Firstly, one thing needs to be made clear. Hotsuma only exists in Tenchi in Tokyo. Therefore this relationship applies only to the Ryoko incarnation from Tenchi in Tokyo and has no bearing on any of the other series. Okay, now that’s straight…here we go!

The relationship between Ryoko and Hotsuma is a bit of an enigma from start to finish. In the first instance, Ryoko takes up with him because Tenchi has betrayed her with Sakuya, and also Hotsuma is basically involved because of Yugi’s bigger plans to separate the Masaki family. Or at least, that’s the surface-skimming view.

However, the speed with which Ryoko allows Hotsuma to play on her vulnerabilities indicates a few things. Firstly, she’s not very savvy when it comes to deeper manipulation. As she says, “at least I’m up front”. Ryoko deals with people on the level, even to the point of offensive bluntness and physical violence. Although she is wary of interlopers, she doesn’t always see right through their ruses and there is a strange kind of naivety about it – like she badly wants to believe in someone or something liking her for who she is. Also, Hotsuma paints himself as being like her – a pirate who appeals to her reckless, wild nature and who boosts her confidence in herself and her abilities in that area. He takes advantage of her loneliness and sense of isolation in her chosen lifestyle, and plays it up to the highest level.

Ryoko refers to him as ‘lover’, a term she only uses for Tenchi in the entirety of the rest of the series, and the implication is that they are partners in more than just crime for when Ryoko discovers his deception her reaction is hurt – “just like all the others.” Maybe she hoped that in Hotsuma she had finally found the kindred spirit she subconsciously seeks, but instead she wound up being pulled into another trap (the insinuation being that Ryoko’s choice of career, her status and now her bond to Tenchi have all proven magnets in the past for her to be used and abused). When she attacks him in vengeance, she has tears in her eyes.

Ryoko does begin to trust Hotsuma and at one point fights in defence of him, angry when she perceives he has been wounded defending her…a wound she also shows later concern for. When pushed on the subject, she tells Kiyone that Tenchi is “not the only man in the world”, suggesting that he is in fact something she’s taken up on the rebound from heartache. She is hurt by his betrayal but then she is hurt by all betrayal, be it Tenchi and Sakuya’s kiss, Kiyone and Mihoshi’s apparent report to the Galaxy Police or Hotsuma himself. She’s also extremely proud and hates to be made a fool of, which quickly turns any respect she had for her pirate partner into anger and hate pretty much on the spot.

From Hotsuma’s perspective, it’s even more twisted than that. Ryoko claims he has no heart, and he certainly acts that way on occasion – he tries to kill her twice (in an explosion and in battle), he calls her a spoiled wench, he makes her believe more of her friends are betraying her by framing Kiyone and Mihoshi and he complains to Yugi about her barbaric nature. The interesting thing is, though, that what he says to Yugi about her is in direct conflict to actuality. He calls her a barbarian and says she disgusts him by only caring about money and drink and those kinds of things. Yet there is a frustration in his tone too, and in fact these are the pursuits Hotsuma has pushed her towards, not ones he is against. In fact, his annoyance seems to come only when she resists the ‘blood and glory’ motif he’s set up around them and starts to remember things in a gentler light. A good example of this is the little boy who challenges her when they’re robbing a village on some foreign planet. Ryoko goes to hit him, then the gem and a memory of Tenchi makes her pause. Hotsuma is urging her on, wanting her to kill the child, but the thought of Tenchi makes her hesitate and in the end, she just stops. To kill the boy would have been barbaric indeed – except she doesn’t do it.

So there are two possible explanations for Hotsuma’s frustration, and I think there’s truth in both of them.

Firstly, there’s the loss of control argument. Ryoko does not realise (that naivety again) how manipulative Hotsuma is being and how much control he actually has over her life. He plays her emotions whenever she talks about returning to earth, and appeals to her vanity or her bruised ego when he wants to convince her to follow his will. He also has control of the spaceship, locates and organises their hideouts and raids and even built her a replica of the Masaki living room so that he could fit it with cameras and spy on her (seeing more evidence of her non-barbarity as she sits down to tea, chat and cards with old friends from the Galaxy Police!). As time goes on, her thoughts and feelings drift more back towards her time on Earth, and so his control over her and her actions are lessened. She hires Mihoshi and Kiyone – knowing who they are – to amuse herself, but without telling him the full story. And though she does consider making more of an effort to be grateful, the fact that her mind does flit back to Earth so much is indication that what she told him initially is true – space is empty and that no amount of it can make her happy.

The other explanation is the thing that Ryoko dismisses as being impossible. (Although we’ve already seen that Ryoko’s judgement is not always flawless, so I think it’s worth discussing the point anyway). She claims that he can’t be jealous of her affection for Tenchi since he hasn’t got a heart. However, I beg to differ. Hotsuma tells Yugi that Ryoko had begun to grow on him (whilst she is pretty much under his control) and when they are attacked by the fake GXP droids, he throws himself in the path of the ray to protect her. This could be seen as another trick to win Ryoko’s loyalty, however there is more logic in letting her be killed than there is in winning her trust – if he really does not need her and is only playing his part in Yugi’s scheme to keep the family apart. Ironically, he and Yugi only discuss eliminating Ryoko when they realise she knows too much about what’s really going on. This seems a touch strange, since Yugi is willing to kill Matori without a moment’s compunction, and Matori is supposedly her ally. So it begs the question, did Hotsuma ask Yugi for Ryoko? Is he genuinely seeking that partner in Deep Space – is he really Ryoko’s reflection, only one who chose the bad side of the coin instead of the good because he lacked the influence of something like Tenchi and his gems in his existence?

As Mihoshi says, Ryoko is sensitive...a sensitivity Hotsuma plays on. He says "He played you for a fool, worse than I did. At least you knew I was a pirate", and somehow this is the dividing line between him and Ryoko - the two like souls whose path forked because of Ryoko's discovery of love. (Kitsch but sweet, I think you'll agree!). Whereas once Ryoko would have acted in the same ruthless, selfish way - knowing Tenchi has changed her and it's the barrier between her and Hotsuma that's ever present. Staying on that theme, there's more symbolic evidence of this - when Ryoko first meets Tenchi, she is morphed into a monster by the power of the Jurai Lightstone. Tenchi defeats her and two years on, he's tamed her. When Ryoko fights Hotsuma, Hotsuma morphs into a monster of the same kind as Ryoko was when power was dominating her actions also. But Ryoko does NOT become a monster during this battle, nor does she attempt to assimilate with the gem on her wrist or gain new power from any external source than herself. She wins the fight purely with her own skills, determination and faith that if she gets past this guy, she's going back to Earth and Tenchi. It just shows us what Ryoko may have become without Tenchi's influence on her - which is why in the end Hotsuma can't possibly understand Ryoko or vice versa.

The other thing in favour of Hotsuma’s feelings is the fact that, had he not had any emotional involvement to Ryoko, he could have told Yugi the truth about the situation. He could easily have said that she’s constantly remembering Earth and Tenchi, that she’s becoming uncontrollable and that it’s time they were rid of her. But he does not do that. Why not? Instead he invents a hot tempered lie – and those who lie in anger often have deeper truths to hide. Is it that he’s afraid to confess to Yugi how he really feels about Ryoko and her Tenchi obsession? Or is it simply that he now feels betrayed by a woman who’s heart is with someone else constantly? On their first encounter at the House of the Eternal Pledge, he does tell her that he likes her, even though at that point there was not even plans for a conflict between the two of them – Ryoko and Ayeka just showed up and took matters into their own hands. He also later warns her that Tenchi is in danger, which seems a funny thing to say considering he’s on Yugi’s side…giving advanced warning of Yugi’s plans to someone like Ryoko can’t possibly be a good thing. When Yugi is attacking them, Hotsuma (with Tsuguru) show up and defend Ryoko from the final blast – though Yugi treats this later as a part of her plan, it seems odd if it is, since Yugi’s all set to kill the people in her way and suddenly Hotsuma and Tsuguru are preventing it. So perhaps it is all part of the deal between Hotsuma and Yugi. Certainly Hotsuma does not appear all that subservient to Yugi, considering her immense power. Maybe that is his part in the whole thing all along – it just went wrong?

Not that I think that, when I talk about love and Hotsuma, he feels for her anything like what she feels for Tenchi. The manner in which he treats her - controlling, domineering, obsessive about blood, glory, power and other piratical things - always wanting to shadow her everywhere...all those things suggest the same kind of uneasy relationship that Ryoko begins her date with Tenchi with. It's a love that translates itself as possession - the "pretending that having fun is right" philosophy, with no depth or opportunity for the other person to choose or escape. (Maybe that in itself is a lesson for Ryoko when she returns to Earth, since her manner of dealing with Tenchi is a little different at the end - less physically all over him, more lucid and thoughtful and more open about how she feels! I guess she's seen it too - that she doesn't want to become a Hotsuma herself!)