Taco's Rule hit me up the other night with a video that had me laughing pretty hard. I don't think I'll see Bert and Ernie in the same light ever again. *lol*
Props to stianhafstad on YouTube for making this parody video. ^_^
OK, back to anime, manga, and things Japanese. ^_^;
Yikes! Scary! ^_^;
天地無用! 魎皇鬼 OVA "Night Before Carnival"
With the success of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 1, it was only natural that AIC and Pioneer 
would want more. So, a single episode was created to bridge the series to the future OVA 2 series.
This time around, Tenchi is adjusting to life living with a group of alien women -- Ryoko the notorious space pirate; Aeka, the daughter of the Emperor of Jurai; Sasami, Aeka's younger sister; Mihoshi, the often air headed Galaxy Police officer; and Washu, the genius scientist who'd been kidnapped 5000 years earlier and held 
captive all that time until Mihoshi accidentally freed her.
Washu runs experiments on Tenchi in an attempt to discover the secrets of his power. Tenchi has a special seed from Ryo-oh given to him by Tsunami to return to Aeka. Aeka knows that by planting the seed in a special container, the Royal tree will grow and she'll have her former tree-partner back again. Washu proves somewhat mischievous in dealing with Aeka's request, demanding 
to be addressed as "Washu-chan" despite the fact she's many thousands of years old. Aeka eventually is forced to agree to Washu's terms and Washu produces a containment unit with a Juraian environment suitable to plan Ryo-oh in.
Meanwhile, Sasami-chan decides to have some fun by putting Aeka and Ryoko onto shoujo manga titles collected by Tenchi's father, selling them on the idea that they could learn the art of 
human love by reading these manga. Aeka and Ryoko put what they read into action causing Tenchi to wonder what is wrong with them. Finally, Aeka and Ryoko decide that they need to thin out the competition by removing Mihoshi and Washu. So the plan is to seal Washu in a force field and send Mihoshi back to Galaxy Police.
After Washu brings Mihoshi's shuttle out of subspace, Mihoshi is off to her mother ship to make her report to her Galaxy Police 
supervisor who is relieved that the Kagato problem has been resolved. He's not happy with Mihoshi's request to remain assigned to Earth as that planet is under Jurai's jurisdiction. However, since Tenchi had asked her to come back and he's related to the current Juraian emperor, she's there to stay. Now, her supervisor has to deal with her detailed written report.
That night, Ryoko has Aeka bound and plans to have her way with 
Tenchi. She runs through a scenario with herself and likes what she hears. However, when she attempts to enter Tenchi's room, she finds herself teleported to the lake by a kekkai. Returning to the house all wet, Ryoko finds Aeka free and set up this barrier. Ryoko is going to allow Aeka to go first but Aeka isn't having any of that. They begin to grapple with each other but after Sasami-chan knocks and gets into Tenchi's room, they attempt to get in as well only to be teleported into the lake. They emerge from the lake, 
only to have Mihoshi return and crash, destroying Tenchi's house and forcing them all to spend the night in Aeka's new tree container for Ryo-oh.
I went a bit more into story summary this time but that's OK. ^_^
I've read that this episode is the kind of story that Kajishima-sensei loves to do -- a day in the life of the residents of MASAKI 
Tenchi's home. Indeed, the Tenchi doujinshi Kajishima-sensei has been doing for the last several years reflects this as he does stories showing the hijinks and happenings at Tenchi's home. As such, this episode is mainly about showing how the various girls love Tenchi -- Washu goes after him in a direct, sexual fashion; Sasami goes to him more like an older brother but we see she loves Tenchi dearly when Mihoshi leaves; Aeka and Ryoko try different things to get to Tenchi.
This episode is the one that I believe causes the majority of old Tenchi fans to latch onto the whole "whom will Tenchi choose" idea. It is easy to understand why as I too latched onto this in my first few viewings of the series. However, this episode also provides some clues to Sasami-chan's mysterious condition and we are shown that there are larger forces at work here with the glimpse we are given of Tokimi and the shadow images behind her 
in her realm (which Kajishima-sensei would later reveal as the "Choushin Realm") which look a lot like Tsunami and Washu.
Another thing this episode does is reveal how Kajishima-sensei doesn't like to get bogged down in details. On one hand, he did provide us an explanation as to why Ryoko attacked Jurai and thus why Kagato would have a container for a Royal tree. We even get a late explanation as to how Tenchi obtained his Juraian battle 
uniform from OVA 1 (via the ring Tsunami gave him). However, Kajishima-sensei did not explain the seed of Ryu-oh and how this seed could still be Ryu-oh. What was up with Ryoko's sense of taste? Why were there so many Ryo-ohki's all of the sudden? Japanese fans demanded an answer and Kajishima-sensei was forced to answer this and a whole lot of other unanswered questions in the book 101 Secrets of Tenchi Muyo!, which was published after Night Before Carnival was released.
The DVDs I still have for TM!R from Pioneer are the re-release they did for a cheaper price. Pioneer corrected some of the worst translation mistakes from the original VHS (and first DVD) release but there are still a lot of flaws in the translation. For example, the translator was desperate to avoid Japanese honorifics at all costs but then that blasted Kajishima came out and had a whole scene centering around Washu demanding to be called "Washu-chan." 
Since the attitude of the time was that honorifics are evil, the translator came up with the whole "Little Washu" concept.
Ugh!
When I saw this for the first time, I had no understanding of honorifics beyond "san." Even so, reading the subtitles were Washu demanded to be called "Little Washu" made me cringe -- it 
sounded so freaking stupid because no one would demand to be addressed as "little," especially if they are short in stature. Further, what did Washu's age have anything to do with "little" beyond not being a baby? Later when I learned of the "chan" honorific and the "sama" honorific, everything in this scene made sense to me. Someone of Washu's status being addressed as "Washu-sama" would be appropriate and it would be completely wrong to address her as "Washu-chan" since that would be 
reserved for children, girls, and pets (primarily). However, not only does Pioneer change "chan" to "little," they decide to ignore the "sama" honorific. I guess the translator couldn't figure out a way to force-translate it, so lets pretend it didn't exist.
By removing the honorifics from the subtitles and pretending they don't exist (except for "little" with Washu since other instances of "chan" are ignored), quite a bit is lost in my opinion. If somehow 
FUNiamtion scores this, I hope they'll let Tomato retranslate it from scratch. I'll lobby for that to happen.
Speaking of honorifics, this episode is the only time that I recall Ryoko addressing Tenchi with an honorific. During her attempt to recreate a scenario from a shoujo manga she read, she called Tenchi "Tenchi-san." ^_^
(As an aside, Ryoko is the only girl that Tenchi does not use an honorific with. This is something Japanese fans of a Ryoko x Tenchi pairing would point to as proof Tenchi would pick Ryoko.)
So while the episode is a lot of fun and fluff, there is also some important table setting for events in OVA 2 and OVA 3 to come. That's why I enjoy this episode so much because it helps flesh out characters, have some fun with them, but also moves the bigger story forward a step as well.
Just a reminder for all those searching for the new spoilers -- Negima! is on a break this week so no spoiler images from chapter 258 today (well, unless something VERY strange happens). ^_^;
As is my custom, I thought I'd add some images from Negima! Today's theme is Eva.
I'm sure we all remember this image from volume 3.
Since there had been some recent talk about the possibility that Eva and Arika were the same, I got to thinking about how Eva apparently often passed herself off as an adult with her very powerful illusion magic. Indeed, her one encounter with Nagi saw her in this guise until Nagi conned her into walking into a trap and forced her her illusion to drop. That said, when the Magic World put a price on her head, I believe that they believed her to be an adult and Nagi uncovered the truth. I haven't bought into the Eva=Arika theory yet, but I do see the potential there. ^_^
There are so many things about Eva's past that Akamatsu-sensei hasn't touched. It may have no bearing on where the story goes, or it may be that those answers have to wait until the story gets to them. Either way, I look forward to learning more about Eva, both from before her encounter with Ala Rubra and after.
On to the last picture -- this is a newer image to promote the OAD's.
I'm not into this whole "lolita fashion" thing and I saw some of this recently (and it was scary, which is partially why I have no photos of the encounter). However, it does seem to fit Eva, doesn't it? Even Chachamaru looks fairly cute here. ^_^
I was a lot more talky than I normally am for simple image posts. *lol* Hope you like them. ^_^
