Manatsu No Eve (Daughter of Darkness)
I will give one thing for Pioneer, they are willing to offer some of their older anime titles at a great price and making the DVD version of Manatsu No Eve cost only $15.00 is a wonderful bargain.

Manatsu No Eve (also known by its English title, Daughter of Darkness) is based heavily on the Tenchi OAV (written by the same person responsible for episodes one through six of the OAV, Naoko Hasegawa), but first let me follow my normal procedure by dividing my review between the movie’s two elements, animation and storyline.

Animation
In the wake of the first Tenchi movie, Tenchi in Love, this one was given a much smaller budget but this lack of money does not harm the quality of the animation. You see the return to the richness of the OAV animation, in the detail of the background (you can feel the hot summer day) and the character profiles. The background isn’t reused at any time during the with each scene, each camera angle, being new. The special effects are on the same level of the OAV; they never overwhelm the storyline and find different ways to creatively add to it.

Storyline
Long ago on Jurai, during Startica, a boy prince made a friend with a strange girl. Seeing only goodness in her, the boy offered the bond of comradeship to the stranger. With only affection in her heart, she returned his offer with a gift, her love. But her own sins, her own darkness, came between them and the boy’s protectors revealed her true nature and banished her away.

In reliving those past events in a dream, the girl, Yuzuha-oni, discovered the boy prince, Yosho, is now on Earth. Centuries have pass by but she recognized the old priest as the one she loved (and still does). But her rage at being denied such a simple thing as love, led her to seek revenge against the Masaki family, to inflict pain for pain. To get her vengeance, Yuzuha took a piece of Tenchi’s hair to combine with hers and created an offspring, a daughter called Mayuka.

Again I must limit myself so none of the surprises are lost to the viewer but I will say this is my favorite of the Tenchi movies. The characters are from the OAV with Kiyone added to the mix. Some might object to me calling this an OAV movie because of Kiyone’s presenc but the Kiyone we see here is much different from the one in Tenchi Universe. Here Kiyone is calm, helpful and never raises her voice to Mihoshi. In return, Mihoshi is much like she is in the OAV, a little ditzy but very perceptive. We also see the further develop of the Ryoko/Ayeka friendship, Tenchi gaining a backbone (at a cost), Tenchi’s further development of his feelings for the girls (especially Ryoko) and more of Yosho’s secrets are revealed.

For me, Yuzuha has become my favorite Tenchi villain, much better than Kagato (typical mad scientist) and Kain (super killer). Yuzuha isn’t completely evil, her problem is a common one shared by many others, a life of self-pleasure until she found love. As she said, “Imagine, the darkness in love with the light.”

The reason I consider this an OAV movie is the number of clues in the movie. The floating onsen, the house is from the second OAV season, the personalities are from the OAV (especially when you listen to the subtitle where you have Washu calling Ryoko, Ryoko-chan), you have Yosho’s Tree, Funaho, and you have the Light Hawk Wings (called the Light Hawk Sword).

For a movie that only last sixty minutes, it gave a lot.