Had I believed that Sakuya would end up with Tenchi in TinT, it would have worked. However, I knew from the moment she was introduced that she wouldn't be "the one" for Tenchi, thus another weakness for the character.

Sakuya is an interesting character, because it's not often that you see an official character that is a Mary-Sue. I mean, if you took away the Yugi's-shadow part, and probably even if you didn't, she could totally have been created by a fanfic-writing fangirl. I'm not sure why though, because Tenchi isn't a "bishie" or even really that likeable, but you get what I mean.

To be fair, I've heard some pretty lame arguments against Sakuya ("She's flat-chested", "Her hair is a rip-off of Ayeka's", "She's got unnatural eyes" (despite the fact that her eyes are a natural color, and Ryoko's are yellow, Ayeka's are red, and Sasami's are pink), ad nauseum....)

Sakuya always seemed rather whiney and dependant to me which is of course vastly different from either Ryoko, Aeka, Kiyone, Washu, or even Sasami (although Sakuya is easily beaten for the prize by TnT Mihoshi). And given that Tenchi himself isn't all that self assertive, it's hard for me to imagine that Tenchi and Sakuya would've ever gotten further than playing a game of checkers together. She wasn't really a bad character, just a little too mild, and a little too normal to fit in well with any of the Tenchi Muyo universes.

She was too clingy and whiny for my liking. She never seemed to be happy either. She always seemed fake. She just had this weird, depressed-yet-blank feel about her...i thoguth she was a bit of a weirdo

bearing in mind I haven't seen TinT for about 4 years or something.

Whoa, how much pointless and unproven hate is gonna be just thrown outta nowhere at the Kumashiro Kid? Damn, it's pathetic! This is like… wrestling fans' assumption that John Cena completely sucks, or… everybody talking about the Brazilian soccer team like they're supposed to be God or… everybody alluding to "the strongest person always wins in Dragon Ball Z no matter how little thought they put into their battles", as if Kagato was the only good or bad guy in the history of Tenchi Muyo or DBZ that ever used brains to give his own side a chance. (btw, there are examples in DBZ of the weaker opponent winning or the weaker opponent becoming stronger that are associated at least vaguely with the power of the mind)

This happens to be the prime example of the completely biased girlmob argument of "Ryoko is better than Sakuya". In my opinion, this argument is no different from the argument that is never completely made, but that has been eluded to at wrestling forums, that Edge is a better wrestler than his childhood buddy Christian Cage, or from the argument that was completely assumed during the NBA Finals that the Dallas Mavericks were just far superior to the Miami Heat, or (as I already said) the World Cup assumption that nobody could beat Brazil. And if you watch wrestling, basketball, or soccer, you know exactly how those went.

These are all my main examples of something I like to call the unconvincingly lopsided and quickly unproven argument (ulaqua). Basically, a ulaqua (I made that up, btw) is an argument that is completely lopsided, yet its "reasons" cannot easily convince me (or anyone with unbiased thinking on the issue) and can easily be disproven, as they are by the end result. I will tell you this. I think Ryoko is the coolest character in the whole Tenchi Muyo universe. However, may the biased girlmob members against Sakuya please open their eyes, shut their mouths, and pay attention. I am here to prove that Sakuya is superior to Ryoko in the arts of character maturity and human romances, therefore making her better for Tenchi than Ryoko.

Now, as we all know, Ryoko Hakubi is a centuries-old yet still incredibly young, sexy-looking, super powerful space pirate, who appears in all continuities of Tenchi Muyo and quickly falls in love with Tenchi. So many people intend to state that Ryoko and Tenchi should be together in the series, forgetting to mention the fact that Ryoko and Tenchi are practically polar opposites. Tenchi is a meek boy who appreciates the normal, little things in life, and only really hopes to be a farmer and a shrine priest. Yeah, see how far that got him. Ryoko and several alien women, in all Tenchi Muyo continuities, end up living at Tenchi’s house with him and making everything chaotic.

Part of that chaos includes the obscene, promiscuous, and ragingly inappropriate Ryoko constantly trying to physically entice Tenchi into being with her. As we know, Ayeka turns out to do the same, except in a much more appropriate yet snobbish way, since she is the first crowned princess of Jurai. Though both girls tend to go about fighting one another over Tenchi and just about everything else as if it were a prize to be won, they continue to display their emotions with much more control during serious times, meaning they are both seriously devoted to him, to Ryoko’s credit (as well as Ayeka’s if she was even in this argument). At the end of each continuity, and sometimes in between, Ryoko and Tenchi seem to have their moments, but they never confirm being together.

In the third continuity, Tenchi In Tokyo, Tenchi gets tired of the hectic life around Ryoko, Ayeka, and the rest of the girls and chooses to become a college student in Tokyo, far away from the Masaki house near the shrine. There he meets the other character in this argument, a young girl his age named Sakuya Kumashiro, who is just the perfect break for anyone dealing with insanity like Tenchi deals with, if that is even possible in this world of ours. She is perfectly outgoing, somewhat ditzy, and very cute, as well as quite assertive in getting what she wants as far as quality time with Tenchi so she can get to know him, but she does not go overboard like Ryoko or Ayeka would. And that is a fact. Not to mention the fact that her identity is completely normal and human, with no superpowers. A perfect spell of relief, Sakuya could also spell as a true love for many everywhere. In real life, Sakuya would get love about ten to a hundred times as much as Ryoko.

As time goes on, and throughout the series, you find that Sakuya and Tenchi begin to get closer and closer together in their relationship, but at the same time, she becomes less and less assertive, and grows in her respect for Tenchi’s intergalactic family and friends as well as their importance to him and the importance of his freedom, despite the fact that his friends - mainly Ryoko and Ayeka - treated her horribly when she arrived with Tenchi to his humble abode in Okayama for the anniversary of when Tenchi met the girls. In the future, Sakuya realizes that she never has a past, and it is discovered that she is in fact the physical manifestation of the shadow of Yugi, a conflicted character who serves as the antagonist in the Tenchi In Tokyo series. Sakuya was created by Yugi to become something for Tenchi to fall in love with and start a chain reaction which broke up the Tenchi family so that they may no longer have the power to defeat her and stop her reign of misguided terror.

Upon knowing the facts, Tenchi tries to run to Sakuya’s apartment to talk to her about this, when it is discovered Yugi has already taken her back inside. Yugi reunites Tenchi and Sakuya within a cherry blossom covered illusion. Despite the fact that Tenchi finally discloses his love for Sakuya, she lets him go to save his people and his planet, despite the fact that she would a) no longer have Tenchi for herself, and b) cease to exist. He is able to defeat Yugi and restore peace, and in the end, Ryoko and Tenchi have their moment… but never completely get together. Again.

The argument that Ryoko should be with Tenchi instead of Sakuya is based purely upon several facts which may have little or nothing to do with true love at all. She appears more in the series, has moments with Tenchi at the end of all three continuities, goes to all lengths to rescue him in serious situations against evil, even saves Ayeka when need be, and apparently, there are signs in the movies for Tenchi Muyo that point towards Tenchi being with Ryoko. Also, due to Sakuya being created from Yugi’s shadow, it becomes painfully apparent that “technically, Sakuya is not real.” She is also considered to be Yugi’s Mary Sue, or that of the main writer of Tenchi In Tokyo, because she’s the annoying cutie with the drawn out background that easily wins Tenchi over while the others have been busting their asses off.

But here’s the deal, people! If you get out of your biased minds, you can easily understand why I say that Ryoko is inferior to Sakuya in the regard I’m talking about here for many reasons which center around the same ones. For one, in one series, she grows more as a character than Ryoko and Ayeka do combined in pretty much all of them. Sakuya slowly shifts from being assertive of wanting to know and be with Tenchi than showing the sign of true love by setting him free so that he can be happy because she loves him from the bottom of her heart. The argument that she is Yugi’s Mary Sue, or that she is not real, are quickly taken out by the fact that her emotions go on to become less and less fitting into Yugi’s scheme as time goes on, meaning Yugi does not have complete control over her.

Unlike Ryoko, she does not possess freakish superpowers which make it hard to be seen with her in public, or get crazy or overly mischievous, or fondle Tenchi every chance she gets in non-war situations, or treat him more as “her Tenchi prize” than simply as Tenchi, the boy she is in love with. Sakuya actually matures and accepts that Tenchi hangs out with other girls that like him, even after the fact that they basically alienate her when she joins the girls for one night only at Tenchi’s anniversary of meeting them. By the way, this alienation includes the complete immaturity shown by Ryoko and Ayeka when they accuse her practically of being a big time whore. This, as well as the maturity to not respond callously to their accusations, is something that Ryoko could never learn to do.

Sakuya even goes on to recognize that Young Master Masaki’s happiness and the universe are more important than her desires to be with him, sacrificing her chance to be with him as well as her own existence! in order to show this. A fan fiction story about Tenchi and Sakuya getting back together within the family states about this action that “Sakuya, in those few moments, had shown more maturity and humility then Ayeka and Ryoko, combined, could have produced in their entire lives.” Also, the claim that Sakuya is not real can be instantly deleted because she shows her own emotions and not Yugi’s “programming”, or it can be reversed into stating that Ryoko is even more fake than Sakuya because not only was she created artificially by the goddess/genius Washu, she was even completely controlled and enslaved by Kagato for centuries before being locked in Tenchi’s cave, according to the one continuity which reveals her origins.

Also, Ryoko becomes devoted and serious when the time calls for it, and there’s some evil or misguided force threatening them and their world, but if the two were to ever get into a relationship, what would happen? When things weren’t so warlike and serious, the rest of their lives would consist of Ryoko trying to - if not managing to - practically rape Tenchi every single day. Meanwhile, Sakuya was the perfect, understanding girl. I believe this is why Sakuya would be superior to Ryoko as a lover in every facet of the imagination.

This can also be attributed to why Tenchi never quite fell in love with Ryoko, but Sakuya was destined to win over Tenchi. In the end, for reasons proven here, she is the only character to ever officially be Tenchi’s girlfriend. Therefore, you people saying that Ryoko should’ve been with Tenchi instead of Sakuya is an unconvincingly lopsided and quickly unproven argument, which is reflected in the series result: Sakuya won out in the end, being the only girl in all installments of Tenchi Muyo to truly win the heart of Tenchi Masaki.

Personally, I never liked Sakuya.
Even from the start when we knew nothing about her.
Its not just because I like the RyokoxTenchi pairing either...
Theres just something about her character that I never liked. ...as the series went on I liked her even less....

x___x

Ah memories...

We should revive the old "Perfect Girl for Tenchi" section.

http://p205.ezboard.com/ftenchimuyo7994 ... iisbecause

Maybe we will.

Oh, yeah. Another argument, childish argument, that is automatically made against Sakuya. That she is "ugly", or "fugly", or whatever the word you use.

One of the main parts of this argument is that she is flat chested. Okay, sure, I will admit, you are right about that to some degree. She doesn't exactly have the most defined or well-endowed breasts in the world. However, must I remind you that even in real life, at least one of the most beautiful ladies in the world is not big breasted? (and right off the bat… the former wrestling diva Stacy Keibler comes into mind.)

Oh, and as for those of you who are ready to say she copies Ayeka's hairstyle. I say this: sure, yeah, maybe their hairstyles are similar. But what does that have to do with anything!? In DBZ, Spice (the leader of Garlic Jr.'s henchmen in the Garlic Jr. Saga) pretty much looks just like Super Saiyan Goku, except for hair, eye, and body color. And through his association with Garlic Jr., Spice is also considered a "boring/pointless character". Yet he is not hated so much, even mentioned so much, and nobody makes anything of his physical similarity to Goku. So why get on Sakuya about her hair and Ayeka's hair not being completely different? Better example: that's like killing Kagome or Kikyo for them looking alike!

So, now that that's cleared up, I wonder what else is so "fugly" about Sakuya's appearance. Once somebody tells me, I will once again defy the odds and prove the haters wrong once again. And if you're not down with that, then I got two words for ya!

I think much of the antagonism of this thread was started by the way the poll was worded. I think a simple: "like" or "don't like" poll choice would have been better.

That said, the topic is in danger of producing anger that the board doesn't need. Please, try to keep things civil.

Believe me, I know how "Perfect Girl" and especially Sakuya topics can often spiral out of control. In my experience, those who defend Sakuya often feel as if they are a minority (probably true), and tend to react very strongly to those who are anti-Sakuya. In turn, strongly worded posts lead to strong reactions. Thus, threads like this can quickly escalate into hostility and create bitterness that can linger.

This board is small (now). It can do without such divisions. I pray that both sides will calm down.

~ZL