Azumanga Recycle Part 3: 4 Panel Comics & Movies

Swag Kiyone

This is the third section of my scan and translation of Azumanga Recycle, which you can read the details about here. 

EDIT: You can now download the translation of the complete book here!

This download has the next 21 pages of Azumanga Recycle, scanned and translated by me. (Pages 91-112). This section (technically two little sections) is a bit shorter, however it's pretty special as the bulk of it contains some Tenchi Muyo-themed 4 panel comics (or 4-koma) that Kiyohiko Azuma drew for the magazine Anime V! (Along with some he did for budget VHS/LD rereleases of the OVAs)

Wow... that's a nice pair of comics right there!

This section was pretty exciting to get to as you get to see Azuma at arguably his best. Anyone familiar with Azumanga Daioh will recognize this format, and by reading it you'll see a bit of Azuma's earlier comedic chops that he would refine and use for this own original work later down the line! This may be exactly where "Azumanga" was truly born.

Also wanted to give thanks to CrashOveride on Twitter for sharing with me a photo of a comic from the back of one of these Laserdisc rereleases! He said he's planning on acquiring most if not all of the Japanese LDs of Tenchi Muyo to scan and capture!

Couldn't get a photo without a bigass shadow? (jk ily xoxo)

Also stuck onto the end of this section are a couple of comics that Azuma created for brochures given out to anybody that went to see either of the first two Tenchi Muyo movies in the theater!

Pre-rotated, for your viewing convenience. Don't forget to tip me!!!

What's funny about this movie section is that, as a matter of fact, someone else translated it before me! (Thanks to Chicago Ted on Twitter for sharing this with me!)

Remember the golden rule of humor: "It's funny because it's unexpected!"

 ...But thankfully the translation is pretty terrible and inaccurate, so my work didn't go to waste! (Not to mention the scan quality is pretty bad too!) My guess is that whoever tried their hand at translating this wasn't actually any good at Japanese and could only ready simple words and such, so a lot of assumptions and, um, "creative liberties" were made. And since this was from the early 2000's internet, these dead zones were filled in with what can best be described as "Something Awful-esque writing". Y'know, in case you went too long having forgotten what that dark period of the Internet was like... bleh.

Anyway, the comics are from the following sources, in order:

• Anime V (Magazine)
• Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki Reprise VHS
  
• Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki THX LD-BOX
• Battle Athletes Promotional Booklet/Magazine Advertisements
• Tenchi Muyo! in LOVE Theater Pamphlet
• Tenchi Muyo! A Midsummer's Eve Theater Pamphlet

(As stated in the first part, in the US these two movies were released as "Tenchi the Movie: Tenchi Muyo in Love" & Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daughter of Darkness".)

Also, at the very end of the section is another original illustration of a character, but this time it's Kiyone! (As seen at the top of this page)

We're finally nearing the end of this book, and given the word density of the earlier sections, it takes quite a bit for a single person to translate all of it. But I'm finally at the final section of the book, which is much less dense with words and even just pages compared to the first one. It's a little longer than this section, however it shouldn't be as painful of a slog as some of the earlier comics, which were quite wordy and dense. This last section focuses on a couple of comics that were actually published in book form, meaning that the art will finally take up the entire page! Can you believe it?

As always I sometimes post bits and pieces of pages I think are funny as I work on them to my Twitter account here. As always I'll both post updates to Twitter and to my personal webzone right here. Getting to the end of this book is exciting, I can't wait to put a bow on this book and claim the entire thing, both in its preservation and newly found accessibility in the English language. So that's pretty cool.

Anyway, enough yapping! Here is the download link for this section:

EDIT: You can now download the translation of the complete book here!

 

😓

 

Enjoy! Special thanks to the Tenchi Muyo wiki for all the information to help me translate.