No Need for Tenchi!, Volume 3: Magical Girl Pretty Sammy

天地無用! 魎皇鬼 [Tenchi Muyou! Ryououki] #3

by Hitoshi Okuda

A collection of stories about high school student Tenchi, space pirate Ryoko, Princess Ayeka and her sister Sasami, the scientist Washu, and Sasami's friend Ryoohki.

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comedy, Science Fiction, Comics, Fantasy

184 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Hitoshi Okuda (奥田ひとし) is a Japanese manga artist, most famous for his characterizations and stories set in the world of Tenchi Muyo!.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another collection of Tenchi tales. Sasami gets lost and befriends a wolf, a ghost from the past visits Tenchi, and Sasami becomes a superhero. Entertaining.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as my Tenchi manga reviews go, this is one of the volumes that I'm probably less fond of than most. After the rather serious arc of the first two volumes introduced us to Minagi and then wrapped up, I feel like this volume serves as something of a long palate-cleanser. While we do get a somewhat serious story in the middle that gives us more insight into Ryoko and Ayeka as they mature in their feelings towards Tenchi and as individuals, the majority of this volume is meant to be light-hearted and fun.

The first and last stories in this volume focus on Sasami, with the latter being the "magical girl spin-off AU", Pretty Sammy. The Pretty Sammy chapters are especially meant to be fun and are not considered canon stories, a fact easily denoted by the presence of Mihoshi's partner Kiyone from the Mihoshi special and the Tenchi Universe AU series. Many of these stories were later re-released in a special side volume of manga during reprints, called the "Sasami Stories" volume, and aside from the ones here, I don't recall if there was much more to that volume or not.

Either way, this was a fun palate-cleanser, but I'm personally eager to get back to the rest of the story, as this volume feels a bit disjointed or out-of-left-field when read in conjunction with the rest of the series.

[Jack Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm already getting the sense Okuda's fun with throwing the Tenchi characters into scenarios fades over time if the one offs depicted in this volume are any consideration. Pretty Sammy continues to poke a bit of fun into the Tenchi lore. Despite Pixy Misa's adaptation not hitting the strides of the OVAs, I appreciate Tsunami's completely lax attitude when it comes to her care in peril. Side question: Does a reveal disclosed in the PS chapters happen in the show?

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better stories than usual.

[✨Sky✨ ♏ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 stars

[Miss Ryoko · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of Ryoko and Ayeka shenanigans ensued during this volume. I liked the story with the escaped wolf. And the last spin off story, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy was pretty funny with the other characters talking about how unimportant they are (especially Tenchi :p )

The draw of this series (and anime) is really the characters and how stupid or over the top they are... and then of course the awesome ones like Ryoko, Washu, and Tenchi's grandpa XD

[Drew Perron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nabad. A trio of cute stories for those familiar with the series, each one having at least one thoughtfully fun idea each.

[James Zanghi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very beautiful story about Tenchi's childhood crush and the Wolf story was cool, too.