Rea Masaki (柾木 玲亜, Masaki Rea) is a supporting character in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki!, appearing for the first time in OVA 3. She is the current wife of Nobuyuki Masaki, stepmother of Tenchi Masaki and Tennyo Masaki, as well as mother of Kenshi Masaki.
Biography
As revealed in the Tenchi Ban 13.8, and OVA 4, Rea was an artificial human from Geminar; she was one of three preteen-aged artificial human created to be Seikijin pilots to fight against Gaia. The three were having difficulties, and so, it was planned that one of them would be sent to another world, and there have a child that would have the combined talent for being a pilot that the Artificial Humans, and those summoned from other worlds possessed. It was planned that Neizai would be the one sent, though Rea had a fascination with the other world. While they were testing the equipment that would send one of them to the other world, it was accidentally triggered, and Rea was caught-up in it and sent to Earth, where she was almost immediately found by Kiyone, who took her in. This was apparently shortly after Tenchi's birth, or prior to Kiyone's pregnancy, as in the flashback, Kiyone didn't appear to be pregnant, and in other flashbacks, Rea didn't appear to be much older than when she first met Kiyone.
Rea explained everything, including her mission to have a child on Earth who would someday have to return to Geminar, and Kiyone promised to help her land a man to father her child. [1] Rea was raised as a ward of the Masaki family and taken-in as a adoptive younger sister by the late Kiyone Masaki, Nobuyuki's late first wife. Rea had also been taught cooking by Kiyone, so even though she does have her favorite recipes, her cooking style is virtually identical to Kiyone's.
On the day of Kiyone's funeral rites, she was checking on young Tenchi when she noticed the boy had disappeared. Everyone present searched around for Tenchi but couldn't find him. It was during this search that Rea thought of something. Taking Nobuyuki with her, they found Tenchi asleep at the entrance to the cave where space pirate Ryoko was imprisoned. Tenchi was forbidden to go to the cave by his grandfather Katsuhito, but always went there anyway. Even though it had recently snowed, there was a patch around Tenchi that was dry, Ryoko having used what little energy available to her in her sealed state to protect him from the weather when he'd collapsed. [2]
Rea as a teenager.
Rea would end up cooking and cleaning house for the Masakis. Sometime after Ryoko was released, she would move in with Nobuyuki at an apartment near the site of the house that Nobuyuki designed when Tenchi was a young boy, before Kiyone's death (that house had been moved near the family shrine, destroyed when Mihoshi crashed into it, and rebuilt at the same site). When the school which Tenchi attended was destroyed by fire (in actuality it was Ryoko's doing), not to mention the Great Seto Bridge's destruction, she and Katsuhito were called to Tokyo to explain what had happened, at the Japanese Imperial Palace no less. At the last minute, Katsuhito made Rea make the report herself. Months later, she revealed this fact to Tenchi when he came over for a visit, but when he asked her why, she said he would be told about it later.
Later, when Tenchi discovered his mother's true personality of being a huge prankster, he became upset because the mother he remembered was nothing like that. Rea tells him that she feels sorry for his mother because the one he remembers is not Kiyone. Tenchi realizes that he had mixed his memories of his mother with memories of Rea, being that she took over the motherly role after Kiyone's death.
Rea during the wedding.
Rea married Nobuyuki in the final episode of OVA 3, and the preparations for the wedding are shown in OVA 4. It is revealed that Rea's wedding kimono was in fact the same one Kiyone wore when 'she' married Nobuyuki, and they hoped it would eventually be passed to Kiyone's daughter Tennyo. During the preparations, while bathing with Washu, Ryoko, Mihoshi, and Sasami, Rea reveals her true origins as being from Geminar, and how Kiyone found her immediately after arriving on Earth, and tended the injuries she had received. In the spinoff,Tenchi Muyo! GXP, nearly a year later, it is shown that she is pregnant.[3] The final episode of OVA 4 covers the time from Rea's giving birth to Kenshi, to the time when he is a pre-teen. It also reveals that, if Rea attempted to 'not' complete the mission of sending Kenshi to Geminar, she would be killed by the failsafes built into her body.[4] OVA 5 covers more of Kenshi's childhood, as well as Rea trying to keep her family from helping Kenshi by any means but training (such as giving him a mecha more powerful than Gaia by Washu.)
After Kenshi is sent to Geminar, Rea is freed from the command that forced her, and she has a breakdown as she's finally able to feel the fear for him that the command had be overriding.
The 2nd spinoff, Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar, centers around her son Kenshi, who has been transported to his mother's homeworld of Geminar. There are two unseen voices, shown at the end of the anime, who were involved in sending Kenshi there, one of whom is suggested to be Rea, the other either Washu or Tokimi.
Etymology
- The name Rea means "the tinkling of jade" (玲) (re) and "second, Asia" (亜) (a).
- Rea's surname Masaki means "right, proper" (正) (masa) and "tree, wood" (木) (ki).
Trivia
- Rea's name sounds phonetically like "Rhea", the Greco-Roman goddess of the Earth; a common theme, for characters to be named after Greco-Roman goddesses of the Earth, that occurs regularly through-out the War on Geminar related parts of the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki franchise (Gaia, Ceres Taito, Lashara Earth, etc.).
- While Kenshi was having his adventures on Geminar, Tokimi would record and transmit them, which meant the Masaki family watched the series themselves.
![Rea pregnant in GXP[3]](/wiki/File:Gxp_17_Rea_Masaki_pregnant.jpg "Gxp 17 Rea Masaki pregnant.jpg (202 KB)")
