As I was looking up info on Tenchi Muyo! the other day while writing the call for classics post, I noticed a title on there I hadn’t heard of, Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari. It was billed as a spin-off series to Tenchi Muyo! but not connected to any Tenchi series outright, and it aired a couple years ago so it was very recent. To pour the gravy on the turkey however, it was a mecha. You better goddamn scream for me I am on that shit with the quickness.
Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari is a thirteen episode OVA that chronicles the adventures of a world called Geminar, where men and women, mostly women, pilot humanoid robots known as Seikijin used for combat, defense, sport, and ceremony. Lashara Aasu, princess to Shitoreiyu Empire, becomes queen of her country in the beginning of the story following the death of her father. An organization in the shadows however seeks to assassinate her, and sends in a white Seikijin to attack her ship, The Swan. The attacker is repealed by Lashara’s personal knight, Chiaia Furan, and Field Workshop technician Wahanly Shume, but not before he attempted to kill Lashara personally. The pilot turns out to be a boy named Masaki Kenshi, who is actually from Earth, and is the half-brother of Masaki Tenchi. After being double-crossed by the organization that kidnapped him from his world, he is taken in by Lashara as a personal servant and accompanies her to The Holy Land, a central location and fortress for The Church and the primary training facility for the world’s Seikijin pilots.
During his time in The Holy Land, Kenshi gains mass popularity from his closest female friends, and the entire female population in general, due to his good looks, strong personality, and eagerness to do just about any job given to him. Besides being around Lashara, Chiaia, and Wahanly a lot, he is also often accompanied by Aura Shurifon, the dark elf princess of Shurifon, Mexiah Furan, older sister to Chiaia and teacher at the school, Maria Nanadan, the princess to Havoniwa and her personal guard Yukine Mea, student council president Lithia Po Chiina and her assistant Lapis Lars, and a handful of others all vying for Kenshi’s attention. But before normal school life could settle in for Kenshi, various organizations under Shitoreiyu Prime Minster Babalun Mest have moved to cut off Lashara from her own country, and resurrect a great evil that has been sealed for thousands of years. Relying on Kenshi’s extraordinary abilities and the help of everyone else, Lashara attempts to rally back and defeat Babalun and retake her position and her country.
First off, you need not have any prior knowledge of the Tenchi universe to watch this show. While the MC is a Masaki and he makes passing references to Washu and Tenchi’s grandfather, there is nothing else connecting the two universes. That fact can either be awesome or disappointing depending on how you look at it. I’ll be the first to state that a connection with the two might’ve been very awesome, at minimum, Washu’s interference would have been the shit, but this is me wishing a new Tenchi series would air because I miss classic harem shows. That said, this show does not disappoint on so many levels. Each episode is 45 minutes long, and there are thirteen episodes, so it’s like watching over a full season of anime and it was labeled an OVA. It has a moderate cast of characters, so you aren’t forced to keep track of a million faces and all their little storylines and subplots, but there is some srsbins shit going under-the-hood in this show that merits paying attention to once and awhile, but that doesn’t start until about halfway in, so enjoy your random school hijinks.
The mecha action? Well besides your fill in the first couple episodes, the bulk of the mecha fighting action happens in the last half of the series, as the first half spends more time in the school establishing the Church, school, and characters around them. The mechs themselves are very Evangelion-like, they only operate for a short amount of time, are prone to damage often, and have to be cabled to operate out of areas lacking the special power found in the land they operate on. You’ll want to pay special attention to Wahanly here, because a lot of her gadgets and mechs focus on using traditional explosives and steam power to operate her Tachikoma-style mechs in places where Seikijin can’t. She is pretty much this universe’s Washu, while maybe not nearly as crazy as Washu was. In fact, the Tenchi-style characters and mannerisms can be seen all over the place here, Lashara being Ryoko, Maria being Ayeka, Flora being Ayeka’s mother, and so on. The connection to Tenchi Muyo! is pretty weak, if you recall Kenshi’s mention of his mother being named Rea, then you’d connect that up to him being the son of Nobuyuki and Rea Masaki after he remarried. Beyond that, there are scant mentions of anything else, save for Washu’s interference.
Overall, this is a show that doesn’t need to rely on even the hint of involvement from a classic franchise, it pulls you in with a story that might be similar to anything else you’ve seen along the same lines, such as Zero no Tsukaima, Mai HiME, or Infinite Stratos, but plays it out with a wide range of characters all interested in bumping Kenshi’s crystals. It’s good clean fun, with just enough fanservice. Can you ever have not enough?
Title: Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari
Sub Group I Watched: Wasurenai
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 8
Favorite Character: Yukine Mea
Least Favorite Character: Dagmyer Mest
Favorite Seikijin: Kenshi’s White Seikijin
FORCED SHIPPING WORKS: Kenshi and Aura
Why no Washu? I know they wanted to remain independent from the “Tenchiverse”, but Washu is a goddamn god, at least give her five minutes of screen time to come in and laugh maniacally.
