Once upon a time, the Isekai subgenre was… kind of a different beast, where the standard model both of introduction and of the setting and story that the transported character would be dropping into had not yet formed. I’ve touched on pre-formula Isekai before, with shows like 1996’s Vision of Escaflowne, but after last week’s entry, I’m in the mood for a little more.
Enter Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar (the title is excited in the first half). Being from 2009, War on Geminar is more recent than you might expect for its brand of Isekai. Certainly, the infamous Truck-kun was already well into his reign of terror, and the formulas that the original run of Shield Hero would work to freshen up or KonoSuba parody in just a couple of years were established. But it has something of a pedigree, acting as one of the many spin-offs of Tenchi Muyo!, which first debuted in 1994. And as such, it has a somewhat more retro outlook on its genre. This also tracks with it being an OVA, featuring post-watershed media standards and fairly arbitrary episode lengths.
The question is, has this aged like fine wine… or fresh milk?
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