by Wyrd » Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:27 pm
Tuxedo Kamen's powers from the Sailor Moon RPG, and whether I feel each is supported by canon:
First, like with the Senshi, there are supposed to be many Knights in the galaxy like Tuxedo Kamen. He is just the only one that shows up in canon, despite the plethora of Senshi.
His roses can:
1) Stop any physical attack. While he has never used this in close combat to stop a punch or other attack, he has used it to stop someone hitting Moon.
2) Stop and negate and energy attack. Again, he uses this ability often in both manga and anime. From this description, he could actually stop Nanoha's Starlight Breaker, even though the damage his rose can do as an attack is painful but negligible next to any Senshi attack.
3) Cut through any physical restraint and most magical ones. Again, seen repeatedly in both anime and manga.
4) Knock an object from the grasp of any individual. One of the least used aspects of his attacks, he still does so on several occasions.
5) Can prevent his opponent from acting for a brief period of time. He does this almost every episode of the first season, giving Moon enough time to kill her opponent, and often throughout the rest of the series.
6) Do all or any of the above to up to 6 targets. He only hits multiple targets a couple of times, but he does hit them.
According to the book, he can take on the Prince Endymion form any time he wants to, he just saves it for the big battles for the same reason he stuck to Tuxedo Kamen when brainwashed by Beryl: Usagi likes men in tuxes.
The RPG gives Senshi control over elements and Knights control over emotions. While the Senshi's elemental abilities are displayed in the anime and manga, they are very limited in how any of the main cast uses them, and emotional control is not something you can exactly see. Tuxedo Kamen has control over the emotion of Hope, which is why he can so readily and consistently inspire the Senshi whenever they are having difficulties. A fan author could do a lot more with this than is ever shown in canon. Imagine if instead of inspiring hope in the Senshi, he used it to suppress hope in their opponents, so that they are all convinced that attacking the Senshi is completely hopeless and they should really just surrender now.
He has the ability to teleport to near Usagi when she is in trouble. He never demonstrates this ability otherwise, though if he could master it he could go to school in America and teleport to visit his girlfriend whenever he wanted.
His character sheet gives him points in acrobatics(better than Minako's rating), improved appearance, art of distraction(up to a medium sized crowd), combat mastery, and enhanced speed(three times human). He also has the attribute Perfect Timing, allowing him to always get there just when he is needed. At some point in the book it talks about his psychic connection to Usagi and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the scouts that lets him know when they are in danger, but it wasn't on his character sheet.
My personal fanon interpretation of this is to treat the Knights and Senshi as being like Yin and Yang, or Ninja and Samurai. Kamen's powers are best used from stealth with surprise on his side; it costs him as much energy to throw one of those magical roses as it costs any of the senshi to do their attacks, meaning he can only act a few times(outside of a few specific events, such as the siege of Mugen Gakuen, the Senshi are usually shown as being exhausted after two or three attacks, in those situations where they use multiple blasts; give them the ability to recharge pretty quickly like in Sailor Ranko, and the amount of running around they do while only occasionally attacking makes a lot more sense). He is an asset in a battle, but not incredibly useful without one of the Senshi to throw the powerful attacks needed to seriously harm their opponents. If, magically speaking, males control the subtle powers and females control the gross* powers, then it actually makes sense why all of the Senshi's enemies are vaguely female in nature--they make better weapons, especially when you limit their intelligence like they display in canon.
*in this usage, this means large, palpable, physical, tangible. It is the best word for what I am trying to say, but is a relatively rare usage of the word, so I thought I would clarify.