Name: Kiyone Makibi
Occupation: Galaxy Police Detective, First Class
PERSONALITY
Kiyone's personality is interesting. For me, she's a character who I alternately want to hug in sympathy or shake till her teeth rattle inside of her head. She can be the most sensible, sane and level headed member of the team, thinking ahead, and keeping things under control. But the next moment she can be yelling at Mihoshi for something minor, or bemoaning her fate - being stranded in a remote part of the Galaxy.
Kiyone's personality in Tenchi Universe and in Tenchi In Tokyo does differ slightly, although the basic emphasis on the character is the same. Kiyone's Universe incarnation is probably the more level of the two. Though she is ambitious, she also has a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong, even if taking the right side can get her into serious trouble. This is particularly clear when she defects from the Galaxy Police to help Ayeka to clear her name, although it may cost her her reputation and her career to do so.
Equally, sometimes her compassion interferes with her responsibility. Although at first she is determined to arrest Ryoko, and at one point it seems she has managed to do so, in the end she seems to lose the desire to put away one of space's most wanted criminals, aware that she has built up a friendship with this girl and therefore she would be betraying her to try and cross that line.
It means that, ethically speaking, Kiyone is generally having to juggle her job responsibilities with her own personal judgements, which may at times explain why she is so hard on Mihoshi.
Despite her apparent frustration with her Mihoshi pairing, however, Kiyone's strong sense of duty prevents her from abandoning the girl or from trying to leave her for dead when the Galaxy Police tell her there's a chance she is still alive. Even though it is against her wishes, she obeys the order to search for Mihoshi, even going so far as Tenchi's house to find out her partner's fate. It would have been very easy for her to have skimmed over the Earth and then reported back that she had not had any success. But this is not Kiyone's way. If a job is going to be done, it is going to be done properly, regardless of her own opinions in the matter.
Her sense of wrong and right also comes into play when her spaceship, Yagami, is hijacked by a couple of stupid teenagers, and taken across the galaxy. When Yagami comes under police chase - in a case of mistaken identity - Kiyone has problems with the idea of rooting for the hijackers to escape, even though if they are caught it might mean major damage to her ship and the loss of Noboyuke and Yosho to the Galaxy Police.
A moment should also be spent discussing Kiyone's role in the various 'alternate universes' that spring up during the Time and Space Adventures episodes in the middle of the Universe run. (You may have guessed already that I really, really like these episodes!). In both Ayeka and Ryoko's worlds, Kiyone is a police officer who is involved in hunting down Ryoko in some capacity. However, her position in Ayeka's world is more interesting, since when she and Mihoshi discover Tenchi is on good terms with the demon, she agrees to keep this fact a secret. This is another example of Kiyone putting her duty and her friendships up against each other - though she does have an ulterior motive, fearing for her own job if Ayeka was to find out the truth. However, it is interesting to note that, even when Ayeka does find out the truth, Kiyone does not turn Tenchi in, despite the threat of demotion and the distress it causes her.
In Kiyone's own world, we see evidence of the girl needing the shaking I was talking about earlier. This world is really a self-pity fest, a monologue of a girl who has run away from the police to escape the 'nightmare named Mihoshi' by settling down in a quiet town at the edge of the world. That she's willing to quit the police to achieve this is significant, however - she obviously feels that so long as she is a police officer, she will have connections with Mihoshi and so she has to sacrifice all of her dreams to make the break away. And yet, although she is the one who wants to create a world without Mihoshi, Mihoshi still turns up, desperate to see her and stay with her always. In a sense, it should be telling her she is making her own situation worse - by pulling away from Mihoshi and trying to escape, she is constantly living under the fear of being discovered and she is not solving the problem itself. In my opinion, the problem is with Kiyone, and not so much with Mihoshi - and subconsciously Kiyone knows this.
Through the movies, Kiyone's role is pretty marginalised. Her most significant role is probably in Tenchi Muyo In Love, where her intelligence and trustworthyness is used by Washu as they work on a plan to beat Kain. Also in this film she seems to take the lead quite often, making suggestions and giving instructions about what to do. It's clear for the first time here that even without the Galaxy Police, Kiyone has a place and a purpose about her. And it's also interesting that, despite the promotion she was given at the end of the Universe series, she and Mihoshi appear to have gone back to their former roles as patrol officers for the solar system, apparently by choice.
In Manatsu No Eve, Kiyone takes on a different role from some of her other appearances. At the start, when they are all debating who Mayuka's mother might be, Kiyone tells them that they're all 'too young' to be thinking about things like that (a suggestion that she is older than them in some way, though how she can be older than Ryoko and company is a bit of a mystery to me!). She also treats Mayuka pretty much as a daughter figure in the way that she talks to her, and is supportive of the girl, liking having her around. (It's a glimpse of Kiyone we never really see, since she's not really a family type person and there is never any real indication that she's interested in either a husband or children)
Equally, in Tenchi Muyo In Love II, her role is extremely marginalised and involves covert breaking and entering. However, the way in which she deals with/speaks to Mihoshi is almost maternal again - telling her to be careful in case she burns her fingers, and when Mihoshi manages to successfully implement one of Washu's devices, Kiyone tells her that she's proud of her. However, her role in this film is so small and so incoherent that it's impossible to say much more about it.
In Tenchi in Tokyo, Kiyone's character is a bit more harsh at times - which is pretty typical for this series and the way in which characters are depicted. At one point she pulls Ayeka over for speeding, giving her a ticket despite the fact they are friends. And she and Mihoshi infiltrate Ryoko's gang, determined to arrest her for her crimes against space. However, this is also the series where you see most strongly the compassionate side of Kiyone's personality. (Strange, isn't it?) Even after going to all the trouble of sneaking into Ryoko's lair, and even though a major promotion depends on them successfully arresting her, Kiyone takes the time to speak to Ryoko face to face, trying to work out why she left Earth and even attempting to reach through the layers of hostility to find her friend beneath. Kiyone's strategy works very well, and you realise that in this world also, even though on many occasions she is obsessed about promotion and success, she still has that same sense of friendship vs duty which plagues her pretty much 100% of the time.
Overall, Kiyone is one of the show characters who has no interest in seducing Tenchi and carrying him off to her lair. (Doesn't that make a nice change??). However, she is more than willing to use the idea of it to fool others or elicit information (such as in Tenchi in Tokyo, when she pretends to Ryoko that she wants to marry Tenchi, in order to make the pirate open up to her about what happened). That she is smart, driven and focused is beyond doubt - but the fact that she keeps allowing her ambition to be nipped in the bud does make you ask the question - is career success what Kiyone really wants?