Public Opinion

There has been so much Nef/Ami in interviews with Matsumoto and other such sources, that I decided to create a special section dedicated to it--public opinion. Hopefully more soon, as we find more articles, diary entries, etc!

Matsumoto's Webdiary
This is an entry taken from the Q&Q Diary (Q&Q is Matsumoto's acting troupe, for lack of a better word; they've put on plays such as "A Taste of Honey" that he has been in), and dates to August 10.

My dear friend Jess translated it for me. It's a conversation between Matsumoto ("Ma-chan") and one of his friends (she's guessing a female from the Kansai area, based on the writing style):
When I tried asking Nephrite-sama himself, "What's going to happen between Nephrite and Ami-chan?" he himself said, "I don't know yet myself, so I'm very curious too~~."

Actually, this coversation happened a few days ago on location. I'm kinda bothered by it. Everyone else too... There are many sorts of couples, so I'm pretty worried about the directions everything is going in. Even so, when considering Nephrite and Mercury, they really are "opposites attract." I can't stop watching until the end!!

An entry dated 9-29-04
While I was snooping through Q&Q's diary, I came across this, which proved to be very interesting (thanks again to Jess for the translation):

From the diary entry on 2004.9.29, "Nephrite's future is..."

I spent last weekend with the thought, "I can't agree with it!" running in the back of my head, but suddenly a savior appeared to me! Was it Nephrite? The Sailor Senshi? Or was it Tuxedo Mask? Well, actually it was a "reverse rumor."

I think that everyone who watched the final episode has the same opinion... You don't really feel satisfied by the conclusion... Things happened so quickly, one after another, that just as you felt like you were getting into it the "The End" sign was on the screen, or at least that's what I felt. Actually there was about 20 minutes worth of material that needed to be cut in order to fit [the timeslot], and it was in this section that there was supposed to have been a scene where Nephrite says, "I have decided to live in this world. I'm going to go shopping," and, clasping a 5000 yen bill, leaves the Crown. It's in the middle of this shopping scene, after rediscovering those horns¹ and thinking he can get Ami-chan a present (is he really going to give that cutie Ami-chan those horns?!), that, while he's grinning happily, the Earth is destroyed.

In the end the Shitennou, who were released from Beryl's power, were finally able to return to Mamoru's side after Beryl had sucked his life force out, and together returned Mamoru's life force (the painting), and after Mamoru (the Master) revived, they were able to continue living with him²...or so I've heard.

After everything, he has to leave things with Ami-chan there³ because he doesn't go back to his human form, and it seems that he has returned to his Shitennou form. That's probably his true form, anyway. I think that's pretty good⁴, at least to me.

Does everyone feel more satisfied now?

Ogata (curator [probably maintainer of the journal])

+Notes+ (Italics = notes from me, regular = Jess's original notes)
1) Her original translation here said "corner," but that didn't make sense. So I looked it up and found that the same word means both "corner" and "horns": , "kaku." Honest mistake, especially considering that she was still learning Japanese at the time.

2) It's unclear in this sentence whether the Shitennou are living with Mamoru as separate human entities, or if they live on in Mamoru's heart as part of the energy that was given back to him by the painting. I'm going with "living on as new incarnations (just like everyone else)," because that's my personal preference. (I agree with this, because it really makes more sense: why would the Shitennou not be reborn if the Senshi were? Especially since Nephrite had already been reborn as a human after dying as a Shitennou. Plus, Mamoru got his life energy back from that painting, not from the Shitennou; the Shitennou were merely the ones who brought the painting to him. It seems plausible that these entities were the apparitions of their past life forms, like how Princess Serenity appeared to Usagi in the same scene, and it had nothing to do with the Shitennou we knew on Earth.)

3) I think the implication here is that he has to leave whatever he was pursuing with Ami-chan behind, because he'll be reincarnated as his "true" past-life form.

4) Probably referring to Nephrite going back to his Shitennou form.

Interviews With Matsumoto
This is from a magazine article from TV Bros' October 15 issue. Thanks again to Jess for the translation! I had no idea it even had Nef/Ami in it until she was sitting in my room reading it and started giggling like a madwoman. ^_^

I'm just going off memory, as she was translating it verbally, as opposed to writing it out as she had the other one. Something to the effect of, "Now away from the Dark Kingdom's influence, Nephrite finds himself attracted to Ami, but at the same time, this attraction bothers him." I think. I remember Jess was reading it, and she started laughing and said, "Wow! They actually came out and said it!"

In the Public Opinion Polls...
Someone started this poll on Serecindra's Yahoo Group. I think the results speak for themselves:

OMG! My Site on HIS Site!
Not long after PGSM ended and Ogata-san embarrassingly (for us, anyway) discovered our zany little fandom, a lot of the Matsumoto fans panicked and stopped visiting his site. Well, if I had just waited a week or two before freaking out, I would have seen that Matsumoto's caretaker graced us with this:

Rika-chicchi from Genvid briefly summarized this post for me. Although it doesn't specifically mention Nephrite and Ami, it includes a "thank you" to all of the PGSM/Nephrite fans, especially the overseas fans (like us, haha)! It just makes me excited that the people who were involved in the making of the show were aware of this site and the love that we PGSM/Nephrite/NephAmi fans have for them. ^_^