I think if I recall aright that someone mentioned earlier here that Kiyone was the only one that didn’t have
an interest in Tenchi,so the statement that all the girls are crushing for Tenchi should be modified to
exclude her.
In another thread and time I would argue this point until the cows come home, but this isn’t the place… 😎
Anyway, as for the Tenchi/Ryoko question, I think a lot of that whole paradigm comes from OVA 1 and the way it was handled by the coalition of talented writers, directors, and storyboarders(?). Being the very first in the franchise it definitely set a lot of the trends and mindsets that developed later in the franchise. While OVA by no means centered on the Tenchi/Ayeka/Ryoko triangle to even a fraction of a degree that TU or Tokyo did, in terms of those two girls got the lion’s share of the romance development. I mean, with both Ryoko and Ayeka we had several episodes over which to see their feelings for Tenchi evolve, while as with the other girls we really only have one or two isolated instances in the whole OVA where their feelings are shown, i.e. Mihoshi’s tipsy “He’s my destiny” scene, Washu’s “I want to make him mine!” scene, etc. Being part of Kajishima’s grand haremy plan OVA1 doesn’t point to any one girl over the other (and I am in no way minimizing the importance of the feelings of the other girls for Tenchi), but because of the way the show was directed and put together only Ryoko and Ayeka come off as strongly developed love interests. This leads to the majority of the audience making a choice between the two, and for most people this is Ryoko. Of the two, Ryoko is the more brash and charismatic, and it is very natural for so many people to feel that she is the one for Tenchi. She, more so than any of the other girls, draws Tenchi out of his shell and challenges him to change the way he looks at the world and what matters to him. In so doing she isn’t without fault, often crossing the line into just plain meanness, but overall, at least to me, she comes off as the compelling, confident, and devoted “other half” that fits perfectly with Tenchi.
TL;DR The Ayeka/Tenchi/Ryoko dynamic is a natural development out of the Direction and Storyboarding of OVA1.
