Ayeka is a princess of the royal family of planet Jurai. Her long-running feud with Ryoko over the love of Tenchi is the comic high-point of many a scene in the Tenchi series.

Ayeka's chronological age of 720/721 is accounted for in the OVAs by her having spent 700 years in suspended animation aboard her ship, searching for her half-brother and betrothed husband-to-be, Yosho. In the first TV series, her chronological age roughly matches Ryoko's, since we see several "flashback" sequences of the two of them as children (and, naturally, still fighting with each other).

Her full name in the OVA series is Ayeka Masaki Jurai, being a descendant of the Masaki house, one of the four royal houses of Jurai that are descended directly from the first emperor of Jurai. The genealogy of the Juraian royal family is significantly different in the other TV series' continuities, and is not explored to any great depth.

Ayeka's name is believed to have been derived from the archaic Japanese word "aekanaru", meaning "frail" or "delicate" - a suitable description of her usual manner (except, of course, when provoked by Ryoko!).

In the OVA continuity (according to the True Tenchi novels), Ayeka's natural hair colour is actually blue, the same as Sasami and her mother's. However, her genetic code was manipulated at the age of 4 to change it to purple, the same as her father.

The spelling of her name used by Pioneer in the English-language releases ("Ayeka" as opposed to "Aeka") is often a bone of contention, since adding an extra consonant between vowel sounds is not a standard practice when romanizing Japanese names. However, the addition of a "y" to her name was done purely for the sake of clarifying the pronunciation, and although not strictly accurate has become an accepted spelling.