Muyo flick to start, but that is just a cruel trick to lull you into your happy place before it douses you with the cold water of truth. This movie is a paranormal drama for everything that happens after the first 10 minutes.

Animation: the animation isn’t bad… but it isn’t Tenchi Muyo either. All of the characters look like they were drawn to fit a serious drama, and then altered slightly with the trademark features of the Tenchi cast (Ryoko for example looks like a standard female character, except with blue hair, big ears and a tail.) Tenchi in fact is so altered in his “adult” state, that it might take you a few scenes with him before you even realize who he is. That aside, the animation and art is pretty standard fare for a dramatic film. “realistic” character styles and backgrounds that are done ably but not exceptionally.

Sound: Did this movie have sound? I don’t remember any if it did. Seriously though, the sound track is kind of “there”. Nothing special but nothing awful. Could be from any series really.

Story: Ok, here is one of my two major beefs. The story isn’t bad. It’s actually ok. But why is this story a Tenchi movie? It feels extremely foreign to the characters, and my immediate reaction was that somebody wrote the script without having Tenchi and cast in mind for it at all, and then reworked it slightly to make them fit the plot. This brings me to my second beef:

Characters: None of the characters act like themselves. With Tenchi, you can calk it up to the fact that he really isn’t himself for most of this movie, but as for the others, I kept asking “who the hell are these people and what have you done with the real Ryoko, Aiaka, etc.” It’s like the script writer never actually watched the TV show, and created the characters based on publicity stills. If the guy who wrote this flick is the same one who wrote the original OVAs and/or TV series, I can only assume that massive head injury and memory loss occurred in the interim.

Value: There are two ways to look at this film. One is that it is nothing like what has come before it and that it lacks anything that makes Tenchi Muyo great. The other way is that it is nothing like what has come before it and it shows a side to the original characters that you never got to see before. I’m pretty well settled in the former camp. This film might have been worth something if it hadn’t tried to be a Tenchi movie, but as a part of the Tenchi Universe, it is better quietly buried under a rock and forgotten about.

Enjoyment: Maybe I’m just too much of a purist, but this film makes my teeth grate every time someone talks. I cant take anyone seriously because they are constantly saying and doing things that are way out character. Even if I try to look at this film objectively, completely removing the Tenchi element, it still only manages to be “ok,” so it really isn’t worth the effort to try and force yourself to enjoy it based on its own merits.