Masaki Jurai is the sister of Shinou Jurai, the first emperor of the planet Jurai. She first appears in the novel True Tenchi Muyo! Volume 1: Jurai," as well as the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki doujinshi, Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru 21 Seiki-ban 1[1] (although it seems the story from it is being overwritten by events in anime episodes). She makes her animated debut in Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting.
Background
Masaki is the reason her brother came to find the Chousin goddess Tsunami. They got into a disagreement of some kind and she ran away. Her brother went to find her and stumbled upon a sleeping Tsunami. Tsunami saw that the man's descendants would produce the higher power that she was looking for and gave him the seeds of what would become the Royal Trees, granting Jurai's Royal Family great power. It seems that she did join him in the founding of Jurai for an unknown amount of time. Long enough to at least get her own Jurai Treeship. But her brother did not want the continued responsibility of being emperor of Jurai, and he planned to push leadership onto Masaki and run away.
Masaki was a bit too clever for her brother and ran away instead, embarking on an exploration quest. It is Masaki who founded Earth and registered it as a colony of Jurai. However, she set it up in a manner so that it wouldn't register on any databases until another person found it, possibly to keep people from going there until it would have been too late anyway. Masaki apparently gave birth to at least one child while on Earth, as Funaho and her sister were both revealed to be her descendants. It is postulated that she must have first arrived on Earth 100,000 years ago[2].
Masaki with young Azusa.
Centuries later, approximately 1200 CE on Earth, the spacefaring future emperor, Azusa Masaki Jurai, was sent to Earth by Tsunami after a battle with Kagato. Azusa discovered that Masaki created an astral clone of herself and left it on the dark side of the moon, supported by a cutting of her Royal Treeship. Masaki's actual Royal Tree was rooted on Earth long ago, which usually renders it powerless. If the tree on Earth completely loses its power, so would the cutting on the moon, and her astral would be lost with it,[3].
Masaki talking with Tenchi's son.
According to the doujinshi that originally provided most of the early information about her, Masaki ends up meeting the son of Tenchi Masaki who also ran away from his home on Earth. While he talks to her about his problems with his overbearing mother, Masaki complains about her brother. Eventually the two fall in love, realizing how much they have in common. The goddess Tokimi gives Masaki her body back and when Tenchi's son grows up, she marries him. Later, the two run away from their home on Earth and travel the galaxy as archeologists exploring historic ruins. They also have a daughter, who, in turn, runs away from her parents to live with Tenchi because she's tired of being dragged around and wants a steady home. This convinces them to return to Earth, at least as a base from which they continue their explorations.
However, In Tenchi Muyo! GXP Paradise Starting, her story seems to be altering. In the newer version of events, Masaki meets Seina Yamada and his crew when they land the Tabletop Island spaceship on the moon for some preliminary testing before its mooring south of Japan. She begins by pretending to be a ghost and teasing Jovia Jovis. Once Kuis Panta recognizes the ghost to be Masaki, Jovia gets mad and (annoyed that she couldn't hit the immaterial Masaki) magically forces Masaki's astral to inhabit a material body that she creates on the spot. Tsunami/Sasami, on Earth, recognizes the reappearance of Masaki's astral and arrives to meet her. The two of them then go to the Tenchi residence so Washu can make sure that the body Jovia gave her is stable. In a detail that would need to be changed for the above story to be integrated, it is mentioned that her current body is not able to bear children.
Tiring of being Washu's guinea pig, Masaki returns to residing with Seina's crew, living in the magical environment on the Kamidake and later on Tabletop Island. But Tsunami returns her to Tenchi's home before the events of Paradise War start up, so she can't interfere.
The fifth season of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki occurs after these events, but she is never shown to be present during that story. Presumably, she has run away again or is residing in the Kamidake space, ready for her return and eventual meeting with Tenchi's future son.
Gallery
References
- ↑ Omatsuri Zenjitsu no Yoru 21 Seiki-ban 1 / Night Before the Carnival Vol.9: Goodbye 21st Century #1
- ↑ Welcome to Paradise!
- ↑ Tenchi Turbulence