El-Hazard: The World of Ruling Women?

[Helio Perroni Filho]

This is something I realized some time ago, but was yet to write a comment about. El-Hazard is pretty much ruled by women! Afterall, not only Roshtaria, the most powerful kingdom of the island, is ruled by two princesses; but also the Sages, who possess the most advanced technology available, and whose jurisdiction surpasses even that of the El-Hazardian kingdoms, are all women. Not mentioning that the Bugrom, the most powerful enemy of the Alliance, are ruled by a Queen...

Of course the matter is more aestethical than ideological. The target demography of animes like El-Hazard like to see lots of sexy women around, and so does Hayashi Hiroki (not that I disagree ^_^'). Yet it's interesting to think on the implications of this aestethical preference to the setting of the series. For example, why were the demon-gods built to resemble beautiful women? Did the Ancients related feminine beauty to power in an abstract basis... or was this relation concrete in their world? The Great Sages surely seem to make a point in favour of the later.

[smkviper]

I think the reason all of them are women is so Mokoto can be oblivious to the advances of all the most powerful people in El-Hazard

[nirvana]

I think the reason all of them are women is so Mokoto can be oblivious to the advances of all the most powerful people in El-Hazard

Here something I found interesting on the subject of Makoto and the ladies in El Hazard and to any love comedy situation...

Rules of Anime #60- The Law of Active Female Attraction

- In a comedy series, a male character's attractiveness to women is inversely proportional to how active they pursue them.

(Makoto has a seemingly endless supply of willing girlfriends despite their lack of romantic skill. So it's not the fact that he's oblivious to their advances (he probably knows it too...) , it's just that the women in El Hazard must find a outlander sexy...granted that they aren't attractive males on El Hazard... (LOL Londs) )

[Saucer]

The thought hadn't crossed my mind before...... good observation Helio! El-Hazard is a matriarcy.  

[syipinc]

Good point about Roshtarians being ruled by women, but it's also pretty obvious WHY this came about if you think about it.  
The members of the Roshatarian royal house are supposedly the only ones who are capable of interacting, activating and AIMING the 'Eye of God' - while this might not be strictly truely limited to females,which suggests that some kind of genetic trigger IS required, it makes a heck of alot more sense in preserving bloodlines through a matriarchical line than patriarchical.
Ergo - it's no big deal if a ruling princess has a bastard, the baby's still got the gene potential to uplink to the Weapon of Mass Destruction hanging overhead and pass it on.  However, it IS a big deal if a ruling prince is a cuckold, because the ability to uplink to the WMD is bred out of the royal line and the potential to lose the genes from the population base altogether is pretty damn high.
But then, this is an anime...though I give points to the creators for unknowingly lucking into a survival mechanism to preserve certain genetic traits.

[Andrusi]

Not to mention, if the guys are the ones passing on the genes, then if they do some extra on the side, you potentially have a whole bunch of kids running around who might be able to control the Eye, in which case you'd better hope the priestesses like you better than them.

[dooky]

This reminds me... some years ago myself and old-school El-Hazard expert Erin did some speculation as to how the Eye of God gene gets passed on. We concluded that it must be mitochondrial, as mitochondrial DNA is the only form to be passed on with 100% efficiency. However, there's no way of moderating what genes get passed on to what gender. Males would inherit the gene as well as females, although unlike females they would be unable to pass it on (mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from the maternal line). This would still lead to the problem of male offspring being able to utilise the gene (unless there was some other factor at work, I suppose). In my fanfics I proposed that the royal line had been engineered so that only female children could be conceived, although even this isn't a complete fix, as after several generations there could still be potentially scores of women, with a maternal royal ancestor, capable of activating the Eye of God. Which clearly wasn't the case in the series, as it would have been much easier for the Phantom Tribe to kidnap Fatora's distant cousin than Fatora herself. I suppose that reproductive activities within the royal house must be strictly regulated. Heh... maybe this is why Fatora's lesbianism is tolerated to such a degree ^_^

In any case, I agree with the view of Roshtaria as a maternal society. El-Hazard as a wider area is more debatable: the majority of rulers/diplomats seen in OVA1 are male, even if the dominant power is run by women (presumably out of necessity).

[Spanner]

This reminds me... some years ago myself and old-school El-Hazard expert Erin did some speculation as to how the Eye of God gene gets passed on. We concluded that it must be mitochondrial, as mitochondrial DNA is the only form to be passed on with 100% efficiency. However, there's no way of moderating what genes get passed on to what gender. Males would inherit the gene as well as females, although unlike females they would be unable to pass it on (mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from the maternal line). This would still lead to the problem of male offspring being able to utilise the gene (unless there was some other factor at work, I suppose). In my fanfics I proposed that the royal line had been engineered so that only female children could be conceived, although even this isn't a complete fix, as after several generations there could still be potentially scores of women, with a maternal royal ancestor, capable of activating the Eye of God. Which clearly wasn't the case in the series, as it would have been much easier for the Phantom Tribe to kidnap Fatora's distant cousin than Fatora herself. I suppose that reproductive activities within the royal house must be strictly regulated. Heh... maybe this is why Fatora's lesbianism is tolerated to such a degree ^_^

In any case, I agree with the view of Roshtaria as a maternal society. El-Hazard as a wider area is more debatable: the majority of rulers/diplomats seen in OVA1 are male, even if the dominant power is run by women (presumably out of necessity).

There are a couple of other possibilities to consider as well. Much like Washu from Tenchi Muyo, the ancients of El-Hazard had magic-like levels of technology. There's really no limits you can place on what they might have been able to accomplish. With that in mind, I figured that they might have created a kind of "aggressive" X gene for the royal line - one capable of being passed on with 100% efficiency, no matter what. When passed to a male child (paired with a Y gene), the gene rewrites itself and becomes inactive. When passed to a female child (paired with an X gene), the gene rewrites its partner X gene to be an identical copy.

There's also the solution offered by The Wanderers - when Rune was a small child, she was taken by her parents to the gateway to the Eye of God, and placed in a machine there. I figured that's how she was "registered" with the Eye of God. Perhaps something similar was done for Rune and Fatora in the original?