Q&A with AstroNerdBoy - Transcript and Followup Discussion Thread

[WaitoKon]

Welcome to the conversations with AstroNerdBoy (ANB) and yours truly!
Please read below, and post any questions. Look forward to everyone's feedback!

Transcript from August 12thWaitoKon:
After nearly twenty years, the 1997 True Tenchi light novels written by the franchise creators received translation for a global market. These adapted volumes (one through three) were published by Seven Seas, a division of MacMillan.

AstroNerdBoy has agreed to provide some insights about the experience, and to weigh in about the possibility of Kajishima and his colleagues finding time to publish another trilogy. These are questions that many fans would find relevant as the story surrounding Tenchi and friends enters into another OVA.

What prompted this question and answer session to take place, was the language found at afterword of the 3rd volume, the one featuring cover art of character Washu Hakubi. Both Kajishima and co-author Kuroda have given some thought to the newest plot points introduced in volume 3, and how it gets their intended narrative halfway to completion. In other words, there was a plan following the original release of the light novel trilogy to print more, perhaps another three-volume set! So, without further ado, here are the questions that I have for AstroNerdBoy. Thank you for reading!

WaitoKon: What were some of the technical requirements in adapting hundreds of pages in Japanese?

AstroNerdBoy: Actually, adapters are often not translators. In this case, the translator sent in the translation. An adapter does the following things: Make sure words are spelled correctly. Make sure all grammar rules are followed. This included changing passive sentences to active ones. Rewrite any passages that aren't clear in the translator's text and make them clear without changing the meaning. I was hired because of my knowledge of the canon "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki." So I had further responsibilities in making sure the names of people or places were correct and that things weren't mistranslated and thus violate lore. So if there was a passage that caused me a concern lore-wise, a consultation with the translator was made and corrections made, if needed.

WK: How did Kajishima approach you initially to help with the book project?

ANB: Kajishima-sensei wasn't involved in the English project. As far as I know, no one at Seven Seas ever had any communication with him.  Seven Seas approached me because I run the Tenchi Muyo! FAQ. They knew of my anime and manga blog work as well. So they felt I was best suited to handle the adaptation.

WK: Do you feel the True Tenchi light novels could use an expansion into another volume?

ANB: There was a rumor that volume 4 was supposed to be entitled "Mihoshi" and cover Mihoshi's past. But then GXP, OVA 3, and War on Geminar came about. Thus the True Tenchi Muyo! novels were ended. I don't think OVA 3 did much with the Mihoshi story, but it did cover some aspects, such as Mihoshi's brother. However, I would like to know what specifically happened to her since OVA 3 is vague on that point. So yeah, I'd love to see more "True Tenchi Muyo!" novels even if I think the likelihood of that happening is very small. (But then I thought the likelihood of OVA 4 or OVA 5 was nil and I was wrong there.)

WK: Doesn't reading the translated volumes 1-3 bring back such fond memories of the OVA?

ANB: More than that. It made OVA 1, OVA 2, and GXP have more meaning. Although GXP is flawed due to Nabeshin's direction and such, we did get to see many places described in "Yosho" and even "Washu." I wish the "True Tenchi Muyo!" novels would get an anime adaptation. Sadly, I don't think that will happen since Kajishima-sensei seems to not want to recover old ground unless he feels it wasn't adequately covered in one of the other canon works.

WK: Do you think Seven Seas will license the GXP novels?

ANB: Sadly, I think it is an extreme long shot. While Seven Seas does not give me any information on sales, I am lead to believe that sales of the novels are fine. However, it would have taken sales way above projections (say, selling out of a volume in a day or two after its release) to convince Seven Seas to take that kind of financial risk. Kajishima-sensei is still writing the GXP novels, so if he goes to 20 volumes or more before ending the series, that's a major financial commitment for Seven Seas (or any other publisher) to make. And since GXP is a whole new cast of characters that happens to be set in the same world as Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki, that makes things a bit more difficult.

WK: But it is remarkable that Seven Seas didn't work with him!

ANB: I don't know for sure this is the case. But that's the feeling I got while working on the project. As I understand it, most of the time, American publishers aren't in contact with the Japanese author/mangaka. Sometimes they are, but a lot of times they aren't. Most of the time, the American publisher is dealing with the Japanese publisher. There's usually no need for the original author to be involved. Back in the day when I had contacts within Dark Horse regarding Oh My Goddess, I know they reached out to Fujishima-sensei when they had to make changes to what he wrote for whatever reasons (including changing the English name from Ah! My Goddess to Oh My Goddess). But stuff like that is the exception. In the case of True Tenchi Muyo!, there was no reason for Seven Seas to work with Kajishima-sensei. And he's a busy guy so there's that too.

End of Transcript.

[WaitoKon]

Firstly, I want to add a humongous thank you to AstroNerdBoy for pitching in during a really busy time. The Tenchi Stage production, most recent Comiket plugs and announcements about OVA V are taking up a lot of ANB's time, so I have moved the convo to this forum thread in order to sparse out and open up the dialogue (essentially passing the mic around). Thanks!

[AstroNerdBoy]

Actually, it is my primary job that takes all of my time. 😅😅😅 It would be awesome to win the lottery and not have to worry about that.

[WaitoKon]

Haha! There are many in this happy clique that values the work but not the time investment. Personally, the Tenchi fanon activities run till 5am some days, and work is must show up by 10. Couldn't be happier though. More specific to the thread, what kind of work do you do and has it prepared you for the tasks behind managing the ANB site?

[AstroNerdBoy]

Sorry for the delay. 😅

> what kind of work do you do

I'm in IT for the financial industry. So the party never stops when it comes to making sure other people's money is done right by.

> has it prepared you for the tasks behind managing the ANB site?

Heh. Not really. I took over the old AIC Forum and Tenchi Muyo! FAQ site because the person who was running it was tired of doing so. And at the time, there was no Wikia site like there is now. So after AIC closed down their English forums, I decided to turn the FAQ site into one where the answers we'd been given in the AIC forums and other Tenchi forums could be shared and retained.

As to my anime/manga blog, that stemmed from my desire to write. I love writing, though my brain and my fingers on the keyboard sometimes go in different directions.

[WaitoKon]

Thank you for the followup reply. If given the chance, would you write across a wider variety of Tenchi platforms? For example, there are fan groups on Reddit, Discord, DeviantArt and (with some knowledge of Japanese) Twitter and Pixiv. I wonder how many people who watched the shows some twenty-odd years back utilize these tools today.

[AstroNerdBoy]

> If given the chance, would you write across a wider variety of Tenchi platforms? For example, there are fan groups on Reddit, Discord, DeviantArt and (with some knowledge of Japanese) Twitter and Pixiv.

Heh. Back in the day, I used to be VERY active across a variety of Tenchi platforms. Of course all we had were forums back then. But I think I was on every Tenchi forum there was. But over time, the forums died and a ton of the old school fans moved on as well. This is the only Tenchi forum I still connect with after the death of Ayeka Fan Club Forum.

(There is a second, but it seems I can no longer log in there. Maybe they got mad with me or something. 😅)

I'm only rarely on Reddit.

Discord is chat, right? I despise chat for the most part, mainly because I have to do a ton of chatting as part of my job. So I'm pretty sick of it after a long day of it. 😅

I am active on Twitter, but it tends to be more general when it comes to anime and manga. And at times, I let what I consider to be sheer stupidity trigger me into responding to something. And I do follow some Japanese Twitter feeds and am followed by a few Japanese Tenchi fans.

DeviantArt -- I've been there a few times, but usually because I saw something specific in my Twitter feed or the like.

[Harls]

(There is a second, but it seems I can no longer log in there. Maybe they got mad with me or something. 😅)

Welcome to the club.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Its kinda weird 'cause their official forum Twitter follows me on Twitter.

[Harls]

No matter, the forum itself is an abandoned graveyard.

[antvasima]

I appreciate that there are still a few oldtime Tenchi Muyo fans left, including you ANB.

Feel free to be more active with improving the wiki by the way. All help is very appreciated.

[AstroNerdBoy]

Yeah, I should do that. I know I did the one piece. I need to win the lottery so I don't have to worry about a job. 😂

[WaitoKon]

That is certainly the dream of us Tenchi fans as the days of Geneon fade and new Tenchi sequel anime take longer to produce much less simulcast. I would like to see another crowdfund happen following the Tenchi Stage ones on Camp-Fire, but only if I get a signed copy of something from the Kaj himself.