Name: Ryoko Hakubi
Occupation: Space Pirate/Demon (Or Freeze Dried Mummy, if you prefer!)
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
SYMBOLISM and MUSIC - RYOKO
Where do I even begin? There is so much of this floating through the various series. We'll start with the obvious - Ryoko's love songs. Dimension of Love and Forevermore are both powerful love songs which are used as background for Ryoko and her feelings for Tenchi - one at the end of Time and Space Adventures part 3 and the other at the end of the series proper. There is also the significantly melancholic "Autumn of Life" instrumental which echoes hauntingly through her 'dying' scenes at the end of Universe. The music used for Ryoko moments is usually very dramatic and emphatic - but the fact that two love songs are given to her (in contrast none are given to Ayeka) shows the clear intended focus of the Universe storyline. (Yay!).
Although Dimension of Love shows clips of all of the characters to some degree, the words clearly suggest Ryoko. Firstly, they mention cherry blossom, which is drifting off the trees when she arrives back on the Earth to be with Tenchi. Secondly, it talks of "wandering far and wide", which is the lot of the space pirate, and her 'lonely room', which is reference to her talk with Ryo Ohki - "I'm lonely. I sound stupid, don't I?".
Finally, there is the BGM track "Ryoko's Revenge" which appears in the OVA when she finds the blooded cloth and thinks Tenchi is dead. But it also appears in Tenchi Universe when Ryoko approaches the royal palace of Jurai. Is she taking revenge on Kagato for her injury by bringing him his nemesis? Or is there a deeper revenge being wrought on Jurai? Guess we'll never know, but you gotta wonder HOW she knows how to get to the palace...
The cherry blossoms also appear at the start of Tenchi Muyo In Love II, and seem to represent 'new beginning' in the Tenchi series in a subliminal kind of way. Certainly that is their impact at the close of the Universe series, as Ryoko's rearrival suggests the start of new adventures -"The carnival may come and go, but it will always come back to you."
And there's that apple that Tenchi throws at her. Apples are used quite a lot in song lyrics or are mentioned in the cartoon series from time to time. I've managed to track down a symbolic connection between the apple and romance - the "forbidden fruit" as it were. Seems there's a lot more to that little apple at the end of Time and Space Adventures III (Universe) than at first seems apparent!! (Ryoko does also demand that he doesn't sit beneath the apple tree with anyone else but her in Tenchi in Tokyo too, and I'm sure the 'tree of fate' in that same Love Goddess episode "Four's A Crowd" is meant to be an apple tree also!)
RYOKO vs RYOUKO
There are two ways that Ryoko's name gets spelt in 'romaji', and sometimes some dispute as to which one is the correct one. Actually, the dispute seems a little bit pointless to me, since the name isn't actually spelt Ryoko or Ryouko. It's spelt in Kanji characters, for which there are no defined English equivalents ^_^. It's like taking your own name and putting it into Japanese characters - for example, my own name (Beth) would translate as "Besu" since there are no corresponding Japanese sounds for "th".
Ryoko's name appears in roman characters in both forms during the television series - there is a wanted poster which gives her as Ryouko, but when the newspaper articles are circulating in Time and Space Adventures, she is given as Ryoko. I think it's a matter of personal preference, honestly...since the English words used in Tenchi can sometimes be bizarre in themselves - "Antigues" for "Antiques" (Tenchi In Tokyo), and "BBOKE" instead of "BROKE" (Tenchi Universe), I think it's fair to say that their use of English characters is a touch suspect on occasion. Her name is pronounced Ry-oh-ko...so it seems to me that however it's easiest for you to remember that pronunciation is how you should spell her name!
RYOKO and ALCOHOL
Ok. Some mention has to be made of this, because of the amount of alcohol that Ryoko can apparently put away. It's said that OVA Ryoko likes intoxication but does not suffer ill effects from alcohol. I'm not sure how that applies to Universe, however, since the whole reason our pet space pirate crashes to Earth in the first place is because she was hungover and stumbled into Mihoshi's path. Throughout all of the series, Ryoko likes to drink. She encourages Ayeka in the sake department in the OVA, whilst in Universe she can always find time for Sake - during the snowstorm, in Kiyone's world, on the run from the Galaxy Police and Jurai military, while working in their bar on their way to Jurai...even in a school classroom in Sasami's world! The very first encounter with Ryoko in Tenchi in Tokyo is her claiming she's dying after tasting some of Washu's homemade sake - and she spends a good half of the first episode with a serious hangover. Yes, Ryoko really does like her alcohol.
Probably because of the way her metabolism is different to human metabolism (or because it's a cartoon that didn't want to go there), it's never really indicated that she has an alcohol dependancy problem. Ayeka does call her a drunkard at times, but then, Ayeka is often throwing insults at Ryoko, so I don't know how much we can read into that. However, I do think there is a deeper motive behind Ryoko's drinking. One, it's rebellion. It's a bad girl thing and it annoys Ayeka, which is probably reason number two. Three, it's been cited as a tomboyish behaviour, and she does indeed drink with the guys a lot - particularly Yosho and Noboyuke, though she encourages Tenchi to drink as well. (Bad Ryoko!). And maybe it's also a confidence thing, too. She drinks more when she's in trouble or is upset/unsettled about something - such as being pursued by the Galaxy Police, or uncertainty about the cold weather (she seems to hate snow!). Maybe it's just another indication that Ryoko's brash front is really a shield for someone who doesn't completely know who she is or where she's going in life. We're back to Kiyone's quote about an empty life - I think Ryoko is still trying to find the purpose of hers!
RYOKO, THE KILLER?
This has to come in here somewhere, just to placate the strange, deluded folks who aren't snared by Ryoko as a character :) How bad a criminal Ryoko really is does depend to some extent on the series you are watching. In the OVA, it's basically her fault that Sasami has her near fatal fall and assimilates with Tsunami, so you can probably guess that, during her raids on Jurai, she killed a fair few people who weren't quite as lucky as the Princess. However, we also know that she was under Kagato's influence during these attacks - which seems to also be the reason Katsuhito let Tenchi release Ryoko from the cave once the statute of limitations had expired on her crimes. (source of reference, Tenchi Encyclopaedia, Manatsu No Eve disc). During the OVA, she is willing to kill or be killed - she and Ayeka battle, and she does claim it will be a battle to the death, but there is rampant hostility on both sides. And, of course, she is determined to kill Kagato, even if it kills her. But then, pretty much everyone wants to kill Kagato, so I don't think we can read much into that!! Zero-as-Ryoko threatens to kill anyone who interferes with her mission, but of course, that's not really Ryoko. So we don't actually see her kill anyone in the OVA series.
In Tenchi Universe, we have a similar situation - minus the horrendous backstory of what happened on planet Jurai. Ryoko is a pirate, but the only real glimpse we get of her as such is her little lapse in conscience when she's meant to be buying food for the others while they're on the run. She's notorious for destroying and stealing and all of those things - but she doesn't seem to have crossed the line into killing. When she's prepared to end the duel with Nagi by finishing her off, she allows herself to be swayed by Ryo Ohki, suggesting that she didn't really intend to do it anyway. She threatens Mihoshi and Tenchi with death at the start - but if she had really meant to kill them, she could easily have done it after Mihoshi's fall. Basically, she talks a good game, but lacks the ruthlessness to follow through and actually put an end to anyone in this series. She does attempt to kill Kagato again - you'd think she'd learn from the OVA, but guess not! - but her magic isn't even slightly strong enough to touch him. And again, everyone wants to kill Kagato. And Tenchi actually does. So...I don't think we can call Ryoko out there, either. It's completely up to the viewer whether her gun meets it's mark in her world, when she and Tenchi escape from the bank. I don't see any signs of dead people, but then, I can't translate the romaji newspaper article either, so your guess is as good as mine!
Tenchi In Tokyo is the interesting one. Ryoko is more ruthless in this series. There has been mentioned the scene where she destroys Galaxy Police ships - my problem with this as a potential mass murder is that after this occurs, Kiyone - who knows about the attack - is happy to sit down and chat with her. Considering how GXP orientated Kiyone is, and considering the list of crimes she gives Ayeka, you'd think that she'd be aware of the fact her tea buddy just slaughtered half her colleagues. Which suggests to me that Ryoko didn't kill anyone - either the ships were unmanned, or there was some way for the crews to escape before impact. (Let's not forget that several GXP ships were also destroyed in Ayeka and Ryoko's ORIGINAL battle - all except Mihoshi and Kiyone's ship - and that that particular wave of destruction would have been the fault of Ayeka AND Ryoko if it had claimed lives - but again there is no mention of it, so again, it seems unlikely those ships were manned and more likely that Kiyone and Mihoshi were leading an automated fleet to capture Ryoko.). Having said all of that, however, I think Ryoko is capable of killing in this series. Apart from the fact she does kill Hotsuma off (yes, he is trying to kill her at the time, so yes, she is slightly provoked), she does try to kill Ayeka when they originally crashed on the earth, a favour that Ayeka would be more keen to return if Ryoko didn't have her lightstone. Equally, she tries to kill Tenchi - I assume - when they clash and the stone is destroyed - though obviously, she was unsuccessful. Bottom line is, aside from Hotsuma, there are no bodies that can be really and conclusively laid at her door. But I think the capacity is there in greater volume for it to POSSIBLY happen in this series, even though it doesn't ACTUALLY happen. (Am I okay with that? Of course. Ryoko is cast as a villain extraordinaire...would you expect her to thwap them all with a magic glowing fan like Ayeka does?)