Reply To: Thoughts on Tenchi/Ryoko

I didn’t know that at all! It would have been better for her not to have been… because she just feels a bit flakey to me because of that It just helps reinforce my love for the Tenchi x Ryoko pairing ^.^

I agree with you. However, the “tragic princess” element is basically what became the standard after OVA 1. All of her other incarnations are rooted in that. ;

Another reason is why I think tenchi/Ryoko was the choice tenchi would always would make in the end than the whole Ayeka/Tenchi pairing is because in the ova tenchi risked his twice to save Ryoko…

Back in the day when I would get into shipping debates, this was one of the things I cited. Naturally, as usually happens with people who are emotionally tied to things/ideas, these citations were ignored. *lol*

OVA wise, I always found it interesting that when Ryoko was kidnapped by Dr. Clay, Tenchi felt it. Now as to whether or not that was his abilities of “Omniscience” coming to light, or he has a bond with Ryoko in a certain way that is stronger than the rest is purely debatable and subjective.

Debatable, yeah, but there’s plenty of evidence to support such a bond. After all, Yosho wanted Tenchi to go to Jurai in his stead with Ryoko. Yosho and Kiyone did things to pique Tenchi’s interest in Ryoko. As a child, it is believed that Tenchi could sense Ryoko (in astral form) outside the cave. When Kiyone died, Tenchi fled to Ryoko’s Cave, where Ryoko used her limited abilities in astral form to shield him from the snow. Ryoko put a part of herself into Chibi, the cat that was near death which Tenchi rescued.

So yeah, I think it is safe to say there’s a deeper bond between Ryoko and Tenchi, but since Tenchi was raised with Ryoko around (in astral form), I think that is understandable.

Ryoko is my personal favorite of the two, though, so initially I am happy at the thought of the Ryoko/Tenchi pairing. Ayeka doesn’t exactly need to be left in the dust though. Of course, that’s my personal opinion.

In the canon, Aeka isn’t left out due to the harem ending. ^_~

You can blame Hasegawa-sensei’s influence for that. As I understand it, Kajishima-sensei didn’t want Aeka to be still hung up on Yosho in a romantic way, but Hasegawa-sensei, as script writer, added that element into the final version of the script because she saw Aeka as more of a tragic princess heroine. OVA 1 has three influences — Kajishima, Hasegawa, and Hayashi, which is why there are some inconsistencies

Well that’s why Hasegawa was a script writer, lol What was Kajishima going to do with Ayeka in any kind of important capacity? Hasegawa understood that the main characters should probably have more personality, even shallow ones, then just being plot points and trophies in a harem on screen.

“Script polisher” would be more of what she did. After all, the earlier versions of the script were written by Kajishima-sensei. I’ve seen some of them. Episode 2 and 5 were the ones that Hasegawa-sensei did the final version of the script for.

I would disagree that Hasegawa-sensei understood the characters more. After all, Kajishima-sensei is the one who created the characters. She had her vision of the characters and her vision of where the story should go. Because she changed things to her vision, vs what Kajishima had envisioned, that’s why she had no role in the rest of the canon and went to do her own, very successful, spinoff line.

When Hasegawa-sensei started writing her spinoff novels, she when to Kajishima-sensei to ask some questions. She admitted that she had no understanding of the Choushin, nor Washu. Her vision of Washu, which is carried on in her novels, is that Washu was simply a mad scientist.

@Dagon123 – I think that Hayashi would have preferred a Ryoko x Tenchi pairing and my understanding that this is his influence on OVA 1. Kajishima-sensei apparently always wanted a harem ending. He structured the story so that such an ending works (Jurai would heartily approve of Tenchi marrying the harem for a whole host of political reasons).

It’s just inevitable at some point in a harem that you probably piss off fans because their character wasn’t chosen for reasons ranging from rejection (Tenchi chooses [name]) to complete disregard (Tenchi chooses no one and keeps them all in limbo).

And that showed up in the TU spinoff, as there were people upset with how the 3rd movie (which wrapped up the TU timeline anime-wise) paired Tenchi off with Ryoko.

…if Tenchi was in no way related to Ayeka whatsoever (discovered in Ep2 when she realized the sword works in sync with him), she probably wouldn’t have developed those feelings despite Tenchi being the same person he always has been. Whereas Ryoko doesn’t care if he’s Juraian or not.

You might be right, but I’ve suspected that the reason Tenchi attracts the girls is that they are subconsciously reacting to the power within him.

I wonder if that is true though,seeing as in the first ova it is evident that it’s Yosho himself who is pushing the whole Aeka/Tenchi relationship.

True. Of course, Yosho was married and didn’t want Aeka still interested in him, so why not use the Katsuhito persona to accomplish his mission. *lol*

But yeah, after Aeka (and Sasami) showed up, that changed the dynamics of things. Every subsequent girl continued that change.