Photon: The Idiot Adventures (フォトン) is a Japanese OVA series created by Masaki Kajishima and directed by Koji Masunari. The scripts were written by Kajishima's frequent collaborator, Yousuke Kuroda, and Katsumi Hasegawa It was produced by AIC and was released from November 21, 1997 to February 18, 1999 for 6 episodes, and licensed by Discotek Media.
A manga version was written by Hiroshi Kanno on Monthly Dragon Junior magazine from 1997 to 1998 compiling up to 3 volumes.
Plot
Photon Earth seems like a regular simple-minded boy, but possesses superhuman strength. He engages in heroic adventures of different varieties until, because of a strange quirk of interstellar culture, he inadvertently marries a rebel space pilot named Keyne, and becomes involved in fighting an evil wannabe galactic emperor and his "bumbling henchmen". Photon's marriage to Keyne is a bit odd, as Keyne is well more matured than Photon. Yet Photon only sees Keyne as more like Aun's sister (who used to be Aun and Photon's guardian - whom he cared for extremely).
Novels
Three novels based on the series were written by Kuroda.
They have not yet been translated into English, but enough is known to say that the ending is slightly different and much more detail on the nature of Ahou Energy is explained.
Trivia
- Photon and Keyne's encounter is parallel towards Tenchi and Ryoko's in the first series.
- A 2018 doujinshi by Kajishima confirms that Photon occurs in the distant past of the planet Geminar, from the series Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar. Elements like Koros and Aho energy, carry over from the past but evolved into slightly different states. Names such as Lashara seemed to have survived through the ages. Interestingly, the protagonist of the show, Kenshi Masaki, is also a young hero with such strong superhuman abilities he's practically invincible.