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nik wrote:
>Yeah, I appreciate that Kajishima made the doujinshi, the 101, 
the artwork and the novels to provide the backstory (as well as 
put a couple bucks in his pocket, which is perfectly fine) even if 
it was not and probably never will be available to English 
speaking fans. What I don't like is the idea that the storytelling 
in the animated aspect has to suffer needlessly by inserting 
obscure references to Kajishima's other works on Tenchi.  Why is 
that hard to understand?<
     The problem is that you are failing to be pragmatic.  The 
longer a series, the more outside funds are required to make it 
happen.  AIC and Kajishima do not have the kind of funds that are 
required and when you go to an outside source for more money, that 
outside source demands more control and influence.  To many 
creators, that is counter to their desire to present the story how 
they originally intended.  That is likely why we ended with GXP, 
so that the OVA would remain relatively untouched.

     The OVAs are still as such that you don't have to have read 
the other material to enjoy, but if you haven't, there's a great 
deal more that you have to be willing to accept at face value.  
The fact is that written medium was the *one and only* form of 
story transmission for the series for about eight years.

>Misaki?  Najya/Noike/Kagato?    If this stuff is explained later 
(even if the answers were alluded to I would be happy, but there's 
nothing about the Misaki thing) in the OVA it's cool, but as is I 
think it is poor storytelling.<

     Again, you are demanding the animated medium to be the one 
and only form of transmission.  You want eight years of written 
material to be presented to you before you take in OVA 3.  That is 
completely understandable as an English-only fan, but it isn't 
realistic give the nature of the Japanese animation industry as 
well as the market for licensing foreign books.

>I don't have problem with Tenchi being a god.  That is a 
reasonable explanation to questions concerning Tenchi and the 
events surrounding his life.  Tenchi being a god is explained in 
the last episode (certainly not in detail, but I'm not sure I'd 
even like to see that. Though a little more clarity on that issue 
would be good, in my opinion) but there's other things that came 
out of left field which defy both logic and conventional
>narrative.  Why not just make Amagasaki a god?  There is the same 
amount of evidence in the OVA suggesting that Amagasaki is a god 
as is Misaki (meaning none).  You might think that's a bit of an 
extreme example, and it is, but I only make it to underscore the 
lack of any evidence which could lead a reasonable person to even 
entertain the idea that Misaki was a god.  It goes beyond a simple 
lack of foreshadowing and ventures into the random.<
     So, Misaki tossing around Ryouko like a rag doll couldn't 
have been construed as foreshadowing, much as I relied upon 
Tenchi's obvious superhuman feats to point out how he was 
definitely NOT just a normal human?  Assuming that the answer was 
is "no" or "not much", let's talk about other shockers.  So, how 
much foreshadowing was there that Ryouko had a mother before 
episode six?  How much foreshadowing was there that Tenchi could 
create his own LHWs?  How much foreshadowing was there that 
Tsunami and Washuu were sisters with Tokimi?  How much 
foreshadowing was there that Washuu was a goddess?  Not every 
aspect of a story must be hinted or foreshadowed.  Often, little 
is given to enhance its impact... and it can be certainly said 
that Misaki's appearance in episode 20 certainly had a strong 
impact.

>Interesting.  I have always wondered how the name sounded to the 
Japanese ear (the kanji as well).<
     I understand that it is enunciated the same.  In short, 
Tenchi's kanji is enunciated as an object or foreign entity, 
rather than a Japanese name.  This was also strange, as pointed 
out by the AIC admin, but not so strange given Kajishima's 
tendency to choose obscure or unusual (though legitimate) ways of 
enunciating kanji.

>How do you mean?<
     If I recall someone's article correctly, Youshou's name 
basically means "distant illumination".  It was conjectured that 
it was Kajshima's way of suggesting that Youshou was lighting the 
way to Tenchi.

>Which question?<
     [asterisks are mine]
20.      Why did Tenchi break the demon's seal in the shrine? 
Answer:
His grandfather's fault. 
More details ...
He broke the seal out of pure curiosity. "If someone told you 
never ever do something, you'd want to do it, wouldn't you?" 
(ep.1, Tench)  In fact he fell in his grandfather's trap, he made 
Tenchi interested in the demon ever since childhood, with help of 
Tenchi's mother. He is a tactician (^_^) and knew that Ryoko was 
watching Tenchi all the time. Even though Tenchi did not realise 
the astral body of Ryoko was watching him (flash back in ep.5), 
his grandfather knew. He arranged so that Tenchi would break the 
seal and use the Tree to attract Aeka. He felt something special 
about Tenchi and wanted him to be Emperor of Jurai in the future. 
That's why he gave his master key to Tenchi and told him to fight 
against Kagato.  But Tenchi won the battle without it in the end. 
*Tenchi has more power than his grandfather first thought and he 
had to change his plans ...*

>Perhaps I'm remembering this wrong, but didn't he say that the 
3rd OVA would reveal Tenchi's choice when he first started working 
on it a few years back?  I was under the impression that the 
higher ups frowned on his desicion to do that and made him change 
his mind.<
     It was an error in translation/comprehension that was also 
emphasized by the person writing the article by bolding it.  
Kajishima went out of his way in the same interview to make it 
clear that Tenchi made a choice at the very beginning (OVA 1).  
Yet, the only clear message from OVA 1 and the 101 Q&A is that 
Tenchi chose to live with all of the girls and would never forsake 
any of them.

>I hope not.  That feels cheap and greasy, like a cop out<
     That's a strange way of looking at it.  Really, Kajishima 
seems to be the only major creator to actually fully execute the 
multi-partner relationship.  All others use most of the romantic 
contenders (usually girls) as eye-candy, focus on one or two 
candidates, and then, by process of elimination, brings the story 
back to a conventional boy-girl love story, as if the others 
really didn't mean anything to the protagonist (usually a boy).  
Giving in to the mainstream approach would be a "cheap and greasy, 
like a cop out", don't you think?


Jeff Harris wrote:
>If it's any consolation, I agree %100.  I guess if I was K-sensei 
and realized that there was a large international contingent 
following my works, one willing to pay for all of the material I 
produced relevant to my works, I would be including that foreign 
contingent in my marketing plans.  That he has not says volumes.<
     Actually, the U.S. anime market represents such a miniscule 
amount of money compared to the Japanese market, who could blame 
Japanese creators from focusing on their home market?  Really, we 
(as in many anime fans) throw a fit if we are paying more than $25 
a disc with anything less than 4 episodes and the Japanese fans 
regularly shell out $40 a disc with a single episode.  A typical 
U.S. box set is about $100 or less.  The typical Japanese box set 
is about $300 on up.  The Japanese population is half of the U.S. 
population, but most Japanese are comfortable with the usage of 
animated and drawn characters in non-children mediums.  By 
contrast, if you discuss animation with most Americans, they think 
of cartoons for children.

     So, recognizing the realities of producing for / catering to 
a niche audience and that U.S. fans constitute an extremely small 
and relatively unprofitable niche, what does that say about U.S. 
fans that feel that Japanese creators, publishers, and producers 
should pay more attention to them?  Until American licensees are 
*regularly* willing to put up the cash for producing entire series 
*before they are even produced* and generate the kind of revenue 
it takes to make it worthwhile for Japanese production companies 
and distributors to listen to American fans, it's nothing more 
than a self-centered pipe dream.  As the saying goes: "Show me the 
money!"

>I have had serious problems accepting the entire backstory idea, 
as well as Tenchi's multidimensional nature.  As has been pointed 
out to me, I don't *have* to like it.  But I do agree with you 
that it is poor storytelling to make each OVA so contingent on 
reference material that is assumed to be available for everyone.  
Each element should be able to stand on its own merits.  I look at 
the recent LOTR films as an example of playing to a specific 
community; I took my brother (who has never read the books) to see 
the middle installment and he was absolutely lost....and I can't 
blame him.<
     For good or for ill, it is actually Hollywood / Broadway that 
has driven creative works to have broad-based appeal.  So, rather 
than the storyteller to tell his story to those that want to hear 
his/her story, the storyteller tells the story that someone thinks 
that most of the population wants (that means the typical 
moviegoer/showgoer, not the hardcore fan).

     Finally, to reiterate the point, there is over eight years of 
written material that will probably never ever be animated, but 
were made because there was a story to tell even so.  It is in 
Japanese and it will probably never be translated to English, but 
it was intended and accepted as an acceptable medium for those 
whom the story was intended. 

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