Photon

From the original creator of Tenchi Muyo the end of the 90’s saw arguably one of his best works in the 6 part OAV series Photon.

    Set in the distant future, the series finds a conniving galactic aristocrat Papacharino Nanadan chasing galactic criminal, Keyne Aqua, to the far reaches of space forcing her to crash on a destitute sandy planet. Papacha is after the knowledge left to Keyne by her deceased grandfather, knowledge of unlimited power. Papacha aspires to control the universe and see’s this knowledge as his best way of attaining his goals. As she plummets to the surface Keyne puts herself into an induced hibernation to await her ships self repair process. Meanwhile the daughter of a chief of a small village on the planet, Aun, has gone off chasing a troubadour in search of unrequited love. Aun’s protector, Photon chase after her to return her to the village. He is the only one who can counteract Aun’s ability to freeze time (including her self) and years earlier Aun’s older sister left Photon in charge of protecting her. Photon, who is whole heartedly in love with Aun’s older sister, does so with all of his will and life.

    Photon catches up with Aun as she is about to be attacked by vagabonds. She freezes time around her, including her attackers. The only thing that can stop her powers is for Photon to knock her unconscious. As he brings her back to the village she escapes from him. Chasing after her she freezes his vehicle as he traverses a deep ravine, sending him plummeting to its bottomless depths. In the ravine he discovers Keynes ship and soon discovers the sleeping Keyne. Photon inadvertently wakes her up by writing the Japanese word for idiot on her forehead, just as Aun had previously done to him. Unknown to him the galactic custom is to put ones own forehead crest on the person your going to marries forehead. Photon, being simple, doesn’t object when Keyne, who doesn’t know that Photon is clueless, talks about them being married. She accepts her fate and heads off to find Aun with her new husband as her ship continues to repair its self. They find Aun, who happens to be the hired guide for non-other than Papacha as he has landed on the planet to track Keyne and her ship down. Now Photon must do whatever it takes to not only protect Aun but also Keyne from anything Papacha throws at them, while Keyne tries to discover the secrets from her grandfather.

    This is classic light ecchi comedy from the creator of Tenchi Muyo. The character designs are very similar; in fact it could almost pass for existing in the same universe. The story is fast moving and chock full of gag comedy and physical slapstick. Photon is dimwitted, super humanly strong and suicidal loyalty. Aun is a firebrand foolish red head and Keyne is the mature and sexy adult. Papacha is by far the most bizarre character of the story. He is a conniving, sinister and downright vile bad guy who is dumber then he realizes. His actions are foolish and the events around him are larger then life. This is one of the funniest OAV sets out there. It’s quick at just around 3 hours of total viewing time. The story wanders a bit and the episodes are quite episodic but by the end of it you feel complete. It is easy to watch this series multiple times and still laugh at the childish jokes.

    This series was quickly release in America commercially and should be readily available on DVD. The art is standard late 90’s OAV, nice detail, cartoony and thick outlines. If you are a fan of Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard or the slapstick parts of Trigun you will love this series…hell as with other ones you will probably have already watched it. At a time it was a pretty well received set.