This hour-long episode revisits the outlandish "harem" of teenager Tenchi, and plunges the bewildered youth into yet more alien, girl-inspired adventures that follow the time honoured formula of the series thus far. The original OVA and series featuring the character, saw Tenchi wrenched from the quiet country life with his grandpa into a strange world of part Sci Fi, part mythological origin. After opening up an ancient shrine in a cave near his grandpa's home, Tenchi unleashed a mercurial space pirate called Ryko whom his Grandpa (who is really a Royal representative from the planet Jurai, pledged to bring the spiky-haired criminal to justice) had originally imprisoned there. Tenchi has enough on his hands trying to cope with the unwanted attentions of this highly strung female, but before long he finds his household crammed full of exotic alien women — most of whom seem to have something of a "thing" for him (for Tenchi is himself descended of Royal alien blood). There are the Jurai princesses, Ayeka and the younger pigtailed Sasami, as well as the scatty Galaxy police officer, Mihoshi, and the diminutive (although she seems much taller in this adventure!) scientist prodigy, Washu. Over the course of countless episodes, fans of the series will have seen the mutual rivalries and jealousies of these women gradually settle down to form a strange but somehow happy household bonded by the various dangerous adventures they've all endured together in defence of their beloved Tenchi -- a somewhat ordinary boy to inspire such devotion from such an exotic menagerie of creatures, but Tenchi's bloodline still retains enough power to get him involved in a never-ending succession of dangers, and this episode provides yet another.
The Tenchi formula usually involves an alien female falling from the stars and causing yet more ructions in the Tenchi household as the competing alien girls struggle with their jealousies; then yet another alien threat will materialise to bring them all together; and then finally there will be a huge galactic bust-up in which the gang battle some alien menace who almost always (for some confused reason or other) wants to kill Tenchi! Well, this feature-length episode is no exception. The twist here is that the beautiful girl who falls into Tenchi's lap this time out — a blue haired girl called Mayuka - claims to be Tenchi's daughter! This, understandably, throws the other girls into especially pronounced paroxysms of confusion and horror; just as bas for Tenchi since he has no idea how this could be possible ... for obvious reasons! The creators of the franchise seem to be running out of character designs as well as story-lines, since Mayuka looks incredibly like Ayeka, apart from having blue hair rather than red hair!
When Washu's DNA tests seem to confirm the girl's claims, Ryko especially takes it very hard. Washu then comes up with a bizarre theory to explain Mayuka's appearance: at exactly the time she appeared there was a ripple in the space-time continuum detected by Washu's instruments, and the red-haired teenage scientist postulates that Mayuka has, in fact, come from the future and that any one of them might be the girl's mother! While the girls argue over which of them Tenchi would be most likely to settle down with, Tenchi gets himself involved in the predictable round of sexually embarrassing, farcical situations. Mayuka tries to join him for a bath (she has childhood memories of being bathed by daddy), unfortunately, of course, she has matured into a curvaceous young woman, and when Royko sees a red-faced Tenchi in a compromising situation with the nude Mayuka, she gets the wrong idea and beats the hapless boy senseless — and thus we get a comic situation based on incest — hmm!
By this time the viewer has already been made aware of the fact that Mayuka has arrived in Tenchi's household at the behest of the demon of darkness called Yuzuha. After being rejected by Tenchi's Grandpa, many years earlier, Yuzuha has sworn revenge and now plans to take it all out on his Grandson! When Ryko tries to get rid of Mayuka, and drops her in a Cedar tree from a great height, Tenchi actually strikes the bloody-minded space pirate in anger: Yuzuha's plan to cause chaos seems to be working a treat! Eventually, however, Mayuka starts to be accepted by everybody in the house — for, although they have no real idea who she is or where she came from, as Tenchi points out, all the girls in the house were once in the same position! Yuzuha eventually realises that she will have to take drastic action: she uses a magic box which is used in the celebration of the festival of Startica on Jurai (a kind of alien version of Christmas, except it's held in midsummer) to control Mayuka's mind and force her to bring Tenchi to her in her lair of darkness!
This episode is on a par with most other Tenchi adventures, although offering very little that is new to the formula. There are a couple of imaginative sequences, such as when Tenchi and Ryko come up against killer cuddly toys in Yuzuha's lair, that conceal lethal blades within their furry bodies — but otherwise things follow the predictable pattern of most Tenchi adventures. The story is fairly easy to follow (although Yazuhu's motive is insufficiently explained by way of a couple of incoherent flashbacks) in comparison with some of the more "way out" episodes, and films of the series' past; it's just rather resting on its laurels and fails to make nearly enough of the possibilities inherent in Tenchi's future daughter joining the household.
The film is presented in a disappointing non-anamorphic, letter-boxed transfer with only trailers and an alternative Japanese credits closing sequence included as extras.
