Thursday, June 19, 2014

Amefuri Kuzou (Rain Boy)

Amefuri Kuzou (Rain Boy) is the second part of a Tezuka Osamu anthology series called "The Lion Book Series." It consists of six standalone episodes:


1 The Green Cat 1983
2 Rain Boy 1983
3 Lunn Flies into the Wind 1985
4 Yamataro Comes Back 1986
5 Adachi-ga Hara 1991
6 Akuemon 1993

Orphan released a version of The Green Cat last year. At the time, I had hoped to do (or in the case of the first four, redo) all the other episodes. Here, after a long delay, is the second one.

Rain Boy was in particular need of a new translation, because the "subtitles" on the Viki version were actually dubtitles - transcriptions of the English dub track. The Orphan version includes a new translation of the Japanese. The translation was done by a new member of the team but an old friend from my C1 days, who now goes by the handle Moho Kareshi. convexity checked the translation for accuracy. The script was timed by another new member of the team, Eternal_Blizzard, who shares my passion for incomplete, older anime. I edited and did the styling and typesetting. CP and yet another newcomer to Orphan, Calyrica, checked the results. The raw is from OniDragon and is, unusually for Orphan, dual audio. I want to thank everyone, both new team members and "veterans," for bringing this project to a successful conclusion.

Rain Boy is another gentle Osamu fable about friendship and growing up. The protagonist, Mouta, is a country boy with a chip on his shoulder from being teased and bullied by city kids. He encounters a boy shaped like an umbrella, Rain Boy, who walks around under a personal rain cloud. Only Mouta can see Rain Boy, and he becomes Mouta's first friend. Their adventures together are cut short when Mouta's family moves to the city. Only much later, when Mouta is a grown man with a child of his own, does he remember Rain Boy and a promise made but not fulfilled. The ending is bittersweet.

We'd still like to do the rest of the series, but that's at the mercy of events and real-life commitments by team members. In the meantime, enjoy another dose of Tezuka Osamu goodness!



1 comment:

  1. Erik here - wanted to contact you about HSJ, but my server is offline at the moment and I lost your address. Please shoot me a line at my regular address, it will be forwarded elsewhere. Thanks!

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