Tasuke's Anime Dolly-a-Whenever Thread...

[tasuke]

Were the Tenchi Muyo figures actually licensed by or distributed by Pioneer, the laserdisc company?

PIONEER certainly licensed TOYNAMI to produce them, if that's what you mean.

Tenchi Muyo was the most popular and successful of PIONEER's multiple Anime holdings in the 1990's,
and in the very early 2000's, when Anime in the U.S. was beginning to go mainstream,
PIONEER was there as one of the early trailblazers, -along with BANDAI and their GUNDAM franchise-
attempting to ride the wave, and get the most popular and successful of their Anime properties onto Cable T.V.
and as much market-appropriate merchandise as they could into U.S. stores.

though Tenchi Muyo did have to be slightly edited/altered to air on CARTOON NETWORK,
it must have been reasonably successful even so, as PIONEER wasted no time rounding up U.S. licensees for merchandising,
and the best of them were TOYNAMI and their character doll line.

far as i know, these dolls were only available in collector/comic shops, and my mom got me all three of them,
at my favorite comic shop at the time, for just shy of $30 each.

Ayeka Masaki Jurai was my favorite, and the girl that inspired me to learn how to make doll clothing,
but Ryoko Hakubi and Tenchi Masaki were there as well, and also benefited from my gradually developing skills;