Sunday Splash Page #7

"Another Stapler Bites The Dust", in All-New Tenchi Muyo! Volume 1, Chapter 2, "Idle Hands", Hitoshi Okuda (writer/artist)

It's not quite a double-page splash; more a 1.5 page splash, but it was about the closest I could get that I was interested in.

The series continued the earlier manga of various adventures for Tenchi and the house full of alien girls he finds himself living in. There's usually a strong comic element to the whole thing, usually focusing on the impressive (if accidental) destructive power of most of the houseguests. As with most ensemble cast books, if you have a particular favorite you might end up frustrated they aren't getting enough page time (mine is Ryoko, seen above, so I lucked out).

I only bought the first volume. Flipping through the later ones in Barnes & Noble, I got the impression the stories weren't going in a direction I was interested in. Oh well.

31 Days of Scans - Favorite Female Character

I mentioned back in December I might try adapting Scans Daily's "31 Days of Scans" theme to my own purposes. I'm not planning to do this every day, right now I was thinking it could be a Wednesday feature. I don't think there'll be a specific format, just me posting pictures and talking, like usual.

The easiest answer for Favorite Female Character would probably be Cassandra Cain. If not her, Felicia Hardy. But I already did posts about each of them last August, and it feels kind of lazy to just re-post those or link to them. So I'm going to highlight a character I didn't include in those "Favorite Characters" lists, and I'm going outside Marvel and DC (not to mention the U.S.) entirely.

It still might be a bit of a cheat to use Ryoko from the Tenchi Muyo! series, considering I was introduced to the character through the anime first, and it was years before I got around to buying any of the manga volumes (the series was originally created by Masaki Kajishima, and the manga were written and drawn by Hitoshi Okuda). But hell, I'll take any excuse to gush about Ryoko.

When I was doing the favorite character posts, there were certain recurring characteristics or themes, and Ryoko has a fair number of these, though which ones and to what degree depends on which version of the continuity we're going with. If we go with the OVA/manga version, she has the tragic backstory of being used as a weapon by Kagato for some considerable span of time (I've seen her age at both 2000 and 5000 years, factor out the 700 years she spent locked in a cave, and you can possibly knock some time off the front before Kagato stole her from Washu, but then that one panel only says she's over 800, so I don't know). She was under his control, but still has the memories of killing who knows how many people (that guy on the right says she's known galaxy-wide as 'The Fiend of Destruction'). It wasn't her choice, but she still bears the guilt, and for the people in the galaxy at large, she's the one they associate the acts with, not the guy who was hiding in the shadows pulling strings.

In other versions, she's a space pirate by choice (though I don't believe it's explained why), so slightly less tragic. But then I get the fun of her being a space pirate, and if she wasn't a super-nice, Errol Flynn/Kurt Wagner sort of pirate, she's at least not a vicious, irredeemable bastard.

She has a bit of the learning to be a person arc I liked in characters like Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Whichever version we're talking about, she's largely lived a life defined by violence, where you take what you want, and if you find yourself in conflict with someone else, you hurt or kill them. In the OVA, she's able to project her astral form from the cave she's imprisoned in, and watch Tenchi's family interact, which at least gives her a clue that there are other ways to behave, while in other versions, it's the fact Tenchi finds her unconscious and tries to help her, rather than kill or rob her, which is the key moment. Either way, you get someone struggling to figure out how to operate by a set of rules that are largely foreign to them, so she screws up sometimes (sometimes for comedic effect, which is fine, her cooking disasters are entertaining), but the effort is important, because it shows she's not just a wild thug, she can be peaceful and friendly if given the chance.

She's also fiercely devoted to her friends. She's not good at actually telling them that she cares, mind you, but throughout the manga, she repeatedly gets injured trying to protect Sasami or Tenchi, or trying to rescue Ayeka from some foe so Tenchi doesn't risk his neck doing it. There's one quick story where a couple of small-time crooks approach Ryoko about stealing something for them. When they just threaten her, she's content to demonstrate she could punch their heads off, but willing to let them leave peacefully. But when one of them mentions they know she's fallen for some Earthling named Tenchi, well. . .

Don't worry, his head grew back. Or he pulled it inside his body before she fired. One or the other.

And I enjoy her flaws, because they feel like natural offshoots of her circumstances. She is impulsive, she is loud, she is not above using threats or intimidation, though at least she tends to save it for jerks (I like to think that guy on the left is her universe's version of J. Jonah Jameson. Just needs a slightly bigger mustache). She does drink a lot, though I believe her alien metabolism means she could give Wolverine a run for his money in a drinking contest. She is adverse to housework. She does tend to grab Tenchi inappropriately. But again, space pirate. They take what they want, they don't have to clean up if they don't want, they don't have a 9-to-5 job, and they could be killed or imprisoned at any moment. Ryoko spent centuries floating in some half-comatose state, with no contact with anyone. The best she could do was project her astral self out to see what everyone else was doing. In the manga, her mother is this half-mad scientist who stays in a child form and treats Ryoko more like an experiment than a daughter (if Washu isn't the worst fictional parent I've seen, it's only because I watched Evangelion and got to see Gendo Ikari in action). She is well aware of how abruptly she could lose the odd family she's fallen into.

Also Ryoko and I share a tendency to get so focused on a problem, and solving it in a direct manner, we can't see other, better solutions (at least, according to my dad I have this problem). Ryoko has a bit more success getting through on main strength and awkwardness than me, but she has a lot more strength than I do.

Ultimately, I think it's that she has a clear idea of what she wants out of life, and she's set on getting, and then protecting it, and she refuses to allow her past to slow her down. It's impressive to me.

Declaration of Bias?

When I was planning out Saturday's post, it occured to me I had a double standard. I completely accept that Ryoko was under someone else's influenece, and as such, I don't consider her responsible for those actions. But when Geoff Johns tried something similar with Hal Jordan, I screamed "Bullshit!" 'till everyone at the store looked at me like I was about to kill them. Why was that, I wondered? Here were my initial guesses:

1. Ryoko is a woman, Hal's a man. I'm guilty of a bias that says females are weaker, and thus it's more acceptable for them to be controlled. Except, I completely accepted it when it turned out Logan killed a Senator while under Weapon X influence in a Wolverine storyline about five years back.

2. Ok, well, it's because you like Ryoko, whereas you regard Hal Jordan as mostly preventing Kyle Rayner from taking the center stage he deserves. Except, I don't like Superman either. In fact, I think the DC Universe would be much more interesting without him (call it the "Kenshin/Goku Syndrome"). Yet, when they tell us he was being controlled by Max Lord, I say "Sure, I'll buy that".

Finally, I decided it's a matter of timing. With Ryoko, she appears in the first episode on the Tenchi OVA, Kagato shows up by about episode 5, and immediately takes control of her. That suggests it was planned that way all along, at least to me. From the moment Wolverine was accused of killing the Senator, he was plauged by doubts, because he had flashes of things, but couldn't recall all of it. All of which seems suspicious, and raised doubts as to why Logan would do it, if he did. And almost as soon as Superman had finished kicking Batman around, we find out he's under Lord's control.

With Hal, it's been years since he went 'round the bend and eventually tried to remake the universe. It was an established, if not beloved, part of the history of DC. But Johns comes along and decides his hero, Hal Jordan, can't go out like that. Oh no, Johns has to change it so that it wasn't Hal's fault. Maybe it's an arbitrary standard, but it seems like there is a difference between a creator making a character do horrible things with the idea the character is being controlled by an outside force right from the start, and one person deciding this character did these horrible things of their own accord, and THEN a decade later another writer comes along and changes it. Now if Johns could show me proof this was Ron Marz' plan all along? Well, I guess I would have to accept that.

I don't know, it's irrelevant I suppose. Hal's back, he's been absolved, he's not likely to die anytime soon, just have to deal with it.

On Abuse

Man, enchiladas on Super Bowl Sunday. Plus, I was able to drop off all those comics I brought back to the apartment for my "Best of. . ." series, at my mother's house again. And, I was able to to start alphabetizing my comics. Now that I'm back, I can't figure how to start this post, so I'll just jump in. There's been a lot of specualtion amongst fans of the Tenchi Muyo series, as to whether Ryoko was the victim of sexual abuse while under Kagato's control, and I just feel like discussing that briefly.

First off, kalinara has a nice post about whether things such as mind control and technoviruses could also be considered a form of rape, given that they are used to control others into doing things against their will. I would say I'd tend to agree with the idea that they are certainly a form of violation, and in some cases, I would say are even worse (in a fictional world, where these things are more common). When a character is physically raped, they can still be trying to resist, or even if they're immobilized, they haven't consented in their mind. In the case of mind control, even that is denied, as the person's free will is circumvented or blocked. In that sense, Ryoko has most definitely been a victim of abuse, seeing as Kagato forced her to kill and destroy for centuries.

Still, to my knowledge, it has never been discussed conclusively whether he did anything "physical" to Ryoko, during the years she was under his control. And I can see agruments in his demeanor for both. On the one hand, he considered her a weapon, a tool, just something to use for whatever purpose suited his needs at that moment. If he has no problems using her to kill, it would seem doubtful he'd halt at the thought of raping her. At the same time, he might consider her "beneath" him, that as she is a "thing", it would lower him to consort with her in such a manner.

Perhaps we can glean some clues from Ryoko's behavior. At first glance, it isn't promising. Ryoko thinks nothing of flaunting her body, parading around nude as a means to tempt Tenchi. In many cases she may start hugging him, only to progress to outright groping. This might suggest that this is the closest thing to affection Ryoko was exposed to, that with Kagato's philosophy of "want, take, have", Ryoko learned that you should simply grab whatever you desire, whether it wants to go along with that or not.

But, it may not be as bad as it looks. It may simply be Ryoko doesn't have any other idea what to do. There was an episode where Sasami tricked both Ryoko and Ayeka into believing that the romance comics Tenchi's father had held the key to getting Tenchi to profess his love. Ryoko immediately began copying the actions depicted in the comic, cooking for Tenchi, and making odd comments, like one might make in a soap opera. From this, you could infer that Ryoko has simply been so lacking in personal relationships that she has no idea how to go about professing her love for someone, or how to get that person to return that affection. As such, she went with what seemed simplest first, graphic physical displays of her assests, and her interest in Tenchi's. Having had that failed, she discarded the tactic (somewhat, she's still prone to tackling Tenchi with her hugs) and began to try different ideas. Examples would include finding a traditional Japanese kimono and greeting Tenchi in it. Of course, ti belogned to Tenchi's mother, and she accidentally ripped it, so it backfired, but you can see she seems to be learning and adapting on the fly.

So, what is the final conclusion? Well, mine is that Kagato wasn't interested in establishing power over her through sex, and so never bothered with that. He was to busy violating Ryoko in others ways, which I think were even more damaging. Personally, while I'd love to have the creators say, "No, Ryoko was never raped by Kagato", I can live without knowing rather than have them come out and say "Yes, he did rape Ryoko". Quite frankly, her past is traumatic enough as it is.

Based on what evidence I've managed to give, which I'm certain isn't everything, what do you think? And would controlling a person's mind and making them do something, whether sexual or not, be a greater violation than the physical act of rape?

I Sit Here Typing, My Throat Cells Are Lysing. . . Character Archetypes #2

Sometimes, I really hate Blogger. I had this entire post typed out. But I couldn't post it, because Blogger's messed up so I can't add the images. So I save it, I even see it saved. Then I come back, and it's fucking gone! Damn it! Fine!

The first archetype was the person I think I'd be if I had superheroes. More likely, it's who I wish I could be. I doubt I could keep saving the day while putting up with all the crap Parker does. This time around, it's the characters I'm rooting for, the ones I want to get that happy ending. For my prime example I present Ryoko, from Tenchi Muyo.

A quick origin. Ryoko is either 5000 or 2000 years old, depending on what website I check. She's a combination of her mother, Washu's, egg cell, and an organism called Masu, which has unusual energy properties. A student of Washu's named Kagato abducts Ryoko, and uses her as a weapon of mass destruction for at least a 1000 years (more if she's older). To do this he controlled her. It's kind of suggested that Ryoko's mind isn't like most, that it's more of a computer, and like Washu, Kagato could hack into it and assert control. Anyway, under his orders, she attacks the Imperial Planet of Jurai, gets chased by the Crown Prince Yosho, shot down over Earth, defeated by said prince and imprisoned inside a stasis chamber hidden within a cave for 700 years. Yosho's grandson Tenchi inadvertently frees her, and now you're caught up.

Ryoko is a character looking for redemption, even if she rarely shows it outwardly. Though both Jurai's and the Galaxy Police's statute of limitations have run out on her crimes, she's still feared throughout the galaxy. Still most people don't know she was controlled. If they do know, they may not believe it, or may not care. Those people have never seen this "Kagato", but they certainly remember Ryoko. To them, she's at best "Space Pirate Ryoko", and others regard her as an outright demon. And though she wasn't in control of herself, she feels guilt for all the people she hurt or killed. It was shown in one comic that she expects that if Tenchi or the others knew everything that she had done, they'd send her away, want nothing to do with her. But she mostly conceals this behind her loud, wild, somewhat crazy personality that caught my interest initially.

Along those lines, she has to figure out a whole new way to do things. Kagato seems to have lived by the philosophy "want, take, have", or more precisely "want, make Ryoko take, have". Wuss. And that being the only way Ryoko remembers, she often acts that way. Except that it can't help with what she really wants (Tenchi's love and acceptance). In fact, showing off her powers, her fighting ability, scares the crap out of tenchi, or at least makes him nervous for quite awhile. Likewise, she can't simply blow off her rival Ayeka's face, because Ayeka and Ryoko share friends. If she did that, Tenchi, Sasami, and plenty of other people would be saddened. So the ways that seem most natural to her, are the exact things she can't do. It's an uphill battle, and I can't help rooting for her.

Other examples:

Raven - I think this is a result of that season of Teen Titans, but I really cheer for Raven. She seemed to completely believe that she was destined to destroy the earth, that there was nothing she could do to defy her father. It was nice to see her friends, especially Robin, working to convince her that nothing was set in stone.

At the same time, it's Raven's abilties that make it hard to relate to people. She can absorb their emotions, enter their dreams, sometimes without even meaning to. That tends to make people keep their distance, because when you're feeling really happy, you might not want to talk to
the girl who can suddenly drain all that happiness. It's why I thought the "Raven goes to high school" was an awesome idea. Hopefully that'll happen after One Year Later starts.

Batgirl - Like my previous two entries, Cassandra Cain has been screwed over by her father/male figure. Like Ryoko, she had no influence from a mother to counteract that. I do think Cain cared for his daughter more than the others. She was more than just a weapon. True that 'more' was mostly as a testament to his greatness, but it feels like there was something more, not compassion necessarily, but something. Either way, he left her mostly unable to interact with the real world. Speaking is difficult, and if Oracle is to be believed, reading and writing will be damn near impossible. Still, she's trying, and early in Gabrych's work, she was expanding her life. Meeting boys, talking to the coffee shop lady. There was progress.

Stacy X - I've said it all before (repeatedly), but I believe given time she would have felt comfortable enough to drop the tough facade she puts up, and once that's accomplished, she could start to develop a bit. Become someone who doesn't define the majority of her life by sex.

Faith - Faith had a harder life than any of the "Scoobies" could guess. Buffy thought that having to set up everything for Parent-Teacher Night was difficult. Try having a mom who beats you, "B". She made mistakes, got saddled with a crap Watcher like Wesley, made more mistakes. Then she owned up to them, accepted the punishment, and went to prison. When she was needed, she escaped, and all she did after that was try to make amends. Try to be the Good Slayer, and show that she could be counted. And still, most everyone regarded her with mistrust and suspicion, while Willow, who did just as much evil crap, had been welcomed back with open arms. I'm just gonna move on, before I get pissed.

I look over this list, and it's entirely women, after my first list was entirely guys. I don't know whether that's a reflection of me and my being a guy, or whether it represents the stories that writers more often assign to specific genders. I did, however, come up with one guy for this list.

Spike - Probably the hardest road to redemption of all. Even with a soul, the demon is still there, reminding him that humans are supposed to be food. That eating and killing them is what vampires do, not saving them. Even when he gave his big speech about how much he likes this world, one of the reasons was the abundance of people, or "Happy Meals with legs". Still, he's fighting against that instinct. Even when he had the chip that wouldn't let him kill, that didn't mean he had to do good. When Buffy was dead, he didn't have to patrol with the Scoobies. There were other places he could go for a brawl, and probably have more fun without the humans getting in the way.

The thing is, soul or not, he'll never be accepted. The humans will never trust him because his demonic nature is always there, it's just of matter of whether he goes along with it or not. And he's had setbacks. He fell in love with a girl who wound up crushing him like a bug, verbally, emotionally, sexually, and physically abusing him, frequently. And then he snapped, and hurt her back. But he went out, and got the one thing he thought would make him a better person. And still, they didn't trust him. How can I not root for the quintessential "get knocked down, but get up again" character? Frankly, I always thought he and Faith would have gotten along well together, if Buffy weren't in the picture. But that's another subject.

Well, let's see if Blogger holds on to this one. Looking at it, I think these characters are the next step of suffering from the first group. I mean, for all the crap that comes Peter Parker's way, he still has a pretty good life. That's part of why he can remain upbeat and keep doing the hero thing. At least, when he's being written well. These characters have had crappy incident, after crappy incident, after lousy childhood, piled on them. They have to climb out from under the proverbial mountain of stuff, just to start on their path.