Tenchi Muyo! Tenchi Universe Episode 11: Time and Space Adventures Part 1
We return yet again to the wonderful world of Tenchi Muyo, the show that reminds us that even when alien women faun over you more than Captain Kirk after bathing in chocolate scented axe body spray, your life can still suck.
Today’s episode starts out with the girls enjoying a nice bath in their luxury pocket dimension bathroom and engaging in their day to day activities such as Ayeka and Ryoko trying to kill each other and Mihoshi embarrassing Kiyone with her complete and utter lack of a filter. On the other side of this messed up star gate of a bathroom, Tenchi and Nobuyuki, for reasons I do not wish revealed to me, are both taking a bath at the same time. While Nobuyuki, pervert that he is, scratches on the walls begging the girls to let him take a bath with them, Tenchi has finally resigned himself to the fact that he has permanent headache that no amount of aspirin will ever be able to cure. Suddenly, the room fills up with water, and Tenchi and Nobuyuki cross the dimensional barrier or whatever science fiction nonsense Washu rigged up to turn Tenchi’s house into her own personal TARDIS. When Tenchi comes up for air, he finds himself face to face with the girls and, without missing a beat, Ryoko pounces, not one to miss an opportunity to get in Tenchi’s pants… which he’s not even wearing right now. Fortunately for the collective sanity of all involved parties, Nobuyuki does not find himself in the girls’ bathroom, but rather, comes up for air in the kitchen sink incredibly confused.
Naturally, since the laws of physics have decided to take a vacation, everyone assumes that Washu is somehow responsible. And indeed, the dimensional insanity is the result of Washu’s latest invention, something she calls a “Dimension Tuner.” Washu claims that this is her greatest invention in the past seven hundred years. Bare in mind, Washu was sealed away in a cave for most of that time, and since she’s been released she’s invented, a portable computer that turns people into turtles, an inter-dimensional luxury bathroom, an unstoppable terminator robot with the brain of a hyper-active woman child, and, lest we forget, an honest to god hell mouth, so, I’m not quite sure how much weight that statement really carries here. In any case, after spouting out enough incoherent technobabble to make Brent Spiner blush, Washu explains that, essentially, the Dimension Tuner is a device that can alter reality for one’s own personal ends. Well ladies and gentlemen, if any of you still weren’t convinced that Washu is either certifiably insane or just straight up evil, this woman has just invented a device that turns reality itself into play-dough for her to sculpt in her own image. Ryoko and Ayeka simultaneously volunteer to be the first to test out the machine, either to make sure they end up with Tenchi or just simply wipe one another out of existence. However, Washu insists that the machine isn’t finished yet.
That night, once everyone else has gone to bed, Ryoko, in a scene that would be greatly improved by the Pink Panther theme, sneaks into Washu’s lab to use the machine. However, Ryoko wasn’t the only one who had the same as all the other girls have also snuck into Washu’s lab intending to use the machine, leading to each and every one of them fiddling with the machine at the same time. What follows can best be described as reality getting scrambled like a rubix cube and then getting smashed into a million pieces with a baseball bat. Washu explains that, until she can fix all this, everyone else is going to be bounced around the multi-verse like a pinball.
After everyone disappears, we find ourselves in what appears to be ancient Japan where Tenchi and Ayeka, both having memories of always having lived in this time period, are engaged. It appears that Tenchi has been tasked by the emperor to slay “The Demon at Rashomon” (Ryoko, if it wasn’t obvious) and Ayeka, worried for his safety sends Kiyone and Mihoshi after him. However, it turns out that Tenchi and the “Demon” are actually good friends, something that Tenchi’s kept a secret from his fiancée. Also, in any reality, Ryoko still will do anything to get in Tenchi’s pants. Kiyone and Mihoshi discover Tenchi’s secret and while Kiyone agrees to keep it to herself, Mihoshi blabs to Ayeka almost immediately. With this revelation, Ayeka and Ryoko’s blood feud has officially grown so intense that no one reality can contain it.
As Ryoko and Ayeka try to violently murder each other while a frustrated Tenchi impotently tries to keep the peace with zero chance of success, or as it’s called at the Masaki house: Tuesday, Washu finds herself in an empty void trying desperately to repair her machine. Eventually, she gets the idea to delete all the alternate realities created by the machine one by one, starting, of course, with the ancient Japan universe. The episode ends on a cliffhanger as our heroes are whisked to yet another alternate reality.
I’ll admit, I have mixed thoughts about this one. Before reality explodes, I actually found the episode very entertaining with some of the funniest jokes in the series so far, but once we get to ancient Japan, despite all the familiar elements being present in this new setting, the episode suddenly stops being as engaging. It’s hard to pinpoint any one thing about the ancient Japan segment that I don’t like, but something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. Anywho, next time, we continue the adventure with part two of this three-part episode.