After putting it off for over a year, FUNimation has finally released the second half of the third Tenchi OVA series: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki.  Taking off more or less where the other OVAs left off, this six episode set has a lot of the charm of the original series, though it feels rushed and needlessly complex.  The story should have been told in a longer series.  Still, fans of the characters will want to check this out too see what happens to Princess Ayeka, Ryoko, and poor Tenchi.

Series Background:

A simple average high school student, Tenchi Masaki had lived a quiet life until he accidentally revived the space pirate Ryoko who was trapped in a cave by his grandfather's temple.  Searching for the pirate, the princess Ayeka came to Earth, and so did her sister, and the space police.  The next thing you know, easy going Tenchi is living in a house full of beautiful woman and having to play referee between Ayeka and Ryoko who are always fighting over him.  Over the course of the first two OVA series, Tenci discovers that he's not just a regular kid, but actually of royal blood, and in line to become the Emperor of Jurai, the most powerful empire in the galaxy.  Of course, with the super scientist Washu living with Tenchi, along with Ryoko and the others, Tenchi's household is rated as the third most powerful force in the galaxy.

This volume:

The first two episodes on this disc are a single light comic story that's a lot of fun.  When Mihoshi's brother finally gets around to reading the mail that his sister has sent her, he discovers that she has a thing for some guy named Tenchi.  Being overprotective and having an active imagination, he decides that this Tenchi fellow is out to seduce his sister, and takes action.  He comes up with Operation I'll Never Let Anyone Have My Sister in which a group of thugs takes out the other members of Tenchi's household.  Without protection it'll be easy to get Tenchi on his spacecraft where he'll marry him to Ryoko, then kill them both making it look like an accident so that the royal family of Jurai doesn't get mad at him.  A brilliant plan!  The only problem is that apparently no one has told him that the Masaki household is ranked third on the galactic power scale.  Even when his forces manage to corner each of Tenchi's friends alone things go horribly, but hilariously, wrong.

The final episode harkens back to some of the more serious installments of the first two OVA series when Z (aka Zero), an incredibly powerful fighter attacks Tenchi and in the process blasts a third of the Earth into dust.  Tenchi isn't without powers himself and it looks like an epic space battle is about to start until a trio of deities interrupts the proceedings.

This series has its ups and downs, but its biggest problem is that it's way too short.  They really tried to cram too many new people and situations into too few episodes.  Heck just the events of the last installment could have covered six episodes with ease.  Because of this there's a lot of confusing parts, and the series doesn't seem as tight as the previous two did.  The new female characters introduced in the last volume are hardly used in this one.  Why did they bother to introduce them if they weren't part of a bigger story?

While the first two shows on this disc are light and enjoyable, they feel a bit like filler material, while the final episode has too much going on and it comes across as ludicrously silly.  Having two members of the Masaki household turn out to be pan-dimensional nearly omnipotent gods could have possibly worked, but didn't when this revelation and its conclusion all occurs in under half an hour.  It feels like a writer was just pulling stuff out of his butt.  "I know, we'll make someone a god…yeah that's it!"

Even with these flaws, I was glad I got a chance to see these new adventures.   There's a fair amount of action and several very good laughs.  It's also nice to see what's happening at the Masaki temple.  Tenchi and the rest are like old friends, it's nice to visit with them every once in a while.

These three episodes which run about 100 minutes come on a single-sided DVD in a black keepcase.  Being a FUNimation disc, there is a non-skipable trailer before the menu.  This time it is  for Full Metal Panic.  This is a really irritating trait of FUNimation discs, and I wish they could cut out the practice.
 
Audio:

This disc offers the choice of the original Japanese audio track in stereo or an English dub in stereo or 5.1.  I alternated between the original language and the 5.1 English dub track.  I liked both equally well, though all of the English voice actors from the OVA were not able to come back for this dub.  Both of the tracks were free from drop outs, hiss, and other audio defects.

Video:

The full frame image looks very good.  The colors are bright and the level of detail was fine.  The lines were tight too.  Digital defects were almost nonexistent.   A very nice looking disc.

Extras:

While the first disc didn't have much in the way of bonus features, this one has a few.  Unfortunately they didn't do much for me.  There are two "Real Tenchi Tours" where the composer and vocalist to the songs in the show visit some of the real places in Japan that inspired the locales in the show.  These are over ten minutes each and all viewers see are the musicians wandering around and saying "This feels so grand."  *yawn*  There are also some Japanese TV spots for the show.

Final Thoughts:

I had a lot of fun watching this OVA series even if there were some flaws.  The creators tried cram too much into a short series and the result is some confusing episodes and new characters that never get fully developed.  Still, fans of Tenchi will have a good time seeing what happens in the Masaki household.  Recommended.