Samurai Spirits

March 14, 2016, 10:37 am

≪ Previous: Preposterous! (Ear of the Golden Dragon)

Samurai Spirits: Haten Gouma no Shou is a 1994 movie-length TV special that, until now, has only been available in English as a dub. While many viewers prefer dubs to subtitles, I am always concerned that the Japanese script has been significantly altered or even completely rewritten. I'd like to see what the original creators intended, and quite a few members of the Orphan team agree. Hence, this first English subtitled version of Samurai Spirits.

This project is the brainchild of ninjacloud, one of Orphan's timers and its chief detective for finding obscure raws and OSTs. He acted as project leader throughout and recruited colleagues from Orphan and other groups. convexity translated, ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset the signs, Juggen styled the dialog and did the ending karaoke, and Calyrica, Ironman, konnakude, and Juggen did QC. The raw was encoded by an anonymous helper from a DVD ISO provided by BoomerCE.

Samurai Spirits is based on a game. It's yet another quasi-science fiction take on the Shimabara Rebellion and its aftermath. However, unlike Orphan's previous venture into this territory, Sei Michaela Gakuen Hyouryuuki, Samurai Spirits is totally PG-rated. In this retelling, Amakusa Shirou escapes death after the failure of the rebellion in 1638 by allying himself with the "Evil God Ambrosia," who grants him supernatural powers to effectively rule the land. (Why an evil god is named after the mythical drink of the Greek gods is not explained.) He turns on and kills his fellow "Holy Swordsman," who have come to Japan from all over the planet to fight him. (One of them comes from San Francisco, which wasn't founded until 1776.)

Fast forward a hundred years to 1738, and the Holy Swordsmen have been reborn. One of them, Hoahmaru, is living in a small village in Japan, mostly loafing around but occasionally acting as a local hero. When Amakusa's forces attack and destroy Hoahmaru's village (because they are Bad Guys, after all), Hoahmaru is reunited with the other reincarnated Holy Swordsmen, and together they must confront the evil that destroyed them a hundred years previously. The outcome is predictable, of course, but there are lots of good sword fights and secret moves along the way.

Speaking of secret moves, the names (always spoken aloud, of course) have been mostly left in Japanese. Here is a magic decoder ring, for the interested:

Kogetsuzan - Crescent Slash
Senpuuretsuzan - Whirlwind Slash
Bakuen Ryuu - Exploding Fire Dragon
Tenpa Fuujinzan - Heavenly Divine Slash
Chobi Jishi - Lion of Jumping Tail

So enjoy Samurai Spirits in its first English-subtitled release!

↧

Otaku no Seiza

April 3, 2016, 7:54 am

≫ Next: Kuroi Ame ni Utarete

≪ Previous: Samurai Spirits

In a post a while back about anime shows that apparently never made it to DVD, I asked, "Is anyone really waiting for DVD versions of Hi-Speed Jecy or Hashire Melos or An Adventure in the Otaku Galaxy or AWOL, to name just a few shows available only on VHS or Laserdisc?" Well, we now have an answer to part of that with OnDeed's release of 1994's Otaku no Seiza (An Adventure in the Otaku Galaxy), encoded from DVDs.

OnDeed and Orphan are both groups that like to explore anime's back catalog, and occasionally we've shared more than just having the same initial letter in the group names. OnDeed generously provided their script of Dream Hunter Rem's first episode (non-hentai version), which allowed Orphan to sub the hentai version. Now I've had the opportunity to return the favor by QCing the scripts for Otaku no Seiza. I hope the two groups will have further opportunities for collaboration.

Otaku no Seiza is a parody that, as OnDeed says, is "fraught with gratuitous fanservice fillers." The plot, if you can call it that, centers on the quest of the Man With No Name to save the universe from the blight of Otaku Disease, spread by the mysterious idol group the Aurora Girls. They in turn work for the demon Indra, who wants to Conquer The Universe. (Seriously, what else would a demon want to do, anyway?) Aided only by Nekketsu, who's an idiot and a parody of the typical student council president, and Jonjon, who's a cross-dresser and a parody of the typical trap, The Man must first conquer each of the Aurora Girls (romantically and/or sexually), rescue his long-lost love Maya, and then confront Indra's Final Challenge. Along the way, there show features lots of gratuitous fanservice, endless complaints about the stupidity of the scriptwriters, and general mayhem with the conventions of anime. It ends up with an implied six-way featuring The Man and the women he has encountered. Love Conquers All, I guess.

The voice actors do a fine job with this material and eventually went on to bigger roles.
Yamadera Kouchi (The Man) voiced Spike in Cowboy Bebop, Ryoga in Ranma 1/2, and Togusa in the Ghost in the Shell properties. More recently, he has played Inspector Zenigata in Lupin III. Kikuchi Misami (JonJon) went on to play the male leads in the Tenchi Muyo and Aa! Megami-sama! series. Chiba Shigeru (Nekketsu) had ongoing roles in several long-running series, including Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, and Yu Yu Hakusho.

So here's another "lost" 90s OVA for your perusal, courtesy of OnDeed. I could write a fairly serious essay on how Otaku no Seiza exemplifies the contemptuous treatment of LGBT characters in Japanese anime, but it's too silly for that. Enjoy your Adventure in the Otaku Galaxy.

↧

Kuroi Ame ni Utarete

May 17, 2016, 8:47 am

≫ Next: Backlogged

≪ Previous: Otaku no Seiza

Kuroi Ame ni Utarete(Lashed by the Black Rain) is a bitterly angry 1984 movie about the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The scriptwriter, Nakazawa Keiji, was himself a bombing survivor and lost most of his family in the disaster or its immediate aftermath. He found an outlet for his feelings first in manga and later in anime, with Kuroi Ame and the more famous Barefoot Gen I and II.

Kuroi Ame focuses its fury on two targets, the United States for dropping the bomb, but also the Japanese people for their callous discrimination against the hibakusha, as bomb survivors are collectively known. The film’s anti-Americanism is pervasive and corrosive. The American characters are immature cartoon bullies or uncaring disaster-porn tourists. There are no shades of gray, and certainly no room for any consideration of the military situation at the time of the bombing. However, the film’s condemnation of the Japanese people for their treatment of the hibakusha is equally strong. The ordinary populace is portrayed as both indifferent and ignorant, treating the hibakusha with scared contempt, as though exposure to radiation was some sort of contagious disease.

The story focuses on a handful of hibakusha trying to live their lives in the rebuilt city of Hiroshima. Takeshi, owner of a bar called Akauma, lost his entire family in the bombing. Despite his apparent strength, he is deeply scarred and angry, feelings which he can only express by barring Americans from his establishment. Eiko is the daughter of a bomb victim. She moved away to Tokyo, met a young man, and conceived a baby with him. She has now returned and must decide whether to carry the baby to term or abort it from fear about birth defects. Tomoko is a young woman who was horribly burned in the bombing and now works as a prostitute. She is in love with Takeshi. Her younger brother, Junji, works the margins of society for money. He is in love with Eiko. Kondou Yuri is another bomb victim working as a prostitute. She is dying of syphilis and is using her last days to pass the disease on to as many people as possible, particularly Americans. Her son, Shin’ichi, is blind, and she hopes that donating her eyes after her death will allow him to see. The lives intertwine around seemingly ordinary events, but the trajectory is inexorably downward towards ultimate tragedy.

The film is filled with medical ignorance, some of it quite willful. A family elder advises Eiko to abort her child because of the risks of hereditary birth defects, even though (quoting Wikipedia) “no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects/congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Yuri treats her disease as a death sentence for her and her unsuspecting customers, as though antibiotics hadn’t been invented. But that’s really beside the point. All the hibakushafeel trapped by their past and deprived of their futures, leaving them in a perpetual state of spiritual despair about their lives and purpose.

As with Chuumon no Ooi Ryuritan, Kuroi Ame is the result of a new translator joining Orphan. Iri brought the translated script with him, as well as access to a DVD ISO. Iri and Eternal_Blizzard timed, I edited and typeset, Calyrica, Eternal_Blizzard, and konnakude did QC, and bananadoyouwanna encoded the source. Because the movie is entirely hand-animated, and the DVD is rather jittery, many of the signs are irregular and difficult to do, like Takeshi’s nametag in the opening scene. As a result, some signs are done “Yawara style”: simple notes at the top of the screen. The Russian dialog at 1:12:00 is transcribed but not translated, because there were no subtitles to guide the original Japanese audience. The translation is roughly, “All right, comrades, it's decided. We will also respond to them with a nuclear blow.”

Kuroi Ame is a difficult film to watch, both for its unremitting anger and for its multiple tragedies. As with The Diary of Anne Frank, I had to work on it in segments, to avoid being overwhelmed by the despair that pervades it. Nonetheless, despite its emotional manipulation and biases, it’s an important reminder about a major historical tragedy, and it deserves to be seen by a wider audience. As President Obama prepares to visit Hiroshima – a first for an American President – we all need to think about the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

↧

Backlogged

May 18, 2016, 12:21 pm

≫ Next: Stir and Repeat: Tenkousei

≪ Previous: Kuroi Ame ni Utarete

We're up to our necks in scripts at Orphan Fansubs; the backlog has never been so healthy (and so formidably challenging). Here's a status report on currently active projects.

Stop!! Hibari-kun. All episodes translated and timed; episodes 1-18 edited and typeset. This project desperately needs a dedicated translation checker. It cannot be released without a translation check.
Hashire, Melos! Translated, timed, edited, and typeset. In QC.
Tenkousei. Translated, timed, edited, typeset, and QCed. At release check.
Yume Tsukai. Episodes 1-10 timed, edited, and typeset, awaiting translation of the short previews, which weren't included in the TV airing. Episodes 11-12 awaiting encode.
Ginga Tansa 2100. Translated, timed, edited, and typeset. In QC.
Nora. Translated, timed, edited, and typeset. In QC.
Twinkle Twinkle Nora Rock Me (Nora 2). In translation.
Cosprayers. All episodes transcribed. In timing. Needs translation check.

As you can see, translation (checking) and, even more, QC continue to be the major bottlenecks. Translation issues have led to putting a number of other projects on the shelf for now, including Boyfriend, Condition Green, Dokushin Apartment, Greed, Marginal Prince, Sanada 10, Techno Police 21C, Bite Me! Chameleon, and Everyday is Sunday. But QC is the more urgent immediate requirement.

As usual, if a project strikes your fancy and you'd like to help with either translation or QC, please let me know.

[Updated 31-May-2016]

↧

Stir and Repeat: Tenkousei

June 5, 2016, 6:28 am

≫ Next: Hashire Melos (1992)

≪ Previous: Backlogged

So here is Tenkousei, a four episode softcore h-anime from 1997. Tenkouseihas almost exactly the same plot and stock characters as Doukyuusei and Kakyuusei, except that the girls in the hero's harem are mostly transfer students rather than classmates or first-years. The hero is an "ordinary student," Tsukui Shinichi, now in his senior year. A long-lost childhood friend, Ayase Aoi, moves in next-door and transfers into his school. Shinichi can't quite remember Aoi, which upsets her quite a bit. Her good looks attract the attention of Shinichi's comic sidekick, Yamashita Satoshi, and the school playboy, Kanzaki Kotoro. While Shinichi and Aoi spar over a potential relationship, Shinichi crosses paths with and then beds other students, including a clumsy genki girl, Fujiro Mami; an aggressive vamp, Ebina Mika; and the president of the Flower Arrangement Club, Hayama Reiko, before finally ending up in the arms of his destined True Love. Only Ayase Aoi and Ebina Mika are actually transfer students, although Hayama Reiko transfers out at the end of her episode, conveniently clearing the decks for the next girl. It would have strained even the elastic framework of an eroge to have four transfer students show up more or less at once.

Tenkousei really has nothing much to recommend it. The sex scenes at the end of each episode are tasteful and tame; the show isn't hentai in any real sense of the word. The animation is crude, mostly 8fps, and the male character designs tend to the comic. (Shinichi's ears remind me of Mighty Mouse.) The music is functional, and the ending song doesn't really stand out. Perhaps the franchise was petering out from creative fatigue.

The actor who played Shinichi, Ueda Yuji, has had quite a long career in anime, playing the lead role in Love, Hina, as well as a recurring role in all the Pokemon properties. Sango Minako, who played Aoi, has a shorter resume, including featured role in Futakoi and (non-h) Kakyuusei, as well as other h-anime including Koihime and Welcome to Pia Carrot. The other voice credits have not made it into the standard databases.

The translation is by an anonymous contributor. convexity translated the ending song, Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, and Calyrica did QC. (As you can see, Orphan is short-staffed, particularly on QC these days.) The raws are from pornolab.

With the release of Tenkousei, the only unsubbed series in the franchise is the non-h version of Kakyuusei, from 1999. C1 hasn't released an episode in more than six months. Perhaps the show is now an orphan?

↧

Hashire Melos (1992)

July 20, 2016, 5:01 pm

≫ Next: Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet

≪ Previous: Stir and Repeat: Tenkousei

Hashire Melos (Run, Melos) is a Japanese short story published by Osamu Dazai in 1940. It is a tale of friendship tested and proven. It appeals strongly to the Japanese and has been made into an anime on multiple occasions:

1979, episode 20 of Nihon Meisaku Douwa Series: Akai Tori no Kokoro.
1981, as a TV special.
1992, as movie (this release).
2009, as episodes 9-10 of Aoi Bungaku.

Hashire Melos is based on a ballad by Frederick Schiller and draws on the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias. It tells the story of Melos, a shepherd who crosses (either deliberately or inadvertently) the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger (called Dionysius II in the movie), and is condemned to death. He requests time to return home and settle his affairs, but the king refuses, believing that Melos will run off and never return. Melos' friend Selinuntius volunteers to take Melos' place. The king agrees but warns Melos that Selinuntius will be executed if Melos fails to return in three days. After numerous trials, Melos returns in the nick of time. The king is so astonished by this display of true friendship that he releases both men.

This was supposed to be a straightforward project – a soft-subbed version of a Laserdisc source using the R1 VHS subtitles from the ACR (Anime Classics Review) release. Encode, transcribe, time, edit, QC, release – easy, right? Somehow, it didn't turn out that way. It has taken more than a year from receipt of the initial LaserDisc rip to release for, well… reasons.

Let's start with the encode. To quote the current US presidential campaign, it's YUUUUUUGE: 2.3GB for a 106 minute movie that's not even full 480p resolution. Further, it's in two parts, with a totally arbitrary dividing line at the 52 minute mark. Why, you ask? First, the two parts of the source have different resolutions, or, more accurately, different sized black borders. The first part is 682 x 370, the second, 696 x 370. The encoder refused to put them together and have vertical bars in the first part or excess cropping in the second part. Second, the source is from film stock, and rather than risk losing or distoring details with filters and compression, the encoder ultimately just threw bits at the encode: 2200 kbps in the first part, 3000 kbps in the second.

While transcription, timing, and editing went quickly, it took a long time to get the R1 subs translation-checked, and they really needed them. For example, many of the names in the R1 script were incorrect (the queen's name is Phryne, not Flooney, for example). Then QC stalled as well. Both TLC and QC required new resources; I've documented Orphan's translation and QC woes in other posts. But we're finally done.

Was it worth it? I find this version of Hashire Melos overstretched. There isn't enough content in the original short story to justify 100+ minutes of screen time. The first 24 minutes of the movie are an "anime original" prologue that shows Melos as a country bumpkin visiting the big city and meeting Selinuntius for the first time. There's a lot of other padding too: the sequence of events that ensnare Melos in an accusation of treason, the nefarious plot to stop Melos from returning in time, the backstory about Selinuntius and his father, and so on. The garrulous old fart Calippus and the young prostitute Raisa aren't in the original story either. Finally, the movie draws a direct link between the story of Melos and Selinuntius and the fall of Dionysius the Younger. In the short story, Melos' determination helps the king overcome his paranoia and become a better ruler.

On the positive side, I really like the "look" of the movie and its character designs. The main characters have distinctive faces and body types, with real noses and realistic eyes. Melos looks like an overgrown lunk of a shepherd, Dionysius has the "lean and hungry" demeanor of a habitual schemer, and Selinuntius has a balanced appearance befitting a classical sculptor. The animation is fluid, set against very detailed backdrops of the city of Syracuse and the Sicilian countryside. The voice actors are good too. Yamadera Kouichi, who plays Melos, has had a distinguished voice-acting career, including Spike in Cowboy Bebop, Togusa in the Ghost in the Shellfranchise, and Ryoga in Ranma ½. The other seiyuu have mostly been in featured roles. Osami Misaki directed and also did the storyboards and the screenplay. Hashire Melos was one of his last projects. Kazumasa Oda composed all the music, including the excellent ending ballad. The background music is subtle and used sparingly.

M74 transcribed the ACR subtitles and did the initial timing; ninjacloud did timing cleanup. Iri translation checked, I edited and typeset, Juggen created the ending karaoke, and Calyrica, konnakude, and new staff member Xenath3297 did QC. bananadoyouwanna encoded the LD source, and the experience proved so traumatic that he has sworn never to touch a non-progressive source again. The LD rip itself is from an anonymous source.

Please enjoy this new release of Hashire Melos.

↧

Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet

July 25, 2016, 8:14 am

≫ Next: Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro

≪ Previous: Hashire Melos (1992)

For me, bringing out a new or improved version of a Tezuka Osamu anime is always a thrill. Accordingly, M74 and Orphan are proud to present a new version of Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet (Galaxy Investigation 2100: Border Planet), his 1986 movie-length TV special.

Ginga Tansa has been available in English translation for some time, using VHS-based raws and reasonable English subtitles. This version uses an R2J DVD source, purchased and encoded by M74, and a revised translation, thoroughly checked by skypilot. M74 timed, M74 and I edited, I typeset, and Redac, M74, and I all did QC. The result is a version with better video and improved subtitles.Ginga Tansa is structured as an anthology of related shorter stories, a bit like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. The touching prologue wordlessly shows how the childhood friendship of two boys, Prokion and Subaru, and a girl, Mira, slowly morphs into a love triangle. Prokion eventually wins Mira's hand, leaving Subaru heart-broken. However, Prokion's and Mira's love idyll is interrupted when he succumbs to a deadly space virus. Mira must be placed in suspended animation to prevent her from dying as well. Subaru, still very much in love with Mira, vows to search all of space for the source of the deadly virus, so that Mira can be treated and cured. This leads to the story proper.

The first short story is a classic haunted house story, in which the crew members of Subaru's spaceship are picked off one after another by some unknown force. The second story takes place on a ruined mining planet, where the inhabitants are desperate to depart but seem unable to do so. The third story is a vampire analogy, with depraved inhabitants preying on their own kind in a quest for immortality. In between each act are wordless interludes of Subaru visiting Mira as she sleeps inside a glass case: the Prince visiting Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

In the end, Subaru's quest is successful, although how and where he finds the source of the virus is never shown. However, his success comes at a price, and the ending is not quite unalloyed joy. It's a fitting conclusion to a show that emphasizes Tezuka Osamu's classic themes: the power of love, the possibility of horror amid beauty and vice versa, and the indomitability of the human spirit.

The movie is filled with great touches. The wordless interludes of Subaru gazing at Mira in her suspended state are very poignant. The second story opens with a homage to various scenes from Star Wars, including the "creature cantina" and Jabba the Hutt's sinuous, snake-like dancing girl; the background art includes a classic "RKO Radio Picture" poster from the 1940s. Various familiar characters from Tezuka Osamu's films and manga show up in bits parts, including Shunsaku Ban from The Green Cat and Metropolis and Astro Boy himself.

Tomiyama Kei, who played Subaru, had a very successful career in the last century, but his premature death more than twenty years ago means he is not well known to modern audiences. Katsuko Masako, who plays the maiden-in-distress Mira, has had a prolific career, but she is best known to me for her portrait of another female ingénue, Maroko from Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai. The musical score, by Haneda Kentarou, makes effective use of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, second movement (Andante), for its contemplative moments.

Without further ado, Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet.

↧

Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro

August 16, 2016, 4:41 pm

≫ Next: Nora

≪ Previous: Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet

Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro (The Murder Ticket Is Heart-Colored) is a 1990 standalone OVA based on a series of young adult novels for women by Yamaura Hiroyasu. Iri translated the show and did the initial timing. Yogicat did the detailed timing, I edited and typeset, and Redac and Xenath3297 did QC. The raw is an anonymous Internet rip from a Laserdisc and is pretty good, with excellent image stability and relatively little frame-blending.

Satsujin Kipputells the story of Nagare Seiko, a teenaged girl who has been temporarily suspended from her private high school in Tokyo for defending a friend from bullies. She decides to take advantage of this involuntary vacation by taking a trip to Nagasaki with her black-and-white cat, Gonbei. On the train down, she meets a handsome young man, a guitarist name Takano Kyouichirou, only to learn that he had apparently been murdered days earlier. She also encounters Misora Chuuta, a brash youngster who is clearly interested in her – an interest she doesn't reciprocate – and an older man, unnamed, who helps her when she's in trouble. Seiko repeatedly crosses paths with Chuuta as she tours Nagasaki, despite repeated attempts to give him the brush off. Eventually, Seiko gets involved in a murder mystery concerning a prominent local family, the Totsugawas. Reluctantly accepting Chuuta's help, she works to unravel the twin mysteries of the ghostly guitarist and the Totsugawa family.

Satsujin Kippu is not a particularly deep mystery, and the solution comes out of left field, but it observes the rules of classical mystery fiction. (This allows the viewer to guess who the criminal is long before the main characters do.) Seiko makes a spunky heroine, never falling into tropes such as the maiden in distress or the tsundere. Chuuta is sufficiently eccentric to make him both interesting and suspicious. There's a lot more comedy and ghostly doings than clues and gore, so the result is a pleasant diversion for all ages (one brief nude scene aside). And besides, it has Gonbei, a cat that's rather talented: at one point, he gives Chuuta the traditional Japanese raspberry, the akanbe(pulling down one's lower eyelid and sticking out one's tongue).

The director, Sugiyama Taku, started at Tezuka Osamu's Mushi Productions, where he was Art Director for Sen'ya Ichiya Monogatari. He directed a number of other movies and TV series, including Hi no Tori 2772 and Bosco Daibouken. Toshihiko Seki, who played Misora Chuuta, has an extensive voice acting and stage resume, including Alexander in Reign: The Conquerer and Matsuda Kousaku in the Yawaraproperties. Matsuoka Miyuki, who played Nagare Seko, has a more modest resume, including Fa Yuiry in the Gundam franchise.

Some translation notes:

3-kyu in Aikido. Aikido has two basic skill levels, kyu and dan. Within each level are grades, expressed by numbers. Kyu and dan are sometimes referred to as white belt and black belt, but other colors are used as well.
Urakami Cathedral (St. Mary's Cathedral in Urakami) was built in 1895, when the long-standing ban against Christianity in Japan was lifted. It was completely destroyed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and rebuilt in 1959 on its original site.
The Nagasaki Peace Park abuts Urakami Cathedral. It contains a 10-meter tall sculpture, pictured in the anime, by local sculptor Seito Kitamura.
The Dutch Slope (oranda-zaka) is a hillside residential area of Nagasaki where Dutch merchants settled in the second half of the 19^th century.
Hinoki cypress bath. Hinoki cypress is a slow-growing Japanese tree. Its high quality wood is lemon-scented, light pinkish-brown, with a rich, straight grain, and is highly rot-resistant.
Sannomaru means "third enclosure."

Enjoy this vintage mystery OVA.

↧

Nora

August 18, 2016, 2:56 pm

≫ Next: How Orphan Chooses Projects

≪ Previous: Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro

Here's another project with a BakaBT connection, the 1985 sci-fi OVA Nora. I first learned about Nora in the long (and mostly unanswered) thread called "Old Anime for Subbing." It was one of the few shows listed that had a decent and accessible raw, so I downloaded it and eventually persuaded the Orphan translators to work on it. Iri did the bulk of the translation, but both gamnark and skypilot helped out in places. Accordingly, they decided that all three should be listed as translators. ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset (the signs are minimal), and Redac and I did the QC. Rather late in the game, Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions made a new encode from his own LaserDisc, with much better color fidelity than the original raw, and that's what has been used in this release.

Nora is very much a creature of its time. It is set on a space station named Frontier Spaceport. In the forgotten depths of its services areas, a disgruntled scientist, Professor Dohati (formerly of MIT, natch), programs an AI called Artifiend, or Artie for short, to think of itself as the demon king. He directs it to conquer the world, which it does by infiltrating every computer system on Earth and in space and threatening to set off a nuclear war. (Is it a coincidence that Artifiend visually resembles WHOPPR, the AI at the heart of 1983's War Games?) Dohati and Artifiend are opposed by another scientist, Professor Zachariasen, and his chance acquaintance, a teenaged girl named Nora Scholar. As might be expected, high-speed computational ability and pure logic prove no match for a teenaged girl's randomness, and the world is saved after suitably hazardous but completely PG adventures.

Despite its Doomsday sci-fi plot, Nora is essentially a comedy. Nora sees everything that happens – from the freak accidents caused as Artie seizes control of the space station's computers to the booby-trapped journey to find Dohati's basement lair – as a grand adventure. She assumes that Artie is basically a teenaged boy whom she can wrap around her little finger, as she has already done with Professor Zachariasen. And the threat of nuclear Armageddon doesn't faze her in the least; to her it's just the tantrum of a lonely boy who needs some loving. She fixes everything in a breezy and offhand manner, alternating MacGuyver-like ingenuity with adolescent illogic, and then returns home. It's a fun ride and a ringing endorsement of Grrrl Power in an entirely 80s sexist way.

Nora was played by the voice actress Yamamoto Yuriko, who also had the title roles in Lady Georgie, Mahoutsukai Sally, and Hello Sandybell. She sang the ending song in Nora as well as other shows. (Orphan fans may know her as the voice of Tomoe in Tomoe ga Yuku! or Telenne in Hi-Speed Jecy.) Professor Dohati was played by the late Nagai Ichigrou, a go-to voice actor for elderly, if slightly off-kilter, authority figures. He dubbed the voice of Dumbledore in the Japanese versions of the Harry Potter movies and Yoda in the Star Wars prequels. In anime, he showed a more manic and comic side as Happousai in Ranma ½, and Inokuma Jigoro in Yawara! (Orphan fans may know him as the crazed narrator in Maroko/Gosenzosama Banbanzai! or the voice of Shima Togo in Yamato 2520.) Professor Zachariasen was played by the late Utsumi Kenji, who also had a highly varied career. He dubbed Apollo Creed in the Rockymovies and Gimli the Dwarf in Lord of the Rings. In anime, he voiced the title role in Don Dracula, Alex Louis Armstrong in Fullmetal Alchemist, and Norimaki Senbei in the Dr. Slump & Arale-chan franchise, as well as many other roles. (He appeared in Bavi Stock as well, but I don't know as which character.)

Romanization of the "Engrish" names caused endless problems. Dohati should be Dougherty, but it's spelled out in a sign. Zachariasen is listed in the ANN credits as Zakariasen, and Artifiend as Artifind. Only Nora's name is without controversy. And when Nora calls Artie a "memekurage," it's a fictional jellyfish due to an editor's misreading of xxクラゲ (xx kurage, or random jellyfish) as メメクラゲ (memekurage).

So enjoy this early OVA, now finally subbed in English. We'll do the sequel, Twinkle Twinkle Nora Rock Me, if the translators feel like taking another dip in the pool.

↧

How Orphan Chooses Projects

August 23, 2016, 2:40 pm

≫ Next: Kaze no Matasaburou (2016)

≪ Previous: Nora

Orphan doesn't get a lot of comments on its releases, but along with the "thank yous" (always appreciated) are invariably requests of the form, "Can you translate XYZ?" And just as invariably, the answer is no, so perhaps I should explain how Orphan selects projects to work on. The process is different for original translations versus resubs, so I'll describe them separately.

Original Translations

Orphan was formed to translate series, OVAs, and movies that were never finished or unjustly neglected. That remains the group's core mission. However, it's not possible to do everyuntranslated show or incomplete series. A couple of severe filters get applied to any project idea.

The most important factor is the interest and availability of a translator. While translators can sometimes be coaxed into taking on other people's ideas, mostly they want to work on what interests them. The Orphan team includes a number of translators, but they all have real life commitments as well as projects they want to do. Like everyone on the team, they are volunteers, and like everyone on the team, their time is precious.

A second factor is the availability of source material. Some shows simply have no original source or existing encodes. Over the years, I've become more finicky about the quality of Orphan's encodes, so there's more emphasis on original encodes from primary sources, like LaserDiscs, DVDs, or BluRays. (No one on the team has the facilities to rip a VHS tape.) But a viable source is no guarantee that a project can get done; Dokushin Apartmenthas been languishing for more than a year, despite the availability of a primary source. Ecchi is a hard sell.

A third factor is the interest of the team as a whole. If the team is not interested in a particular project, that project is unlikely to get finished in a timely fashion, if ever. And if I'm not interested, well… you can imagine.

Resubs

While translation is much less of a factor in resub projects, it still matters. Whether the subtitles came from a fansub group, an R1 DVD or Blu-Ray, or a modern streaming source, they need to be checked. For fansubs, translation checking looks for errors in the original subtitles. For R1 and streaming sources, the focus is on overly clever localization or script simplification. Sanctuary and Hashire Melos illustrate the sort of problems translation checking will catch in R1 subs.

Source material is perhaps more important in resubs than in original translations. After all, there already is a subbed version; a new version needs to improve not just on the subtitles but also, if possible, on the video and audio quality. I'd be very reluctant to base a resub project on random Internet raws. This has led to some strange and expensive quests for rare LaserDiscs or DVD sets.

In addition, there has to be a compelling reason to do a resub. For Shirokuma Café, it was the lack of any Blu-Ray version of a favorite series. For Next Senki Ehrgeiz and Sanctuary, it was to improve the video and subtitle quality (LaserDisc softsub vs VHS hardsub). For Nagasarete Airantou, it was to have subtitles that were actually readable. For Princess Kaguya, I wanted a properly timed and edited version that would fit on a single DVD5.

Finally, the show has to interest me (or another project leader). I like comedy, slice-of-slice, historical, sci-fi, seinen, josei, shoujo, and cats. I don't like sports, mecha, or shounen. And I don't have the patience for really long series anymore.

Orphans and Orphan Fansubs

I'll close by reminding my readers that the original purpose of Orphan Fansubs was to finish orphaned projects. These projects often mix resubs (the episodes that were completed) with original translations (the episodes that were never finished). True orphans must satisfy the criteria for both types of projects: a translator must be interested; there has to be source material (at least for the unfinished episodes); the team as a whole has to want to work on the show; and there has to be a compelling reason to complete the series. And there's one other critical factor: the project needs to have been formally abandoned by the original group, or the original group must have disbanded.

Many orphan series fail on one or more of these criteria. For example, Sanada 10 has source material but no translator for its three unfinished episodes. Hidimari no Ki has caught a translator's eye, but there's no decent source material. MapleStorydoesn't interest the team very much. And Hiatari Ryouko has not been formally abandoned, even though group subbing it has not released a new episode in almost two years.

↧

Kaze no Matasaburou (2016)

September 6, 2016, 7:59 am

≫ Next: Utopa

≪ Previous: How Orphan Chooses Projects

Kaze no Matasaburou (2016) (Matasaburou of the Wind) is one of this year's Anime Tamago (formerly Anime Mirai, formerly Young Animator's Training Project) OVAs. It is based on Miyazawa Kenji's story of the same name and was already made into an experimental OVA back in 1988.

The plot is slight. A young girl from the city named Takada has to relocate to the country for a while, because her father is supervising a power project there, and her mother is away on a business trip. Her new home is so remote and rural that her school class is made up of a boy, a bear, a pig, a frog, a turtle, a cat, a deer, and a worm. Strong winds blow frequently, and all the students believe that this is due to Matasaburou of the Wind, a child of the wind god. Takada gets to experience the tranquil wonders of country life, make a new friend, and find out the truth about Matasaburou for herself. Then she goes back home to be with her mother in the city.

Matasaburou is quietly humorous slice-of-life comedy, but the animation is the real draw. The art style is simple and beautiful, employing watercolor-style fills on starkly drawn outlines. The country backgroundsare reminiscent of Miyazaki but are more impressionistic, like this waterfall:

There are frequent wonderful and whimsical touches too, like this shot of a cricket making his music as the clouds roll in.

Matasaburou is the product of a relatively new studio, Buemon, which has mostly done CGI work. This is their first venture in conventional (looking) animation.

The elementary school students are all voiced by children, a recent trend in Japanese anime that contributes to more realistic performances. The adult parts are voiced by veterans of the industry. For example, the deep-voiced Matasaburou is played by Tanaka Masahiko, who has worked in the industry since the second Astro Boy series in 1980. The music is spare and quiet, befitting the mood.

Iri translated and did initial timing; Yogicat did the detailed timing; I edited and typeset; and Calyrica and Xenath3297 did QC. The raw is from Ohys Raws.

Please enjoy this beautiful anime.

↧

Utopa

September 9, 2016, 2:53 pm

≫ Next: A-Girl v0

≪ Previous: Kaze no Matasaburou (2016)

Another show from Anime Tamago 2016, and probably Orphan's last. Utopa is a sci-fi offering from STUDIO4°C, a veteran company known for adventurous fare like Tekkon Kinkreet and Ani*Kuri 15 as well as utter sellouts like PES: Peace Eco Smile. (Gotta earn a living, I guess.)

Utopa is set in the far future, as a longish voice-over at the beginning explains. After ruining the Earth's surface with biological and nuclear war, mankind has retreated to cities in the sky. There, for no particularly compelling reason, they have crossbred with the surviving animals to produce intelligent hybrid species. When a seed drifts into the sky city, three youngsters - Kui, a dog boy, Hiruma, a cat girl, and Ruto, a lizard boy - venture down to the Earth's surface in search of more seeds and new adventures. The biosphere has indeed regenerated, in a new, almost alien way:

Giant jellyfish float through the air, zapping potential prey with bolts of electricity. And nothing seems to be edible (except for the three of them). Hiruma befriends or adopts an oversized caterpillar, which is promptly seized by a giant talking bird as food. The three friends challenge the bird to a contest, with the caterpillar as the prize. All's well that ends well, as you might expect.

Utopa reminds me a great of last year's Parol no Miraijima. In that show too, three not-quite-human friends - two male, one female - set out on a voyage of discovery from a protected world into the great unknown, encounter many hazards, and eventually win out. I like Parol rather better than Utopa, I think - the characters are more engaging, and the animation more inventive and fluid. Utopa has an odd mix of character designs, as this shot of the bird with the three human hybrids shows:

Kui is played by rising voice actress Tanaka Aimi, probably best known as the titular little sister in Himouto! Umaru-chan. Hiruma is voiced by Ueda Reina, who has appeared in many recent series, including Bakuon and Dimension W. (Ruto is played by an actual child.) The unnamed bird is voiced by an industry veteran, Hoshino Takanori. The director, Tanaka Takahiro, has been a key animator on many projects and animation director on a few; this is his directorial debut.

Iri translated and ninjacloud timed. I edited, and Calyrica and Xenath3297 did QC. The raw is from Ohys and is an HDTV capture, not a Blu-Ray.

Enjoy another egg from Anime Tamago 2016!

↧

A-Girl v0

September 27, 2016, 4:01 pm

≫ Next: Yume Tsukai

≪ Previous: Utopa

Here's a bluebird that happened by and flew through the release process in a flash: A-Girl, an OVA from 1993.

In 1992, Madhouse and Margaret Comics collaborated on an OVA of the shounen-ai romance Zetsuai 1989. This was successful, and in 1993, Madhouse issued six additional OVAs based on Margaret Comic properties:

Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru

Singles

Pops

Oeda wa Nemurenai!

Kiss wa Hitomi ni Shite

A-Girl

Unfortunately, these additional OVAs were not successful and quickly sank into obscurity. None of them made it to Laserdisc, let alone DVD.

A-Girl is based on a 1984 shoujo romance manga by Fusako Kuramochi. It tells a very simple story: girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. High-school student Mariko and her elder sister Mayu are forced out of their apartment by a fire and move in with their landlord. Mariko meets the landlord's handsome son, Natsume, who is also a model. They fall in love but break up when Mariko discovers that Natsume is seeing other girls. Eventually, they are reunited, and the end credits roll, except...

The raw we have - and the only one available - is defective: it is small (512 x 384) and is missing the end credits. Apparently, it was stitched together from three pieces on YouTube. Accordingly, we've labeled this release a "v0". If a better raw turns up - complete, and hopefully at 480p - we'll reissue the show.

A-Girl was the directorial debut of Kousaka Kitarou. (He also did the character designs.) He later worked for many years as an animation director and key animator on Ghibli films before achieving prominence as the director of the award-winning Nasu: Anadalusia no Natsu. For A-Girl, he chose a novel approach: he made a "silent movie." A-Girl has no dialog and is performed against a background of Japanese pop songs composed by Okada Tooru and sung (in English!) by SEIKA. Dialog placards provide continuity, like in old silent films. It works pretty well and doesn't interrupt the flow of the story.

Iri found the raw (after sitting on a dead torrent for a year) and then translated and timed it. I edited and typeset the captions, and Nemesis QCed.

So enjoy A-Girl in its truncated form. This will have to do, until a better source turns up. If you like the music, the soundtrack is available on BakaBT.

↧

Yume Tsukai

October 15, 2016, 2:10 pm

≫ Next: Meisou-Ou Border

≪ Previous: A-Girl v0

Yume Tsukai, a contemporary fantasy series from 2006, was one of the first anime shows I worked on; I QCed the entire series for C1. It was quite popular with fansub groups at the time and was subbed to completion by Arienai and Ureshii, AonE and Ayu, and of course C1. However, it was never licensed in North America and, rather surprisingly, never resubbed in English from DVD sources. Accordingly, Orphan is proud to present Yume Tsukaiin a softsubbed release based on the R2J DVDs.

Yume Tsukai tells the story of the Dream Masters (yume tsukai), who combat the effects of nightmares that cross the boundary between dreams and reality and erupt in the real world. Dream Masters are named after the seven stars in the Pleiades cluster, which in Japan are named for the seven days of the week.. The most experienced is the Sunday Star, Mishima Touko, age 17. She is a recluse and sleeps for 12 to 16 hours a day. Her younger sister is the Tuesday Star, Mishima Rinko, age 10. She is super genki and confident and calls herself the Super Elementary School Student. They are joined in some episodes by the Friday Star, Tachibana Hajime, a lolicon who regards anyone older than a teenager as ancient history; the Saturday Star, Sagawa Satoka, a relative newcomer who lives in Kyuushu; and Touko’s Aunt Misako, who is 29 years old and still a virgin.

The show is episodic, although there is an underlying background mystery about the fate of Touko’s father, who was killed while fighting a nightmare. In most episodes, Touko and Rinko are commissioned to investigate a baffling phenomenon which turns out to be a nightmare erupting in the real world. They must locate the dreamer, gain his or her consent to end the nightmare, and then fight its effects. They do this with shaman sticks known as Broom Gods, into which they place various toys. The toys transform into weapons to combat the nightmare, which is eventually returned to the world of dreams.

This summary makes Yume Tsukai sound formulaic and action-centric, but in fact, it's a series of character studies focusing on the troubled dreamers and their reasons for unleashing nightmares on the world. The dreamers include unhappy children, divorcing couples, bereaved lovers, and depressed teenagers – people who are experiencing real-life situations beyond their ability to cope. (In many ways, Yume Tsukai uses nightmares as a metaphor for the effects of mental illness.) The Dream Masters’ intervention can combat the effects of the nightmare, but the dreamer must choose whether or not to hold on to feelings that led to the nightmare. In some cases, the dreamer is able to resolve the underlying conflict, and there’s a happy ending; in other cases, not so much.

While the stories in Yume Tsukai are interesting, and the characters are engaging, the animation is problematic. Even though the show was produced by Madhouse in its prime (the same year as Nana and Death Note, among many others), it was clearly made on a low budget. As a result, whole scenes, particularly action sequences, are repeatedly recycled. The climactic battle in episode 3, using the Dream Cyclone, is reused more or less verbatim in episodes 4 and 5. The climactic battle in episode 8 is simply not animated at all. In medium shots, the characters' faces are often distorted beyond recognition. These shortcuts, combined with the wispy character designs, can be ratheroff-putting.

I had been looking for DVD sources for Yume Tsukai for years but never found any at full 480p resolution. Eventually, I bought a complete set on a Japanese auction site and had them shipped to the US (shipping was three times as much as the DVDs themselves). bananadoyouwanna encoded the show. The source was mostly progressive, but occasional scenes were interlaced, requiring careful attention to detail and multiple tries to get the encodes right. Yogicat hand-transcribed the Arienai-Ureshii subtitles, and I OCR’d the AonE-Ayu set. In addition, I had the C1 scripts from ten years ago. Orphan’s scripts are mostly Arienai-Ureshii, but I’ve used the other groups where the phrasing is better. I edited and typeset, Iri checked the translation, ninjacloud timed, Juggen contributed the karaokes (the OP and ED are terrific), and Calyrica and I did QC.

The fansub scripts date from an era when it was fashionable to leave Japanese terms untranslated and supply copious on-screen translation notes instead. After some discussion, the Orphan team decided to translate terms wherever possible, while still preserving honorifics. So yume tsukai is translated as "Dream Master,"Nichousei as "Sunday Star,"asobetatmatsuru as "play offering,"ikai as "another world,"tensou as "transform,"Tsuburame Oo as "Round-Eyed King,"3-chome as "Third District,"and so on. If you prefer untranslated terms, the original fansubs are readily available and quite watchable.

Some other translation notes, mostly from the original Ureshii-Conclave scripts:

Ep01 – The girls' school is Hanabirazaka Jogakyuin, so "Hana girls" is a nickname for the students.
Ep01 – Madoromichu means "Sleepy Town."
Ep01 – A Teru Teru Teru Bouzu is a paper charm shaped like a little ghost. When hung under a window or roof, it's supposed to keep rain away.
Ep01 (and others) – "Reality is but a dream! Our nightly dreams are the true world!" Based on a line from an Edogawa Ranpo story.
Ep03 – "Sway gently" is an ancient Shinto resurrection spell.
Ep03 (and others) – Clinamen bullet. Clinamen is the name Lucretius gave to the spontaneous microscopic swerving of atoms from a vertical path as they fall. According to Lucretius, without Clinamen, nature would never have created anything. This theory is a part of Epicurean physics. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinamen)
Ep08 – The kanji for Wakaba means "young leaf."
Ep09 - The chant "Kuwabara, kuwabara" originated as a farmer's appeal to the god of lightning so that his fields would not be struck during a storm.
Ep09 – "Grief, happiness, they don't exist to me." A death poem for Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490), a Shogun of the Muromachi period.
Ep10 - "Pai Pai" is a play on oppai, the Japanese word for breasts.

The lead voice actors are well-known veterans. Kawasumi Ayako (Touko) has had a prolific career, including Lafiel in Crest/Banner of the Stars, Saber in Fate/Stay Night, Ohno in Genshiken, and my personal favorite, Nodame in Nodame Cantabile. Seki Tomokazu (Hajime) has overlapped with Kawasumi Ayako in many series, playing Gilgamesh in Fate/Stay Night, Tanaka in Genshiken, and of course, Chiaki in Nodame Cantabile. Shindou Kei (Rinko) has also appeared in many shows, most recently Boku no Hero Academia. Hisakawa Aya (Aunt Misako) has had an active career as well, including Sailor Mercury in the Sailor Moon franchise and Skuld in the Ah! My Goddess properties. The music is by Terashima Tamiya, who also wrote the opening song. It supports the show’s mood well, with a "spooky phenomenon"theme that seemingly riffs on the main Harry Potter movie theme.

So enjoy Yume Tsukaiin this new softsubbed version, and sweet dreams.

↧

Meisou-Ou Border

October 16, 2016, 9:36 am

≫ Next: Downhill (Twinkle Nora Rock Me!)

≪ Previous: Yume Tsukai

Orphan has done many forgotten 80s and 90s OVAs. Some have been stunningly good, like Oz, and some have been stunningly bad, like Bavi Stock II. But none have led to as much head-scratching as Meisou-Ou Border, a 1991 OVA from Artland. One of the QCs remarked after watching it, "Well, that was random." Nonetheless, it's quite an interesting show.

Meisou-Ou Border is the only anime to come from a 14 volume seinen manga (completely untranslated) by Marley Carib and Tanaka Akio. It tells the story of two drifters, Kubota and Hachitsuka, who return from the Middle East and choose to live on the "border" of conventional society in Tokyo. The anime relates one specific episode from the start of the manga. Kubota and Hachitsuka are lured down to Osaka by an unscrupulous documentary producer, who places them as "innocent bystanders" in the middle of a yakuza gang war. The two manage to hold their own, much to the producer's dismay, and then they drift back to Tokyo. The episode closes with a completely unrelated encounter between Hachitsuka and his former mentor, Jinno, now a homeless man down on his luck. And that's it. The tone is mostly comic - even the yakuza violence isn't very scary or bloody - but the ending is elegiac and very sad.

Kubota was voiced by Horiuchi Kenyuu, a veteran voice actor who is active today, often playing authoritative figures like Colonel Yuuki in this year's Joker Game. Hachitsuki was voiced by Yara Yuusaka, who also had a prolific career (for example, he played Kai in Tomoe ga Yuku!) but is now retired. The director, Ishiguro Noboru, was an industry veteran who directed several episodes of Animated Classics of Japanese Literature; he also worked on Mushishi (another Artland property) before his death in 2012.

Iri found the raw - a VHS rip, apparently - became intrigued by the show, and translated it. ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset, and Calyrica and Nemesis did QC. The raw is marred by awful frame blending, in a pattern of three good frames followed by two bad frames. There's also a noticeable dropout just past the 4 minute mark. As a result, it's impossible to make moving signs look good, and they've all been set "Yawara style," i.e., as notes at the top of the screen. If a better raw surfaces, we'll do a second version.

My main feeling after watching Meisou-Ou Border is that I wanted to know more, but just like with Sanctuary, this one episode is the only animation we'll get from a much larger manga. At least with Sanctuary, the manga is completely translated into English. For Meisou-Ou Border, the OVA is the only tantalizing fragment available to an English-speaking audience. Enjoy.

↧

Downhill (Twinkle Nora Rock Me!)

November 4, 2016, 6:07 am

≫ Next: Dragon Fist

≪ Previous: Meisou-Ou Border

There's no way to soften this. Twinkle Nora Rock Me! (Nora 2) is to the original Nora as Bavi Stock II is to Bavi Stock I: a descent from the barely passable into the laughable. It's so bad that...

Audience: How bad is it, Collectr?

Collectr: It's so bad that Mike Toole, of Anime News Network, used it as a prime example in his panel, The Worst Anime of All Time. He noted the almost total lack of in-between animation, the awkward jerkings that pass for dancing, and other failings. I could point to the absurd plot and the misspelled Engrish signs - DEPURTURE and AERIVAL - in the spaceport, but this just scratches the surface.

To start, the Nora Scholar of the sequel is a totally different character, even though she looks the same and is played by the same voice actress. In the original, Nora was an air-headed teenage space tourist who outsmarts an out-of-control AI by treating him as a naughty teenage boy. In the sequel, Nora is an interstellar bounty hunter with strong psychic powers. The universe is different too. In the original, the setting was the near-Earth planets and moons. In the sequel, the canvas is much broader.

Second, the plot is absurd. After defusing a hostage situation, bounty hunter Nora sets out for the "desolate mining planet" Dazzle. There she enters a rowdy bar and draws the unwanted attention of a huge bruiser named Touchino. She's actually after his older brother, Fuuchino, who has psychic powers too. In order to find Fuuchino, she must convince Max, a wannabe dancer, to disclose the brothers'hideaway. (She does this by playing air drums and convincing him to dance with her.) She then has a "wizards battle" with Fuuchino, defeats him, and joins Max in a concluding dance number at the same rowdy bar as before.

But above all, the animation is wretched. The first major scene - a hostage situation in a spaceport - has no in-between animation whatsoever. Nora's air drumming is completely out of sync with the background music. And the critical dancing scene between Nora and Max is animated at four frames per second. The dancing is awkwardly drawn and not very imaginative, but the jerky animation destroys any credibility.

With Bavi Stock II, at least, there's an explanation for the drastic changes between the first and second episodes: it was made by a totally different staff at a different company than Bavi Stock I. Twinkle Nora Rock Me!, on the other hand, is drawn from the same source material as the original and has the same director, character designer, voice cast, and production company. What happened?

Budget might be one explanation. It definitely looks as though money ran out at some point along the way, and the producers were unable to pay for in-between animation in many scenes. Lack of time - some sort of schedule crunch - might be another factor. Then again, perhaps the staff realized how bad this OVA was going to be and just threw in the towel.

Twinkle Nora Rock Me! has the same voice cast as Nora; see my blog entry on Nora for comments on the principal actors. The music is by a rock group called Vigilante and is entirely in English, most of which is incomprehensible. Fortunately, the soundtrack album has printed lyrics for the ending song.

gamnark translated the show, his first for Orphan, and Iri checked the translation. ninjacloud timed, I edited and styled, Calyrica and Nemesis did QC, and M74 encoded from a Laserdisc ISO provided by an anonymous donor. The ISO is missing the last thirty seconds due to uncorrectable damage on the original Laserdisc. Despite that, it is better than the only other raw, which is from a VHS tape. To provide a complete version of the ending song, I've cut out the ending from the VHS raw and added the song lyrics. It's available as a separate file.

So here's the sequel to Nora.Don't all rush to thank us at once.

↧

Dragon Fist

November 9, 2016, 2:46 pm

≫ Next: Neko Nanka Yondemo Konai

≪ Previous: Downhill (Twinkle Nora Rock Me!)

If I may paraphrase Forrest Gump, 80s and 90s OVAs are "like a box of chocolate. You never know what you're going to get." That's exactly the case with 1991's Dragon Fist. As one of the QCs fumed, "I've signed on for this OVA to see some martial arts and inhuman characters, not for a really stupid plot about teenagers playing with cloning." You never know.

Dragon Fist starts out on a promising note, introducing Ling Fei Long, heir to the White Dragon Clan. Its members carry the power of the White Dragon in their fists. (Sort of like Ear of the Golden Dragon, where the clan chief carries the power of the Golden Dragon in his left ear.) Normally, heirs to the clan chief are born holding a silver jewel, but Fei was born holding a transparent jewel. For this aberration, his kin regard him with suspicion. He is sent to Japan to be schooled and to finish his training. And suddenly, we have a high school drama with sci-fi overtones.

In Japan, Fei Long is an apparently normal high-school student who is bullied for being a foreigner. One day, he sees some thugs trying to kidnap a girl named Katano Fuyuka. He intervenes and saves her, only to learn that she is not Katano Fuyuka. Fuyuka is actually dead, and this girl is a clone. (Despite this, clone Fuyuka seems to have original Fuyuka's childhood memories.) When a subsequent kidnapping attempt succeeds, Fei tracks the baddies to their laboratory in the mountains. There he fights the villains, mostly unsuccessfully, until he suddenly comes into his special powers, easily trounces everyone, and rescues the girl. There follows a totally arbitrary and tragic development, and the OVA ends.

Sasaki Nozomu, who played Ling Fei Long, has had prominent roles in better shows, including Tetsuo in Akira and Mello in Death Note. Nishiwara Kumiko, who voiced Fuyuka, played Iris Chateaubriand in all the Sakura Warsfranchise and numerous live musicals derived from it. She also had a lead role in Tenkousei, which Orphan subbed this year. Matsumodo Yasunori, who played the chief villain, Sugiura, has had many roles, including Rin, the confused young protagonist in Joker: Marginal City, and Muto, the stalwart hero of Oz. (Orphan has subbed both of those OVAs as well.) The director, Yamauchi Shigeyasu, has had a long career, including Boys Over Flowers, Crying Freeman, the Saint Seiyafranchise, and more recently, Yumekui Merry and Kimi no Iru Machi. Dragon Fist doesn't add much to his resume. The music is by the peerless Kawai Kenji, whose accomplishments are too long to summarize, and works well.

Iri found the raw (a VHS or Laserdisc rip) and translated it. ninjacloud did the timing. I edited and typeset (there isn't much). Calyrica karaoked the OP and ED. Calyrica and Nemesis QCed. The OVA was never released on DVD, so this raw is probably as good as we're going to get.

Dragon Fist isn't top drawer anime, but it isn't Bavi Stock II or Twinkle Nora Rock Me!either. Enjoy.

↧

Neko Nanka Yondemo Konai

November 22, 2016, 4:19 pm

≫ Next: Kuro ga Ita Natsu (Summer with Kuro)

≪ Previous: Dragon Fist

Just in time for the holidays, here's another venture into contemporary short-form anime: 2015's Neko Nanka Yondemo Konai (Cats Don't Come When Called). The series has twelve ultra-short episodes (90 seconds each) about a pair of brothers who adopt a pair of kittens, Kuro and Chin, and soon find out, as all cat owners eventually do, that the critters rule the roost. In other words,

           You've made a basic error
           Now let me expound
           This master/servant thing's okay
           But no, not that way round
      -- Les Barker, Guide Cats for the Blind

Although the animation is fairly minimal, it has cats, so what more do you need?

The anime is based on a manga of the same name by Sugisaku and seems to be autobiographical. Sugisaku graduated from a trade school in Niigata, went to Tokyo to become a boxer, had to give up after suffering a torn retina, and then worked for a flower shop and anime companies. When his brother went back to Niigata after getting married, he became a mangaka. The voice actors were chosen by auditions from a school called Nihon Kogakuin Creator's Carriage. The production company, Dub, seems to be associated with the same school.

Orphan must have a lot of cat lovers, because there was no problem staffing the project. Iri found the raws, translated, and did the research on the anime's creators; Yogicat timed the episodes; I edited and typeset; and Nemesis and Calyrica QCed. The series provided some good laughs during an otherwise grim stretch of time.

So have a happy Thanksgiving. We don't plan on subbing the live-action movie.

↧

Kuro ga Ita Natsu (Summer with Kuro)

December 9, 2016, 8:19 am

≫ Next: Juliet

≪ Previous: Neko Nanka Yondemo Konai

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.
-- aphorism attributed (without much proof) to Josef Stalin

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, artists have grappled with the problem of presenting massive tragedies in ways that are neither overwhelming nor overly distancing. How do you present the Holocaust - or the genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, and Rwanda - or the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or what's happening in Syria right now, for that matter - in ways that allow people to relate to and comprehend the incomprehensible?

Nakazawa Kenji, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, wrestled with this dilemma all his life, and he returned to the subject repeatedly. He was involved with four anime films about the bombing:

Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) - 1983 - available commercially
Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Lashed by the Black Rain) - 1984 - subbed by Orphan
Hadashi no Gen 2 (Barefoot Gen 2) - 1986 - available commercially
Kuro ga Ita Natsu (Summer with Kuro) - 1990, and now subbed b Orphan

The first three reflected Nakazawa Kenji's bitter personal experiences - his family was killed in the bombing. They were tragic, angry, and often deeply anti-American. For the last, Kuro, Nakazawa wrote an original screenplay and took an entirely different approach.

Kuro ga Ita Natsu tells the story of a family living in Hiroshima near the end of the war: a father, a mother, and two elementary school students, Nobuko and her younger brother Makoto. Unlike in Barefoot Gen, the hardships of war - in particular, the lack of food and prevailing malnutrition among the poor - are not in evidence. Except for air raid drills and enforced patriotic salutes at school, Nobuko and Makoto lead fairly normal lives.

One day, Nobuko finds a black-and-white kitten that has been orphaned by a killer band of crows.

She brings the cat home and persuades her reluctant parents to let her keep it. Her younger brother Makoto names the kitten Kuro. Both children grow attached to the cat and try to scrounge food for their hungry pet without taking from the family's limited rations. They weather several mild adventures and watch their young kitten grow into a mature and intelligent cat. And then, on August 6, 1945... I can't say more without spoiling the plot, but the story uses a narrow focus to both convey and humanize the tragedy of the event.

Kuro ga Ita Natsu was co-written and directed by Shirato Takeshi, who directed the strikingly different Kuroi Ame ni Utarete. The music by Satou Mikio is mostly cheerful, reflecting the slice of life approach of the first three-quarters of the film, but turns doleful after the bombing. There is no information on the voice cast is public anime databases.

Iri translated the movie, and Yogicat timed it. I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and Calyrica did QC. M74 encoded from a Japanese DVD ISO, but the DVD is mastered horribly, with blended frames throughout. Despite that, the moving signs tracked reasonably well, so most signs are typeset.

A few translation notes:

Makoto pretends he isTange Sazen, a fictional samurai featured in serials and movies. His stylized laugh, "Gah hah hah...", is intended to be like a samurai's.
Nobuko and Makoto attend a National People's School, the name given to elementary schools starting in 1941.
A ho-an-den was a small building that housed a portrait of the current Emperor and Empress. It was typically found at elementary schools.
The marsh in Kawaguchi-cho is between the Ota-gawa and Tenma-gawa rivers on this map.
Funairi-hon-machi is a tram stop in HIroshima.

With this release of Kuro ga Ita Natsu, all of Nakazawa Kenji's animated films about the Hiroshima bombing are now available to an English-speaking audience. As different as they are in approach, they all serve as indelible warnings about the horrors of atomic warfare. Those reminders are as important today as they were when the films were made; perhaps more so.

↧

Juliet

December 11, 2016, 8:23 am

≫ Next: Wolf Guy

≪ Previous: Kuro ga Ita Natsu (Summer with Kuro)

At first, the 1998 OVA Juliet seems like an incongruous mixture of tones, ranging from slapstick comedy to blatant fanservice to violent tragedy, until you realize that it's based on a four-volume manga by U-Jin, creator of the very ecchi and sometimes sketchy Sakura Diaries. The tonal shifts are still jarring, but knowing who created the story makes matters a little more understandable.

Another oddity of Juliet is its title, as the anime contains no character or location named Juliet and no references to the Shakespearean character. (Perhaps the manga spells out the connection.) Instead, it's the story of two siblings, Anzu and Naruto Nozaki, heirs to the fabulous Nozaki fortune. Naruto appears to be an overbearing sis-con. In fact, he's madly in love with Anzu, because they're not blood-related. He confines her to the family mansion for "security," depriving her of companionship and a real life. At age 16, she starts to rebel. She smuggles in a kitten as a pet (Naruto hates cats) and then escapes in a delivery truck. Naruto catches up to her and realizes that she can't be confined like a bird in a cage. He agrees to let have a normal life, but just then, tragedy strikes.{Spoiler alert - well, not much of a spoiler, because the AniDB summary spills the beans.} Brother, sister, and kitten are all killed.

However, it isn't Anzu's time, so she is brought back to life. Her brother, desperate to stay close to her, reincarnates as the kitten and, in feline form, continues his quest to dominate and letch after her. Anzu starts working at an all-services pet store and, after some comic adventures, finds the prospect of a new life, and possibly romance, beckoning. The feline Naruto continues to watch over her, alternating gratitude at being able to cuddle with her and jealousy at her prospects for human love. And there the story ends... but not before there has been a lot of gratuitous nudity, panty shots, and other fanservice.

Araki Kae, who played Anzu, is probably best known for her lead role in all the Fushigi Yuugi properties.Yamanoi Jin, who voiced Naruto, has had featured roles in many anime. The director, Tomii Wataru, is relatively unknown; his only other credited work is Rance.

This is an M74 release. M74 started with jan55's raw and German subtitles. He retimed the subs and translated them into English. The project then languished a long time until the subs could be checked; a new Orphan team member, Kou, fixed them up. I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and Calyrica did QC. Just before release, M74 made a new encode directly from the R2j DVD. The source has terrible blending/deinterlacing problems on horizontal pans, but the encode is the best that can be done.

Anyway, if you're in the mood for something a little ecchi (and a little sketchy), Juliet will fill the bill nicely. Enjoy.

↧