Surround a single character in an anime or manga with a bevy of beauties of the opposite sex, and comedic hi-jinks are certain to follow.

Tag-team partner in fandom Wilma Jandoc and I have looked at a number of these “;harem”; series over the years, with “;Love Hina,”; “;Negima,”; “;Ranma 1/2”; and “;Urusei Yatsura”; on that list.

Until now, though, we haven't looked at one of the longest-running harem franchises to date, the “;Tenchi Muyo”; franchise. The reason: Trying to decipher the canon and which series fall under the “;official”; time line can be a rather daunting task.

In English the franchise has been released under the banner of 14 different anime and manga series; even more, including a bunch of novels, exists in Japanese.

The franchise's core rests in the six-episode “;Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki”; OAV (original animation video, or direct-to-video animation) released in 1992 in Japan, a release that Pioneer Entertainment—the company that would become Geneon later in life—saw fit to introduce on videotape and laser disc (under the simpler name “;Tenchi Muyo!”;) when it entered the U.S. market in 1993.

Here, we meet Tenchi Masaki, a teen who lives a normal, quiet life in the countryside with his father and grandfather. Normal and quiet would be incredibly dull to watch, though, so one day Tenchi lets his curiosity get the best of him, ventures into a cave that had been off-limits to him and inadvertently releases a female space pirate, Ryoko, who had been held there for 700 years.

Ryoko's re-emergence serves as an intergalactic trigger that brings a number of other characters (most of them conveniently women) to Earth. Ayeka, princess of the kingdom of Jurai, arrives seeking vengeance, believing Ryoko is responsible for the disappearance of her beloved brother, Yosho. Sasami, Ayeka's younger sister, tags along and quickly befriends Ryo-Ohki, a “;cabbit,”; or a part-cat, part-rabbit creature, that has the ability to transform itself into a spaceship.

When Ryoko summons a demon in her battle against Ayeka that subsequently escapes her control, the resultant chaos brings ditzy Galaxy Police detective Mihoshi crashing onto the scene. Even Washu, a scientific genius and mom to Ryoko, gets in on the action before this OAV is over.

In the middle of it all is poor Tenchi. It turns out his grandfather is Yosho, who's been lying low on Earth for so many years, and he's a Juraian prince. Ryoko thus is smitten by Tenchi's power potential, while Ayeka's heart is set a-flutter by his regal roots. And everyone else likes him because, gosh darn it, he's such a nice guy.

From all this was born a romantic comedy—the over-the-top competition between Ryoko and Ayeka vying for Tenchi's affections making up a good chunk of this—that wasn't afraid to take a turn toward dramatic science fiction every now and then to explore the untapped power within Tenchi and the kingdom of Jurai.

HOW THE franchise went about telling that story following the original OVA diverged over the years. Masaki Kajishima, credited as one of the series' creators, went on to create a one-episode “;Night Before the Carnival”; special and a second “;Ryo-Ohki”; OAV in 1994 (again lumped under the “;Tenchi Muyo!”; banner in the U.S.), in which a spiritual link between Sasami and Jurai's guiding force, Tsunami, is revealed and a hyperdimensional being, Lady Tokimi, dispatches an emissary to bring back Washu in her desire to learn whether a being more powerful than her exists.

Kajishima brought his story full circle with the 26-episode “;Tenchi Muyo GXP”; TV series in 2002, which dumps Tenchi and the established cast in favor of introducing accident-prone teen Seina Yamada and his misadventures as a Galaxy Police recruit; and a third “;Ryo-Ohki”; OAV in 2003, where Tokimi sends a second emissary to study Tenchi.

While Kajishima's story has been acknowledged as the series “;true”; canon, it hasn't stopped other interpretations from muddying the waters. Naoko Hasegawa, who wrote the third and fifth episodes of the original “;Ryo-Ohki”; OAV, establishes a different canon with 13 novels; the “;Mihoshi Special,”; in which Mihoshi's Galaxy Police partner Kiyone is introduced; and the second “;Tenchi”; movie, “;The Daughter of Darkness,”; in which a teen girl shows up on Tenchi's doorstep claiming he's her father. Artist Hitoshi Okuda takes the concepts introduced in the first “;Ryo-Ohki”; OAV and takes them in a different direction with two manga series, released in the U.S. by Viz as “;No Need for Tenchi!”; and “;The All-New Tenchi Muyo!”;

One 26-episode TV series, “;Tenchi Universe”; in 1995, takes the gang through adventures in space and time, a concept extended in the first “;Tenchi”; movie, “;Tenchi Muyo in Love”;; another, the 26-episode TV series “;Tenchi in Tokyo”; in 1997, sends Tenchi to the city and introduces a new girl, Sakuya, who threatens to throw the entire Ryoko-Ayeka-Tenchi love triangle askew.

What happens in “;Tenchi in Tokyo”; could be used as a microcosm of the franchise as a whole: It's strongest when it focuses on the original group dynamics established in the original “;Ryo-Ohki”; OAV, but its momentum rises and falls with every new major character introduced to the universe. Some are memorable, while others aren't as much; explaining the relationships between all of them would take a large flow chart.

Does the original “;Ryo-Ohki”; hold up after 18 years? Absolutely. Whether the rest of the franchise holds up, though, is really a matter of how much audiences can tolerate of the ever-expanding hi-jinks.