Ask John: Do Anime Sometimes Parody Each Other?

Question:
I’ll use the Tenchi Series as an example of my question since it’s easiest to recognize. Ryoko always seemed like a parody of Sayians from DBZ, complete with the tail. Also, Mihoshi looks like one of those girls from Ruin Explorers. Mihoshi even has the same vampire-ish top teeth that stick out.

Answer:
Parody, defined as imitation for the purpose of humorous effect or comedy, is a common literary device in anime. Especially comedy anime often parodies other anime, as well as Western movies and pop-culture references. I would say that the Tenchi Muyo parodies you’ve suggested are quite subjective, debatable ones, so allow me to present a few more obvious examples, along with some more obscure ones.

Perhaps the most famous and well-known anime parody is Mary from Project A-ko, the hulking female version of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star.

Another very well known parody is Cream Lemon episode 10: Star Trap, which features two special agents with long dark hair and a short red “wolf cut,” extremely reminiscent of the Dirty Pair, and a space ship that could have been taken directly out of the Star Trek cartoon.

Slayers Try parodies the classic Japanese live-action sentai hero team by making the heroes all old and feeble senior citizens.

The Bakuretsu Hunter first OAV contains an extended parody of the magical girl transformation.

Anime parodies aren’t limited to references or comical imitations of other anime, though. Love Hina parodies several non-anime archetypes, including RPG video games, Godzilla, the Chinese Saiyuki legend and traditional black & white Japanese samurai movies. Miami Guns contains extended parodies of numerous American films including The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Die Hard with a Vengeance. Excel Saga parodies absolutely everything, including life-sim video games, American action & horror movies, Leiji Matsumoto anime, the Excel Saga manga and even the Excel Saga animation itself.

The Fushigi Yuugi OAVs, The Supergal, and the Ten Little Gall Force OAV also parody themselves. The second Fushigi Yuugi OAV series contains out-take versions of scenes from the previous episode, altered for comic effect. The Supergal OAV includes “blooper” and “out-takes” similar to a Jackie Chan movie during its ending credits, and Ten Little Gall Force is a hilarious SD documentary on the making of the original Gall Force OAV trilogy.

Some anime parodies are a bit more subtle, though. Nadesico includes a brief sequence of Megumi, whose profession in the series is anime voice actress, costuming herself as a nurse. In fact, Megumi Hayashibara, Japan’s best known anime voice actress, was a nurse before becoming a voice actress and pop star.

There’s a very brief sight gag in Di-Gi-Charat that involves “Tetsu-Ashi Johnny” trading cards. These cards are actually a combination of Tetsujin 28 (Gigantor) and Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe) (“Tetsu” and “Ashi”). Let’s Go Inachu Ping Pong Club also parodies Ashita no Joe.

The list goes on and on. If you’d like to make mention of your favorite anime parodies, why not post them to the AnimeNation forum?