Jonathan Michael Clements (born 9 July 1971) is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies ofConfucius,Koxinga andQin Shi Huang, as well as monthly opinion columns forNeo magazine. He is also the co-author of encyclopedias ofanime andJapanese television dramas.[1]
Clements speaks bothChinese andJapanese, and many of his works relate toEast Asia. He wrote hismaster's degree at theUniversity of Stirling onmanga andanime 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 wrote his PhD at the University of Wales on the industrial history of Japanese animation, later published by the British Film Institute asAnime: A History.[2]
He served two years atTitan Books in London as the editor ofManga Max magazine, an experience he would later fictionalise as theJudge Dredd adventureTrapped on Titan. In 2000, he received the Japan Festival Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Understanding of Japanese Culture, specifically for his work onManga Max.
Shortly after leaving the editorship ofManga Max magazine, he became a presenter on theSci-Fi Channel's Japan-themed magazine showSaiko Exciting. He has been a consultant and talking head on numerous TV shows, includingNew Secrets of the Terracotta Warriors (Channel 4),Koxinga: Sailing into History (National Geographic),China's Jade Empire (Channel 4), andChinese Chariot Revealed (PBS). In 2016, he became the presenter of three seasons ofRoute Awakening (National Geographic Asia), a series investigating the origins of several key Chinese cultural icons.
In 2019, he appeared onChristmas University Challenge as a member of the winning Leeds University team, alongsideHenry Gee andTimothy Allen, captained byRichard Coles.
Although Clements has written a couple of novels, much of his fiction work is CD audio drama or radio under the auspices ofBig Finish Productions, including theStrontium Dog series, starringSimon Pegg, and theDoctor Who spin-offSympathy for the Devil, starringDavid Warner andDavid Tennant.[3]
Other work includes the script for the comic "'Tastes Like Chicken} in theJudge Dredd Megazine, as well as assorted short stories both there and in Doctor Who anthologies. His most famous work,Schoolgirl Milky Crisis, was the name for a fictional TV series that Clements often used in hisNewtype USA columns in order to avoid breaking variousnon-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.
Clements's many non-fiction publications, on subjects ranging from the history of theVikings to the life of ChairmanMao Tse-tung, 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:
In 2011, he became a contributing editor toThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 3rd edition,[4] with special responsibility for Chinese and Japanese entries.
