Seto Kamiki Jurai

Seto Kamiki Jurai (神木 瀬戸 樹雷) is a fictional character in the Tenchi Muyo! series, as well as a brief part in Hitoshi Okuda's The All-New Tenchi Muyo! manga series, published in the U.S. by VIZ Media.

Seto is the mother of Empress Misaki and the adopted mother of Noike Jurai (grandmother of Ayeka and Sasami), and is a very powerful 'behind the scenes' figure in Jurai politics. Among the royal family. A survivor of the pirate raid of the Jurai Royal Science Academy post on planet K-1190 over 5,000 years prior to GXP, Seto was adopted by the Kamiki family, and retains an intense hatred of pirates. She is married to the Kamiki clan's head, Utsutsumi Kamiki.

Her treeship, Mikagami, is known for her special attack, The Triple Z (AKA the "Genocide Dance"), which literally causes all enemies to stop in their tracks; either due to an Electromagnetic Pulse or some other mechanism, though the effect of this is left to the viewer's imagination.

Because of her political craftiness, and occasionally violent temper, she has been referred to as the "Devil Princess of Jurai".

Seto had a small but significant part in the third OVA series (she commented that she had once held Tenchi when he was a baby) and it was also revealed that she already knew that Yosho had fled to Earth because he had secretly contacted her after he left Jurai. She had borrowed Tsunami-fune and used it to throw a party in hopes of bring Misao Kuramitsu and Mashisu Makibi together (which included the rare fruit wine Shinju sake, made from the fruit of Jurai's royal trees). Seto also presided over the meeting to punish those involved in the Choubimaru incident and offered to adopt Mashisu Makibi so she could marry into the Kuramitsu family until Misao's mother Mitoto arrived and announced that Mashisu had the Kuramitsu family council's support.

However Seto had a bigger and more influential role in Tenchi Muyo! GXP. Seto has a particular dislike for space pirates. Seto first met Seina Yamada when his transport ship was under attack by pirates. Seeing how Seina's bad luck could be useful for the GP she agrees to support Seina and have him made an exception to enter the GP Academy although he comes from an underdeveloped world, feeling like the academy could use a little chaos once in a while. Seto had also requested to Mikami Kuramitsu to have Kiriko Masaki reassigned as an instructor at the Academy in order to train Seina to become a man.

Later, when the Daluma pirate guild brought out their good luck fleet and succeed in escaping from the Mikagami, Seto had Seina deal with them. But when Seiryo Tennan was made the captain of the luckiest ship in the Daluma fleet, the Unko, knowing the Kamidake II was no match for it in its current state and that it would take too long for Fuku the cabbit, who is the power source for the Kamidake II, to mature, Seto decided to have Kiriko go through her tree bonding ceremony to merge her new tree Miyuki with the Kamidake II in order to give it the power it needs to bring down the Unko. After using her Mikagami as a test subject for this, the ceremony was performed (with her husband Utsutsumi and Emperor Azusa as witnesses) and then the plan was executed. Seto later arranged a duel between Seiryo and Seina in order to have Seiryo surrender.

Near the end of the series, after Seina brought back the mecha that he found on the Wau planet, Seto held a meeting on the Mikagami alongside Jurai Emperor Azusa and the empresses Misaki, and Funaho to discuss their findings on the mecha with Seina. Seto reported that Tsunami had told her that the first generation Juraian seed which is used as the mecha's power source is actually one of the two seeds that Tsunami had given to a person that had visited Jurai long ago. Seto also announced that Seina was now part of the Jurai royal family since the seed had bonded with Seina.

Seto, has a reputation as an unofficial "matchmaker" in the Jurai empire. She has been known to arrange marriages, either to cement alliances or just to see happens for her own amusement.

Trivia
Seto's name, like many of the other characters in Tenchi Muyo!, comes from a landmark in and around Okayama Prefecture. In Seto's case, it is not a landmark, but the Seto Inland Sea, which separates Okayama Prefecture from Kagawa Prefecture.