Tenchi Muyou! Ryououki 5th Season

I just don't know why I persist after the first set of the Ryo-Ohki OVAs followed by the Universe TV series and movies which were pretty great. Everything since from all the alternate takes / reboots to the various spin-offs have ranged from barely relevant to outright bad. Isekai Monogatari & Tenchi GXP are not terrible per se but they were at best tangentially related to Tenchi. However they felt a need to tie it all together into one giant lore that presumably aims to be dense and rich but ends up incomprehensible and ridiculous. Just about every character that has ever showed up in ... any capacity in any "related" series puts in an appearance here either as glorified extras or extended cameos. At least I think so since I could not recognize or remember more than half of them nor can I remember them now after watching them. The titular hero himself is now a tertiary player in his own series and what should have been the defining development that original fans have been craving for comes off as just another event in a slideshow of events. It just suddenly shows up, happens and then just as quickly fades into the background. Detailing the event should be a spoiler but the show manages to spoil it just fine by itself.
The art is jus plain ugly and calling the animation limited would be charitable. The bottom of the character design barrel has been well and truly scraped with true abominations making the cut. I have nothing to say about the music because I cannot recall a single note of it.
I must admit that Tenchi Muyo was a formative element in my anime fandom so to see it fall so far and so hard is genuinely distressing. Scenes that should be invoking nostalgia and warmth only stir up regret and sadness. Hopefully this is truly the end.

You most likely won't enjoy it unless you've watched some of the other Tenchi stuff (GXP, War on Geminar, Dual Parallel, but not Tokyo/In Love).

Also if you read the novels (I haven't) you'll definitely appreciate some of those characters being animated here.

I enjoyed the new season A LOT. I always wanted a new Geminar season so this was nice to get. I'm still hoping though.

All of the favorites are here, plus more. It was nice to see all the oldies again and especially the spinoff characters here.

Why is MAL causing me to write such a long review? Other people didn't write nearly as much as ... this...

I have seen every single episode of the ryo ohki ova series up until this point.

I turned it on and had no idea what was going on or who was even talking and what they were talking about.

What is happening? Who is it happening to?

AND WHY IS EVERYTHING BEING EXPOSITED WHILE SITTING IN ROOMS DRINKING TEA INSTEAD OF JUST SHOWING IT HAPPEN?!?!!!!

...I get the idea from reading other reviews that maybe this is only supposed to be taken in if you have read the supplemental material outside of just the anime series(s). If thats the case, its just a terrible show. It ... felt more like watching a comic con panel instead of an actual series.

Its sad, but dont waste your time folks.