"When you spent the better part of Ten Years talking about an Anime released Thirty Years ago...you start to wonder whether or not you should be keeping candy dishes full of Werther's Original around" - Bennett White [Tenchi Forever!: Goodbye, Farewell and Amen - 2020]
It is widely known that I am someone who watches and nerds out over the lore of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, which is now over 30 years old with the first OVA released all the way back in the year 1992.
Let's go back for some context - 1992: Billy Ray Cyrus releases "Achy Breaky Heart", Dangerous by Michael Jackson is still topping the charts, while on the silver screen we were getting Wayne's World and Army of Darkness.
The Tenchi Muyo franchise is basically: Prince gets cold feet, flees to earth, makes a family, then his grandson accidentally finds a space pirate and wakes her up, leading to his great-aunt (a princess) to show up on earth and hilarity ensues.
What most people don't realize is that one of the worst parts of the franchise, "Sage Machine Master Story in the Different World" [hereafter called "Seikishi Monogatari"] (yes, I refuse to call it by its North American release title "Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar"), is that War on Geminar might have Tenchi on the surface but doesn't have the heart of the franchise.
Now if "Seikishi Monogatari" can be called a Tenchi Muyo series, then so can Photon, as Photon: The Idiot's Adventure contains the first example of two key families that later show up in Seikishi Monogatari.
Photon: The Idiot's Adventure was released in 1997, which itself was a grand year for anime ranging from OVAs like Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, I Dream of Mimi, The End of Evangelion, and sadly Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness - but we do not talk about "The Daughter of Darkness" film, and my thoughts on it are for another time.
Photon: The Idiot's Adventure has a pretty simple plot. Photon Earth, the local strongman idiot with superhuman strength, is sent out to recover a villager, Aun Freya, who has the ability to freeze time around her. Photon is sent because he is somehow immune to her powers.
Aun Freya in the first episode runs off to chase after a local bard who came to their village. While Photon is trying to recover Aun, things go sideways when Princess Keyne is fleeing a nobleman, Sir Papacharino Nanadan, who wants to force Keyne into marriage.
Now what is the possible reason Photon and Keyne would end up together? Well that's simple - Photon finds her asleep and writes "Baka" on her forehead, which in Keyne's culture means a man writing on a woman's forehead is a formal part of the marriage process. Misadventure ensues, ranging from Papacharino demanding Keyne leave with him, to Aun being baffled that Photon somehow has better romantic prospects than she does.
Each of the six episodes of the OVA basically follows the same format once we get into the swing of things. Papacharino has his weird alien or robotic servants - honestly it's the Tenchi universe so they might be some weird hybrid considering the crazy tech - but where was I? Oh right, need to keep on track.
So let's talk about the basic format of this comedy series.
Papacharino spends the whole series ordering his servants, the "Pochis", around. How does he tell them apart? Each Pochi has a number. What we get is Aun trying to get a man's attention, Papacharino sending out his Pochis to recover Keyne, and chaos erupting due to Papacharino's temper - all while Aun tries to ruin Photon's relationship with Keyne, not out of any love for Photon, but out of anger that Photon gets to have a beautiful bride while her bratty annoying self can't even get a man.
I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised by how, over the course of the six-episode OVA, Keyne and Photon's relationship slowly grows, Photon's gentle heart meeting Keyne's deep fear of being alone again after so much pain.
Now let's tie this all up with a nice bow. After god knows how long it took you to read this, you may be asking "What in God's holy name are you blathering about?" or "What does any of this have to do with Seikishi Monogatari?"
Well that's quite simple. Photon did have a child with Keyne (which is not her real name, but I don't want to spoil the reveal of her real name), and after a few generations we got Queen Earth XXVIII of the Shitoreiyu Empire in Seikishi Monogatari.
You might also be wondering if anyone else was left behind. Well, after how humiliated he was, Papacharino seems to have stayed on the unnamed planet from Photon: The Idiot's Adventure, as in Seikishi Monogatari there are Flora Nanadan and Maria Nanadan.
I want to say more, but with only six episodes it's hard not to spoil too much.
When it comes down to it, Photon: The Idiot's Adventure is an amazing OVA with a lot of heart, and the only real issue I find is how short it is - thankfully you can legally watch it on TubiTV.
You won't get the mecha adventure of Seikishi Monogatari, but at least you'll get the real heart of Tenchi Muyo, even if there is no Masaki family in this great OVA.
So if you have an afternoon or a lazy weekend, make some popcorn and give it a watch.