Ayeka/Pretty Sammy +

Overview

Tenchi Universe

Tenchi in Tokyo

Pretty Sammy +

Other Spin-offs

Magical Girl Pretty Sammy

In the Pretty Sammy OVA series, Ayeka Takada (高田 阿重霞, Takada Aeka?) (she was given the last name of her seiyū Yumi Takada) is a teenage girl that is also a classmate of both Ryoko, and Tenchi Kawai. She from a very wealthy family, is the chairman of the “student body,” and, she is skilled in an unspecified type of Chinese martial arts. In this universe she isn’t Sasami’s sister, with the role of Sasami’s older sibling now fulfilled by Tenchi.

She has a crush on Tenchi Kawai. Ayeka has three female followers, Yuri, Yuka, and Yuma, that she often tasks with spying on Ryoko, who also has a crush on Tenchi and is thus her rival. It is possible that both Ayeka and Ryoko are cousins, a kinship of which neither character is aware, and one that was never explicitly explored on screen.

In the first OVA, Ayeka is briefly transformed alongside Ryoko into a Love-Love Monster by Pixy Misa. In this monstrous form, she becomes more obsessive towards Tenchi until. Tenchi is forced to share his feelings to get through to Ayeka, this enabling Pretty Sammy to restore Ayeka to normal. This occasion was largely an anomaly as neither her or Ryoko are concerned with the main magical girl storyline unless directly forced to. She joined the other main Tenchi characters to stop Ramia in one possible grand finale however.

Just like in the main series Ayeka's rivalry towards Ryoko over Tenchi's affections is ongoing during their teenage years.

Overview

In Magical Project S (Pretty Sammy TV), Ayeka is known as Romio (露美御, Romio?), is the third candidate to be the queen of Juraihelm and a magical girl. She, not Ramia or Pixy Misa, ends up being the true final villain. She is not Sasami’s sister in this timeline, nor is she aware of her universe’s version of Tenchi.

Without Tenchi, she has no rivalry with Oryou, her universe’s counterpart to Ryoko, though the two still oppose each other indirectly. In a reversal of roles, it is Romio who is the rebel, and Oryou who fights for law and order.

Romio was a magical girl who preceded Pretty Sammy, making her a human from Earth rather than a Juraihelm native. Unlike Sammy, she became disillusioned with humanity, viewing it as evil and dedicating herself to wiping out all life on Earth.

She serves as a dark counterpart to Ayeka—a glimpse of what Ayeka might look like as a villain. Although they share some traits, Romio lacks Ayeka’s ties to Tenchi, Sasami, and her royal blood. Unlike Ayeka, who has a strong sense of responsibility due to her princess status, and is fiercely protective of her loved ones, Romio is openly manipulative, often hiding her dark intentions, and lack of empathy, behind a polite, cheerful façade. Where Ayeka’s intensity focuses on Tenchi, Romio channels that same obsessive nature into the destruction of humankind. Despite her evil deeds, Romio fully believes her actions are selfless and righteous, making her a twisted reflection of Ayeka.

Storyline

After she loses her bid for the throne, Romio disappears into the shadows. To preserve the surprise for savvy Tenchi viewers—that a variant of Ayeka would be a major plot element—the show utilized a meta-joke: initially presenting a generic anime girl as the third Queen candidate, and then later retconning that it was Romio all along, despite the first-seen third Queen candidate looking nothing like her.

Romio manipulating a depressed and desperate Ramia

She later reappears before Ramia, claiming she would help her attain the throne after Pretty Sammy restored the balance between Earth and Juraihelm, with Tsunami about to be crowned queen in a hail mary scheme. In reality, Romio was merely manipulating Ramia, even showering her with praise to gain her trust. Her true goal was not the Juraihelm throne, but the genocide of humankind. She was truthful when she claimed she didn't care to become queen anymore. She didn't care who was queen, so long as she could destroy humankind, but Ramia seemed to be more viable for her plans than Tsunami

Much to Rumiya's protests, Ramia accepted Romio's offer and Romio kidnapped Eimi Date (Sasami's classmate) and they turn her into her own magical girl, "Love-Me Eimy", for her plan to sabotage Tsunami and put Ramia in the throne. It seemed it was Ramia who empowered Eimi, not Romio, given Romio as a human, needed Ramia's magic and expertise to acomplish the feat. The process to create Eimi seemed to be different from Pixy Misa's given that Romio had to use a mind control device with a remote receiver to control Eimi.

After that plan failed, Romio revealed her true self to Ramia and attempts to drain Juraihelm's magic with her "NT System" (a device that can drain magic), and use the stolen magic power to send earth into the sun.

It was revealed that Romio was once a magical girl who predated Pretty Sammy, meaning she is fully human. Like Pretty Sammy, she was chosen and tasked with helping humanity. However, she was unable to fix the balance between Earth and Juraihelm.

This failure led her to believe that mankind itself was evil and beyond redemption, which made her life goal the destruction of the entire planet. This hatred did not seem to extend to the people of Juraihelm, whom she only stole magic from but did not try to harm. She was later even surprised that a native, Rumiya, would choose to oppose her.

Romio's plan was stopped by the combined might of Pretty Sammy, Pixy Misa, Ryo-Ohki, and Rumiya with the assistance of Ginji Kawai, and Professor Washu, who develops her own NT System. After her NT System is destroyed, Romio is carried off into the distance by an angry Ramia.

At the end of the series, despite her defeat, Romio hadn’t given up and is now leading the Martians against Earth, as Pretty Sammy and Pixy Misa moved in to stop her.

Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (Manga)

In the epilogue following Pixy Misa's defeat, Romio is strongly implied to be the next major antagonist. Ramia's plot to sabotage Tsunami's coronation is exposed, leading to Tsunami's ascension as queen. Subsequent panels introduce a cryptic presence lurking in the shadows. Shortly thereafter, the antagonist "Love Me Eimi," an evil magical girl, emerges and engages Sammy in combat.

Given the narrative's consistent parallels to Magical Project S, it is inferred that Romio is orchestrating Eimi's actions, mirroring her role as Eimi's mastermind in the original series. While Romio's physical appearance wasn't depicted, her influence is established through Eimi's actions- This suggests a continuation of Romio's antagonistic role as a future adversary for Sammy with the only major change being that she is now doing it without Ramia's help.

Trivia

• Unlike Ryoko, whose variant Oryou is Jurian in Magical Project S, Ayeka remains human in all Pretty Sammy continuities. In fact, it's stated that she is a magical girl who preceded Sasami.
• It's likely Ayeka's variant, Romio, was either the magical girl champion of the previous queen, or a failed queen candidate, before Tsunami. She mentioned growing weary and disappointed with humanity in her mission, due to humanity's wickedness seemingly having no end despite her best efforts. Considering that, as a human, she must age like a regular human, her age aligns with the rule of the previous queen. While Romio mentions failing to redeem humanity it's unknown if this was part of a queen's selection process or her frustration at having a lasting impact after succeding.
• Paradoxically, while Romio worked tirelessly to help humanity as a magical girl, humanity at large seemed to have forgotten her to the point of being unaware of the existence of magic. Even after Pretty Sammy’s debut, children and adults such as Kiyone, were shocked to learn that magical girls, let alone, magic was real. The cause of this unawareness is unknown, but it is possible Romio was asked to work in secret. Pretty Sammy did not have that luxury, as Pixy Misa’s attacks were overtly public and chaotic; thus, secrecy was never an option for Sasami. Furthermore Jurailhelm’s council decided to become public during Tsunami’s reign.
• Romio's motivation of destroying humanity as punishment, due to their perception that humanity is inherently evil and beyond redemption, and thus their main motivation for their evil plan, is shared with the chief sorceress from Sasami's Magical Girl Club. It can be assumed that the chief sorceress is partially a counterpart to Romio.

Gallery

The version of Romio that appeared in the first episode to hide her resemblance to Ayeka.

Ramia, Tsunami, and Romio