Name: Kagato (Kagato-sama? Kagato Jurai!)
Occupation: False Emperor of Jurai/Master of Dark Magic
REVIEW
The many faces of Kagato. I've noticed he has a cunning habit of changing his eye colour. I couldn't find the scene where his eyes go royal-jurai-family red, but if you can't see it clearly, his eyes (above) are grey, goldish grey, brown, brown-black, greenish-grey, gold. On average, I guess you can say grey is his overall eye colour. But he does say that Jurai's power *can* do anything...??
ORIGINS/BACKGROUND
Kagato is a Prince of Jurai, that much is for certain. When Yosho recounts his history as a youth on Jurai, he mentions that Kagato's family tree is Jurai's royal family and he obviously has Jurai's power. That means he belongs to a branch family, like Ayeka - he and Yosho are probably cousins of some nature. Yosho says that Kagato would have been the legendary warrior, which suggests he was highly thought of and a great achiever when they were younger. In fact, that he was possibly better than Yosho at one point. Perhaps Yosho's disgrace with Haruna opened the door for Kagato to take his place - I like to think that he saw an opportunity and took it. In essence, he would have claimed Jurai's throne when he first fought Yosho, but Yosho won.
However, I have other opinions of Kagato also. Aside from the fact his magic manifests itself in a very different way from Yosho and Tenchi's magic, Yosho killed Kagato once. And yet he didn't die. He was in the "darkness of the universe", honing his powers...was this some kind of long term out of body experience? Certainly it seems like Kagato had powers beyond Jurai. That he could split his physical body and his spirit looks to be the only way he could have survived beyond Yosho's attack - that somehow he projected himself out of his body long enough to survive the onslaught and then later escape. Yosho still refers to the incident as having "killed" Kagato, although that could be a euphemism for the death of their friendship, as opposed to actual death. However, that Jurai thought Kagato had died seems likely, and the fact that Kagato came back in Yosho's name instead of trying to dominate in his own also suggests that he feels he has "died" in Juraian eyes and noone will remember or suspect his true identity. He is a buried legend gone wrong, in short.
The darkness of the universe may have honed Kagato's power, but he had some pretty sinister ones before Yosho sent him there. The ability to rupture the landscape and cause fire and brimstone seems a little bit un-Juraian. Was there some other kind of dark magic in Kagato's past/blood? Or was it all just his obsession driven over the edge?
Probably he was jealous of Yosho, because Yosho was in line to the throne, and this was heightened by their clashing and his "death", making him want to eradicate all of the true line.
PERSONALITY et al
There are two lines of thought on Kagato's personality. Either he's a normal young prince whose ambition and desire got the better of him - driven mad by desire and magic he couldn't handle until he became the despot. Or he was always bad, he just hid it well until he chose to strike. I tend to think he's somewhere in the middle line. I think that the advent of his power heightened and developed his ambition and drive to become something more than the "shadow prince" - and that Yosho treated the throne so casually must have been really annoying for him. As he and Yosho were close as youths, he must have known Haruna and may even have had an inkling that Yosho might abandon the throne. This being the case, he must have seen his chance to grab power and in the end he went too far. I think the darkness was always inside of him - but in the end it just took him over.
I realise there's a lot of speculation in that last paragraph, but then with Kagato there seems to be a lot of speculation necessary. We're only given brief hints and clips of his memory from Yosho's perspective. That Yosho featured strongly in his youth is the only thing we know for sure, and it seems logical that Yosho - in whatever sense - was the catalyst for Kagato's eventual mental decline.
That is not to say that Kagato is insane in the sense that he doesn't know what he's doing, or that he's stupid. He knows exactly what he's doing, and he's not at all stupid. I think he's smarter than most of the characters he's up against, and certainly smarter than the entire council of Jurai! That he could wait for as long as he did in the darkness of the universe, biding his time, suggests he's also patient, methodical and persistant - not the kind of man to act rashly but to think things out carefully and logically to get the best result. That he's calculating is probably a given - and because his actions are premeditated, not impulsive, it probably makes them all the more cold-blooded. But even Kagato, within his twisted heart, has a sense of his own honour. Although he's abducted Ayeka, and is trying to kill Tenchi, he seems to accept his defeat quite calmly and magnanimously. His final words, "Well, Yosho. Looks like I lost again." And although he could have murdered Tenchi at the old palace, he didn't. In fact, he didn't kill anyone there (although he injured Ryoko, she did spring a surprise assault on him, and we'll leave out his attack on Katsuhito/Yosho because of the bad blood between them - they were already engaged in a fight to the death).
Kagato also did not kill the other claimants to the throne. He imprisoned them instead, which seems strange for one so clinical and decided. Perhaps, then, he'd rather kill them in fair fight than behind closed doors - even despite his other negative traits? He certainly wants to fight Tenchi on equal terms and is disappointed when at first the boy's power doesn't seem to match what he expected.
I did say it was a twisted sense of honour. But it's there...all the same. Probably all those years of Jurai breeding were something he couldn't quite escape.
Even though he commits the ultimate faux pas in trying to slay Ryoko, I still really like Kagato Jurai as a villain (much more than I like the other incarnation of Kagato, because unlike Ova Kagato, this Kagato ties in so strongly with Yosho, Ayeka, Sasami and the planet Jurai, instead of being some weirdass experiment of Washu's gone nutsoid.)
KAGATO's Secret?
If you've ever read any of my fanfiction, you'll know where this is going.
I think that Kagato has some biological connection to Ryoko, although it's never said (and I know I'm not the only Tenchi fan to come independantly to this conclusion). Like the lip-service done in the series to Sasami's bond with Tsunami, TU likes to hint at things that it never actually says and you have to be sharp to see them (blink and you'll miss it!). But just stop and think about this for a moment...
- If you watch the way Kagato manifests his sword, it begins as a glowing ball in his hand, just like Ryoko's does. Yosho's, in contrast, has a physical sword hilt
- He fires bolts of energy at Yosho, just the way Ryoko fires her energy flashes.
- He teleports from the top of the throne room steps to the same level as Tenchi - Ryoko is the only other character in the TU series who visibly teleports.
- Kagato can fly, and so can Ryoko. Kagato's initial attack on Yosho is spookily echoed by Ryoko's subesequent attack on him.
- When Ryoko first fights Mihoshi, she projects a forcefield and Kagato often projects the same kind of defense barrier when under attack.
- When Ryoko fires her blast at Kagato, it has three 'blades', almost as if it were a parody of the "light hawk wings" that Tenchi spawns in the OVA.
- When Ryoko first arrives on Jurai with Tenchi, she says, "Well, we're here." The scene then flashes to Kagato, who suddenly has an epiphany - "They're here." Is this coincidence or is there some kind of telepathic link to someone on board Ryo Ohki? Process of elimination means it can't be Tenchi - Kagato didn't know Tenchi existed until just before this episode. It can't be the knights, because Kagato has no link with them. It has to be Ryoko. Surely?
- And of course, Kagato in the OVA series claims to have created Ryoko (even though the project was mostly Washu's).
It would be a nice touch, if the writers really had done this on purpose, to imply the connection between the two. It's entirely speculative, but they do say there's no smoke without fire :)