It’s been eight years (though it may be longer, as my memory around here is hazy) since I got involved in the world of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki.
What began with the OVA (original video anime) expanded to a couple TV series, movies, manga, novels, and even video games. Looking back, I’m quite impressed at how far we’ve come.
All the various players created Tenchi in their own way, and what was once derived from a single work has become colossal, but Tenchi can be broadly divided into the OVA world that I was involved in, and the world seen in the TV series.
While true that the bulk of it belongs in the TV world, the OVAs also contain just as much backstory (why am I boasting?). Sadly, because of the nature of OVAs, there aren’t as many episodes on the same scale as a TV series. Though that meant a high degree of quality could be maintained, the amount of backstory that didn’t see the light of day kept accumulating.
“If you see one, assume there are thirty more.” It’s not that they were like cockroaches, but I had to do something about them… It was constantly in my thoughts. Then one day, in the height of the summer heat, on my way home by bicycle from a recording studio about forty minutes away from home, I stopped at Orphee (the studio where Kuroda-kun works). Kuroda- kun had been sleeping after finishing up work, so I basically woke him up and (consequently) made him chat with me until the wee hours of the next morning. The topic of novelizing the backstories came up, and that was how the project was born.
The title at the time was supposed to be New Tenchi Muyo!, but while the novelization got delayed for some reason or another, the same title was used for a TV series, so the “Shin” (New) became “Shin” (True). (If only I hadn’t been someone who worried about public image… we would’ve named it something like the Original Tenchi Muyo! or the Authentic Tenchi Muyo!, like a cheesy souvenir shop at a tourist destination or some noodle shop… There’s a twinge of regret.)
Anyway, thanks to Kuroda-kun, who patiently stuck with me, True Tenchi Muyo! is in its second volume. Yosho finally got to Earth, with Ryoko safely locked up in the shrine, in this book that was written as interpolation from the OVAs, and to start a domino effect of delivering backstory. But then, as you could tell from reading, all but the most necessary events were abridged. It was supposed to be a domino effect, but for space and composition purposes, a lot of the dominoes were left untouched. Well, one day they’ll branch off into their own dominoes (perhaps leaving orphans of their own) but, with this volume, the Jurai arc is finished.
I’m pretty sure most of the questions from the OVAs have been answered. The stories of what happened to Airi and how Tenchi’s parents met (in True Tenchi, his mother’s name is going to be Kiyone) will have to wait for another time; the next volume will focus on another big mystery, the Washu arc.
We touched on it a little bit in this book in the form of Seto’s report, but it’s the story of Washu and Akara Naja, the friend who was a major influence on her, and how they met, Washu’s marriage and childbirth… and separation… It will take place not in the Galaxy Academy but back when it was called the Jurai Imperial Academy. Please look forward to it.
—Kajishima Masaki
APOLOGY
We boasted in the conversation at the end of True Tenchi Muyo!
Volume One: Jurai that we would “meet again in the afterword interview for Volume Two,” but it turns out that due to various circumstances, there won’t be an interview this time. I apologize to everyone who had been looking forward to Kajishima Masaki and Kuroda Yosuke’s Big Show. I’m sure it will resume in Volume Three, so please look forward to it.
—Kuroda Yosuke