Reply To: The boy who does not Exist

Conceptually, the story has several good ideas and potential for expansion. Talla, the twisted fourth goddess, and her creation of her champion, Ekei, has some throwbacks to Manatsu no Eve, where Yuzuha created her puppet Mayuka. Even the repeated theft of Ekei’s hair by Washu seemed to harken back to that setting. Talla had no real endearing quality that would make her sympathetic. Overall, she seems quite psychotic and vindictive, particularly in her motives. This is not a detracting point unto itself, being evil for the sake of evil, but one wonders about if she has any more depth. During the flashback scene with Tsunami, the two are arguing over the repetitiveness of life, of birth and death leading to the next generation. Talla initially had some valid commentary about its superficial pointlessness, yet she was also quite childish in simply wanting to destroy what she did not understand or want to accept. What would she do after destroying the multiverse? Beyond destruction and revenge, what were her motives? Perhaps she was shortsighted in this, but one would think with aeons to wait and plan, she might have more depth to her schemes. I will say that her brutality was refreshing. She had no fear of causing others pain, which I think the Tenchi franchise needs, an actual villain as opposed to a misunderstood potential ally.

Ekei himself seemed a nice fellow, but he did seem to fall into many of the Mary Sue tropes. He waltzes into the household, and everyone immediately accepts him, particularly Ryo-Ohki. Now, the acceptance is partially averted since Talla is actively rewriting people’s memories, particularly Tenchi and Ryoko’s. Thus, they are forced to accept him more than just blindly welcoming him. He helps improve Sasami’s cooking on his first day there. He stands toe-to-toe with Tenchi, even defeating him in the endgame. In the final battle, he knocks Ryoko aside with one stroke. He is the one to take out Talla and become the hero of the day. Still, reading a Tenchi story, I would have expected to see more of Tenchi and Ryoko in action than Ekei.

To the Tenchi cast themselves, some of their characterization seemed off. In particular, Mihoshi walked into the house and drew her weapon on an unarmed man who was welcomed into the house. Admittedly, Mihoshi has been characterized as a random character before, so this can be somewhat ignored. Ryoko was also pretty calm about this mystery man getting with her little sister, even after the demon princess started feeling the wrongness of his existence. Ayeka laughed at another young woman getting exposed in the bathhouse, after it happened to her and experienced that massive embarrassment. Even Tsunami cut off Talla’s hand in the flashback, rather than something less extreme, like reaching to take the orb away or to use a defensive barrier. Considering that this story seems to be pulling almost completely from the OVA continuity, these all seem out of place for the characters as they have been established.

As to Ryo-Ohki, I was surprised as I have not seen anyone create a romantic interest before Ken-Ohki (Universe) or Sasami (Pretty Sammy, where Ryo-Ohki is male). It was an interesting idea, but it felt rather rushed. All in all, the idea is a novel one and one to be explored, given a good amount of time for it to develop well. Give her time to learn who is he before she reveals her different forms. How might she fall in love with him: at first sight, after months of knowing each other? This could have been an opportunity to develop Ryo-Ohki, as well as Ekei.

Lastly, the format of the story could use some improvement. Some passes to clean up the grammar and spelling would help the readability. Also, the colored speech is an interesting idea, but it does cause eye-strain, making it difficult to read. Perhaps using a more traditional prose format or a full drama script format might help with readability.

In conclusion, I believe the author has some good ideas, but I believe the implementation could be improved. Perhaps having an outline to fix pacing and development might be a way to help.