Tenchi's place

[takahata]

I have always wonder where Tenchi's home was located.  I aware of the fact that Tenchi's home is located near the Masaki Family Shrine. The Masaki Family Shine is located on a large estate outside an unnamed town.  The town's population is large enough to support the supermarket own by the Yamada family.  From TM OVA3's first episode, Tenchi walk to the nearest train station. The train station is within walking distance from Tenchi's home.  The town is located within between a half hour and a hour from the Kurashiki Train station. 

Since the series was set in the nineties, the town where Tenchi's home is located near has likely merged either with Kurashiki City, Soja City, or Takahashi City.  When I look at a Googl map of Kurashiki City, the area where I assumed that Tenchi's home is located seem to be the Mabi Ward of Kurashiki City. Yet, the city of Takahasi is starting to where Tenchi's home is now located in.  It is very odd that Takahashi is willing to spend money to promote the new Tenchi Muyo series.

Takahashi had absorb four towns of October 1, 203.  So the town where Tenchi's home is located in is part of Takahashi. During the Nineteen-nineites, the town was a separate town.  The town can still be Takahashi, Japan.

From the available clues, Takahashi is likely the town where Tenchi's home is locate near.  Now the large estate where Tenchi's home is located is likely in the present city of Takahashi City, Japan.

[shades of blue]

I had assumed it was meant to be located at the large pond directly south of the shrine. But more importantly, google appears to now have the whole area street mapped! So hit up google maps, copy 太老神社 into the search and explore.

[shades of blue]

ugh, I've been looking around the area using street maps and the whole area is so depressing. Japan's unnatural obsession with concrete has almost completely destroyed any ascetic value the area might have had at one point. And damn near every car is white or silver. This level of polite conformism is ridiculous. It's like when you see a large group of Japanese and they all look like zombies because they're all wearing nearly the same thing, right down to the hideous black or silver puffy jackets. No wonder their suicide rate is so high. My little country life cannot be this depressing!

[takahata]

Below is the Takahashi City Tourist map which features the main places of A.I.: TENCHI MUYO.  Oddly there place where Tenchi's place is located is  No. 5.  No. 5 is located in west Takahashi City. No. 5 is a large hill which fits the description of the hill where the Masaki Shrine is located on.  No. 5 does represent Tenchi's  place in Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, and A.I.  The hill  is still little difficult to find on any other map of Takahashi City.   

[BlackAeronaut]

Well, the Masaki family is a long-time member of the community, going back over seven-hundred years. 

In the TM-OVA continuity, it would not surprise me if they actually owned the vast majority of the land we see in whenever the camera pans around to show the estate.  So, at the very least, that much would be preserved from the predations of real estate investors and developers.

Also, the concrete is an important thing.  Landslides are a regular thing in Japan, even in heavily forested areas.  If you want to develop an area, it's a good idea to pave over the nearby hillsides with concrete and anchor them down, or else you wind up with incidents like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Oso_mudslide

[takahata]

Well, the Masaki family is a long-time member of the community, going back over seven-hundred years. 

The Masaki Family was already in Japan long before the arrival of Azusa Masaki Jurai.  The members of the Masaki Family were descendants of Jurain colonists.  AI: TENCHI MUYO points out that one of Tenchi's ancestors was a priest when Momo had came to Earth.  Momo had turn out to be one of Tenchi's female ancestors. 

Before the Meiji Period, the Masaki Family had once own a large estate.  Sometime after the Meiji Period had began, the Masaki Family had seem to become aware of what is going to happen in the future. The family have divided the estate over a period of time. Two large sections of the former estate are the location of a nature preserve, and the land own by the Masaki Shrine.

Thanks for the information about the problems with landslides in Japan.  I advise you to check out the map of Takahashi City on Google Earth.