Name: Ayeka Masaki Jurai
Occupation: Crown Princess of Planet Jurai
PERSONALITY
Well, where to start with Ayeka. Some of the things I'm going to go into are going to make some Ayeka fans bite me, and others arent ;) I have very varying opinions of Lady Ayeka depending on which series I'm watching, but there are a few character traits which seem to shine through in all series.
Ayeka is pampered, a Crown Princess who is used to the best and in getting her own way. She can, therefore, become a bit of a bitch if she doesn't get it -and on the Earth, she doesn't really get it as often as she'd like to. She's also very conscious of status, of proprietry and of tradition, something which Ryoko is forever using as a weapon against her.
One of Ayeka's pet topics is her own appearance. In the OVA, she ridicules Ryoko's age, showing off her 'beautiful skin' and later on, when she is bathing, she is plotting how to win Tenchi with the same flawless complexion. When she discovers that Sasami will grow into Tsunami, her concern is that Sasami's beauty as an adult will surpass her own. In Tenchi in Tokyo, she seems to have an addiction to beauty supplies, trying to steal Sasami's hard earned money in order to buy a beauty set. And in Universe she challenges Ryoko to the swimsuit competition, confident that her own beauty will win the day easily. In fact, she tells Tenchi that only she needs to enter - because she has beautiful, flawless skin and noone else stands a chance of winning.
As is well known, however, beauty is only skin deep and Ayeka knows it as well as anyone. Beneath her pampered exterior, she's really not all that secure on Planet Earth or as a part of this sudden gaggle of people she's thrown into contact with. They are not subjects of Jurai and not under her command or control, and she is something of a control freak. When she arrests Ryoko in the OVA, it is because she wants to force answers out of her, not because there is any legality behind her methods. She is constantly telling Sasami to watch her manners, her behaviour, her shouting...and bemoaning Ryoko's influence on her younger sister. Trying to control Sasami's free spirited behaviour is another way for her to grasp control of a situation that is slipping out of her hands - namely, the fight for Tenchi's affections.
She is also highly pedantic, to the point where she can be completely unreasonable and irrational - such as in Universe when she's more concerned with Nagi's claim Tenchi is Ryoko's man than the fact Tenchi has been kidnapped. All of this manic behaviour, however, seems to mask a deeper fear - the fear that without her planet and her status there, she really isn't anything at all in the world.
Aboard Ryo Ohki - also in Universe - she says, "I am a Princess of Jurai, why must I suffer all these troubles?" and she cannot believe Ryoko's suggestion of a coup d'etat on Jurai because the people 'love her family' so much. In a sense, then, she's as much out of water as Ryoko is in terms of her current situation - she hasn't really seen the world from the other side of the coin and does not realise that there is a hard life out there, outside of her walls. As Ryoko doesn't understand her all the time, Ayeka does not understand where Ryoko comes from either...and will equally manipulate situations to give herself the upper hand.
In her own Time and Space Adventure world, Ayeka uses this manipulation to force Kiyone and Mihoshi to stalk Tenchi, threatening them with demotion and dangling the carrot of promotion in front of them should they succeed. It is interesting that in her world she imagines herself someone of status - probably a Princess - who has a lot of power and clout, because it's the world she is most comfortable with. We see the same kind of behaviour when she takes Ryoko aboard RyuOh in the OVA, ties her up and forcibly extracts information from her about her brother's sword.
In Tenchi in Tokyo, Ayeka's personality has undergone something of a meltdown. She's become slightly dippy, reciting nonsense poems and even on one occasion, a line from Romeo and Juliet - "parting is such sweet sorrow!". She is convinced that she will be Tenchi's bride and that he has some kind of deep bond to Jurai - which ironically, in this series, he doesn't - and even gets aggressive with Katsuhito when he suggests Sasami should marry Tenchi. She seems to live in her own mild delusion, which is ever encouraged towards the end of the series when she is visited by one of Yugi's minions.
In Ayeka's defence, however, the rundown is not all negative. Even in Tokyo, it is Ayeka who first realises the danger of splitting their family up - and it is her who pursues the goal of bringing them all back together, even going into space to find Kiyone, Mihoshi and (I think) Ryoko to try and talk them back home. In the OVA, she teams up with Mihoshi and Ryoko to avenge Tenchi's apparent death, fighting alongside her rivals as they have a common goal. In Manatsu no Eve, she accepts Mayuka into the family, once Ryoko has given her the pep-talk and increased her own self-confidence somewhat about her standing with the group. In the end, this is what it all amounts to for Ayeka. Her position in the group - the household - because of her royal roots.
It must also be said that - for the most part - Ayeka is an excellent and supportive big sister for Sasami. I'll discuss that more on Ayeka and Sasami's page, but it needs to be said here because it's clear that family are very important to her...not only Tenchi, but other members of her house as well. She speaks of Yosho with reverence in both the series where he is brought in, and in the OVA she greets her mother in the way Misaki wants her to, even though it is potentially embarrassing to do so in front of Ryoko.
Ayeka is also, for the most part, honourable. There are occasions where she lets this go - usually involving Tenchi - but she is proud and she does not believe in charity, insisting on helping out around the Masaki home in both the OVA and the Universe canons as repayment for Katsuhito and Noboyuke's kindness in taking them in. Even though she is a princess of Jurai, she has a sense of what is the right thing to do and is determined to do it, even if it means she is left sweeping up or washing dishes. You can also perhaps say that it's done as much as it is because Ryoko is so determined not to do it (or vice versa) but I think for the most part it's a genuine desire to repay her hosts and prove that the royal family of Jurai repay their debts and respect their hosts. Unfortunately, this is an element of her character she loses in the Tenchi in Tokyo series, where she seems a lot more prone to laying about the house and arguing with Ryoko than she does any kind of real work. And, at the ends of both Tenchi Universe and Tenchi Forever, she proves she has a sense of duty and of accepting what's real - in Universe, when she is clear her duty to her planet must come before her own feelings (a very brave sacrifice, considering the circumstances, although it is marred by her later running away) and in Tenchi Forever where she recognises that only Ryoko can rescue Tenchi, so puts all her effort into convincing her to go, regardless of how it must be troubling her own feelings.
In conclusion, then, Ayeka can be a pedantic, petty, whiny little madam with a pretty good sense of manipulation. But to dismiss her as just those things would be to slice off a whole section of her character. Yes, Ayeka can be spoiled and annoying - and as a Ryoko fan, I confess I do sometimes find her such. But beneath the spoiled, image-obsessive exterior is an insecure girl who isn't sure quite who she is without the titles and the finery - and for this you have to blame her exhalted background and her naivety about the real world outside her gilded cage. The fact that she needs Ryoko to give her the pep talk in Manatsu no Eve just goes to prove this all the more. She needs to feel adored and wanted, and on this planet, she doesn't always feel that way. Her trip to Earth, then, is not only freedom from her obligations but also a glimpse into the other side - a situation which she is not always comfortable with handling and which can drive her to behave in a way which would, in other circumstances, make her very ashamed of herself.