- Haven't played many JRPGs, which is one possible reason...

For me, Mai Nakahara's defining role was her performance as Mai Tokiha in Mai HiME. I'm glad to see she's been getting more roles again lately. She's really good at projecting emotions. Seeing that she would be voicing Yui was one of the things that really got my hopes up for this series.

Although I wonder a bit whether I would have liked Yui so much if it hadn't been for those first two episodes. She came across rather harshly at the end of episode three. (Though if you look back at Yuuya's behaviour in that episode he gave her plenty of good reasons not to be satisfied with him.)

Yui Takamura

The "Warrior Princess". She left her doomed country after tragically trying to protect it at the cost of her comrades' lives. Brought to America to conduct a research but instead faced she never knew she'll have form interest. They quarrel to understand each other. She later reals her feelings but she have still a mission to accomplish. If this story really ends here, blame it to the director!

- I think someone actually posted a transcript of an interview with Nakahara some pages back? She did say that those two episodes are what gave Yui her depth--without it being shown first you'd have a lot more difficulty relating to Yui or even liking her.

After complete watching anime, I feel that Yui is a wasted great character. She has a lot of potential to be a great character, but every opportunity is wasted.

First, her background and character is inviting a horde of doujinshi with bad intention. The potential is quite malicious.

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The show starts with her years as a cadets. She makes friends with her new found classmates. As a typical mecha anime, the main girl has a rival. After several competition, they eventually become friends. This good start is ruined by the end of second episode. T_T Maybe it's expected. As cadets who haven't completed the training, they are outnumbered and outgunned. They already did their best.

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Now, move on. About her military career. Her ancestors were royal guard and samurai for many years. Her father is a high ranking officer. So, it becomes her duty to take over her family business. She has to shoulder the burden of her family's pride.

The politic is in her world is quite dirty, not saying the real world politic is clean. It's why she does not trust foreign countryman(a dirty doujinshi material). In her world, JPN empire military didn't surrender and disband. It's similar another fantasy show, Striker Witch. However, her military still acts as vassal of a foreign military. She cannot trust that faction. She believes that faction is planning world dominance. So, it's waiting Euro-Asia to be wasted by Beta. Yui knows that she still needs that country's resource assistance. Yui also distrust another superpower. Her country asks another faction's collaboration through UN. That faction also seeks world domination. That's why her empire military didn't ask for that superpower's assistance during Beta's Japan invasion. It may leads to the occupation of Japan.

Neverthelss, she still respects the ace pilot from that superpower. In the promotional video, she calls that pilot as her enemy and comrade in war field. She also claims that person is also her rival in love.
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As a potential harem anime, Yui falls for the main guy for no reason. Maybe there is a reason, but it is kind weak. His passion in winning may be intriguing to Yui. Yui wants her project to be successful. So, Yui's trial starts as fighting Beta. Then, it becomes resort type training in Alaska. She even provides the fan service at beach and hotspring. Then, she has to engage the humanity's internal conflict. It's no wonder some people think the write hate the countries in real life. So, the writer screwed up the romance and plot.

Since the series is only a subplot, Yui's character development stops suddenly. Too bad, Yui's character development still has potential.

no comments on the doujinshi part for me , but other than that I'd agree with your view that Yui is kinda a bit of a wasted character.

Blame the franchise...

I'm not big on shipping, but I don't think Yui falls for him for no reason.

He built up a lot points after helping her during that beach episode.

He finally acknowledged her and the 99 cannon on his first taste of a battlefield.

He saves her from certain death twice in Kamchatka.

He inspires her when he returns with the sole promise to bring 94 second back.

That's just the first half of it. There's even more later on. I think others can add to this list.

Anyways, if that right there doesn't make a girl fall for you whether in RL or anime. Nothing will.

I think more significant is the mutual respect Yui and Yuuya build towards; they start out disliking each other, and are tsundere to each other, but then they warm up and their relationship shifts to mutual respect.

It's very rare that there's mutual respect between the tsundere and her love interest, though admittedly that may be due to poor writing and genre conventions. Note Asuka and Akane (Ranma 1/2).

Top of me head, only other time I've seen tsundere respecting their LI, instead of being torn up about why they have these weird feelings, is maybe Alto/Sheryl, Yuuya/Yui... well, there's Takeru and the rest of the Shinkengers, but there's no love interests there :p. Hmm. Maybe Cloche and Croix as well...

Are you referring to this interview?

The thing is, in the source novels she didn't have anything like those first two episodes, so I'm kind of wondering how she came across there and whether I would have liked her had I been introduced to her via that route rather than through the anime. (The same blogger that translated that interview did a comparison between episodes three to five and their source material, but a blog post can only tell you so much).

I'm actually impressed the anime staff were given the leeway to do anime original content that affected a core character's backstory as much as those first two episodes did.

That's a good question, and no one bothers to clarify it. The connection between Total Eclipse and the main story is near non-existence. I still think the first two episodes is the best of the series. First, we only know Yui and classmates are from military families. They are trained to join the private army of Shogun's sister. It may connect to the characters in the main story. Second, Yui is saved before Beta almost chewed her. Takeru comes down and swings blade around. If we have time, we can research about this event in the story of Alternative.

That wasn't takeru saving yui. He was probably 12 when that happen.

that was 3-odd years ago, so I figure Takeru woulda been 18 - IIRC Yui is 17 during Total Eclipse, which means she was thrown into the meat grinder at the tender age of 14.

There are hints and implications that the blue Takemi was piloted by Takatsukasa Kyoko, Yui's CO and mentor in the IRG.

...not to mention, (Extra)Takeru would not have been in the Unlimited/Alternative universe at that time (1998). And even if (Alt/Unl) Takeru was alive, he'd be too young to pilot anything--much less a prototype Takemi.

It's Yui-hime's Birthday! ^_^


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Do you guys think that one of the reason that we support Yuuya/Yui is because of the fact that they are (half) family members?

That has nothing to do with it since most of us were shipping Top Jelly and Tog Gun before the sinling reveal.

Hey, you are the one who rejected when I proposed making Yui not a Takamura!

Her being related to Yuuya simply adds drama, and some of us do enjoy seeing fictional characters suffer.

That said, I've shipped YuuyaxYui for a long time, and never considered them siblings, even after the reveal.

Shipped Yui and Yuuya since the first anime airing, because Top Tsun and Jelly Yui. Before that, I never knew that much about Yuuya other than his mixed ancestry and how he suffered because of it. The reveal have had a lot of comedy, the awkward kind, potential to me.