Jonathan Clements

Jonathan Clements (born 9 July 1971) is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Koxinga and Qin Shihuangdi (the First Emperor of China), as well as monthly opinion columns for NEO magazine. He is also the co-author of encyclopedias of anime and Japanese television dramas.

Background

Clements speaks both Chinese and Japanese, and many of his works relate to East Asia. He wrote his 1995 Master's degree at the University of Stirling on manga and anime exports, predicting the rise of several trends in the international industry including back-to-front printing, direct American investment in anime, and the proliferation of attempts to substitute non-Japanese products. Subsequently he translated over 70 anime and manga works for British distributors, and worked as a voice director and actor.

He served two years at Titan Books in London as the editor of Manga Max magazine, an experience he would later fictionalise as the Judge Dredd adventure Trapped on Titan. In 2000, he received the Japan Festival Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Understanding of Japanese Culture, specifically for his work on Manga Max magazine.

Script work

He left to work as a scriptwriter on an abortive Astro Boy movie project, before writing several episodes of Halcyon Sun for Kuju Entertainment, and the Strontium Dog series, starring Simon Pegg, and the Doctor Who spin-off Sympathy for the Devil, starring David Warner and David Tennant, both for Big Finish Productions. He also wrote Space 1889: Red Devils, a one-hour audio drama for Noise Monster Productions, and served as a writer or translator on TV programs, including Japanorama (BBC Three), Saiko Exciting (Sci-Fi Channel) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (BBC Two).

Halcyon Sun episodes

• "No Bugles, No Drums" (2000)
• "Edge of Darkness" (2000)
• "Empire of the Mind" (2001)
• "The Long Night" (2001)
• "Doomed Battalions" (2001)
• "Terminal Beach" (2001)

Strontium Dog

• Down to Earth (2002)
• Fire From Heaven (2003)

Judge Dredd

• Trapped on Titan (2002)
• 99 Code Red (2003)
• Pre-Emptive Revenge (2004)
• Solo (2005)
• The Devil's Playground (2010)

Doctor Who

• Immortal Beloved (2007)
• Brave New Town (2008)
• The Destroyer of Delights (2009)
• Survival of the Fittest (2010)

Robin Hood

• The Tiger's Tail (2009)
• The Deer Hunters (2009)

Other scripts

• Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil (2003)
• UNIT: Snake Head (2005)
• Space 1889: Red Devils (2005)
• Highlander: Secret of the Sword (2009)

His most famous work, Schoolgirl Milky Crisis, was the name for a fictional TV series that Clements often used in his Newtype USA columns in order to avoid breaking various non-disclosure agreements regarding real titles that he had worked on as a writer, director or translator. The name was later used as the title to a collection of Clements's articles and speeches.

Books

Clements is a prolific author, whose many non-fiction publications, on subjects ranging from the history of the Vikings to the life of Chairman Mao, serve as research for his fiction. His books have been translated into a dozen languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Korean. His major works include:

• The Moon in the Pines (2000, reprinted in paperback as Zen Haiku, 2007)
• The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917 (1st ed. 2001, 2nd ed. 2006, with Helen McCarthy)
• The Dorama Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953 (2003, with Motoko Tamamuro)
• The Pirate King: Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty (2004, publ. in paperback as Coxinga, 2005)
• Confucius: A Biography (2004)
• A Brief History of the Vikings (2005)
• The First Emperor of China (2006)
• Mao (2006)
• Wu (2007)
• Marco Polo (2007)
• Beijing: The Biography of a City (2008)
• Makers of the Modern World: Prince Saionji (2008)
• Makers of the Modern World: Wellington Koo (2008)
• Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade (2009)
• Mannerheim: President, Soldier, Spy (2009)
• Admiral Togo: Nelson of the East (2010)

External links

• Muramasa Industries (The official web site of Jonathan Clements)
• Schoolgirl Milky Crisis blog
• Jonathan Clements at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database