Tenchi Muyo is a classic anime that has a really messy history and it can be confusing for people to follow. Especially if you were a fan in the past since many continuities have continued in a complicated way. But while a bit odd, if we analyze the No Need for Tenchi franchise, things are not as complicated as they might be, we do need to break down the different continuities in the multiverse and then break each one down.
The original canon of Tenchi Muyo can be quite messy as it has kept getting new entries through out the year. It has now gotten the name of the Ryo-Ohki timeline and it’s the original one by the creator Masaki Kajishima. It is made up of Tenchi Muyo OVAS 1 -5, Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki: The Night before The Carnival, Tenchi Muyo! GXP, Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting and Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar. It also includes some obscure spin-offs like Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure, Photon: The Idiot Adventures, Spaceship Agga Ruter. As mentioned this timeline is the most convoluted so we’ll take a look at it later in detail.
After that we have the Tenchi Universe Timeline, it starts similar ot the OVAs and released aroaund the time of the original OVAs, but this 26 episode series is an alternate universe with its own story and ending. It was followed up by Tenchi the Movie Tenchi In Love and Tenchi Forever! The Movie (Tenchi In Love 2) which serves as the finale. There’s a new project called Tenchi Galaxy although at this point its unknown if it’ll be a sequel to Universe or just a spiritual sequel being a new canon.
Then we have The Daughter of Darkness Timeline. This is from Tenchi the Movie 2. But despite having that 2 in there is not a sequel to anything. I place it here since this movie both references and contradicts both the Ryo-Ohki timeline and the Universe Timeline. It doesn’t really work with any of the other timelines either, so you just have to imagine it as a timeline where similar things happened but its canon to none. Better to watch it after Universe and Ryo-Ohki.
Tenchi in Tokyo Timeline is a hybrid yet simple one as its only a 26 episode series. It can kind of fit the Universe timeline it can almost work but you’d need to ignore the origin and finale. Another series that is hybrid yet simple stand alone is Ai Tenchi Muyo! is a 60 episodes that are four minute shorts that is its own canon. It also kind of fits the Universe timeline but it references stuff from the whole franchise making it its own unique timeline. For both of these you just need to know the main idea of who the characters are.
Magical Girl Timelines are the Sasami Spin-offs. These are more of a magical-girl parody shows. there are 3 different ones and each entry for the most part is its own continuity, this incldues: Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (3 episode OVA), Magical Project S (Pretty Sammy TV, 26 episodes), Sasami: Magicval Girls Club (26 episode TV series). Technically this spin-off came from Tyo-Ohki in the Mihoshi Special since there is a dream sequence that introduces the Pretty Sammy idea.
While I put all 3 Sasami shows there each one has its own contradicting stories so they can’t be sequels to each other. But since they are all intended to be Sasami’s imagination they could all be canon in that way to each other. Or you can think of those as just the imagination of Sasami on different timelines (One for Universe, one for in Tokyo, one for Ai)
Now going back to the Ryo Ohki timeline, it’s divided into different OVAs going from the early 90s all the way to the 2020s, with each one being roughly 6 episodes each for a total of 31. You don’t need to watch the GXP or war on germinar but they are part of the main canon. They are referenced in the OVAs and you’ll miss those details. Now for the other spin-offs I mentioned they are strictly spin-offs, being independent sci-fi adventures that just happen to be in the Tenchi Ryo-Ohki timeline but they don’t really interact and only have small references to the worlds. One of them is notorious for being a Hentai.
At the end of the day the timeline became such a mess since many of their productions just took elements from the different canons. They didn’t think much of it but it can make a messy list of shows since they all look similar but are wildily different adventures and canons. I did not include Light Novels, two are Ryo-Ohki canon, one is for the Daughter of Darkness canon, you have some direct anime adaptations of Univrse and Tokyo in manga form, and the two movies. Also a Comic original story.