For this final episode of New Tenchi Muyou! I felt it was especially important to have some knowlede of the Japanese language before writing up a synopsis. I don't have any knowledge of Japanese, but fortunately, some people came to my aid again. I'd like to thank especially Aubrey Kuang-Yu Chen (who also goes by the name of "Sasami-chan") for his support in my writing these synopses, and also "PsychoPixi" (who probably goes by some other name, but I don't know what) who provided valuable information for this synopsis. It could not have been writen without them.
Sasami encased in a jewel as Yuugi speaks to her....
Tenchi running, alone, to face Yuugi....
A picture of the Tenchi gang in Okayama....
That was before.
(Title: "Family Reunion! Because I am a grown-up now.")
Time is still frozen, and Tokyo still encased in sprouting crystals. Yuugi's domain floats above. Tenchi's grandfather holds Ryou-oh-ki as he looks above and can only imagine what perils Tenchi is facing.
In Yuugi's domain, the Tenchi gang are all standing on the floating crystals which make up the terrain. Yuugi and Matori are facing them, floating on one crystal above them. Ryouko and Tenchi stand on a crystal facing them. Behind them, on separate crystals, stand the Galaxy Police officers, and the Jurian Princesses. Washuu stands on a crystal of her own, off to the side.
"Yuugi..." says Tenchi. Ryouko growls "What's the matter? The sudden appearance of a beautiful lady got your tongue?" Sasami is worried for Yuugi. Washuu holds up her crystal. "The Tenchi family is back together," she says.
Washuu takes this opportunity to explain Yuugi's plan to everyone: how she wanted to break up the Tenchi family (and thereby weakening the crystals' power) in order to gain dominance over Earth (and thus realize her dream of having her own kingdom.) This explanation surprises Mihoshi. "That little girl wanted to do all that?"
Ryouko gets menancing and yells at Yuugi. But Yuugi is not concerned with Ryouko, nor with Washuu's explanation, nor with Tenchi. She speaks only to Sasami. "Why are you abandoning me?" she asks. "Why? I would give up the universe, the power, everything, just for you. I would give up everything just to have Sasami by my side, please..."
Ayeka speaks sharply to Yuugi: "I would never hand over my cute little sister to someone like you!" But Yuugi wants to hear from Sasami.
Sasami answers. She recalls the time when they first met, and Yuugi gave her that statuette. She says that she was very happy then.
Yuugi says "I can give you another one... No, I can give you this whole world. Just you and I, living together."
"No, that's not what I want. You are getting it all wrong, Yuugi! Completely wrong! Please, stop doing this and be friend to everyone."
"No, I want to build a kingdom for only Sasami-chan and me. I only want to save you. Come to my side."
They plead with each other. Yuugi wants Sasami to join her, so she creates a bridge joining their crystals. Sasami starts up that bridge. "Sasami!" Ayeka yells, trying to call her back.
But Sasami does not climb that bridge. She stops, weeping, and proceeds no further. She points to the city down below, encased in crystal, and pleads with Yuugi to stop what she's doing. "Please stop this, Yuugi. Why are you doing this? It will only make me sad. Please stop, Yuugi... doing this will only make me dislike you."
Matori derides Sasami's suggestion. "Hmph! Stupid girl! Yuugi, let's terminate them all together..." Yuugi doesn't respond. Matori tries to get her attention. "Yuugi?"
"Shut up!" responds Yuugi. Matori is surprised. "Get out of my sight!" yells Yuugi. And she blows Matori away.
Sasami screams! As the sparkles which are all that remain of Matori float away, Ayeka calls out to Sasami again. And Yuugi gets mad. "I should have hated Sasami from the very beginning... I will destroy this world and everything in it!" And she begins to glow brightly, and there is a bright flash, and then nothing.
"Tenchi.... Tenchi...." It is Sasami's voice that wakes Tenchi. He opens his eyes, and finds that the gang is safe behind Ayeka's shield. "Are you all right?" asks Sasami. Tenchi is fine, but all around him, Yuugi's crystals have turned dark and desolate, cracked and chaotic, and whatever charm it once had has been driven away. This is Yuugi's doing.
Ryouko wants to go out and get her, but Tenchi stops her. It's his responsibility. Ryouko and Washuu are moved by this. Ayeka points out that "Yuugi is a mutant among our people whose unimaginable powers once almost destroyed Jurai. Being a Terran that you are, fighting her may be too dangerous." But Tenchi is not dissuaded.
He remembers the sword he used against Ryouko years ago (Ryouko remembers this too). He needs all the crystals to form it. "I know it seems like a selfish thing to ask of you... all of you," he says, "but would you please give me your crystals?"
"You're going to use that power?" asks Ryouko.
Washuu pipes in. "Why not? That way, we will be able to see it in action at last! Come on, everyone, hand it over." And one by one, the girls give up their crystals.
Ryouko tries to insinuate herself with Tenchi as she gives him her crystal, cradling his head with his arm, posing with him like a lover, except that a lover wouldn't look as cross as Tenchi does. Ayeka does not like this, so she picks her up and executes a piledriver on Ryouko.
Ayeka tenderly gives him her crystal. "Please come back all right, Tenchi," she says. Tenchi says he will. "Tenchi..." This would be more moving if Ryouko did not come up behind her and pull her mouth back as Ayeka was talking.
Finally, Sasami gives up her crystal, though she is worried about Yuugi. She tells Tenchi this, and tries to tell him about Yuugi. Tenchi doesn't say anything in response -- he just puts his hand on her head gently, and Sasami stops.
(Behind him, at the same time, Ayeka and Ryouko are battling each other. Ryouko gets on Ayeka's back and streches her face. Ayeka, in the blue gloves, delivers a flurry of rights to Ryouko, in the red gloves. Ryouko excutes the upside-down spin kick made popular by those video games. Ayeka runs over Ryouko somehow. Then Ryouko goes back to streching Ayeka's face.)
The crystals all combine to form the sword. Tenchi turns to the girls one last time, smiles, and turns away, determined, and dashes up the rocky road to Yuugi's sanctum.
Ryouko thinks Tenchi is being really cool. Ayeka, Sasami, and the rest are more worried. (Well, Washuu has a small grin on her face.) Ryouko starts down the road behind Tenchi.
"Where are you going?" asks Ayeka.
"To help Tenchi."
"But Tenchi said...." But it doesn't really matter. Ryouko, Ayeka, Kiyone, and Mihoshi all go to help Tenchi.
In her sanctum, Yuugi stands alone, surrounded by flying crystals. She knows Tenchi is coming. Her face is clouded with rage. "Stay back!" she says.
In the road, a monster forms out of some crystals. But almost as soon as it is formed, it's blasted by Ryouko! Tenchi is surprised, but Ryouko just says "Don't waste your time on these little underlings. Save your strength for your battle with Yuugi."
Another monster forms, and this too is blasted, now by Kiyone and Mihoshi. "Leave them to us," says Kiyone, and Mihoshi declares that "Today's Mihoshi is different from any other day!"
Ayeka uses her shield to hold back one monster, and then another. As she strains to open a passage for Tenchi, she calls out "Hurry Tenchi, before the path is blocked again!"
"Right!" says Tenchi as he continues down the road.
Sasami and Washuu are left behind to watch. Sasami is worried about Tenchi, and Washuu tries to comfort her, in her analytical way. "There's nothing I can do to help," says Sasami.
"Don't worry, everyone has her place in this fight."
As they watch, darkness envelops the road, and the crystals begin to disappear. "This is Yuugi's doing. She plans to seal herself inside her own world," says Washuu.
Sasami realizes what this means for her friend. "Don't give up, Tenchi!" she cheers.
Washuu thinks to herself "Can you really do it, Tenchi? Can you bring yourself to fight Yuugi?" Washuu recalls about a conversation she had earlier with Tenchi's grandfather about Tenchi's role in protecting the Earth. The conversation took place outside the shrine, near the sealed off cave.
"You say Tenchi can't fight Yuugi, but why?" she said. "Didn't you say the Masaki are protectors of Earth? Why wouldn't Tenchi carry on this tradition?"
"Because that kid is too kind and gentle," replied Tenchi's grandfather. "Washuu, why do you think six alien girls from outer space came to Earth and are now living in the Masaki residence?"
"It wasn't just a coincidence was it?" surmised Washuu.
"Tenchi keeps peace not by force. Instead he invites them to come to his house and live together..." (or something like that.) "By doing so, Tenchi keeps peace by making enemies that would normally fight one another live together, understanding their differences through time, and becoming friends to live in harmony."
"And thus make peace between enemies and protecting Earth at the same time," concludes Washuu. "Tenchi is a really great person."
"Of course, he isn't aware of it."
"And that might just be his weakness."
Right now, Tenchi's grandfather is also concerned about Tenchi, who runs down the foreboding road.
The road is overgrown with crystals jutting out haphazardly. Yuugi knows Tenchi is coming, and she is frightened by it. "Stay back!" she yells.
To emphasize this, she sends giant missles, made of the crystals, to stop Tenchi, but Ryouko, Kiyone, and Mihoshi destroy some, and Ayeka, with her shield, stops a barrage. And Tenchi continues on.
Yuugi becomes very scared. The obstacles she puts in Tenchi's way are being detroyed before they even reach Tenchi. Tenchi comes to the gate to Yuugi's sanctum. "Stay back!" wails Yuugi, hands piteously covering her face, tears streaming down her face. A porticulus slams shut, and crystals begin to overrun the entrance.
Ryouko flies up and with a punch breaks a hole in the crystals. But they continue growing, and the begin to encase her. Ryouko gathers her strength, and with a blast she explodes all the crystals. The blast is so large even Sasami and Washuu can see it.
Tenchi protects himself from the flying debris with his sword. The gate to Yuugi's sanctum stands open. "Ryouko, are you all right?" asks Tenchi. She is. She presents to Tenchi the open gate. Just before he enters, he stops for a second, regards Ryouko. Ryouko smiles at him. Tenchi readies his sword, and dashes in.
Ayeka sees this, and worries for Tenchi.
He runs a little ways and comes across a glowing, pulsing portal in the air. With a cry of "Yuugi!" Tenchi leaps into Yuugi's dimension.
Yuugi is there, floating in the air, with her robe floating around here. She is weeping openly, a scared little girl. Her hands crackle with power. The crystals which have represented the Tenchi family are all there as well. She pleads with Tenchi. "Stay back! Stay back! Are you going to seal me in darkness again? No, I don't want that... please, don't, I will be all alone again..."
"Stop this, Yuugi!" says Tenchi.
Yuugi wails, "I don't want to be alone!" trying to make herself understood, trying to keep Tenchi away from her. She launches a huge blast at Tenchi, but Tenchi cleaves it in two with his sword. The halves of the blast pass by him harmlessly. Outside, everyone, even Tenchi's grandfather in Tokyo, sees the blast, with a slit down the middle fly outward.
There's some sort of field about the crystals which represented the Tenchi family. With a flick of his sword, Tenchi dismisses it. He advances upon the panicked Yuugi.
She pleads, begs, shrieks "Stay back! Stay back! Stay back! Stay back! Stay back! Stay back! Stay back!"
But Tenchi doesn't stop. And Yuugi screams in fear.
Then Tenchi viciously backhands Yuugi.
His sword is unused beside him, point embedded in the ground, near the Yuugi's multicolored crystals. The echoes of Tenchi's strike begin to die away on the air. Yuugi's left cheek turns red from the impact. She's knocked away from her robe, which flies away, and she begins to drop. Tenchi catches her, and sets her down on the ground. He stoops down, kneels, so that his eye level and hers are the same. With his left hand, he holds her face, the same way he did for Ryouko and Sakuya. And he begins to talk to her gently. "You can't do this. You can't do it just because you feel lonely. Why be so firm in the belief that you will always be alone? You should have come to our home if you were lonely and wanted friends. We will welcome you with open arms."
Yuugi is shocked at first, but as she realizes that Tenchi will not hurt her, she allows herself to collapse, and lean on Tenchi's shoulder while they talk. And she lets out her sorrows. And she weeps. "I was lonely. I was scared. Always, always alone. That's why I want to be with Sasami. I don't want to be alone anymore."
Tenchi's sword glows, flashes, and then vanishes, along with Yuugi's domain and the crystals around Tokyo. Tenchi and Yuugi, and the rest of the Tenchi girls find themselves on the top of a building under construction, with Tenchi and Yuugi in the middle of what will be the roof, and the rest of the girls in the corner.
"You can come and live with us in our house," says Tenchi. "Think of it as your home."
Sasami hears this, and clasps her hands together with joy. "Really, Tenchi?"
Yuugi lets herself be held be Tenchi, her head resting on his shoulder. "I'm sleepy, so sleepy," she says. "I'm tired out."
"You certainly are, aren't you?" Tenchi replies compassionately.
As the girls witness this moment, the sun finally rises over Tokyo. From their view, they can see the four buildings which are featured in the title sequence. And Mihoshi says "Oh wow, it's morning already."
It is sometime later, in Okayama. Tenchi is back at the shrine, in priestly dress. He's reading a letter he got from Luke Perry: "Tenchi, how are you doing? We were quite surprised by your sudden return to Okayama. Although we were only together for a single semester, we were really happy to have known you. If there is a chance for you to visit Tokyo in the future, be sure to drop by my family shrine."
He turns the letter over, to look at the envelope. The letter is adressed to "Tenchi-sama," with a little heart, and it says its from "a Tokyo woman." In other words, it's made up on the outside to look like a love letter.
Inside the house, Nobuyuki is strapped down (in Washuu's lab) and being tortured by the time-honored method of mechanical feet-ticklers. Both Ayeka and Ryouko want to know who sent the letter to Tenchi. But Nobuyuki is steadfast. "Don't underestimate us men. I will never devouge the name of the person who sent that letter to my son."
Even Sasami is there. Sasami acts pretty nice initially, but even she turns mean. But Nobuyuki does not give in. He yells at them "I will only say this much: that letter is from a Tokyo Girl."
For his impertinence he gets blasted out of the house and is sent flying through the skies, where he is caught by Kiyone and Mihoshi in their little ship. (Not the big one that was blasted by Mihoshi in the previous episode, but the one they were using before.) Nobuyuki offers profuse thanks, which is only right when you are hanging onto a speeding spaceship high in the sky, but he is a bit premature. The cockpit opens, and the Galaxy Police officers have these looks on their faces like something bad is going to happen very soon. (Mihoshi is tearful and apologetic, and Kiyone has this silly, goofy look on her face like someone who's been trapped in a small spaceship with an airhead for too long.) Maybe Mihoshi forgot to fill up the tank, because the ship drops out of the sky and lands in the lake next to the Tenchi house.
At the same time, Ryouko and Ayeka run out the house calling for Tenchi, both trying to get his attention before the other. Ryouko just calls his name, Ayeka adds the important question: "What girl did you go out with in Tokyo?" Tenchi is there, of course, and he turns to them, looking rather handsome in his priestly outfit.
Later on, Tenchi's grandfather at the shrine turns away from the sunset, smiling. Next to him is the cave, and in the cave is Sasami, holding Ryou-oh-ki. She's talking to Yuugi, telling her about her day. Yuugi is in the cave, but she's in some sort of machine which keeps her in some sort of suspended animation. Sasami concludes "When you wake up, it will be even more fun! Sweet dreams, Yuugi. I will come back to tell you about what happens tomorrow!" and Sasami runs out happily.
Later on, Ryouko and Tenchi sit, side by side, on a tree branch, talking. It's a somewhat serious conversation.
"A lot happened, didn't it?" Ryouko says.
"Yeah," Tenchi agrees.
"You did your best," she tells him.
"I wonder if it's really for the best like this?" Tenchi ponders.
"Isn't it best like this?" Ryouko asks.
"I guess so," Tenchi replies.
"No matter what we did, she couldn't go on as she had been, on this world she would have gone on for a long time without changing," Ryouko tells him.
"But maybe there would have been something Washuu could have done," Tenchi says.
"This was what she wanted. To sleep until she grows up some more and becomes a 'good girl'," Ryouko responds.
After a pause, she asks "Sakuya was Yuugi's shadow, right?"
"Yes," Tenchi replies.
"Then, when she gets older she might grow up to be like Sakuya." Tenchi is suprised by this idea. "What would you do then?" Ryouko asks him.
Tenchi is taken aback. "What would I do?" he repeats. It's not an answer.
Ryoko then says light-heartedly, "The love of youth is no threat. To forgiving a man's trespasses is a woman's victory. And after all, I'm an adult woman."
"An adult woman?" questions a bemused.
Suddenly Ryoko materializes directly in front of him, looking right into his eyes. "It's a lie," she says seriously, "I can't forgive it. Kiss me too. If you do that, then I'll forgive you."
But Tenchi doesn't do anything; he just continues to look at her. "Can't you do that with me?" she asks.
She looks at Tenchi, smiling. He looks back at her, not smiling, and she continues smiling at him, and he looks at her, and Washuu looks at them looking at each other, which surprises them both and angers Ryouko.
Washuu just popped her head out of a warp she just made. "So the new portal exits here. Thanks to Tenchi's crystal, I can re-build the dimensional portal. Anyway, bye!" Washuu makes to leave, but she's not quick enough. Before the warp closes completely, Ryouko reaches in, pulls Washuu back out and starts shaking her like a rag doll. "Washuu, do you realize what you just did?"
In between shakes, Washuu manages to get out "I - built - a - dimensional - portal."
In short order, Ayeka pops in, happy to have found Tenchi, but dismayed that Ryouko is already there. "Oh, Tenchi-- Ah! Ryoko, I forbid you to use violence." Ryouko doesn't notice Ayeka because she's too busy shaking Washuu like a rag doll.
Sasami pops in angry. "Dinner's getting cold!" she declares. She's banging on a fry pan to get everyone's attention, which doesn't work.
Kiyone and Mihoshi pop in apologetically. "Sorry Tenchi, we don't have enough money to pay for the food bills this month. Please spare us some food." Everyone starts yelling at once, each one trying to make herself understood over the din, which doesn't work at all.
This is all so chaotic that Tenchi cannot but help to laugh.
The sun rises over Okayama, which means it's already risen in Tokyo. People are going to school. Luke Perry and the Ugly Guy walk to school talking about Tenchi, and about him not being back at school with them. "How's Tenchi now?" one asks, and the other replies "I hear he's doing fine in Okayama." They start talking about writing him again. (They sent the first "Tokyo Girl" letter.) Sakuya's three friends follow them, and they're also talking about Tenchi. "Let's write to Tenchi too when we have time," one suggests, and the others agree this is a good idea.
Meanwhile, back in the cave at the shrine, Yuugi sleeps. She looks older than she did before.
As the chaos of Tenchi's regular life goes on in the background, Ryou-oh-ki appears to meow a farewell.
I am the keeper of Gummi Wisdom!
Email address: gee@math.berkeley.edu