Mr. Watanabe Kinya, Producer at AIC and our gracious tour guide.

On my recent visit to Japan, a small group consisting primarily of EX personnel was able to tour AIC studios, the people responsible for TENCHI MUYO! in all of its incarnations and ARMITAGE III, to name just two of their many projects.
Upon our arrival at the studio, we were greeted by Bill MacPhee, who was kind enough to arrange this opportunity for us. He then walked us over to another building down the street where the anime production studio actually was (Space is at a premium in Japan, and when companies need to expand, they have to take what they can get. As a result, AIC, like many animation studios, is spread out over several buildings). We were ushered into a conference room that was being used by several of the staff members who were on lunch break watching the most recent episode of ESCAFLOWNE.
Mr. Watanabe Kinya, Producer for such series as TENCHI MUYO!, introduced himself to us, smiled politely, and sat down with us. He said that he would answer any questions that we had and then would give us a tour of the studio.
We didn't waste any time in getting to what we wanted to know.

EX: What is AIC working on now?

WK: Right now, we are in the middle of work on the newest installment of the TENCHI world, the PRETTY SAMY television series. It will begin airing in October, 1996, and run for 26 episodes, ending in April of 1997.

EX: A PRETTY SAMY TV series? Why did you choose to do that?

WK: The video sales (for the PRETTY SAMY OVA's) were good in Japan. Also, although the ratings for the TENCHI television series weren't that good, the video sales have been strong. So the strong video sales are what led us to this decision.
Another reason is that putting something on television makes it easier to find--you can just flip the dial or push the button on the remote and there it is. With an OVA, you have to go out and actually find it, but with television, there is a greater exposure and the chance of reaching a bigger audience.
A secondary effect of putting something on television is that the merchandising is profitable. From a television series can come video games, novels, character goods, and the like. There are a lot of things that you can sell based on a television series; the money derived from the merchandising helps to offset lower ratings, so it's still worthwhile to put it on television.

EX: Anything else in the planning stages?

WK: Well, there is the BUBBLEGUM CRISIS television series, and we are working on plans for a VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU television series, but I really can't talk about that one. Partly because it's only in the very early planning stages, but also because there is a lot of politics involved in making television series.

EX: What do you mean by 'politics'?

WK: Well, the company that is financing the show has a lot of input, and if it's a network show, then the network also has a lot of input. And reconciling all these different viewpoints can take a lot of time and get very complicated.

EX: What about OVA's? This is an area where you have been doing a lot of work recently. Is this going to continue?

WK: Yes. We have several new shows, but all of them at the moment are untitled. We are also working on one called BATTLE ATHLETIS, about a super-powered girl athlete. Another interesting project we have is currently called KNIGHT WALKER. It's a sort of cross between a detective story and the vampire genre. And there will be a new EL HAZARD video series.
And finally, we are also working on PHOTON, which is being done by the same character designers and writers who did the original TENCHI MUYO! OVA series, so all I can tell you about that right now is 'anything can happen...'

EX: On a related note, how much interaction is there between the people who do the TENCHI manga and those who did the television series?

WK: The manga artists and writers were sent a continuity storyboard that they could work from. There aren't very many rules laid down, so there is a lot of room for innovation and creativity. We purposely didn't plan a complex story--we let the character development drive the story.
And each media has its own variation of TENCHI. There is the OVA version, the television version, the manga version, and the video game version. (continued)