Fans looking for a space opera comedy won’t go wrong with Tenchi Muyo! GXP. © FUNimation Prods.

Tenchi Muyo! GXP. V.1, Out of This World. V.2, Academy Life. V.3, Captain Seina Yamada. V.4, New Illusions. V.5, The Living Ship. V.6, Seiryo Strikes Back! V.7, The Great Daluma. V.8, Past, Present and Future.
TV series (26 episodes), 2002. Director: Shinichi Watanabe. V.1, 5 episodes/125 minutes; v.2-8, three episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $24.98. Distributor: FUNimation Productions.

Tenchi Muyo! (1992) was the 1990s' mega-popular variant on the formula of mildly-erotic sci-fi comedy about adolescent Earth guys vs. lots of exotic space babes. Tenchi Masaki, a handsome but shy apparently-average mid-teen with a secret he does not know about, finds that he and his home are magnets for beautiful, extroverted female humanoid aliens: a space pirate, a galactic princess, a mad scientist who wants him as a subject for her sex experiments, and numerous others. Tenchi Muyo!, like Gundam or Star Trek, seems to never stop spinning off new TV series. Tenchi Muyo! GXP (for Galaxy Police Transporter) was the 10th anniversary edition: 26 episodes, from April 3 to September 25, 2002, produced by A.I.C. (Anime International Co.).

GXP is a nicely imaginative variant rather than a direct sequel. It features a new cast, with references to the offstage original characters that implies it is set a few years later. Fifteen-year-old Seina Yamada, a neighbor of Tenchi's family, is a well-meaning kid but a jinx who brings bad luck to everyone around him. A rookie space pilot visiting Tenchi's home thinks that Seina is one of the humans who is aware of the galactic civilization, and recruits him for the Galaxy Police Academy. (Seina thinks the futuristic application form is a brochure for a new sci-fi theme park.)

The transport vessel carrying Seina to Galaxy Police HQ is attacked by an incredible number of space pirates, who blunder into the midst of a GP armada at the last minute. Humans from primitive Earth are not normally allowed into the Galaxy Police, but its officials feel that Seina's inadvertent talent for attracting trouble, if scientifically controlled, can be used to lure space pirates into traps, for advance troubleshooting to avoid space disasters, and in other beneficial ways. Seina, who is starry-eyed over the opportunity to join a "Star Fleet," confirms his willingness to enter the Academy.

So instead of another TV series about aliens visiting Earth, GXP places a naive but enthusiastic human teen in a Space Cadet interstellar setting. Just as Seina is an obvious variant on Tenchi, most of the original cast is replaced by close counterparts, although there are more non-human aliens including "cabbits" (cat-rabbits) like Ryo-Oh-Ki, the living spaceship. Despite the mostly macho atmosphere of the Galaxy Police and their space pirate counterparts, practically every third or fourth episode adds another attractive, slightly older "big sister" superior officer, instructor, reformed space pirate, visiting dignitary or other BABE who wants to personally teach him all about this galactic society.

Seina is in more danger from the fallout of the girls fighting over him than from the space pirates. GXP never fails to astound in its variety of erotic innuendos that manage to keep within a 13+ age rating. Also, of course, the GP's plans to deliberately manipulate Seina's bad luck never work out as intended. Tenchi Muyo! GXP is enjoyable space opera comedy.