When I was nine years old
yes
just nine years old
I saw for the first time in my life
a new kind of art
And yet it was more than art
it transcended what I knew as art
What I understood as anything
Something outside of my experience yet seemingly
constructed intimately from the qualia of it
Something beyond recognition and yet somehow
instantly recognisable
and recognising
But I'm getting ahead of myself
Let me return to the beginning
When I was nine years old
I saw a television programme
An animated television programme
But not animated like the cartoons I had so naively, blankly, passively consumed prior to that day
What a fool I was
When I was nine years old I saw for the first time a new species of cartoon, a new genus,
phylum, kingdom
That opened a door, or if you like a portal, in my mind
My animus
Animus
Animus the Latin term for
Rational soul, intellect, will
In Jungian philosophy animus the unconscious
masculine element in the feminine mind
And anima the unconscious feminine impulse in the masculine mind
And in an extraordinary coincidence
If indeed it can properly be called a coincidence
When I was just nine years old I saw for the first time in my life
Anime
This was unlike the crude exacting cartoons
I had seen previously as I say it was a new kingdom that
Beckoned me in to fill its throne
The delicate line-work
Blending the subtle order of almost lifelike human proportions
With the even more lifelike imprecision
Required to represent orders twin
The other half of the consuming snake
In the ouroboros of emotional reality
Chaos
Looking back now
After many years of study in the field of anime
And consultations with leading scholars
Travels all over the world and
Terrifying, paralysing introspection
I realised the impressionistic quality of the anime that I saw
Dreamlike
Flowing
And yet as in a dream not incomplete
Everything that needed to be present was present
And everything that needed to be present that was not directly perceptible
Was implied
So clearly understood without being stated
So intimately
Directly and clearly perceptible
Cartesian
Undoubtable
But beyond Descartes for this was not the solipsistic
experiencing of anime
That characterised Descartes meditations
But a genuine
Connection with the other
The artists Monet, Cézanne, Cassatt
And above and beyond that pantheon
Masaki Kajishima and Hiroki Hayashi
The Anime
That I saw on that day that changed my life changed me
Was called Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki
Let us begin by considering the name Tenchi
Tenchi
Tenchi
If we draw the kanji for this word Tenchi
we see that it is made of two smaller terms, these roughly English words
Heaven
and Earth
Renowned philosopher Alister Gillies elaborated on this dual meaning
This dialectic if you will
But
Let us not get ahead of ourselves again
There is a book
A vital, life changing important book
At once reference guide, manual for living and quasi-religious text
The book
Is the man
The name of the man is the name of the book Tenchi
An understanding of Tenchi
Positioned between heaven and earth
is a path
to a greater understanding
But then there is the other word
Muyo
No need
No need for heaven and earth
At nine years old heaven and earth encompassed everything
or so I thought I had not yet
experienced anime
To say there was no need for heaven and earth was
a paradox, a blithe
callous dismissal into godless contingency
I was thrown into a chaotic fugue
for days I lay there neither eating, drinking
nor sleeping
My parents called a doctor but i knew
This was beyond medicines power to remedy
I was not sick
I was captivated
More, insatiable I had to know
what lay behind the puzzle
I returned to the anime, always
journeying back to the text,  uncovering new meanings
The story here is of a boy
Tenchi Masaki. Tenchi
The boy
perhaps more than a boy, certainly more than a boy, yet
less than a man
He has lost his mother
He does not remember her
He knows only the sloppy indiscipline of his father, Nobuyuki Masaki
and the quiet, temperance
and stoicism of his grandfather, Katsuhito
Katsuhito has another name, another identity
But we will return to this later
For now let us say that Tenchi is not yet a man
He has lost his mother
He is inexperienced
But curious
I too was curious as a boy
I too lived in an environment dominated by older male figures
My brothers
And my Father
The shrine
There is a shrine, a sacred place in a cave watched over by his grandfather
Tenchi is forbidden from entering it
But as in so many of the stories that dominate our collective unconscious
He must first disobey the authority of his forebears
to gain their true wisdom
Tenchi Masaki reflects his grand unconscious heritage
His journey into the forbidden sanctum of the shrine
is really a journey into the self
Just as I too was journeying into myself
Watching him on the screen
What will he discover in the cave
Will he find what kind of man he is to become
There is a deep ... irony
in journeying into a cave to receive wisdom
it is the reversal of the platonic conception of reality
where what is seen on the walls of the cave is merely an illusion
This is one of the many layers of irony
that the artists have imbued within this rich
oh, so rich,
text
Will Tenchi find the man he is to be
would I find the man I would become
But it is not a man that awaits him within the cave
not a man at all it is a woman
A mythopoetic avatar of chaos
Thrust into the order of Tenchi, of heaven and earth
She is a spirit a demon
Ryoko
Through years of careful study we unlock a deeper meaning
Ryoko's awakening is as the awakening of the feminine in Tenchi
The anima in the animus of the anime
His first encounter with a woman, she tries to kiss him but she has no skin
She has been sealed away for centuries
Her earthly form has rotted away
This is the literal interpretation
But scholars would read this scene as saying that without the masculine
without animus
without order
even chaos, the feminine, anima
has faded
These images burned in my mind for days
though it felt like years
I eagerly awaited the next episode of the anime
and in the meantime I pondered and pondered what I had seen
Little did I know
That even greater revelations where in store
In episode two of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki first aired in Japan in September of 1992
we learn a shocking secret
I have watched this episode many times
too many to count
Studied it
Even paced the lonely halls of my home with a copy of the script
trying to find the formula for its genius
but alas it is too perfect to express in such precise terms
We learn shockingly, blindingly
that Ryoko is not a demon at all
but a being from beyond the stars
not from earth
but from the heavens
Could the creators of the anime be trying to tell us
that not only in Tenchi the bridge between heaven and earth
But also that in meeting Ryoko
Transcends the dialectic between them
I have spent literally hundreds of hours with my tapes. Poring over and over this question.
Tenchi Muyo, what is the meaning?
The secret is hidden
Deep within the text
Although Tenchi denies the feminine anima
Symbolised by the sexual advances of the spirit of chaos Ryoko
yet more embodiments of the feminine press themselves into his life
There is Ayeka princess of the planet Jurai
who called Tenchi, Master Tenchi
Surely a deliberate illusion to Hegel's dialectic of master and slave
There is her sister Sasami
and detective Mihoshi of the Galaxy police
herself another paradox
a police officer, order
yet a clutz, and a woman
chaos, and then there is Washu
Oh
Washu chan
It is through the character of Ayeka that Tenchi learns his true identity as a man
His grandfather Katsuhito
is actually Yōshō
Ayeka's fiancee, Tenchi is royal
Royalty, but cut off, fallen if you will, from his kingdom in heaven
Bound to live on earth
Mortal
Weak
Vulnerable
In the final episode of the original video animation aired in September 2005 in Japanese
November 2006 in English
it is revealed that Tenchi himself is the avatar of a greater being
known simply as Kami Tenchi
The god of heaven and earth
By transcending the dialectic Tenchi recognises himself as both god and man
and excepts the connection to the divine that his Juriaian ancestry gives him
In this way the creators of the anime
have somehow tapped into and
dare i say surpassed
the biblical archetype of Christ
How could mortal men have created such a dense and intricate text, so layered, so complex
yet beautiful in its many resonances
throughout history great thinkers and philosophers have supposed that there is something divine and ineffable in creation
Plato supposed that the poetry of the the rhapsodes was inspiration
literally the inhalation of the breath of the muses
I never believed it
But in my many years of studying this anime
I can't help but catch the merest glimpse of the minds of Kajishima and Hayashi,
These men, mortal men behind the myth yet perhaps
More than men
Perhaps they are telling us that they too are Tenchi
They too bridge heaven and earth
This one anime, Tenchi Muyo
is the thesis, the apotheosis of art and artistic theory
whose meaning will resound down the centuries
in academies and universities
Galleries and classrooms
Convention halls and perhaps someday
even churches
And yet there is more
Always more
Returning to the text
Another story
Another time and place another reality
In episode two of the critically acclaimed series Ai Tenchi Muyo!
a new different version of Tenchi is teaching in a girls high school
Why is he teaching in a girls high school?
Why is this avatar of god, the universe, of power teaching
Teaching, again the creators of the anime show us his Christ like qualities
And yet
Continuously
Tenchi denies the feminine
He's bound
in a sexualised, ritualistic manner by the members of the student council
In episode three this theme is repeated
Bondage
When Tenchi is first stripped and then tied down again by the science club
This repetition is itself an echo an instance of the archetype if you will
Of a scene from season one episode seven of the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki original video animation
first aired in September 1993 in Japanese an June 1994 in english
In which Washu
oh Washu chan
or is it Washu sama
again binds Tenchi in her lab in an apparent attempt to extract a sperm sample
the crude sexual reading is obvious
but beyond that
the context of the scene belies a deeper truth
Washu is attempting to understand Tenchi
to see him
to recognise the divine in his seed
a quest made all the more powerful
and rendered all the more deeply ironic
by her amnesia of her own divine nature
she too is heaven and earth
she too is Tenchi
Still the paradox resounded in my mind
what was it to transcend these dialectics
Heaven and earth. Male and female. Up and down. Anima, Animus, Girls high school
What was the secret the grand unifying theory if you will
of the anime
returning to the texts
always returning to the texts
there was one final clue
so simple and yet
profound so brilliant
A single line, yes a single line
of the first episode of the sixth instalment of the Tinchi Muyo franchise Ai Tenchi Muyo!
first aired in October 2014 in Japanese
and June 2018 in English
the actor
the avatar of Dionysus, who delivered this line, this
it's one statement, thesis, manifesto
on reality and nature was Juli Maddalena in English
and Nao Tōyama in Japanese
after many. many hours of listening
I cannot decide which moment is more profound
did these performers know
the magnitude of this line
it's place in the anime, it's place in history
did they know it's simple and profound power
They have not answered my letters. I have sent many
Both using my university note paper and from my own personal desk
perhaps like the ancient priests of that erratic god
they have pledged to keep the sacred secret
The line
The line that changed the world, changed my life, changed me, made me
and at last gave me the vision to see clearly the solution to the paradox
the character of Momo Kawanagare
Mono
So innocent and childlike
Momo the Japanese word for peach
There are connotations of freshness
ripeness
nubility
yet Momo herself is a being of ancient power
herself a being from beyond the stars, she says
this line to Tenchi
the avatar of god and the true fulfillment of the archetype of the divine child
this one line
that rattles the stars rattles meaning with such utter profundity that is has no equal in literature
film or religious text
"I'm not upset that you where able to see my panties"
Again the crude sexual interpretation is obvious
but scholars of the art form
can learn to see beyond
these surface level readings
I myself have spent years studying anime
Researching it my house my dwelling is full of tapes. Sanctum
Hundreds and hundreds of hours of dedicated and precise thought
reveal as if through a window
The hidden meaning
"I'm not upset that you where able to see my panties"
Do you comprehend the simplicity of it
the beauty
The hegelian dialectic of recognition returns again
and Tenchi is seen and seen to see
His gaze tactically averted through shyness or perhaps what Jean-Paul Sartre called nausea
nevertheless
constructs the other
who in turn constructs him as constructing
but it is not the relationship of master and slave
but the true recognition of anima and animus
Endlessly, magically, beautifully seeing each other in an ouroboros at the centre of which is the panty shot
in which we the audience are made complicit and participatory in this dialectic of recognition
Tenchi, heaven and earth
the highest dimensions of art captured in this one moment forever
by men, mortal men, yet acting as avatars of the muses
the panty shot forever
repeated again and again throughout the series
resounding through the collective unconscious of humanity
the panty shot
the panty shot
Archetype
Anima
Animus
amo
anime
