November 2, 2018, 6:48 pm
The Orphan team has been expending a lot (too much) of its free cash buying analog media (VHS tapes and laserdiscs) in Japan and getting them transcribed to digital form. We really feel we're in a race against time. Magnetic tapes and optical disks have a finite lifespan. The phenomenon of laserdisc "bit rot" is well documented. Worse yet, Erik (of Piyo Piyo Productions) has had discs come apart during playback. The clock truly is ticking.
Up until now, the best way of transcribing a laserdisc has been to play it back on a high-quality player, capture the video with little or no compression, and do all the filtering, color correction, deinterlacing, etc. in software. The old ATI All-in-Wonder cards were ideal for this and are still highly prized by specialists. However, most of those cards only run under XP, and it's becoming harder to find and maintain an XP system, not to mention exceedingly dangerous to plug one into a network. USB capture devices usually have fairly crappy electronics. And no matter how the signal is captured, it has already been processed and distorted by the ancient (and often crappy) electronics in the laserdisc player itself.
Fortunately, Orphan and Piyo Piyo have not been the only groups pondering how to capture and preserve laserdiscs. A far more august body, the BBC, has been running a project to recreate the experience of its Domesday laserdiscs from the 1980s. An offshoot of that, the Domesday Duplicator project, is taking a novel approach to the problem of electronics distortion in the capture chain by removing most of the consumer electronics from the path. Instead, the laserdisc player's laser signal is captured as early as possible, while it is still RF. Direct RF sampling allows all information on the laserdisc to be duplicated (unlike conventional RGB sampling of the video output). The sampled RF is stored in a computer and then post-processed by highly sophisticated modern signal processing software. This results in images that are much clearer than anything the laserdisc player can produce on its own. (There are some examples on the Domesday duplicator site.)
[Side note: this is very similar to how the computer hobbyist community salvaged old 7-track magnetic tapes. Old magtape drives are difficult to find and harder to get working. The tapes themselves suffer from flaking of the magnetic media and also from "print through" (distortion of magnetization through exposure to the bits on the surrounding layers). To deal with this, the hobbyists mounted a more modern 36-track tape head on a board, with tape hubs controlled by precision stepper motors. The tape was stepped across the head in precise increments and oversampled both horizontally and vertically. The captured data was post-processed by modern software that applied not only local signal processing techniques but spatial compensation for data that would have been in adjacent layers, in order to account for print-through effects.]
After much agonizing (and searching of threadbare wallets), Orphan has decided to try creating a Domesday Duplicator capture capability in Japan. Up until now, we've had to ship laserdiscs to the US or elsewhere for transcription: a hazardous and expensive process. With an in-country capture capability, we can purchase used laserdiscs in Japan and have them shipped inside the country at much lower cost. And getting better lossless rips is an added bonus. We've already bought the laserdisc player, a reconditioned top-end unit. The next step is to buy the Domesday duplicator electronics. The signal processing software is, fortunately, Open Source and free.
As you can imagine, all this has put a serious financial drain on the team. Orphan has no fund-raising mechanisms: no ads on this website, no referrals to Amazon, nothing.There's no donation button anywhere. An anonymous benefactor helped buy the Hidamari no Ki DVD set, but that was a one-off. There's simply no cash to buy the duplicator itself. So if our fans (all six of you) are feeling generous and would like to help with this project, please let me know.
↧
November 11, 2018, 7:48 am
No, not that one. And definitely not that one. Rather, it's this one, the first one, a two episode OVA from 1991. Izumo is based on a Tsuzuki Kazuhiko's four-volume manga from 1990. The manga has not been translated, but based on the drawings, the OVA covers some, but not all, of the first volume.
Izumo is a historical fantasy set in third century (i.e., mythical) Japan. It tells the story of Izumo, the young prince of Nakatsukuni. He's not very interested in studying, unlike his cousin Dekiru; instead, he wants to see the wider world. One day, a mysterious girl named Sanae shows up as a stowaway on an airship. Although nominally from Yamataikoku, she is actually from the Naga, a shadowy people possessing magical powers. Sanae is kidnapped by Takeru, a warrior from the rival kingdom of Akusa, and placed at the mercy of the evil witch Yomihime. Izumo, helped by an orphaned glider pilot named Navi, must now take up the sacred sword of his country, master its powers, and rescue Sanae. However, before that, he must defeat the reawakened eight-headed snake of legend, Yamata-no-Orochi.![]()
I found Izumo very engaging and entertaining. It's beautifully drawn. The combination of Japanese myths (Yomihime, Orochi) and anachronistic technology (airships, gliders) contributes to the sense of remoteness and prevents the show from becoming an ordinary sword-and-sorcery fest. The leads are charming, and the other characters more than just plot drivers. Finally, it looks really good for an analog source.
The voice cast is stellar:- Seki Toshihiko (Izumo) was one of theleading male seiyuu in this era. He played Riki in Ai no Kusabi, the hero Seitarou in Hoshi Neko Full House, the gang leader Hiba in Wild 7, Miroku in Yuukan Club, Chuuta in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, the fighter Nagase Jun in Akai Hayate, and the unnamed protagonist of Oruorane the Cat Player, all Orphan releases. He also played Matsuda in the Yawara! properties, Sanzo in the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro.
- Shimazu Saeko (Sanae) played Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, Yuri in the Dirty Pair franchise, Chocola in Don Dracula, and the title roles in Lunn Flies into the Wind and Bagi (both Orphan releases). She also had featured roles in the other Rumiko Takahashi series of the era, Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and Inuyasha.
- Hayashibara Megumi (Navi) was arguably the most famous seiyuu of the 1990s. She starred as Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop, Ayanami Rei in Evangelion, Rune Balot in the Mardock Scramble movies, Rebecca in One Piece, Lina in the Slayers franchise, female Ranma in Ranma 1/2, and Miyokichi in Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. She also played a number of feline roles, including including the title roles in the All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku and Hello Kitty franchises, as well as "lead cat" Iruinedo in Oruorane the Cat Player, an Orphan release.
- The late Nozawa Nachi (Takeru) debuted in 1967. He played Lupin in the original Lupin III pilot film, Axel von Fersen in Rose of Versailles, Cobra in the Space Cobra franchise, and Black Jack in Marine Express and Bremen 4 (both Orphan releases). He passed away in 2010.
- Sasaki Nozomu (Dekiru) starred as Tetsuo in Akira, Ebata in Genji Part 1, Ushio in the original Ushio to Tora, Urameshi in the Yu Yu Hakusho franchise, and Mello in Death Note. He played Taiga in Nagasarete Airantou, Hal in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, and Ling Fei-Long in Dragon Fist, all Orphan releases.
- Genda Tesshou (the rebel leader Oosukune) played Colonel Muto in Joker Game, Moloch in Yondemasu Azazel-san, Rei in the Urusei Yatsura franchise, Moguro Fukuzou in New Laughing Salesman, "Oyaji" in Mitsuboshi Colors, as well as Paul Rusch in Yume Kakeru Kougen, the loyal lieutenant Galbreath in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, the dragonman Baguda in Greed, the narrator in Akai Hayate, Dog McCoy in Dallos, and Hebopi in Wild 7, all Orphan releases.
- The late Tsuru Hiromi (Sanae's friend Iyo) debuted as Perrine in Perrine Monogatari. She went on to play Kashima Miyuki in Miyuki, Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, Barge in Blue Sonnet, and Mikami Reiko in Ghost Sweeper Mikami. She also played Nozomi in Nozomi Witches, Jill in A Penguin's Memories, and UFO-chan in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, all Orphan releases. She died in 2017.
- The late Niimura Reiko, who gave a particularly chilling performance as Yomihime, was primarily a dramatic actress. Her anime roles included Master Keaton, Night on the Galactic Railway, and Senya Ichiya Monogatari, an Orphan release. She died in 2011.
(The translator, Sunachan, swears that Iyo is voiced by Hayashibara Megumi, one of her favorite seiyuu, and thus Navi must be Tsuru Hiromi, but I have to follow the credits as listed in the show.)
Izumo was directed by the legendary Yamamoto Eiichi, who directed the Animerama films Senya Ichiya Monogatari and Cleopatra (both Orphan releases), as well as Kanashimi no Belladonna, Odin, Oshin, and Tsuki ga Noboru made ni (also an Orphan release). Izumo and Tsuki were his last directing projects; his experienced directing hand shows. The music was by Koroku Reijirou, who wrote the scores for five of the six Lion Book OVAs.
Sunachan translated the show; Moho Kareshi did an initial version. ninacloud timed, I edited and typeset, bananadoyouwanna styled the songs, and Topper3000 and VigorousJammer QCed. The show was encoded from Japanese laserdiscs by Piyo Piyo Productions; it looks remarkably good for an analog transfer. The laserdiscs have an interesting backstory. Erik purchased them back in his VHS subtitling days but decided against working on them and sold the discs. Then, Iri found another set of discs on Yahoo Japan, bought them, and sent them to Erik for encoding. The circle of (analog) life!
I really like Izumo, and so do all of the staff that worked on it. Note that like many 80s and 90s shows (including Ranma 1/2 and Prime Rose), it includes some non-sexual nudity. You can get Izumo from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
↧
November 13, 2018, 7:41 am
After almost every Orphan release, the nyaa comments section includes a couple of heartfelt pleas for Orphan to tackle other anime. Usually, these are untranslated shows or movies, but sometimes, they are works where the existing fansubs are deficient. I have already described how Orphan chooses projects. In this blog article, I want to explain why Orphan does not take requests to redo shows with existing fansubs.
Now, Orphan has occasionally resubbed shows with existing fansubs; examples include Nagasarete Airantou, Scoopers, Cosprayers, and Smash Hit. In all cases, the impetus for the project came from within the group. The reasons varied. One was the availability of new, improved source material. That justified a new version, and cleaning up the translation was just part of the process. Another was my personal desire for decent subs on a show I liked.
However, I've had to reign in my desire to fix bad subs. The simple reason is that there are too many of them, and life is too short. Unless the subs go with a title I really like and are the only version available, I have no reason to start a project to improve the subtitle quality. It's a better use of my time, and the group's time, to work on shows that have never been available in English. The existing subs may be awful, but at least an English version is available.
In the list of shows Orphan is working on or even considering, there are only two potential resubs of existing fansubs:- Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru (a Margaret OVA). I'd like to finish the Margaret OVA set, and the existing version is a 240p VHS rip.
- Kashou no Tsuki. This OVA poses intriguing challenges to both a translator and an editor, because the main characters are androgynous. Thus, the choice and use of pronouns is very tricky.
So Orphan fans, I do see and understand your heartfelt pleas, but they will go unanswered. The backlog of untranslated shows is quite large, and another large shipment of unique laserdiscs will soon be leaving Japan for processing in the US. You will have to live with the subs you have... or fix them yourself. Gomen.
↧
November 16, 2018, 5:32 pm
Here's a rare bird, not just for Orphan, but for anime as a whole - a four-part josei OVA, 1989's Kasei Yakyoku (Nightsong of Splendor). Josei is probably the least common of the mainstream anime and manga genres - much less common than shounen, shoujo, seinen, minna, kodomo, or even BL. This is (I think) the first version in English, although it's possible that TechnoGirls released a version on VHS tape.Kasei Yakyoku is based on a nine-volume manga by Hirata Makiko; the manga is not available in English. It is set in late Taisho Japan (1923), a period of political and social ferment. It focuses on a quartet of star-crossed lovers: Hasho Akiko, a daughter of a noble family; Uchida Sara, her maid since childhood; Saionji Kiyokuni, heir to a major banking family; and Ito Taka, a strongman in the Aoba yakuza group. Akiko is betrothed to Kiyokuni but chafes at the constraints of an arranged marriage based on financial considerations. Then Taka rescues her and Sara when their car breaks down in a bad part of Tokyo. As a result, Akiko decides to have an affair with Taka and tries to give Sara to Kiyokuni as a "consolation" gift. Taka sees through Akiko and will have nothing to do with her, and Kiyokuni turns down Sara, albeit with regret. Sara quits her maid's job and tries to make it on her own. However, she is not equipped to face the dangers of the Tokyo demimondaine. Taka rescues her, they fall in love, and then suddenly, it's September 1, 1923...
The summary makes Kasei Yakyoku sound melodramatic, if not downright soap operatic, and to some extent it is. But it's also a fascinating look at a time in Japan when society was undergoing rapid change, and new and old rubbed elbows uneasily. The characters are well fleshed out; there's not a one-dimensional stereotype in the bunch. There's nudity, sex, violence, and raw emotion. What's not to like?
The voice cast includes many well-known names of 20th century anime:- The late Nozawa Nachi (Taka) debuted in 1967. He played Lupin in the original Lupin III pilot film, Axel von Fersen in Rose of Versailles, Cobra in the Space Cobra franchise, as well as Black Jack in Marine Express and Bremen 4 and Takeru in Izumo (1991), all Orphan releases. He died in 2010.
- The late Mutou Reiko (Akiko) played the title role in Marvelous Melmo and Uran (Astro Girl) in the original Astro Boy. She played Countess Polignac in Rose of Versailles, and Queen Tasuka in One Million Year Trip: Bander Book (an Orphan release). Kasei Yakyoku was one of her last roles. She died in 2006.
- Suzuki Hiroko (Sara) played the title role in The Adventures of Pepero and appeared in Peter Pan no Bouken and several other World Masterpiece Theater series.
- The late Ogawa Shinji (Kiyokuni) played Johnny's father in Starship Troopers and Douglas MacArthur in Junod, both Orphan releases, but I remember him best as the lecherous oji-san, Maestro Stresemann, in Nodame Cantabile. He died in 2015.
- Seki Toshihiko (Sara's younger brother Junichiro) was one of theleading male seiyuu in this period. He played the title role in Izumo, Riki in Ai no Kusabi, the hero Seitarou in Hoshi Neko Full House, the gang leader Hiba in Wild 7, Miroku in Yuukan Club, Chuuta in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, the fighter Nagase Jun in Akai Hayate, and the unnamed protagonist of Oruorane the Cat Player, all Orphan releases. He also played Matsuda in the Yawara! properties, Sanzo in the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro.
- Tsujitani Kouji (Taka's colleague Saburou) played the title role in the Captain Tylor franchise and the lead role in the 3x3 Eyes OVAs. He also played Guy in Ai no Kusabi, Homare in Okane ga Nai, Shou in Condition Green, and Seishirou in Yuukan Club, all Orphan releases. His most recent role was in Kokkoku.
The show was directed by the the late Dezaki Osamu, younger brother of Dezaki Satoshi. Fittingly enough, Osamu got his start at Tezuka Osamu's Mushi productions and went on to direct many famous shows, including Ashita no Joe and its sequel, Ace wo Nerae and its sequel, the Black Jack OVAs and movie, and half a dozen Lupin III TV specials. To quote AniDB, "He was known for his distinct visual style, which made use of split-screen, stark lighting, and pastel freeze frames that he called 'Postcard Memories.' The latter was perhaps his most famous trademark and featured a process where the screen faded into a detailed "painting" of the simpler original animation. Many of techniques that he used became popular afterwards." He died in 2011.The show poses a number of interesting translation problems.- The title, Kasei Yakyoku, is rather ambiguous. The translator, weleaveshadows, used the English title suggested by TechnoGirls, Nightsong of Splendor, but Starlight Nocturne is equally valid.
- Some characters are referred to strictly by title rather than by name. The Aoba group boss is oyabun, rendered as "Boss" or "the boss." The proprietress of the Cafe Bistro is okami, rendered as "Ma'am" or "Madam."
- Taka's coterie use terms of familial respect. Junichiro and Sabu refer to Taka as aniki, respected elder brother, rendered by the anachronistic but locally appropriate "Bro." Taka calls Junichiro his ototobun, meaning a friend treated like a little brother.
- Akiko calls herself atarashii onna or "new woman." This was a feminist movement in Taisho Japan, seeking greater freedom and rights for women.
There are many historical references throughout the series. For example, the magazines that Junichiro is seen reading (Nihon Shonen and Shonen Club) are real boys' magazines of the time.The product advertising billboards also show actual 1920s products; for example, Sakura Beer. weleaveshadows has more notes on the show on her website.
Kasei Yakyoku had a tortuous path to release. Close to three years ago, Iri found some sub-par Internet raws and started to translate, but the awful raws and other opportunities caused the project to be shelved in 2016. While Iri searched for better raws, weleaveshadows of Iquix released her own version of episode 1. I reached out to her and suggested that Iquix and Orphan collaborate to finish the series. She agreed and translated the rest of the OVAs, but the project stalled again on availability of both raws and a translation checker. Finally, Iri located a VHS tape of the first two episodes and a laserdisc of the last two. After delays for shipping and encoding, these raws were ready. The show is a joint Orphan-Iquix release.Iri translation checked episode 1 and part of 2; laalg translation-checked all four. Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, and BeeBee and Topper3000 QCed. M74 encoded the first two episodes from gamnark's VHS tape rip, and Erik of Piyo Piyo productions encoded the last two episodes from a laserdisc. If we ever find a laserdisc of the first two episodes, we'll re-release them.I quite liked Kasei Yakyoku. The OVAs tell a complete story, although clearly not the whole story that's in the manga. The ending feels like a good stopping point, with the central relationships and tensions defined but unresolved. And it's gorgeous to look at, particularly the episodes taken from laserdisc. If you'd like to watch Kasei Yakyoku, you can find it on the usual torrent site or download it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
November 20, 2018, 6:25 pm
I received a question on BakaBT about translating Orphan's scripts into other languages. Unfortunately, I deleted the question before I answered it, so I'll answer it here: feel free. You can use Orphan's scripts for translating to other languages; for muxing with other raws at different resolutions; or any other purpose you please. I'd request that you credit the subtitle source, if you include staff credits, but it's just a request.
All Orphan releases are softsubbed, and you can extract scripts, fonts, and chapter files from the releases themselves, using mkvmerge in the mkvtoolnix kit.
↧
↧
November 26, 2018, 10:24 am
Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru (The Three-Eyed One: The Prince of Devil Island) was aired in 1985 as part of NTV's "Love Will Save the Earth" telethon. It was the seventh of nine specials to draw on a Tezuka Osamu story and the only one produced by Toei Animation instead of Tezuka Productions. The other eight were:1978: Hyakumannen Chikyuu no Tabi: Bander Book
1979: Kaitei Choutokkyuu Marine Express
1980:Fumoon
1981: Bremen 4
1983:Time Slip Ichimannen Prime Rose
1984: Daishizen no Majuu Bagi
1986: Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet
1989: Tezuka Osamu Monogatari: Boku wa Songoku Akuma Tou no Prince is the only special that lacks a high-definition source.
Akuma Tou no Prince is based on Tezuka Osamu's manga character Sharaku, the Three-Eyed One. Sharaku is a descendant of a nearly extinct tribe of three-eyed humans that created an advanced civilization 50,000 years ago and then perished. When his third eye is covered, he is a childish eighth-grader who prefers the company of kindergartners and is frequently bullied at school. However, when his third eye is uncovered, he is a super-genius with a penchant for trying to conquer the world. He is guarded, unofficially, by an older high school girl name Wato Chiyoko, who is exasperated when he behaves like a toddler and terrified when he acts like a psychopath.![]()
The voice cast includes:- Fujita Toshiko (Sharaku) played the title role in Ikkyu-san, Rui in Cat's Eye, and Yawara's mother in Yawara! She also played cyborg 1019 in Oz, an Orphan release.
- Takashima Gara (Wato-san) played Hild in the Aa! Megami-sama franchise and Julia in Cowboy Bebop. She played Lingming in the Sangokushi OVAs, which Orphan released. She is still active, appearing in the most recent incarnation of Gegege no Kitarou.
- The late Kumakura Kazuo (Unmei) played Papa Panda in the Panda Go Panda movies, the wizard in The Wizard of Oz anime movie, and Shuijing in the Sangokushi OVA, an Orphan release. He died in 2015.
- Yanami Jouji (the mustachioed old man, in a cameo role as a much put-upon ramen cart vendor) narrated most of the Dragon Ball Z properties. He played Ittan Momen in several of the GeGeGe no Kitaro series and movies and Chuta Ban in all the Kyojin no Hoshi TV series. He appeared as Lump in Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet, Big Bird in Grim Douwa: Kin no Tori, and of course, Ibari in Stop!! Hibari-kun, all Orphan releases.
- Yokozawa Keiko (Pandora) is probably best known for her starring role as Sheeta in Castle in the Sky. She played the title roles in Charlotte (1977), the Dorami-chan properties, and ESPer Mami, as well as leading roles in Plastic Little and Legend of Lemnear.
The director, Serikawa Yuugo, is not well known.Interestingly, the DVD release of Akuma Tou is apparently abridged (or edited or censored, your choice). According to Japan Wikipedia, the original show included a scene where a monster bird attacked the Kinmochi Clinic while Sharaku was watching Kinnikuman on TV. This scene is missing from the raw we have. (A tip of the hat to Gyumaoh for pointing this out, as well as ANN's name confusion about the seiyuu who playhed Wato-san.) That could explain why the special is only 85 minutes, when all the others are 90.
Moho Kareshi did the original script, and tenkenX6 checked the translation. ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and VigorousJammer QCed. The raw is from heponeko and appears to be a DVD rip. It includes eyecatches at every commercial break (roughly every 12-13 minutes). In the Blu-ray Tezuka Osamu specials, the eyecatches have been removed.
Apparently, Tezuka Osamu didn't like Akuma Tou no Prince. The official web site complains that "more emphasis was placed on entertainment factors than on theme." That's certainly true; the usual environmental messaging is missing. But the helter-skelter plot and giddy twists are certainly mainstream Tezuka Osamu, and it is entertaining. You can get Akuma Tou no Prince from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net
↧
December 1, 2018, 5:05 pm
Adachi Mitsuru and baseball romcoms go together like ice cream and chocolate sprinkles. For more than three decades, he has written hit manga series focusing on baseball and teenage romantic comedy, and many of them have been adapted into successful television anime. But the granddaddy of them all - Adachi's very first baseball series - was Nine, published from 1978 to 1980 in Monthly Shounen Sunday and collected in five tankoban volumes. In 1983, Nine was adapted into three hour-long TV specials. The first special was also released theatrically, under the title Nine: Original-ban (Nine: Original Version), with some minor changes, notably to the voice actor used for Coach Nakao.
Nine: Original-ban tells the story of two friends who are just entering Seishuu High School: record-setting middle school sprinter Niimi Katsuya and prefectural middle school judo champion Karasawa Susumu. Dropping by the school's baseball field, they see a beautiful girl staring forlornly at the school team's miserable performance. On impulse, they decide to join the baseball club, in order to cheer her up. She turns out to be Nakao Yuri, the baseball coach's daughter and soon to be team manager. They also meet Kurahashi Eiji, a middle school baseball phenom, and persuade him to join the team as well. Thus begins their athletic and romantic odyssey, which will take them from the agony of defeat to the hallowed grounds of Koushien, Japan's high school baseball championships.
Of course, there are complications. Niimi's running skills attract the attention of Yasuda Yumiki from the track club. She thinks Niimi would make a great coach for her and an even better boyfriend. Yuri is being courted by Yamanaka Kentarou, a slightly older rock-star pitcher for rival Bunan High School. And Karasawa would also like to court Yuri, although Niimi, as the designated hero, has the inside track.
If you've read the somewhat later Hiatari Ryouko, this may all sound somewhat familiar. And if you've watched the Hiatari Ryouko anime, this will all look really familiar. That's because Nine and Hiatari Ryouko have a significant number of major staff members in common, including producer, director, character designer, music composer, and planning.
The voice cast includes:- Furuya Tohru (Niimi Katsuya) played the lead male roles in Kimagure Orange Road and Sailor Moon, the title roles in Casshern Sins, Utsunomiko, and Kyojin no Hoshi, and recurrent roles in the Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, and Mobile Suit Gundam franchises. He also starred as Kosaku in Stop!! Hibari-kun and Bavi Stock in Bavi Stock, both Orphan releases.
- Kurata Mariko (Nakao Yuri) was better known as a singer. Nine is her only anime role.
- The late Tomiyama Kei (Karasawa Susumu) played Kongming in the Sangokushi OVAs, Subaru in Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet, Largo the Donkey in Bremen 4, the witch in Grimm Douwa: Kin no Tori, and Cú Chulainn in Yousei Ou, all Orphan releases
- The late Shiozawa Kaneto (Kurahashi Eiji) played Iason in Ai no Kusabi, Rock Holmes in Fumoon, and Shiina in Chameleon (all Orphan releases), as well as the egotistic comic relief Shin in Hiatari Ryouko and numerous other roles.
- Sakamoto Chika (Yasuda Yumiki) played Campanella in Night on the Galactic Railway, the title role in Tsuruhime, Nonoko in Tobira wo Akete, Tendonman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, and Agumon in the Digimon franchise. She appeared as Suzume's erstwhile love interest, Katagiri-kun, in Stop!! Hibari-kun, an Orphan release.
- Kamiya Akira (Yamanaka Kantarou) is best known for the title roles in the City Hunter properties and the Kinnikuman franchise, as well as the Sayaka's ambivalent boyfriend, Kazamatsuri, in Yawara! He played Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers and stole the show as the lecherous robot Chiraku in Hoshi Neko Full House, both Orphan releases.
- The late Kitamura Koichi (Coach Nakao) played Paolon, the intelligent spaceship in Hi-Speed Jecy, Professor, the wise old cat in the Ultra Nyan OVAs, and appeared in Hidamari no Ki and Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, all Orphan releases.
The director, Sugii Gisaburou, has done many outstanding shows, including other Mitsuru Adachi series (Touch and Hiatari Ryouko); Nozomi Witches and Hidamari no Ki (both Orphan projects); and several recent movies.Moho Kareshi translated the dialog and songs. laalg checked the dialog translation and added many additional signs. Sunachan checked the song translations. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. BeeBee, Topper3000, and VigorousJammer did QC. Erik of Piyo Piyo productions encoded from his Japanese laserdisc box set. Because of all the chain link fences, filtering the show proved unusually difficult and time-consuming; you can read all about it here. Erik also pointed out the strange art style - featureless backgrounds, limited color palette, lack of detail. Budget limitations? Stylistic choice? Hard to say.So the World Series may be over for now, but we'll always have Koushien. You can too, by getting Nine: Original Ban from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
December 7, 2018, 6:57 am
Here's the second installment in the Nine trilogy, Nine 2: Koibito Sengen (Nine 2: Declaring Love). It covers our heroes' (and heroines') second year at Seishuu High, with the usual double focus on baseball and romantic comedy.
When we last saw our main characters, Niimi Katsuya and Nakao Yuri were beginning to see themselves as a couple, but Katsuya was being pursued by a rising track star, Yasuda Yukimi, and Yuri by rival Bunan's third-year pitching phenom, Yamanaka Kentarou. New complications arise in this episode, as Kentarou's younger brother Jirou joins the Seishuu baseball team and promptly falls for Yukimi.
Except for Katsuya, most of the characters are fairly clear about their feelings. However, out of diffidence or immaturity, Niimi doesn't want to disappoint Yukimi by saying he likes someone else or be forthright with Yuri about his feelings. This causes problems for everyone else, particularly Yukimi, who nurtures hopes that cannot be realized. Even Katsuya's wingmen see what's going on and tell him, fairly forcefully, to get his act together. Meanwhile, the team must once again face arch-rival Bunan in a pivotal game.![]()
A note on the translation of the subtitle, Koibito Sengen. In Japanese, koibito is genderless, meaning lover or sweetheart. The literal translation would be "Lovers/Sweethearts Declaration." However, in English, "lovers" has a more sexual connotation, and "sweethearts" is rather old-fashioned. Because the core theme of the episode is Niimi struggle to face up to his feelings, I've used the neutral "Declaring Love" as the subtitle.
You can get Nine 2: Koibito Sengen at the usual torrent site, or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
December 13, 2018, 5:53 pm
The team members in Orphan tend to collect rarities on analog media, even if there's no real intent of ever subbing them. So here's another raw release, the 1990 movie Tenjou Hen: Utsu no Miko. Not much is known about this movie, but it appears to be a digest or compilation of some or all of the 13-part OVA series, Tenjou Hen: Utsu no Miko. The timing is a little odd; the movie was released before the first OVA. Furthermore, it includes the previews for OVAs 6 through 13. So it may be a "teaser" for the OVA series or a complete summary. Adventurous fansubbers are welcome to try matching up scenes in the movie with Ukyuu's subs of the OVAs.
Tenjou Hen: Utsu no Miko was ripped from a VHS tape, as a test case for Orphan's New and Improved™ VHS transcription capability in Japan. gamnark had been having trouble with video/audio synchronization between his S-VHS deck and his capture card (something to do with "TBC"). As an alternative, he bought a used D-VHS (digital VHS) deck to see if it worked better. D-VHS was the dying gasp of VHS technology; it supported tapes with digital encoding. Unfortunately, D-VHS came out after DVDs were established, and the format never took off. But the deck did have one redeeming feature: digital outputs. It put out MPEG-2 over Firewire and PCM audio over an optical cable. This removed the capture card completely and produced a better image, usually, then the S-video output. It also allowed for high-resolution audio. Would you like FLAC with your VHS rip, sir? I wouldn't, but it's now a possibility.
This new setup isn't a panacea. VHS tapes are still analog, and most of them are quite old. Fancy electronics can't overcome the intrinsic limits of the medium. The tapes are interlaced, and the output compression makes software-based correction problematic. Vertical pans, in particular, look pretty bad. But unless Tenjou Hen: Utsu no Miko is given a digital makeover, this raw is about as good as it's going to get.
gamnark ripped the video, and M74 encoded it. The new setup was funded by a generous donation from a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous. The entire team is grateful for his continuing support and is trying very hard not to blow their entire Christmas gift allowance on old tapes.
↧
↧
December 16, 2018, 9:46 am
The Nine saga comes to a close with the third installment, 1984's Nine: Kanketsuhen (Nine: Final). Niimi Katsuya, Karasawa Susumu, and Kurahashi Eiji are all third-years, as are Nakao Yuri and Yasuda Yukimi. The principal romantic relationships are set. Katsuya is paired off with Yuri, and Jirou-kun (a second-year) with Yasuda Yukimi. Katsuya's former romantic rival, Jirou's older brother Kentarou, has gone on to college or pro baseball and is out of the picture. Thus, Nine: Kanketsuhen focuses on some of the side characters, as well as the climax of Coach Nakao's decades-long quest to get to the holy of holies, the high school baseball championships at Koushien.![]()
There was two major changes in the voice cast for this episode. Kurata Mariko dropped out of the project, so the role of Nakao Yuri was recast with another singer, Narumi Yasuda. She was best known for the songs in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. She had no other voice-acting credits. In addition, the late Hiromi Tsuru played Takagi Youko. She debuted as Perrine in Perrine Monogatari and went on to play Kashima Miyuki in Miyuki, Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, Barge in Blue Sonnet, and Mikami Reiko in Ghost Sweeper Mikami. She also played Iyo in Izumi, Nozomi in Nozomi Witches, Jill in A Penguin's Memories, and UFO-chan in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, all Orphan releases.As a consequence of Kurata Mariko's departure, Serizawa Hiraoki did all the songs in Nine: Kanketsuhen himself. Perhaps for that reason, this episode has the fewest number of songs of the three episodes.The Orphan staff is unchanged. Moho translated; laalg checked the dialog and signs; and Sunachan checked the songs. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. BeeBee, Topper3000, and VigorousJammer did QC. The raw is a laserdisc encode from Piyo Piyo Productions.Two translation notes:- Takagi Youko pokes fun at Karasawa's weight by calling him Karabuta literally, "Kara-pig." I've localized the insult as a pun with "Kawa-sow-a," even though a "sow" is actually a female pig, because she caricatured him as a pig in Nine 2.
- Omaeda, the monster pitcher on Seishuu's Koushien rivals, mistakes "Seishuu" for "Seishu," a brand of sake. That's the key reason I added the "u" for long Japanese vowels (Seishuu, Kentarou, Jirou) throughout the show, even though Seishuu's team uniforms say "Seishu" in Roman letters.
Typesetting this episode was a PITA. All three episodes of Nine are rather sign-heavy, but this one was ridiculous, with background signs (advertisements) in practically every long-shot at Koushien. Many of the signs are parodies of real Japanese brands and companies. For example, KDY 電話 (KDY Telephone) is a joke on a real telecommunications company, Kddi. These signs don't add much, but laalg took the trouble to translate them, so I've set as many as I could.Looking back, it seems clear that Nine is not a traditional sports shounen; rather, it's a romcom with a baseball foreground. Nine lacks the typical shounen hero's determined rise to the top in the face of adversity and the humorless focus on building the team and achieving victory. Here, getting to Koushien is just another incident in high school life, and the boys are much more interested in having a good time, and in girls, than in becoming champions. For Niimi, Karasawa, and Eiji, baseball is fun; it's not an obsession.Nine set the pattern for Adachi Mitsuru's baseball manga series, and he continues to ring changes on the theme even today. (His current manga, Mix, is getting an anime adaptation in the spring of 2019.) Now English-speaking viewers can see where it all began. Except for Hiatari Ryouko, which remains incomplete, all of Adachi-sensei's anime series are available in English. As for Hiatari Ryouko... one never knows, do one? It's an orphan series, after all.You can get Nine: Kanketsuhen (and the other two episodes) from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
December 20, 2018, 12:45 pm
Most of the time, Orphan gets its laserdisc encodes from Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions, but when it comes to ecchi, not to mention downright sketchy, material, our supplier of choice is ics- of Lamonae. Following up on Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, Orphan now presents the first English version of Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show (Eguchi's Hisashi's Long Life Gorou Show, or something like that), another comedy from the prolific, disturbed mind of Eguchi Hisashi, creator of Stop!! Hibari-kun.
Kotobuki Gorou Show is an anthology of episodes from Eguchi's Hinomaru Gekijou, which also provided material for some of the filler episodes in Stop!! Hibari-kun. There are four segments:- The Vulgar Family (episode 5). The most vulgar family in the world meets the most refined family in the world, with predictable results.
- The Vulgar Family, Yet Again (episode 9). More hijinks (or lojinks) with the vulgar family.
- Rebel without a Cause (episode 7). A boxing parody of Ashita no Joe, with "Horaccho Rikiishi" squaring off against "Piston Akagi."
- Monster Kingdom (episode 10). A send-up of Japanese kaiju movies. Kirishima, Professor Ichinose, and the Scientific Defense Force try to defeat a monster by bringing in a second monster to fight the first, and then a third to fight the second, and so on.
The voice cast is large and includes many well known seiyuus of the 80s and 90s:- Yara Yuusaku (Vulgar Dad) played the destroyer captain in Zipang. He had many featured roles, appearing in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, Eien no Filena, Hidamari no Ki, Nozomi Witches, both Sangokushi OVAs, Prime Rose, and both What's Michael? OVAs, all Orphan releases.
- Takizawa Kumiko (Vulgar Mother) played Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (movie). She also appeared in Techno Police 21C and Scoopers, both Orphan releases.
- Shinhara Emi (Vulgar daughter Stephanie) played B-Ko in the A-ko properties and Sailor Jupiter in the Sailor Moon franchise. She appeared as Reiko in Akai Hayate and Android 1025 in Oz, both Orphan releases.
- Matsuoka Youko (Vulgar son Ralph) played the title role in the 1990's incarnation of GeGeGe no Kitarou. She appeared in Haguregumo and Tsuki ga Noboru made ni, both Orphan releases.
- Ueda Toshiya (Refined Father, Professor Ichinose) appeared in Perrine and Akai Hayate, an Orphan release.
- Satou Ai (Refined Mother) has played many maternal roles, including Light's mother in Death Note, Masami's mother in Wedding Peach, Misaki's mother in Dear Brother, Ban's mother in Getbackers, Shigeru's mother in Noramimi, and the unnamed mothers in Cinderella Express, Ai Monogatari, and Guyver: Out of Control. Other roles include Kristin Adams in Yawara!, Ibuki's mother in Kiss wa Me ni Shite, and the unnamed girlfriend in Lunn Flies into the Wind; the last two are Orphan releases.
- Horiuchi Kenyuu (Refined Son) has an extensive resume, including the title role in Guin Saga, as well as Jin Akira in Wolf Guy, Lid in Greed, and Nest in Eien no Filena; the last three are Orphan releases. He recently appeared in Sirius the Jaeger.
- Futamata Issei (Rikiishi) is best known for his roles as Godai Yuusaku in Maison Ikkoku, Akira (Chibi) in Urusei Yatsura, and Saburo in Sazae-san. He also played the psychopathic brother Cross in Hi-Speed Jecy and the horny lead in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, both Orphan releases. He recently appeared in Gurazeni.
- Seki Toshihiko (Akagi) was one of theleading male seiyuu in this period. He played the title role in Izumo, Riki in Ai no Kusabi, the hero Seitarou in Hoshi Neko Full House, the gang leader Hiba in Wild 7, Miroku in Yuukan Club, Chuuta in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, the fighter Nagase Jun in Akai Hayate, younger brother Jun in Kasei Yakyoku, and the unnamed protagonist of Oruorane the Cat Player, all Orphan releases. He also played Matsuda in the Yawara! properties, Sanzo in the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro.
- Genda Tesshou (Rikiishi's trainer Kuroki, Kirishima) played Colonel Muto in Joker Game, Moloch in Yondemasu Azazel-san, Rei in the Urusei Yatsura franchise, Moguro Fukuzou in New Laughing Salesman, "Oyaji" in Mitsuboshi Colors, as well as Paul Rusch in Yume Kakeru Kougen, the loyal lieutenant Galbreath in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, the dragonman Baguda in Greed, the narrator in Akai Hayate, Dog McCoy in Dallos, Hebopi in Wild 7, and rebel leader Oosukune in Izumo, all Orphan releases.
- Inoue Kikuko (Kuroki's daughter) starred as Belldandy in the Aa! Megami-sama franchise, Kazami in Please! Teacher, and Doris in D4 Princess, an Orphan release. She has numerous other credits, including Cyberdoll Mami in Hand Maid May, Short(cake) in The Girl from Phantasia, and Lucie in Alice in Cyberland, all Orphan releases. She remains active and has recently appeared in Amanchu! and its sequel, The Ancient Magus' Bride, Darling in the FranXX, and FLCL Progressive.
- Nishimura Tomomichi (Akagi's boss) played the rot-loving Professor Itsuki in Moyashimon and Richard Mardukis in the Full Metal Panic franchise. He has had hundreds of featured roles, including Aoki Honoo, Bremen 4, Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, Fumoon, Starship Troopers, Wild 7, and Wolf Guy, all Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in this year's Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai.
Iijima Masakatsu, who directed the first three sketches, is best known for his work on the Pokemon franchise. Nabeshima Osamu, who directed the fourth sketch, has directed most of the Yowamushi Pedal properties.Kotobuki Gorou Show is chock-a-block with puns, parodies, and pop culture references. Here are just a few:- "Beautiful Teens."Mita Akira's 1963 hit song.
- "You're the laundryman." A reference to an old Japanese porn film, 洗濯屋ケンちゃん (Laundryman Ken-chan), which was uncensored. It was so popular that it apparently contributed materially to the success of home VHS decks in Japan.
- "Please forgive me for getting hard first." A grisly reference to Kamikaze pilots, who often left a last message saying, "Please forgive me for dying before my parents."
- "Sex? How vulgar." The refined mom says 御セックス. 御 is used as a prefix to make a word polite, but it isn't used with foreign words.
- "Let's have a salaryman get his public hair shaved!" A parody of a Braun shaver commercial.
- "Round sliced me."輪切りの私 (wagiri no watashi). A parody of 矢切の渡し(yagiri no watashi).
- "Crazy Cats records."Crazy Cats was a jazz band and comedy act.
- "Yashiro Aki records."Yashiro Aki was an enka singer and painter.
- "He likes PHP paperbacks and listens to Jet Stream." PHP is a magazine and a paperback publisher. Jet Stream is a radio program.
- "I have an Edvard Munch-size problem with that." A pun: Munch (ムンク munku) versus problem (文句 monku). The picture is, of course, Munch's "The Scream."
- Horaccho Rikiishi is a reference to Ashita no Joe's Tooru Rikiishi. Akagi (red tree) and Kuroki (black tree) are parodies of the same show's Shiraki (white tree).
- Gag Da is a real magazine, now called Manga Life. SPA is a also real magazine, still published. MIMI was a real magazine that ceased publication in 1996.
- Kochira is, of course, Godzilla.
- Achira is a parody of Agnuirus from the Godzilla movies.
- The man flying in front of Science Defense Force HQ is Okamato Tarou, who created the weird sculpture being depicted.
- Rodon (魯鈍), which means imbecile in Japanese, is a parody of Rodan from the Godzilla movies.
- "Explosion!" Okamato Tarou's signature saying was, "Art is explosion!"
- King Hitler (キング ヒトラ) is a parody of Ghidorah from the Godzilla movies.
- Marimon is a reference to marimo, a species of Japanese green algae.
Moho Kareshi did the initial translation. laalg revised the translation and researched the numerous and sometimes disturbing references. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis, Topper3000, and VigorousJammer did QC. M74 encoded from a laserdisc rip provided by ics-.
So if you're prepared to wade through the usual Eguchi Higashi potpourri of puns, parodies, and tasteless jokes, you can get Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show from the regular torrent site or IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. His other anthology, Eguchi Hisashi no Nantuko Narudesho, is even worse, so you have something to look forward to in 2019.
↧
December 21, 2018, 12:35 pm
The Margaret video series was a set of six shoujo OVAs released at monthly intervals in 1993. They were based on manga published in Margaret magazine and animated by Madhouse. In chronological order, they were: Orphan has released A-Girl, Kisa wa Me ni Shite, POPS, and Singles. After a pause for station identification, we now bring you the first OVA, Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru.Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru (The Fashion Boy Is Cool) tells the story of Fujiya Kotobuki, a precocious 14-year-old girl with a strong sense of fashion and an equally strong crush on Kushinige Hodaka, the owner and chief designer of a chic boutique, Galopin et Galopine. By creatively exaggerating her age, she wangles her way into the shop and into Hodaka's heart. However, she also comes to the attention of Hodaka's younger assistant (and, as it turns out, younger half-brother) Kujou Kazuomi. When Hodaka finds out Kotobuki's true age, he firmly rejects her, and Kazuomi tries to take his place in Kotobuki's affections. Will the complications and misunderstandings be straightened out? Will Kotobuki find the path to true love? Well, this is a shoujo romance, after all.![]()
- Mitsuishi Kotono (Fujiya Kotobuki) has had a fabulous career, including star turns as Excel in Excel Saga, female Maze in Maze TV and OVAs, Mink in Dragon Half, Birdy in Birdy the Mighty, Katsuragi Misato in the Evangelion properties, and of course, Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon franchise. She also appeared in Blazing Transfer Student, Nagasarete Airantou, and Yamato 2520, all Orphan releases. She is still active, appearing in 2018's Zombieland Saga.
- Hayami Shou (Kushinige Hodaka) starred as Nanjou in Zetsuai: 1989 and Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989, both Orphan releases. He has had many featured roles, including Iason's friend Raoul in Ai no Kusabi, Hojo in Sanctuary, Pat Leivy in Starship Troopers, and Junoichi in Blazing Transfer Student, all Orphan releases. He is still active, recently playing Popuko in Pop Team Epic.
- Nanba Keiichi (Kujou Kazuomi), starred as Eizawa in Chameleon and Hongou in Nozomi Witches, and gave an over-the-top performance as Roll the vengeful wizard in Girl from Fantasia, all Orphan releases. He also starred as Koujiro in the Fuma no Koujiro OVA series and as Momonari Junta in DNA^2.
The show was directed by the late Endou Takuji, who also helmed Zetsuai: 1989.Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru was first translated by Tomodachi back in the VHS fansub era. Moho Kareshi did an independent translation for Orphan. I cross-correlated the two translations, and laalg corrected the result. M74 timed, and I edited and typeset (very few signs). BeeBee and Nemesis QCed. M74 encoded based on a VHS rip provided by gamnark. The tape itself was purchased second-hand and turned out to be reasonably good.So if you're in the mood for a little May-December romance, you can get Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. The last Margaret OVA, Oedo wa Nemurai!, is "on the slipways" but is still a ways from launch. Stay tuned.
↧
December 24, 2018, 3:00 am
On behalf of all the dogs and cats and other critters of Orphan Fansubs...
Here's wishing you a joyous, and safe, holiday season.(Yeah, it's last year's blog entry, but it's still cute.)
↧
↧
December 24, 2018, 4:35 pm
When Orphan released Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru a few days ago, I told the team it would be the last release for 2018, and everyone could relax until next year. Little Did I Know what those unsuspecting words would lead to.And here is the result, Orphan's holiday bonbon for 2018, Mahoutsukai Tai! vs Shamanic Princess.And what, you might ask, is Mahoutsukai Tai! vs Shamanic Princess? I had no clue either, but fortunately MyAnimeList has the answer.A parody-esque epilogue to both Shamanic Princess and Mahou Tsukai Tai!.
As a marketing ploy back when Shamanic Princess was first released, buyers who purchased all six first edition LD's of both Shamanic Princess and Magic User's Club, and sent in their proof of purchases before a deadline, received a special OVA entitled Shamanic Princess vs. Magic User's Club. It was never sold in stores and was a special omake by the series' creators to the fans. The OVA contains an epilogue to both series, which is fitting considering they both came out at the same time.
Now you know. I don't think the short snippets are really epilogues - they're more like ecchi gags - but I haven't watched either series, so I can't be sure. Eternal_Blizzad saw this on a Japanese auction site, snapped it up, and sent it to gamnark, who thus received the shortest (less than seven minute) commercial video tape he had ever seen. gamnark ripped it on his new D-VHS setup, and it turned out rather well, so M74 encoded it. Starting a few days ago, Yogicat timed the raw, Iri translated, I edited and typeset, and BeeBee and Nemesis QCed. Done! The raw begins with 12 or 13 seconds of black; I've used ordered chapters to snip that out. If your player doesn't support ordered chapters, you'll just have to sit through the lead-in.
As usual, you can get Mahoutsukai Tai! vs Shamanic Princess from the standard torrent site, or you can download it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Happy viewing!Haste Makes Waste Department adds: I fumbled the timing credit. Here's a patch to fix it.
↧
December 25, 2018, 5:03 am
Who can resist a cute cat on Christmas Day?
Best holiday wishes from the Orphan Fansubs team.
↧
December 31, 2018, 7:49 am
Another banner year for Orphan Fansubs, full of interesting releases, including two long and very different series, Stop!! Hibari-kun and Hidamari no Ki - both orphan rescues, by the way.
Orphan Fansubs
Orphan used to put out just a handful of releases a year. For the last three years, though, that number has been much higher, thanks to- An expanded staff. In 2018, Orphan welcomed several new QCs, as well as the return of translation checkers laalg and tenkenX6.
- The increasing availability of back-catalog titles, on both physical and streaming media.
- The hard work of core staff members in all disciplines: translation, timing, editing, typesetting, QC, and encoding.
As a result, Orphan released a record number of new projects in 2018: - Hidamari no Ki. An outstanding historical seinen series, about Tezuka Osamu's medical ancestor, set during the Bakumatsu. This is "must watch" anime. R2J DVD encode.
- Smash Hit! The "inside story" of Cosprayers, as seen from the viewpoint of its harried and harassed producer. R2J DVD encode.
- Sonic Soldier Borgman: Madnight Gigs. A music video of songs from the series. It includes an epilogue providing the real ending to the show. Laserdisc encode.
- Purple Eyes in the Dark. A music video of songs loosely based on a popular shoujo manga about a were-panther. Laserdisc encode.
- Condition Green. A sci-fi story of Emerald Earth's resistance to evil invaders. Laserdisc encode.
- Fantasia (The Girl from Phantasia). A fantasy comedy about an entire world hidden inside a discarded floor rug. Laserdisc encode.
- Ai no Kusabi (1992). A dystopian sci-fi BL OVA about the forbidden romance between a member of the ruling elite and a slum-dwelling gang member. R2J DVD encode.
- Starship Troopers. The Robert A. Heinlein sci-fi classic about interstellar warfare between mankind and BEMs. Laserdisc encode.
- Bremen 4. A Tezuka Osamu NTV special. Four animal friends take on evil, Nazi-like invaders, with the help of a transformation gadget provided by a visiting alien. 720p BD encode; joint with M74.
- Zetsuai 1989. The BL classic about a fraught relationship between a successful singer and a budding soccer star. Laserdisc encode.
- Katte ni Shirokuma. A sci-fi comedy about a bear family (plus an adopted boar) exploring an abandoned city. Laserdisc encode.
- Dallos Special. A condensed version of the Dallos sci-fi OVAs, aired as a TV special. Laserdisc encode.
- Every Day Is Sunday. A caper comedy about the romance between a rookie policewoman and a lazy magician. Laserdisc encode.
- Oruorane the Cat Player. An out-of-work youth meets a mysterious old man who plays cats as musical instruments. A forgotten classic. Laserdisc encode.
- Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou. An ecchi, not to say sketchy, comedy about the misadventures of a single guy seeking female companionship. Laserdisc encode.
- Sangokushi (1985). An anime adaptation of the epic Records of the Three Kingdoms, taking the story up through the Battle of Red Cliffs. 1080p streaming rip.
- Techno Police 21C. A sci-fi comedy/action film about cops and their robot partners chasing powerful criminals. Laserdisc encode. Blu-ray version. 1080p BD encode.
- Bronze: Zetsuai ~ Since 1989. The continuation of Zetsuai 1989. R2J DVD encode.
- Greed. A fantasy about a group of adventurers seeking to escape the "distortion" that encompasses their world. Laserdisc encode.
- Sangokushi 2 (1986). The continuation of Sangokushi (1985), carrying the story through the deaths of Cao Cao and Liu Bei. 1080p streaming rip.
- Yume Kakeru Kougen. A biography of Paul Rusch, an American missionary who worked to improve conditions in the Japanese countryside before and after World War II. R2J DVD encode.
- Alice in Cyberland. A sci-fi OVA about combat in cyperspace. Laserdisc encode.
- Oishinbo - Japan-America Rice War. A TV special about Japanese agricultural policy (yawn). 720p BD encode.
- Okane ga Nai! A loan shark saves a college student from being auctioned off as a sex slave but demands "repayment" for his expenses. R1 DVD encode; joint with M74.
- Kigyou Senshi Yamazaki Long Distance Call. A salesman who died from overwork is revived as a cyborg business consultant. VHS encode.
- Wild 7. A gang of death row convicts is recruited to go after criminals who are "above the law." R2J DVD encode.
- Ultra Nyan: Hoshizora kara Maiorita Fushigi Neko. An interplanetary cat saves the local felines from a gang of dastardly cat-nappers. ARR encode.
- Ultra Nyan 2: Happy Daisakuse. Our interplanetary cat confronts a gang of enraged (and allergic) crows. R2J DVD encode.
- Kiss wa Me ni Shite. A shoujo romance, part of the Margaret Video series. VHS encode.
- POPS. A shoujo romance, part of the Margaret Video series. VHS encode.
- Boyfriend. A shoujo romance about a basketball player and a sickly girl. ARR VHS encode.
- Singles. A shoujo romance, part of the Margaret Video series. ARR VHS encode.
- Izumo (1991). A fantasy about a young prince, a mysterious girl with magic powers, and a mystic sword. Laserdisc encode.
- Kasei Yakyoku. A josei OVA about a quartet of star-crossed lovers in Taisho Japan. Operatic and compelling. VHS (episodes 1-2) and laserdisc (episodes 3-4) encode; joint with Iquix.
- Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru. A Tezuka Osamu NTV special, produced by Toei rather than Tezuka Productions. Shakaru, the last living descendant of the ancient three-eyed tribe, battles neo-Nazis for control of a powerful weapon. heponeko encode.
- Nine: Original-ban. First of three movie-length specials adapted from Adachi Mitsuru's first manga series about baseball and high school romance. Laserdisc encode.
- Nine 2: Koibito Sengen. The second special. Laserdisc encode.
- Nine: Kanketsuen. The third and last special. Laserdisc encode.
- Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show. A comedy anthology from the demented mind of Eguchi Hisashi, creator of Stop!! Hibari-kun. Laserdisc encode.
- Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru. A shoujo romance, part of the Margeret video series. VHS encode.
- Mahoutsukai Tai! vs Shamanic Princess. An omake for both series. VHS encode.
Not counted in this tally were five more mini-batches of Stop!! Hibari-kun, the HD version of Cleopatra, the HD version of Senya Ichiya Monogatari, and an Okizari project best left unmentioned. That's close to 50distinct projects this year. Congratulations, and many thanks, to the whole Orphan team.I must also thank Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions. Seventeen of the shows this year, and close to 40 over the last four years, have been based on his laserdisc rips. Without Erik's help, Orphan's release catalog would be missing many of its most interesting shows. I want to thank the Arutha foundation, which has hosted all of Orphan's releases on IRC. And finally, I want to thank our anonymous financial benefactor, who this year helped with setting up a better VHS ripping capability in Japan.
Work for Other Groups
There seems to be less of this each year, particularly outside the "back catalog" kairetsu.- FFF. I edited the fourth Hoozuki no Reitetsu OVA.
- Frozen-EviL. I continued to edit the slow-moving Blu-Ray version of Yawara!
- Saizen. I continued to edit and typeset Laughing Salesman. Psycho Armor Govarian was licensed and dropped.
- Soldado. I QCed this year's Ninku releases.
- Live-eviL. I edited one episode of Shoukoushi Ceddie. It reminded me of why I swore off working on World Masterpiece Theater series.
Laughing Salesman continues to be a useful diversion; I find it's exceedingly dark humor appropriate for the times. The team is half way through!
Favorites of 2018
I'm not an anime critic, so I no longer try to compile a "best of" list for the anime year. These days, I don't watch enough anime, outside of the genres I like (slice-of-life, comedy, sci-fi, seinen, josei, cats), to be knowledgeable enough to make a "Top 10" list. Instead, I'm listing my favorites of the year and why they kept me interested all the way through.
My favorite series for this year, actually, was Hidamari no Ki, but since it aired at the turn of the century, it probably shouldn't be included. So my favorite current series, in alphabetical order, are:- Double Decker: Doug and Kirill. A stylish and entertaining police dramedy, with the gore kept to a minimum. It went rather weird at the end, another victim of Serious Development syndrome.
- Gakuen Babysitters. Slice of life at its best.
- GeGeGe no Kitarou. A reboot with a point and a point of view. The third coeur (the Western Youkai arc) started off too darkly, but the show has regained its form recently.
- Hakumei to Michoki. Little folks in the woods. D'ooooh.
- Hinamatsuri. A very funny family comedy with sci-fi and yakuza elements.
- Hinomaru Sumo. A traditional sports anime, and very good at what it does.
- Hoozuki no Reitetsu S2 part 2. Cool-headed and outrageously funny to the very end.
- Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes. Part romcom, part travelogue, part detective story. I liked all the aspects.
- Miira no Kaikata. Another terrific slice of life show, with supernatural overtones.
- Tada-kun wa Koi no Shirai. A traditional romcom, but well done.
- Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii. Another romcom, but rather untraditional, with the emphasis on comedy more than romance.
No mecha, no magical girls, no idols, no isekai, no shounen (sorry, Boku no Hero Academia), no excessive violence (yeah, I'm looking at you, Golden Kamuy). Among short series, I was completely bemused by Jingai-san no Yome, which was undoubtedly the strangest show all year.
Looking Ahead
Orphan Fansubs is now eight years old, more or less. Since the group's inception, the team has finished 145+ official projects. For 2019, we have a number of carryovers in the pipeline, including the three Sangokushi movies, the second set of DAYS OVAs, and the last Margaret OVA. In addition, we've established full media transcription capabilities in Japan - VHS tapes, laserdiscs, and DVDs - which will make acquisition of new media more affordable. So look forward to yet more unknown gems and turkeys from the back catalog. And we can always use more help. If you'd like to contribute...Send me a postcard
Drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely... Orphan Fansubs!
Have a happy and safe 2019.
↧
(This is just a rewrite of my usual status-plus-recruiting post, so don't get your expectations too high.)
I surveyed the team about what projects we should do in 2019, and as usual, there are more ideas than bandwidth. Still, a few of them are already underway and can be treated as "commitments," in the usual loose fansub sense.- Sangokushi movies. These three movies are enormously long - three hours longer than John Woo's epic Red Cliffs movie, or the equivalent of a 20- to 22-episode anime series. There are also hundreds of signs. Movie 1: encoded, translated, timed, typeset, edited; in QC. Movie 2: encoded, translated, timed, typeset; in editing. Movie 3: encoded, translated, timed; in typesetting.
- Majo Demo Steady. A light-hearted, rather ecchi sci-fi romantic comedy. Translated, timed, edited, typeset; in QC.
- Days: Touin Gakuensen! The second set of DAYS OVAs, continuing the actual story. Episode 1: encoded, translated, timed, edited; in typesetting. Episodes 2-3: encoded, translated, timed; in editing.
- Oedo wa Nemurenai! The last Margaret OVA. Encoded, timed; in translation.
- Eguchi Hisashi no Nantoka Narudesho. The second Eguchi Hisashi anthology. The less said about this, the better. Encoded, timed, translated, checked, edited; in typesetting.
In addition, we're planning a number of reissues, based on recent media acquisitions and improved transcription capabilities.
- Singles. New VHS rip.
- Ultra Nyan OVA 1. New laserdisc rip.
- Al Caral no Isan. New laserdisc rip, without the washouts of the current raw.
- Tsuki ga Noboru made ni. New laserdisc rip. This one is iffy. The disc has bit rot, and the digital audio is corrupted. We're trying to get the analog audio off the disc. Stay tuned.
- Boyfriend parts 1 and 2. New laserdisc rip of the complete OVA.
I'm really happy about Boyfriend. As I mentioned in my release post, Boyfriend was originally a two-part OVA, released on VHS tape and laserdisc. It was condensed into a shorter TV special, released only on VHS tape; that was the basis for the Orphan release. The new version will not only look and sound better, it will be more complete.
Beyond that, the list of possibilities is too long for rational contemplation: the remaining episodes of Chameleon; a translation-checked version of Gosenzosama Banbanzai; BD versions of Cleopatra and Senya Ichiya Monogatari; three different Tezuka Osamu OVAs or series; Nayuta, Manxmouse, Fukuyama Theater, Genji Pt 1and other Piyo Piyo Productions laserdisc rips; and on and on! There's little chance of getting through the backlog of available scripts this year, let alone taking on new projects, unless Orphan gets more capable and experienced help...
- Editor. I can't deal with the backlog all by myself. (I'd like to have a life away from the computer.) However, an editor for Orphan needs to be bimodal. Some of our translators are very proficient in English and rather picky about gratuitous changes to their wording. With their scripts, an editor must exercise great restraint and avoid gratuitous changes. Some of our translators are not native English speakers. With their scripts, an editor must change the wording to flow better but preserve accuracy.
- Typesetter. Same issue; I'm it for now. A typesetter must know motion tracking and must be prepared to work with jittery, hand-drawn signs, blended frames, etc.
- QC. QCs must have a thorough command of American English grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage. They must know how to use Aegisub and to look for errors not just in the dialog but in the timing and signs.
- Encoder. Orphan needs an encoder who can work with difficult sources and apply corrections, manually if required, to the numerous flaws, including interlacing, frame blending, chroma bleeds, color drift, film burn, etc. Orphan doesn't get progressive DVDs or Blu-rays very often, and when it does, there are enough encoders for them.
In closing, two caveats. First, don't use the comments section to plead for translation of your favorite show. As I've explainedseveral times, Orphan doesn't take requests. Second, don't apply to the team if you have no experience or if you want to use different tools, like Discord instead of IRC or Twitter instead of blog posts. Orphan's an old-fashioned fansub group, I'm an old-fashioned (or just old) fansubber, and I'm not going to change the workflow now.
↧
↧
January 10, 2019, 7:46 am
Orphan's first release for 2019!Although Erik at Piyo Piyo Productions is the most prolific ripper and encoder of Japanese anime laserdiscs that have been stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide, he was not the only collector aiming to preserve the anime past. Another was Macross2012, who worked in the BakaBT community and then abruptly vanished. (One could say of the Internet what Dorothy says about Oz: "People come and go so quickly around here.") He encoded a number of interesting and unique raws, and Orphan has now used one to provide the first English version of the 1986 ecchi sci-fi comedy, Majo demo Steady (My Steady Is a Witch).
Majo demo Steady begins with a classic anime plot hook: Hisashi Seki, ordinary working guy, wakes up one morning to find a naked, and very amorous, girl in his bed. (This is carrying the Sudden Girlfriend Appearance trope to a whole 'nother level.) Because he's a grownup, and not an anime harem lead, he's happy to take advantage of the situation, to their mutual satisfaction. However, the girl's appearance leads to all sorts of increasingly strange phenomenon. The cause lies, sort of, in Jungian psychology. The girl, whom he has named Asami, is from a parallel dimension where people's ideal partners - the anima to their animus, or vice versa - reside. Asami's longing has allowed her to cross dimensions to be with Seki, but her presence in his world upsets the natural order. She goes back, and Seki must venture to her world to save her. The lovers are reunited. However, matters don't turn out quite as they hoped.
I need to mention a couple of points. There is a lot of nudity. Asami spends most of her time without clothes, and Seki joins her in that state whenever he can. There is a lot of under-the-covers sex, never shown; this is ecchi, not hentai. And there's a subplot about Seki's boss, Sugiyama, who is gay and lusts after his subordinate. This part starts to look a lot like typical anime gay-bashing, but it takes an unexpected turn. Sugiyama too has an ideal partner in the parallel world, and he is allowed an unexpectedly upbeat ending to his quest for love.
The voice cast includes:- Mitsuya Yuji (Seki) played the leads in Yousei-Ou and Hi-Speed Jecy, both Orphan releases, and in two Adachi Mitsuri properties, Touch and Hiatari Ryouko. He has appeared in many other shows, including Oz, Ranma 1/2, and the Stitch! franchise.
- Takahashi Miki (Asami) is best known as a singer (she sang all the songs in the show). She had featured roles in MAPS (1994) and Tenamonyo Voyagers. She appeared in Doukyuusei: Climax, an Orphan release.
- Kokontei Shinsuke (Sugiyama) has only one other anime credit.
Kobayashi Osamu, the director, is not well known. There are a lot of songs in the show, all of them sung by Takahashi Miki. The OP, ED, and one of the insert songs appear on the image album. Most of the rest are on Takahashi Miki's album Dress Up. We've only subtitled the insert songs that are more or less complete.
Moho Kareshi translated, and laalg checked the dialogm added more signs, and translated the songs. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. BeeBee and Nemesis QCed. The raw is from Macross2012. He included two Japanese audio tracks, one AAC, the other AC3. Neither includes a right channel, so the sound is in effect monaural.
Majo demo Steady is not a world-shaker, but its heart is in the right place. If you'd like a light ecchi comedy with sci-fi overtones, it will do quite well. You can get the show from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
January 29, 2019, 5:59 pm
As I've said before, 80s and 90s OVAs are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to find. Some are good, some are great, and a few are outright stinkers. (Yes, I mean you, Bavi Stock II and Twinkle Nora Rock Me.) But never has a project pissed me off as much as Eguchi Hisashi no Nantoka Narudesho! (Eguchi Hisachi's It'll All Work Out!), the second anthology from Eguchi Hisashi, creator of Stop!! Hibari-kun!
Most people know that Japanese anime has its dark corners of racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. For example, The Anime Encyclopedia characterizes The Chocolate Panic Picture Show as a "jaw-droppingly racist musical in which grossly caricatured Africans Manbo, Chinbo, and Chonbo causes chaos in civilization despite the efforts of their pretty tour guide/bedmate to tame their zany, grass-skirted cannibal ways." The anti-semitism in Angel Cop was so bad that the last episodes were more or less completely rewritten for its U.S. release. And offensive stereotypes of LGBTQ characters are rife, not least in Eguchi Hisashi's own works (see, for example, episode 22 of Stop!! Hibari-kun or all of Otako no Seiza). But neither I nor the staff were prepared for this. The translation checker summed it up best: "I thought I was being trolled."Like Kotobuki Gorou Show, Nantoka Narudesho! is based on a manga and is a series of unrelated sketches, supposedly humorous. Some of them involve live actors:- A Manga with Chapters (live action). A bashful young actress, told to perform, does a striptease.
- Uncle Jamilla's Nightmare. A young woman's dreams are tormented by an old man who tells truly awful jokes, making her fear she will die of laughter. A parody of Nightmare on Elm Street crossed with Ai to Makoto.
![]()
- The Thomas Brothers Appear. Gay-bashing at its worst.
- Attack of Love (live action). A girl keeps falling for men she literally runs into.
- The Thomas Brothers Again Appear. The gay-bashing continues, taken to new lows.
- Extreme Journey's Ends. Various characters' lives are described, with an emphasis on their unexpected demises.
- She Always Took the Tozai Line in the Morning. A (mostly) silent and (mostly) serious segment about a young man transfixed by a girl on the subway.
- Let There Be Light for Every Youth! A blind teenager's vision is restored, with unfortunate consequences.
- Ushimitsu-kun. "Hell Boy" Ushimitsu versus a sea otter at the aquarium.
- Compression (live action). Kaiju Umera the Glutton gets a lesson from its auntie about the proper way to roast and eat subway cars full of humans.
- Switch off. The end, mercifully, including the end of the world.
In addition to being tasteless and offensive, Nantoka Narudesho has another strike against it: it's not very funny. Uncle Jamilla's nightmare has some truly awful Japanese puns, but they don't render well in English. Compression's take on kaiju movies from the monster's point of view is okay. The rest of the sketches are obvious, stupid, or worse. Even the striptease is spoiled by a bad punchline.
The voice credits only included the actors' names, not which roles they played.- Kamiya Akira is best known for the title roles in the City Hunter properties and the Kinnikuman franchise, as well as the Sayaka's ambivalent boyfriend, Kazamatsuri, in Yawara! He played Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers and Kentarou in Nine: Original-ban, and he stole the show as the lecherous robot Chiraku in Hoshi Neko Full House, all Orphan releases.
- Mitsuya Yuuji played the leads in Hi-Speed Jecy and Yousei Ou, both Orphan releases. He's also appeared in many other shows, including Oz, Ranma 1/2, and the Stitch! franchise.
- Yara Yuusaku played the destroyer captain in Zipang. He had many featured roles, appearing in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, NextSenki Ehrgeiz, Eien no Filena, Hidamari no Ki, Nozomi Witches, both Sangokushi OVAs, Prime Rose, and both What's Michael? OVAs, all Orphan releases.
- Nishimura Tomomichi played the rot-loving Professor Itsuki in Moyashimon and Richard Mardukis in the Full Metal Panic franchise. He has had hundreds of featured roles, including Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, Aoki Honoo, Bremen 4, Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, Fumoon, Starship Troopers, Wild 7, and Wolf Guy, all Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in this year's Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai.
- Mukaidono Asami appeared in the Project A-ko properties, Starship Troopers, and Yousei Ou. The last two are Orphan releases.
- Touma Yumi played the title roles in Emma: A Victorian Romance and Baby Felix. She has appeared in numerous shows, including Boyfriend and Condition Green, both Orphan releases.
- Suzuki Reiko played Megabaa, the "fairy godmother" character in Dennou Coil. She appeared in the first Sangokushi OVA, an Orphan release, Yawara!, and many other shows, usually playing a grandmotherly character.
Maho Kareshi translated. The translation checker refuses to be identified. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset, for my sins, and BeeBee and VigorousJammer somehow managed to QC. You can blame ics- for the laserdisc rip, which M74 encoded, probably without looking at it.
So why did we do this show? A simple mistake, really - I didn't bother to look at the raw before starting the project. After all, it was Eguchi Hisashi, author of Stop!! Hibari-kun! How bad could it be? The translator said nothing either. By the time the translation checker raised the alarm, the project was mostly done, and I wasn't (quite) willing to smother it before birth. In the future, I'll vet raws more carefully.
Fortunately, this is the last of Eguchi Hisashi's untranslated anime works. If this blog post hasn't put you off, you can get Nantoka Narudesho! from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. However, don't say you haven't been warned.
↧
January 31, 2019, 7:01 am
When Orphan released Ultra Nyan: Hoshizora kara Maiorita Fushigi Neko, I thought that the encode looked a bit washed out. I asked the team to look for the laserdisc, in order to make a new encode. Eventually, it was found, purchased, shipped to the United States, and encoded. We've created a new release based on the new encode, only... it's letterboxed. And therein lies a tale.
When home video, in the form of VHS tape, first emerged in the 1970s, content providers found themselves with a dilemma. Television content worked fine on the 4:3 (640 x 480) TVs of the day, but widescreen movies could not be displayed in their theatrical aspect ratios. The industry came up with two solutions, neither satisfactory - letterboxing, in which the movie was displayed with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen; and pan-and-scan, in which the focus was moved around to put the "essential" part of a scene on the full TV screen. Letterboxing reduced the size of the image, sometimes unbearably; pan-and-scan created extraneous camera motion and deleted parts of the original scenes.
An alternate solution was Open Matte. Films were shot on 4:3 (standard 35mm) film stock, but the shots were framed for 1:85:1 projection. In theaters, the top and bottom were cropped out by mattes in the film projector, but for VHS (and later, laserdisc) release, the full frame could be used. This process introduced complexity into the film-making process, because the director and cinematographer had to ensure that nothing extraneous, like mics or cables, showed up in the full frame, but it facilitated home video releases without letterboxing and without loss of shot detail. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List and James Cameron's Terminator 2 were made with Open Matte. Eventually, technology solved the problem. DVDs could display widescreen films (up to 1.85:1) without letterboxing. Large widescreen TVs became standard. Open Matte was no longer needed. The full-frame versions of Open Matte films were filed away, and only the widescreen,theatrical versions are available on digital home video or digital streaming.
While Open Matte was used in movies, I had never heard of it being used in anime... until now. Ultra Nyan, and its successor, Ultra Nyan 2, were shown in theaters on twin bills with widescreen, live action Ultraman movies. The Ultra Nyan cartoons were drawn for Open Matte. In their theatrical release, they were shown matted, in widescreen. For home video, though, Ultra Nyan was released in full-frame on VHS tape but widescreen on laserdisc.The streaming version was full-frame too (that's the source for the original release). Ultra Nyan 2 was released in full-frame on all home video media. Why the inconsistency? I haven't the slightest idea.
All of this begs the question: which version is "right"? The answer is, they both are. The widescreen version is what theatergoers saw; the full-frame version is what was drawn. Obviously, there's more information in the full-frame release:
but the theatrical audience didn't know that. Personally, I like the full-frame version better, because it's consistent with Ultra Nyan 2, but the new, widescreen version has more vibrant colors and better cropping. Pick your poison.
For this release, I transposed the original script to the new raw, tweaked the timing, and redid the typesetting. I've eliminated some line breaks and split a few lines so that more lines fit in the letterbox area and don't overlap the video. Overlap lines have been moved to the letterbox area at the top. BeeBee did a quick release check, and of course, Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from a Japanese laserdisc. For voice credits and the other staff credits, see the original release post.
Interestingly, the re-release of classic Japanese anime on Blu-ray has created a new version of the letterboxing debate. When 4:3 shows are remastered, the media creators have two choices. They can maintain the original aspect ratio, using vertical letterboxing or "pillarboxing" (black bars to the left and right of the frame); or they can crop the video to match the aspect ratio of a widescreen TV. The latter could be viewed as a modern form of Open Matte, except that the shows were not made with matting in mind. Cropping chops off parts of the screen that were intended to be seen. Most anime fans object very strongly to cropping, but some Japanese content companies continue to do it, so strong is their aversion to letterboxing.So if you'd like to see anime Open Matte in action, you can get the widescreen (and the fullscreen) version of Ultra Nyan: Hoshizora kara Maiorita Fushigi Neko from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
↧
