Tenchi Masaki, an ordinary adolescent boy, witnesses a crash coming home from high school. Rushing to help, he finds a girl, Ryoko, unconscious on the ground, whom he tries to revive by splashing water on her face. Waking, she barely has time to tell Tenchi that a space pirate is pursuing her before the very same pirate comes crashing through the bushes and a chase ensues. A chink in the pirate's armor, however, opens an avenue for escape, and the two run to Tenchi's home, where Ryoko enchants Tenchi's father and grandfather, who assume she is Tenchi's fianc�e (an error he just can't ever manage to clear up). Later that night the alleged evil space pirate makes her way to the Tenchi household to reveal herself as inept Galaxy Police space officer Mihoshi. Ryoko, it turns out, is the true evil space pirate. Peeved, Ryoko throws a scary temper tantrum. But after all the dust settles, both girls stay as visitors at the Masaki home, formerly a bachelor pad.

Princess Ayeka of the Jurai royal family cruises about the galaxy performing her royal duties when she hears a distress signal sent by the eternally maudlin Mihoshi. Ayeka lands to rescue Mihoshi only to find her hated childhood rival Ryoko on the premises. Both girls confuse Tenchi with very different sides of the same story. But it isn't long before the bad blood that flows between these girls drives them to battle in the sky, despite Mihoshi's earnest pleas to simply leave. Ryoko somehow conjures up another one of her spaceships for the bellicose occasion, but before Tenchi has time to ponder this mystery, the clash destroys both spaceships, leaving Ayeka just as stranded as Mihoshi. A third girl takes up residence at the Masaki home.

Tenchi gets caught in a love triangle. While Mihoshi loses herself in her own strange little world, Ryoko and Ayeka begin a new rivalry over Tenchi. Ryoko claims that she is pregnant with Tenchi's baby (his emphatic denials on this matter go completely overlooked by everyone). Just as Ryoko had hoped, Ayeka goes berserk with jealousy, although she can't help doubting the weird, shiny black egg is actually a baby. Ayeka's little sister Sasami arrives in the middle of this to take her sister home. Eventually, though, both Ayeka and Ryoko eye Sasami suspiciously as she seems to spend an awful lot of time with Tenchi. Tenchi and Ryoko's supposed baby hatches, and out pops Ryo-Ohki, a cabbit (a cloyingly cute cross between a cat and a rabbit) that doubles as a spaceship. While this ship is many things, it's definitely not a human baby and the riddle of Ryoko's spaceship producing abilities suddenly becomes clear. Between Ryo-Ohki's passion for carrots and Ayeka's jealousy the inevitable happens. Yep, another spaceship crashes. There are now four girls and counting at the Masaki home.

Tenchi's grandfather Matsuhito tells a story about a demon sealed in a cave in the Masaki Shrine. This intrigues Ryoko who wants to go investigate. But she can't manage to find a companion on this adventure until she ropes Tenchi into going with her�literally. Jealous Ayeka tracks them down with the aid of Ryo-Ohki's bloodhound-like nose. Mihoshi and Sasami tag along. Inevitably, the two rivals engage in a jealous fight, which arouses the legendary "demon." The demon turns out to be Washu, a genius mad scientist exiled on Earth for 700 years. She takes a liking to Tenchi as well and moves into the basement of the Masaki household. The commune grows with five girls, Tenchi, his father, grandfather and a cabbit/spaceship.

The "Tenchi Universe Collection" lacks much of the charm of the "Tenchi Muyo" TV show and falls into the same trap as so many other spin-offs of a TV series - an assumption that the understood premise of the franchise is enough to drive the story. This assumption leaves scriptwriters Ryge Tsukimura and Yosuke Kuroda's storyline patchy and flimsy, the two raising more questions than they answer by the close of episode four. One by one, women fall out of the sky and into Tenchi's life, turning the Masaki household upside down. Tenchi Masaki is at first indignant about the intrusions, then resigned, then...? It's hard to figure out what he wants as an individual; there is no real indication that he likes ANY of the women, although he has a soft spot for Ayeka. He's an ineffectual lead, a hapless victim of far more dynamic personalities.

Tenchi spends most of these episodes soothing Ayeka's feelings, trying to stop Mihoshi from crying, fending off the advances of Ryoko and eating Sasami's food before it gets cold. Ayeka's fondest reoccurring memory of Tenchi involves him passing her a hot potato, which apparently is the high point of their relationship. The Tenchi Masaki portrayed in this series demonstrates no hint of his warrior side, and, therefore, provides no reason why so many women are making a fuss over this sycophantic high school boy in the first place.

These first few episodes have also excised all but a few of the references to ancient Japanese culture that makes the TV series so interesting for North American audiences. The presence of grandfather hints at Tenchi's awesome heritage, but his appearances are so brief and poorly explained that it lessens the effect of the cultural richness he offers.

Hiroshi Negishi, director of the hyper-violent "Burn Up W" series, tries his hand at sculpting more romantic plot lines. With this in mind, "Tenchi Universe" takes an unexpected route: no direct violence, little implied violence, and only subtle allusions to sex. Gone are the shower screens through which Tenchi's lecherous father tries to peep, the heated catfights that shape these girls' personalities, and the steamy, tension-tinged atmosphere of the TV series (and damn it, that's too bad). One of the attractive aspects of a teenage boy living with a group of girls is the sexual tension, and Pioneer has released an anime a collection in which the sexual tension has become sexual slack.

Though this series has some major flaws, the animation for these episodes flows seamlessly with contrasting colors and artful backgrounds. The lovely black and white scenes at the start of Episode 4 and the different styles of drawing used in Masaki Kajishima's character design makes up for the shallow development of characters in these first few episodes.

The flawless dubbing also saves this series. And while the voices of Ryoko and Washu are too much like an older Lucille Ball to be suitable, the rest of the English voice actors do a fair job of speaking their roles. Hardly surprising, considering that most of the cast have done voices for all of the Tenchi series and those who haven't are no strangers to voice acting.

With a story line that banks on suspending reason for long periods of time and comical, mostly disregarded, protests by Tenchi over Ryoko's insinuations, the series elicits many laughs whether intentional or not. Innocent and non-violent, with overly saccharine characters, this first installment of "Tenchi Universe" serves up a blander version of its predecessors.