FAQ
Otherwise known as "InFrequently Asked Questions."
1. When are you going to publish more of Muyami Academy? To be honest, this is the ONLY question I get asked with any frequency at all. The answer is always, "I'm working on it", but as I write this I really am working on it!
2. Is the NERF logo shown above available for purchase on a tee shirt? I'm so glad you asked! The NERF logo was designed by my friend Sky Rigdon. I explained to Sky the name of the covert devil hunter agency in my story, and said that I should maybe create a spoof logo based on the famous NERV logo, and Sky immediately thought of the goofy one-eyed ghost that Sakura (from Card Captor Sakura) always imagines when she's scared. He sat down and started sketching, and this logo is the result. Sky did the initial version as a rough pencil sketch, then scanned it and imported it to Illustrator. Afterwards he asked if he could make tee shirts of it available through his site at cafeepress, and I said of course! So, if you really want one, go here: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/store.aspx?storeid=mezurashii
3. I'm not familiar with all of the series you use. Well, to be honest, I'm not completely familiar with all of these series either. ^_^; I re-watch the anime or re-read the manga as I'm working to try and keep myself familiar with the various characters, and I scour the web for good information sites to keep me informed, but I still make a lot of mistakes. The most obscure series I'm using is probably We Are Mint, aka Mintna Bokura, by Wataru Yoshizumi, much better known for her Marmalade Boy story. You can find a complete rundown of the series here: http://www.swb.de/~zahara/yo/mint.html. Other series that present problems include things like Ushio & Tora, which has a few animated episodes, but a much larger volume of manga that I don't have copies or translations of. ^_^; My prayer is that some of these series, like Ushio & Tora, Devil Hunter Yohko, Zenki, and Birdy the Mighty get released to DVD someday!
4. What other series could you possibly use? Well, if I wanted to make things even more complex (which I really don't -- honest!), any series that includes high school characters and magic or demons would fit in nicely. A manga series that I really like, Momoiro Sabbath or Peach Sabbath, fits this description exactly -- several characters are witches, others are demons or weird, meddlesome spirits. Unfortunately I only have Japanese-language manga and don't know the characters or background well enough to use them. Futaba-Kun Change would be an obvious choice, but I have plenty of gender-confused characters already. (For that matter, MAZE). I'm only touching on Sailor Moon in passing since they're such an obvious choice but it's not one of my favorite series, especially when you get into all of that weird time travel stuff. Magic-User's Club would be another obvious choice, that's a cute series but I don't know that I want to use it. Other possibilities?
5. Will Hitomi ever visit the world of Escaflowne? Will Ifurita send Makato and company to El Hazard? Will Hikaru become a Magic Knight? Will Miaka visit the world of the Four Gods? My plan for these events is to have them all happen at about the same time, but almost entirely off-camera. All of our various heroines and characters go off, have their adventures, and come back. One idea I have is to send at least one extra character with each crew, someone who doesn't really belong and doesn't affect the storyline too much, but allows me to do some quick comedy scenes from the various other worlds. But mostly these people are background characters to my story, and while I want to show that they all travel to their alternate worlds and have their little adventures, I don't want to try and write any of that. Van Fanel fights a dragon near the school track field, and Hitomi vanishes with him. Miaka visits the library, reads an old book, and disappears. Hikaru visits Tokyo Tower and vanishes. Ifurita and several students (and one teacher) vanish at night. Later they come back and tell everyone what happened. ^_^
6. Will Utena Tenjou ever fight for the Rose Bride in a duel in a forest behind the school? What forest behind the school? Seriously, while I can have Miaka disappear to the Universe of the Four Gods and I can drop Makato and company into the world of El Hazard, it's not so easy to have the whole Revolutionairy Girl Utena thing going on at Muyami Academy, even behind the scenes, so don't expect it to ever happen. Utena just happens to be a good swordfighter, and Anthy is her weird friend who loves roses and small animals.
6. What do the uniforms look like? Not that anyone really cares, but I have some very definite ideas about what the various uniforms at Muyami Academy look like. They are very nice looking, even showy in some respects. Rather than sailor outfits, the girls uniforms are the nice brown style with vest and jacket that you see Miaka wear in Fushigi Yugi or Pai wear in the 3x3 Eyes episodes where she loses her memory and becomes a school girl. I have a picture on my characters page that shows exactly what the girls look like in uniform. For the guys, uniforms are generally more basic, but rather than the straight black outfit with the nehru collar, I imagine something more like the ones in Revolutionary Girl Utena. There is probably a middle school that I'm not dealing with (though Azusa and Skuld might be in that age group) but for the 4th graders I like the uniforms from the Sammy OVA's which have long-sleeved white sailor tops with a double row of buttons on the front and short blue skirts. Very classy looking. ^_^ I also kind of like the Card Captor Sakura uniforms with the long-sleeved sailor tops of dark grey and white skirts, and the boys wear very similar sailor-style tops with grey sailor pants. I imagine the boys wear something like that, only closer to the Sammy style uniforms. I have an image on my characters page based on sailor-style outfits like those seen in Magical Project S (the boys have a white shirt and shorts), but this is partly because these images were the easiest for me to find. I don't like that look so much -- too cheap looking -- but I imagine that these are the summer outfits.
As for the NERF uniforms that the NERF team members wear, these are navy blue and white and very showy. For the boys, they look almost exactly like the uniforms you see in Sakura Taisen (well, the one the guy wears). For the girls, the top is similar, but they wear a white skirt with a blue border and a lace petticoat underneath.
7. When are you going to give Ranma a break? I've actually been asked this a few times. ^_^; Probably never, but Ranma is going to be learning to be a Devil Hunter and will also pick up some other tricks along the way that will put her on a more even footing with the other characters in the series, apart from Ryoko and those who are over-the-top powerwise of course. But in the end, Ranma is my central character so life's never going to be easy on her.
8. When is Ranma going to go back to living as a guy? Ranma will not always be stuck as a girl, but will continue to attend the school as a girl and live as a girl. After all, she's learning to be a Devil Hunter, and they are by definition magical girls.
9. But I don't like Ranma-Chan stories. You're probably reading the wrong story then. ^_^ But at least I'm not pairing Ranma off with Tenchi or something, okay? ^_^;
10. Are we going to see Kagome and Inu-Yasha again? Yes, although they will probably never be regular characters in the story.
11. How did the story develop? Where is it going? There were three things that I started with when I began the story. The first was that I wanted to do a story in which various characters from different series went to the same school together. Secondly, I was interested in doing a Ranma-Chan story, so that's where I started. Thirdly, since I initially introduced Kagome and Yohko, the story took an immediate right turn towards demons and devil-hunting. From there it seemed natural to have Ranma trained as a devil hunter, and somehow the whole Gendo Ikari super demon hunting team thing kind of sprung up.
As for where it's going... that would be telling. ^_^ But my plans include another story with Kagome and Inu-Yasha, more demons to fight, Ranma developing into a real Mamano Hunter, and to try and define/develop a relationship between Ranma and Ukyo. I've never been a big Ukyo-Ranma pairing fan, I don't think it would ever work out well if based on the original characters, because Ukyo clearly doesn't care for Ranma so much as she cares for her own honor and happiness. The secret to why Akane is destined to win Ranma's heart is that she's the only one who ever cares about him, even if it is only part of the time. That said, my story is developing in a different direction, and although I didn't particulary plan it, Ukyo seems like a good match for Ranma at the moment. ^_^
I also want to develop some of the relationships with other characters too... Yohko needs a real boyfriend at some point, doesn't she? And in the manga Mint na Bokura, Noel falls in love with the girl he's sharing a room with, which of course causes him problems since he can't just tell her he's really a guy. I haven't decided if Noel will develop a crush on Ranma yet, but that could be fun. Or a crush on Yohko maybe.
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