Since 1992 the franchise has produced four additional OVA series, three multi-season Anime television shows, three animated feature films, two Manga series, and numerous novels as well as light novels, some published in Japan and some produced by an American publishing company here in the U.S. There have been several spin-offs as well, including Magical Girl Pretty Sammy, Photon: The Idiot Adventures, and Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure (itself a partial parody of Evangelion). The Magnificent World of El-Hazard, a seeming unrelated series, is revealed through the course of its OVA to also be connected to the 'Tenchiverse'.
One of the more popular spin-offs, which has spawned a TV series, an OVA series, a Manga, and a string of light novels, is called Tenchi Muyo! GXP. In 2012 the Anime aired on Adult Swim in the US and elsewhere. It follows the adventures of unlucky Earth boy Seina Yamada, who is mistakenly recruited into the interplanetary law enforcement agency known as the Galaxy Police. Keep this in mind for later.
In Japan, a TRPG set in the Tenchi Muyo! universe was produced for the multi-genre/setting game MAGIUS. The main book and three supplements came out between 1995 and 1996. Guardians of Order put out a Tenchi Muyo! RPG and 'Resource' Book in 2000. This was followed by a GM Screen and sourcebooks for two of the television shows, Tenchi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo.
The Tenchi Muyo! RPG products using MAGIUS by Fujimi Shobo
The Tenchi Muyo! RPG products by Guardians of Order
Tenchi Muyo! is a franchise very near and dear to me. Not only am I a really big fan of it but also because it's how I met my ex-wife.
We met when she came into the Japanese Pop Culture Entertainment related retail store where I was working. She came in that day looking for the latest installment of Tenchi Muyo!. The thing was, Selina really knew her stuff and had been aware of the first OVA series even before it came out in America. As a result, she was unsure what was available in the US already and what hadn't yet been released here. We ended up talking quite a bit, bonding over our mutual love of Tenchi and company. About a year later we got together outside of work to watch some Anime and the rest is history [and just about the best ten years of my life].*
Cool story but what does this have to do with a character for the 31 Days/31 Characters Challenge? Well...
The first Galaxy Police we encounter in the Tenchi Muyo! universe:
Mihoshi (kneeling) and Kiyone (standing)
At some point prior to 2002 I told Selina about an idea that had come to me, a really cool concept for a Tenchi Muyo! Anime, Manga, or maybe a TRPG campaign; Ginga Keisatsu Muyo! or 'No Need for The Galaxy Police!'. Selina liked the idea but said it would probably go over better as a game than as a Japanese series. Most fans prefer their 'Tenchi' be Earth related. I figured she was probably right. Sure enough a couple years later Studio AIC released the newest installment of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, Tenchi Muyo GXP!.
Tenchi Muyo! GXP
The game concept stuck with me however, even after Selina and I parted ways, and sometime around 2010(?) I ran a one-shot session of Ginga Keisatsu Muyo at a Pop Culture convention with a large Anime/Manga presence (though it wasn't an Anime Convention). The most memorable and exciting character was Jin'Hoko...
Character: Jin'Hoko
AKA: Detective First Class, Jin
Player: Nikki
System: Teenagers from Outer Space, 1st Edition, with my 'Advanced TFOS' houserules.
I have a special surprise for you all down below in the 'Game Info' section. Keeping reading!
Nature: One-Shot: Ginga Keisatsu Muyo! No Need for the Galaxy Police!
Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein
Circa: 2010(?)
Not entirely positive if it was 2009, 2010, or 2011.
Origins: I kinda gave away the origins of this game and character earlier in the post but I'll get more specific about Officer Jin'Hoko herself:
More often than not I create Pre-Gens when running games at conventions. When doing so I always leave room for the player to customize their PC, name them, and come up with a bit of background.
A cool gal named Nikki picked the Wau Officer and called her Jin, later changing it to Jin'Hoko. The Wau are a species of intelligent, humanoid felines resembling lions. She used the extra points I gave out to raise her 'Blaster' Knack and asked me if she could switch out or add a custom Power called 'Blaster-Fu' which I'll discuss later. Of course I said yes, replacing another Power on the character sheet. Her background was kind of made-up as she went along but it ended up being absolutely excellent.
Backstory: Officer Jin'Hoko is First Class Detective of the Galaxy Police, the interstellar law enforcement division of the Galaxy Federation. She had served as a loyal, dedicated, and efficient police-being for sometime prior to the game's incident. At least, that's what the records show. The truth is not too different but often leaves out her reckless use of her GP Blasters when apprehending Space Pirates.
We additionally learn that Jin'Hoko's family were once profitable merchants who'd been preyed upon by the Space Pirate Cometia to the point where they couldn't stay in business. Jin initially applied to the Galaxy Academy in order to support her family and someday defeat Cometia.
In this adventure, she gets her chance.
Emblem of the Galaxy Police
Overview: Galaxy Police Officers Hikari and Kumonosu are having lunch at a space station 'drive-in' diner when they receive a call from their precinct, the infamous Space Pirate Cometia is attacking a freighter in the vicinity of Diaspora! The two Officers immediately take off in their Patrol Ship and head for the incident. Hikari, a relatively recent graduate of the Galaxy Police Academy suggests they call for back-up as Cometia and her vessel, the Dragon Riot, are ranked among the most dangerous criminals in outer space. Kumonosu agrees.
Hearing their request, GP Detective First Class Jin'Hoko and Special Investigator Chikao Arakane - with her robot sidekick 'Chiru-B1' - respond and fly to the scene of the crime at top speed. As their three ships arrive, the Transport/Freighter is burning and listing while a spikey, odd looking spacecraft tries to land on it and presumably board the merchant ship.
The Galaxy Police [PCs], over the course of the session, discover that the freighter was actually a getaway vessel of another group of pirates and Cometia was trying to stop them from escaping with a fabulous treasure. The treasure included a royal relic belonging to a Great House of the Jurai Empire, one connected to Officer Hikari's family.
Things get further confused and complicated over the next three hours as Jin'Hoko and her allies learn Cometia was created and controlled by a bio-engineering genius turned Crime Boss/Pirate Queen. Her early 'career' as a Space Pirate was the villain commanding her to commit acts of piracy. Freed from this a few years back, Cometia has been trying to make up for what she'd been forced to do by hunting down other Pirates.
Left to Right:
Detective Jin'Hoko, Rookie Officer Hikari, Chiru-B1
Special Investigator Chikao, and Veteran Officer Kumonosu.
The grand finale had the entire PC group plus Cometia fighting the Pirate Queen and her horde of crazy Space Pirates throughout her hideout/headquarters/starship which had a trans-dimensional M.C. Escher floorplan.
Highlights:
Cometia manages to board the freighter and begins attacking the people on board (who are pirates but this isn't known to the PCs yet). Jin'Hoko and Special Investigator Chikao enter the cargo ship from a different airlock and Jin'Hoko runs up a wall, then launches herself at Cometia. The Wau badass slams the notorious Space Pirate into a bulkhead rolling a Crit! Nikki then said Jin'Hoko opens up on Cometia with her two Blasters at point blank and rolled, Criting AGAIN!
I was about to say something since Nikki really shouldn't have made that second roll. This was technically her taking two actions. Everyone at the table just stared at Nikki with their jaws having dropped and then started clapping or shouting 'Yeah!' and so we went with it. Furthermore, Crits in Teenagers from Outer Space are actually kind of bad. The rules are you don't just succeed or even really succeed but you Super-Duper-Over-Succeed. Jin ends up blowing Cometia through the ships hull and - FLOOSH! - explosive decompression! Chiru-B1 rushes to help Chikao while Hikari and Kumonosu race to save Jin'Hoko. Meanwhile, a badly injured Cometia shook her fist and shouted at Jin (which no one could hear through the soundless void of space).
In the final battle Jin uses her heightened sense of smell in concert with her Blaster-Fu ability to shoot a bunch of Pirate goons to her right, left, and behind her or her friends without directly looking at them. She would often pair up with other PCs, creating some really cool and different combos based on her partner at the time. One of my favorites was right before facing the Pirate Queen Big Bad when Jin and Hikari work together. Hikari is revealed to be part Royal Blooded Jurai and possessed a variation of Tenchi's Light Hawk Wings power. Hikari absorbed blasts from Jin'Hoko's pistols and used the energy to fire off a barrage of light bolts - basically releasing two dozen baseball-sized photon torpedoes. Jin's idea.
The notorious but actually reluctant Space Pirate Cometia!
Game Info:
The one-shot I ran used my own 'Advanced TFOS' variant of the Teenagers from Outer Space game but I thought it would be fun to try and build Jin'Hoko in the game Space Ship Story, the Japanese indie Space Opera TRPG I mentioned in my previous post. SSS seems perfect for this sort of setting and character. Let's see how this goes...
First, I think Detective Jin'Hoko's Classes would be Gunner and Officer. At first I thought Gunner/Neighbor because Neighbor is used to represent alien characters and Jin is a Wau, a species of lion-like humanoids. The thing is, other than her physical prowess and supernormal sense of smell, Jin wasn't particularly 'alien' in her personality, mindset, or story. I gave her a bonus +1 to Senses here when smelling for trouble. I could use to bump up her Physical Body stat though. Hmm.
As mentioned in my prior entry, PCs start with two Specialty Skills (one from each Class) and five additional skills, one of which must be Class based and one must be a Support Skill. The rest can be made up of any combination of Class and Support. For Jin'Hoko I chose:
Cooperative Attack (Officer Specialty Skill)
Interference (Gunner Specialty Skill)
Investigate (Support Skill)
Military Tactics (Officer Class Skill)
Pilot (Support Skill)
Shooter (Gunner Class Skill)
Twin Barrel (Gunner Class Skill)
One of her Skills is custom - Twin Barrels. I created a virtually identical ability for the TFOS version so I just gave it to her here. It would qualify as a Gunner Class Skill.
I assume her Intercomp (a combination Communicator/Personal Computer) is in the form of the Galaxy Police Watch. In the Animation there is also a sensor in it that can detect lifeforms but here I'm going to say hers doesn't have that. During the game that kind of thing was usually left up to Officer Hikari and the robot Chiru-B1.
The last thing I'd like to point out is under Special Items - The Control Cube. This is an item from the Tenchi Muyo! universe that looks like a faintly glowing, blue or red plastic cube about the size of a softball. The Control Cube is an extradimensional device that is capable of holding a number of items within it. By twisting and turning it (like a Rubik's Cube) the user can pull out the equipment they need.
Notes:
Jin'Hoko's name is a play on 'Raion no hōkō' which means 'lion's roar'.
As noted, Jin is a Wau, a humanoid feline species resembling lions. Numerous characters of this species have appeared in the various Tenchi series and the Wau are noted to be long standing members of the Galaxy Federation.
Jin'Hoko was inspired by the Wau we'd seen before but also M'Ress from Star Trek: The Animated Series. Nikki admitted to thinking about her when making the character.
Nikki did an amazing job of playing Detective Jin'Hoko as both 'Action Hero out for Vengence' and someone with a bit of a moral quandary. Jin grew up believing the Space Pirate Cometia to be the 'boogeyman' who attacked her family's ships and ruining their livelihood. To find out it might have been this Pirate Queen villain and her cronies, that Cometia might be on the side of good, turned Jin's world (galaxy?) upside down. She (Nikki) really played it well.
Legacy:
Unfortunately, I haven't thought about this character in a long time. In fact, I haven't thought about the Tenchi Muyo franchise in quite. That's a shame. It is certainly one of my all time favorite universes.
Perhaps it deserves a rewatch...
Our next entry believes in the truth of the broth, the power of pork, and the wisdom of fresh vegetables. Most of all, KENTARO SHOUJI lives by The Way of the Noodle.
AD
Barking Alien
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