New Tenchi Muyo GXP Anime Series Announced

A new anime in the Tenchi Muyo! franchise is in production. More specifically, it’s related to Tenchi Muyo GXP, according to the announcement from media company EXNOA. (EXNOA also helped produce Blue Reflection Ray.) The title is Tenchi Muyo GXP – Paradise Begins (Paradise Shidou-hen). It will be produced, in part, to celebrate the franchise’s 30th Anniversary. [Thanks, Famitsu!].

At the moment details on the new anime adaptation are scarce, but creator Masaki Kajishima drew the teaser below.

The series is being produced through EXNOA’s anime brand Kinematics, with Kajishima credited as a Supervising Director. The screenplays will be provided by Hideki Shirane, who worked on the original Tenchi Muyo GXP, Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar, and the 4th and 5th seasons of the Tenchi Muyo anime.

For those unfamiliar, Tenchi Muyo GXP is a spin-off of the original Tenchi Muyo! series. (That is known as Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki in Japan.) Chronologically, its story runs in parallel to the original, but features a new cast, rather than the group led by protagonist Tenchi Masaki. GXP instead stars Japanese student Seina Yamada, who is almost killed by a spacecraft that crashes behind the Masaki residence. He meets the spaceship’s pilot, Amane Kaunaq, who gives him an application form. Mistaking the form for a contest entry, Seina’s forced by his family to fill it out, only to realize that it was an application to join the Galaxy Police.

The series aired in Japan in 2002 and followed Seina, Amane, and their companions as they struggle to carry out missions for the Galaxy Police. Tenchi Muyo GXP – Paradise Begins will pick up several years after GXP, with Seina grown up and assigned on a new mission to return to Earth.

Tenchi Muyo GXP – Paradise Begins is in production and does not yet have a release window.