Doukyuusei Climax

Okay, this time we're really, really done with the Doukyuusei series.

Doukyuusei (Classmates) Climax is a sequel to the first Doukyuusei OVA set,  Doukyuusei: Natsu no Owari ni (in English, Classmates: The End of Summer). It has nothing to do with Doukyuusei 2/Sotsugyusei, although the heroine of the second series, Narusawa Yui, makes a cameo appearance in Climax. Like all the Doukyuusei's, Climax is a soft-core h-anime, with sex scenes that require no censoring due to careful camera angles and convenient sheets and blankets. It continues the story of Mooroka Wataru and his harem of girls (Miho, Misa, Kurumi, and Satomi) from The End of Summer. It also provides a side story about the sidekick character, Sakagami Kuzuya. As with Sotsugyusei, Climax makes very little sense if you haven't watched the prequel. Fortunately, The End of Summer was distributed on R1 DVD and is widely available.

Why did we bother with Climax? Primarily because several of the team members are fanatics about completing series. Raws were available, and so was a translation, so why not? As with Doukyuusei 2, the translation is by anonymous, retiming by archdeco, editing and typesetting by me, and QC by CP and Saji. Climax is set at a school festival, so there's a ton of signs. I tried to typeset as many as I could. However, there's a limit to how much frame-by-frame work I'm willing to do, so {\an8}Sign: style signs abound. The raws are from the Internet and are fairly terrible, with lots of interlacing and frame blending. There's even video corruption in episode 1 (around 14:33) to make the mess complete.

As I've written before, if anyone has better raws for the Doukyuusei series, the team would be willing to retime and re-release. Orphan does not have a resident encoder; accordingly, finished raws are preferable to DVD ISOs.

This is the end, for now, of Orphan's foray into h-anime. I'd still like to do the legendary 26th episode of Maze, if I can find a raw (I lost the one I had in a disk crash), but that's definitely on the ecchi side of the line.

Blazing Transfer Student (Honoo no Tenkousei)

So here's Blazing Transfer Student, another oldie with a checkered history. A set of external subs by PJS, credited to "Howard Kawaii," has been floating around for a while, but they were incomplete and in need of work. Al_Sleeper, "Mr. Never Satisfied" on BakaBT, brought this show to my attention and provided raws and the original subtitles. The Orphan team agreed to pick it up. As usual, laalg translation checked, archdeco retimed it, I edited, styled and typeset, and CP and Saji found (most of) my errors or omission and commission.

Blazing Transfer Student is a parody of 70s fight anime, particularly Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow's Joe). Based on a manga by Shimamoto Kazuhiko, it features, as Wikipedia notes, "intentionally jerky animation, dirty-looking cels, thick black lines, and retro character designs, much like Shimamoto's drawing style." There's lots of sly, self-referential comedy, including the "color commentator" for the fights being named Shimamoto, after the author of the manga, and the "deathblow punches" having names that take longer to pronounce than to deliver (a serious problem, by the way). The fight announcer, Mikami, sounds just like the announcer in Yawara!, but I can't find any overlap in the casts.

The plot is as simple as possible. Takizawa Noboru has transferred to Jyakuniku Private High School, where any disagreement can be settled with (near mortal) combat. His initial encounter with "god on duty" Jounouchi Kouichi almost ends in disaster before he is rescued by the timely intervention of the lovely and flat-chested Yukari-chan. Instantly smitten, Noboru attempts to defend Yukari-chan from the nefarious attentions of the school delinquent, Ibuki Saburou. Mayhem ensues as Noboru tries to wrest Yurari-chan from Ibuki's grasp. Many manly poses are struck and deathblows attempted before the completely predictable denouement. It goes by in two breezy episodes, leaving nary a trace behind.

The raws that we used are from a LaserDisc source, by an unknown group. They have fairly terrible frame-blending problems, particularly in the action sequences, but they're the best available.

Midori no Neko (The Green Cat)

This is another "commission" from Al_Sleeper in the BakaBT community. All he had to say was, "It's by Tezuka Osamu," and I was sold. Midori no Neko is part of an 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

1-5 have been translated; 6 has not, although it's available on R2J DVD. Midori predates Dallos and might have been the first OVA ever, but there's no evidence that it was actually offered for sale when it was first created.

The original subtitles for Midori no Neko were by Viki, a Russian group that works on old shows. The subtitles weren't bad, but some lines were missing. In addition, the script needed retiming and general polishing. So the usual Orphan crew worked on it: laalg checked the translation, archdeco redid the timing, I edited and styled, and CP and Saji performed QC. The raw is from onidragon.

Midori no Neko is science fiction. It tells the story of mysterious green cats "from outer space" that prey on vulnerable children and make them into accomplices for... world conquest? local gain? fun? It's hard to say what the cats are after, other than creating chaos. But the show is still fun, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. Just don't ask too many questions.

Enjoy another Tezuka Osamu show!

P.S. I'm looking for good raws for Hidimari no Ki, one of the last Osamu TV series. Please contact me if have them or know where to find them.