Well, my story basically goes that around 1999, 2000 up to 2002, I guess, when Toonami was on weekdays from 4 to 6, 4 to 7, 5 to 7, times like that, my brother used to have me record Dragon Ball Z episodes as they showed up. He and I both enjoyed that show very much, but one day, Tenchi Muyo debuted on the Toonami lineup as well. I don't quite remember the story of how I came to watch it, but I do know that I saw all three series (OVA eps. 1-13, all 26 of Universe, and all 26 of Shin). I was hooked on Tenchi, probably even more than I was on DBZ, but I wasn't assigned to record it and, at the time, didn't think to record anything my brother didn't tell me to. (I could regret that, since I haven't seen much of Shin in English in a billion years, but I choose not to dwell on past trivialities too often.) At the time, I was just an innocent fan, not really understanding completely the fact that the OVA, Universe, and TinT were entirely different continuities. And what I perceived to be the Shin "saga" was actually my favorite at the time, due to the story of Tenchi and Sakuya's romance, as he'd finally found a girl, and the conflicted villain Yugi finally finding redemption through a newfound friendship with Sasami.
I didn't even pay any mind to the extreme differences between Shin and the original Muyo series which otherwise wouldn't have allowed me to make sense of them being in the same line. I just loved it. I loved all of it, all three series, because of the characters all being so different and unique yet fitting so well together in this strange puzzle. Plus I saw both Kagatos as being very cool villains, though I often didn't remember one when I saw the other, thinking it was all the same. My favorite character that showed up in all three versions was and is Ryoko, even though I was always begging both her and Ayeka to leave Tenchi alone and take a different approach to loving him for some reason…
I hated Asuza for trying to force Ayeka and Sasami to leave in episode 13, I thought Seriyo was just a ridiculous idiot and there was no way he could beat Tenchi, which I was absolutely right about cause obviously he couldn't even stay on the bridge, I used to laugh at a lot of the insanely crazy yet brilliantly smart things Washu would do to prove her claim as both a little redheaded cutie pie and as the most brilliant scientist in the universe, I saw Nagi and thought she would be the next very good villain only to find her becoming the Vegeta to Ryoko's Goku, even though Ryoko to me is closer to being like Vegeta, I thought Hotsuma was a creepy little bastard for taking advantage of Ryoko when she was heartbroken, I was somewhat shocked and puzzled when they told me Sakuya was Yugi's shadow, I thought it was sad when Sakuya disappeared forever, and I didn't even think much about it when Ryoko said Yugi would grow up to be Sakuya, cause in my mind I thought it was more likely that Yugi would be her own person and bring back Sakuya for Tenchi when it was time… heck, I ran into a Tenchi Muyo RPG game once, and after playing it for a little bit, I really thought this Misuki kid, even though she was apparently one of the bad guys, could be a good friend of Sasami's, since to me she looked like a green Sasami…
…yeah, good times, awesome memories…
…anyway, as time went on, Tenchi Muyo disappeared from Toonami, and Toonami itself disappeared altogether in favor of the more kid-friendly Miguzi and shows like Code Lyoko. With that, I sort of forgot about Tenchi, and would've forgotten a bit about DBZ as well had my brother and I not obtained any DBZ video games. But then suddenly two years ago, the Tenchi Muyo theme song started ringing in my head, so I went to look for it. After I found it, I listened to it a few times, and instantly all the memories of this fabulous anime that I loved when I was a kid suddenly came flooding back to me. But I didn't completely get them, so I did a little research on Wikipedia and Tenchi fansites and other informative places like that, and the more information I got, the more I went "Oh, I know this! This was awesome!"
Also, I remembered the awesomeness of what it was like seeing Sakuya Kumashiro finally light up Tenchi's heart in the Tenchi in Tokyo series, and I searched for stories on them on FanFiction.Net, only to find, to my surprise, that even though there were TenSak stories, the authors actually had to warn bashers to stay away. Meaning, Sakuya was somehow extremely hated. Anyway, as I read some of the stories, one captured my attention in particular. One which featured exactly what I thought would happen, meaning Yugi waking as her own person and bringing back Sakuya outside of her all the same, along with extreme realism as it relates to Ryoko and Ayeka's character reactions to Sakuya's return going from scorn to acceptance over time, the embattled space pirate of course being quicker to grow up than the entitled-to-everything prim-and-proper princess… really, that story, entitled "Yugi's Gift", really completely brought Tenchi Muyo back to life for me.
But the story was unfinished… so I had to send a message to the author to finish it. They eventually did, and while it could've invluded more of Yugi, it was a fitting ending.
Between coming here to this Tenchiboard simply to defend Sakuya's honor, only to find myself becoming a member soon enough, and having my imagination run wild enough to create a Tenchi/DBZ crossover on FanFiction.Net which I have linked in my sig, I really became inspired by my love for the show that helped DBZ light me up as a kid watching action cartoons on Toonami.
And even though I finally noticed the errors within Shin Tenchi Muyo and actually went on a bit of a bashing trip for awhile because it had somehow managed to overshadow the good in that series for me, and I can thank the great Minagi for waking me up from that and finally mentioning both the good and the bad at once, bringing me full circle, the fact still remains for me that since then, I've kept my Tenchi fanhood, while off-and-on as it relates to how much focus I put on it, still very much alive for the last two years. And when it comes to childhood memories… well, let's just say that space pirates and royal Juraians had about just as much of an impact on me as androids and Saiyans, if not more.
And that, I confess with awesomeness.
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