At the end of the second-to-last episode of Tenchi Muyo GXP there's an interesting collection of characters all in one place. Seeing it, and talking about it, are serious spoilers about the series ending so it goes below the fold.

Mikami, head of the GP academy, brings Seina's crew to Airi's office, which is a ship.

Kiriko, Amane, Ryoko, Neige (holding Fuku) and Mikami. Mikami is also de facto head of the Kuramitsu clan, the second most important family in this section of the Galaxy behind only the Masaki clan of Jurai.

All four of Seina's crew are VIPs, it turns out. Kiriko is Masaki, part of the Jurai royal family. Amane is Kaunaq. The Kaunaq are arriviste; they run possibly the biggest and most important fashion chain and they're rich, rich, rich. Ryoko has been revealed by this point to be the only surviving descendant of the original Commander Balouta, who turns out to be alive and is about to become king of his planet. (At this point in the series it may already have happened.) And Neige is the retired ruler of Melmas, a theocracy. She held the position of Miko, de facto ruler, for maybe two thousand years and is now in voluntary exile, in preference to spending the rest of her life in what amounts to house arrest.

Having her in Seina's crew, especially considering what they're going to be doing for the next fifty years or so, is a very good thing for everyone including her successor on Melmas. She's going to be accomplishing great things, so she'll bring credit on the planet. And she won't be meddling in the affairs of Melmas, which is good for her successor. Moreover, security around Seina's crew will be at head-of-state level (because of Seina, but it'll apply to her too) so the risk of her being kidnapped is very low. She, herself, is happy with the prospect; it's a good situation, and she likes the others, and it'll make a good second career.

The reason Neige looks like a loli is because Nabeshin wanted to tell lolicon jokes because her maturation was suppressed the entire time she held office. That seems to be their custom. Now that she's out of office, whatever they did to her will wear off and we are shown, a bit earlier in this episode, that in about 15 years she's going to be a knock-out. (I'll put a picture of that at the end of this post.)

Moving right along, when they show up in Airi's office/ship, this is what they're greeted with:

(I've shrunk that. Here's the full sized version.)

And their reaction:

In that large picture, the one on the left is shown just that one time. She's obviously from Melmas, and my guess is that she's Neige's successor as Miko. Second is the King of Balouta, Ryoko's great grandfather. Next to that is Washu, Fuku's creator and, well, mother. The next two are Amane's parents. Next to Mitoto Kuramitsu is Azusa, emperor of Jurai and de jure head of the Masaki clan, of which Kiriko is a part. (Seto is de facto head, power behind the throne. When she wants to needle him, she calls him Azusa-chan.) Finally, you have Airi, head of the GP.

Without going into too much detail, a major decision has been made about the future of the members of Seina's crew, and all those people are there to show that they approve of it.

So what in hell is Mitoto doing there? Just to fill things in here: Mikami (woman) and Minami (man) are siblings. She's family head. Mitoto is Minami's daughter, and mother of Mihoshi, who is a member of Tenchi's harem in the original OVA series, and Misao, Mihoshi's brother.

Like Mihoshi, Mitoto is another person for whom the rules don't quite apply. In her case it's mainly that there's a degree of quantum uncertainty about her position. Basically, she shows up anywhere that there's serious cleaning to be done and takes care of it, and she doesn't have to bother with formalities like "taking a ship from one place to the next". She seems able to teleport anywhere she needs to be.

But when it comes to the Kuramitsu, she isn't any kind of power. And the only extent to which the Kuramitsu are involved in this is to indicate that they don't consider it a threat.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that Mitoto probably wasn't invited. She probably just showed up.

Back to Neige: at one point she uses a computer simulation to create an image of what she'll look like in 15 years:

She isn't going to have anything to be ashamed of.

And now having finished doing all the work for this post, I realize that there wasn't any point to it. Sorry about that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 09:26 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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