Jibril...
I think the fairest and sanest way of resolving this is not to resolve it. You see it your way and I see it mine. I don't think there's anything wrong with either angle, they just aren't compatible
But that's what makes fandom interesting, after all.On another note, I need to hunt yahoo.jp again for Hasegawa's novels. I've always been interested to read them, but got distracted by Yuugi and Sotsugyou M and never did manage to. I was a bit "meh" over the Shin novels, especially with the contradictions, but it'd still be interesting.
I gave up with the Tenchi online thing when I started getting hysterical PMs over FFNet because I'd written a TxR pairing and not a TxA one. So I don't know what discussions have happened over the last year or more, or what information has surfaced or has not. I'm of the opinion now though that if I ever decide to get serious about factfinding in Tenchi Muyou again I'm only going to be looking to original language sources and not English ones since as you rightly say, fan-spin is everywhere.
Sadly TM isn't one of those series created by a manga-ka with useful notes in the margin which give clues to the characters and the way the original creator wanted them to be portrayed. Everything we get is second hand in one way or another, which is sad...
Vraie