I want to provide clarity on my sources, in case anyone has been wondering. First and foremost, I am not fluent in Japanese by any means. At best, I can hold broken JP/EN conversations with Japanese people, which is something I frequently do on Twitter (at least we can understand each other!), and I can reasonably work my away around Japanese wikis and websites. I never solely rely my own Japanese reading comprehension skill to present translated materials and/or tidbits and info. I take culture and language seriously, as I myself am multilingual and was raised in a multicultural household, so I understand that translation & localization is not a skill so easily obtained. Additionally, I never use machine translation for anything I release. I take misinformation seriously, because it has plagued the Gundam fandom for decades, and I aim to provide accurate context and information to improve fandom discourse. That said, I work closely with a few Japanese friends—namely, Sachi, Krystle, along a few others—for translation and cross-checking. Unfortunately, I’m not at the liberty to provide detailed contact info to maintain their professional identities. I have also worked with other translators on projects before, such as khoda and Peytral, and all releases are appropriately credited.
I pull most of my information from publicly available resources, such as Turn A no iyashi, both volumes of the Newtype 100% Collection, both volumes of the “The Memory of…” books, Mead Gundam, Newtype & Animage magazines (along with other select magazines), Ring of Gundam and the Gundam A Project drafts and proposals, Akiman’s character artbooks, Blu-ray audio commentaries, the Brain Powerd Spiral Book, various other books & pamphlets, and publicly published staff interviews. I have access to a number of scripts & storyboards, along with early story drafts & proposals. I also am humbled and honored to have personal industry contact channels with a few staff members. I cannot reveal who they are to protect anonymity, but if you’re in-the-knowhow in Japanese Tomino fandom, then you may have seen them around on Twitter. They often RT/share my content as well! Unfortunately you’ll just have to take my word for it, but I do hope I’ve accrued enough goodwill to be granted the benefit of doubt.
Major Twitter accounts I frequent are the official Japanese account, Akiman, Romi Park, Tetsu Inada, Kenichi Yoshida, Junya Ishigaki, Akitoshi Yokoyama, Ichiro Okouchi, Brikiso (a pseudonymous staff member), and Char’s Dedicated Blog (a Japanese fan who dutifully tracks interviews, latest info, etc.). Other great resources are TOMINOSUKI (a blog with insider info and detailed analysis about Tomino) and Yukio Tomino’s blogs (Tomino’s daughter). I also follow Gundam Reconguista in G information and interviews, as Turn A Gundam tends to occasionally be mentioned in them. I also casually follow overarching Gundam franchise news & updates.
I hope this page is useful! I am happy to answer any questions and/or provide additional clarification. Thanks for reading!
Moon's Cocoon 