So here's another OVA stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide: Akai Hayate (Red Hayate), a four-parter from 1991. As far as I can tell, it is based on an original story by Yamasaki Osamu, who is better known as a director. His directing efforts include Gallery Fake, Yotoden (OVA and movie), Hakkenden (both series), and Hakuoki (all versions). Akai Hayate was licensed by the now-defunct Central Park Media and released in English on VHS tape; a rip of those tapes was released by ARR, minus seven minutes of episode 2. This is a new version, based on the Japanese laserdiscs, and complete.
Akai Hayate tells the tale of a secret ninja organization called Shinagara which has controlled Japan for "thousands of years." Its strongest warriors use "Shadow Armor"(mecha-like suits constructed from magic and shadows) and named attacks to fight:
As the story begins, Kanuma Hayate, the son of Shinogara's leader, Kanuma Tanzou, suddenly and inexplicably assassinates his father. As a result, Shinogara splits into warring factions, with three of its six Shadow Warriors (Sanezuna, Miyabi, and Genbu) supporting the new leader, Ranotei, and the other three (Hayate, Date Ikkaku, and Satomi Shuri) in rebellion. The Shinogara loyalists hunt down and mortally wound Hayate. To survive, he transfers his spirit into the body of his sister, Shiori. She must now evade Shinogara's myriad assassins and unravel the mystery behind her father's death, with the intermittent help of the other rebel warriors. The show has a very somber tone, with lots of violence and violent deaths. (There's a bit of nudity and sex too, typical of an OVA from that era.) As might be expected in a civil war, there are no winners and no happy ending.
The cast consists of stellar character actors. The gravelly-voiced narrator was played by Tesshou Genda, who played Moloch in the Azazel-san franchise, Colonel Muto in Joker Game, the narrator in Kyoukai no Rinne, and the title role in New Laughing Salesman. Kantou faction leader Date Ikkaku was played by Yao Kazuki, best known for his lead role as Dark Schneider in Bastard!! and his recurring role as Franky in One Piece. Nansou faction leader Satomi Shuri was voiced by Gouda Hozumi, who played one of the leads in the Sengoku-era Sanada 10 series. Seki Toshihiko, who voiced the fighter Nagase Jun in the first episode, played Riki in Ai no Kusabi, Sanzo in all the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro. The director, Tsuruyama Osamu, is better known as an animator; he did the character designs for Wolf Guy, for example.
Because the ARR rip was incomplete and subsize, M74 and I had long wanted to do a new version. We enlisted Zalis of ReDone Subs, who transcribed the existing subtitles and filled in the missing seven minutes. He also did a cursory check of the translation, which is quite liberal. We haven't tried to correct the usual R1 compressions and omissions, beyond the obvious clunkers. Iri filled in a couple of missing lines of the episode 1 insert song; M74 timed; I edited and typeset; Juggen styled the songs; and Nemesis and VigorousJammer did QC. M74 encoded from laserdisc images provided by an anonymous benefactor. This is an Orphan-M74-ReDone joint release. (Sorry, AniDB mods, but all three groups really did do significant work on it.)
While Akai Hayate feels like it consists of recycled elements, that may just be a modern perspective. I'm sure it felt much fresher when first released in 1991. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
Orphan and M74 continue their high-definition survey of the Tezuka Osamu "Love Will Save the Earth" TV specials with 1980's Fumoon. Based on Tezuka's manga "Next World," Fumoon is a passionate plea for humanity to treat its only world better and to save it from the scourges of war and environmental devastation.
Fumoon takes place in a world dominated by the rivalry between the Uran Union (USSR) and the Star Nation (USA). One of the worst victims of this rivalry is Horseshoe Island. Once beautiful, it is totally polluted and barren, except for oversized insects and centipedes. Out of this disaster has arisen a new intelligent species, the Fumoon. These "new humans" have supernatural powers and control of anti-gravity, among other capabilities, not to mention lovely feminine eyelashes:
The Fumoon are discovered by Dr. Yamadano, who captures one, takes it back to Japan, and shows it to his detective friend, Ban Shunsaku, and Ban's nephew and apprentice, Kenichi. The captured Fumoon, named Rococo, awakens and escapes in a flying saucer, taking Ban along. Keniichi vows to rescue his uncle and sets off for Horseshow Island with his little sister, Peach. There, they are captured by the Fumoon and learn the secret of the Fumoon's seemingly random activities: Earth is about to be enveloped by a cloud of deadly gas. The Fumoon are planning to escape, taking with them a cross-section of Earth's plant and animal life, but no humans, to seed a new homeworld.
This is only the beginning of the complications, which include, among other things, machinations by a Japanese industrialist to use the Fumoon in a reality TV show, mindless crowds destroying mankind's only hope for fending off the gas cloud, and all-out war between the Uran Union and the Star Nation. Ultimately, love does save the world, but not human love. I think Fumoon is a bit overstuffed with twists, turns, and incidents, but the show moves along at a brisk and entertaining clip, gliding over the plot holes.
Fumoon makes extensive use of Tezuka Osamu's "Star System," in which familiar characters are reused in new plots and often in new roles. For example, Ban Shunsaku appears in many Tezuka manga and anime, including Metropolis and Midori no Neko. (He had cameos in Bagi and Ginga Tansa 2100-nen too.) Keniichi's younger sister Peach is better known as Pinoko in Black Jack. The leader of the Uran Union is Duke Red. Although this can be distracting, Tezuka drew his manga that way, and the anime shows adapted from them follow his conventions. The use of the Star System was toned down after Fumoon.
Tomita Kousei played Ban Shunsaku throughout his career, including the recent Young Black Jack TV series. He also played Okocho in Ear of the Golden Dragon, which Orphan translated. Matsushima Minori played Peach (Pinoko) just this once. She had many other roles, including the lead in Akane-chan. Okamoto Mari (Rococo) played Emiya in Ginga-Tansa 2100-nen. She appeared most recently in this year's Little Witch Academia. The late Takiguchi Junpei (Yamadano) is probably best known as the voice of the Millenium Earl in the original D.gray-man series. The late Utsumi Kenji, who played the industrialist Gamata, played Ham Egg in the original Astro Boy, Dracula in Don Dracula, and many other Tezuka Osamu characters.
Yogicat transcribed the subtitles, which were professionally done, and M74 timed them. I edited and typeset, and M74 and Nemesis did QC. M74 encoded from a BDMV graciously provided by Beatrice Raws. This is a joint Orphan-M74 release.
While I prefer Tezuka's more tightly plotted specials, like Ginga Tansa 2100-nen, Fumoon is very entertaining, and its critique of environmental devastation, not to mention the threat of nuclear war, looks remarkably prescient. Unfortunately, nothing like the Fumoon has appeared (so far) to save us from ourselves. You can get the release from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
As I wrote in this blog post, Orphan will be releasing backlogged unique raws for which there is no translator. Our second release under this policy is a pair of anime OVAs from the fertile mind of Eguchi Hisashi, the creator of Stop!! Hibari-kun! (which is stalled, as always, at translation checking). The first is 1990's Eguchi Hisashi no Nantoka Narudesho!; the second is 1991's Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show. Both are anthologies of short segments; some of the segments in Nantoka Narudesho! are live action. M74 encoded these raws from a laserdisc rip provided by ics-.
This
release is available from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot
Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
Aoki Honoo is a one-shot OVA from 1989, based on a six-volume manga by Yanagasawa Kimio, a prolific mangaka who is almost unknown in the West. It was translated by Random Masters and released by ACR (Anime Classics Review), but the encode was hardsubbed and subsized (240p), which made it difficult to watch. Because Orphan has recently acquired the ability to encode VHS tapes, M74 and I decided to do a new version at full resolution (480p), with softsubs.
Aoki Honoo makes for uncomfortable viewing, at least for me. It is the story of a heel (viewed kindly) or a sociopath (viewed clinically) who claws his way toward the top over the bodies of his friends, particularly his girlfriends. The main character, Kaizu Ryuuichi, is a high-school senior determined to escape from his small-town upbringing and achieve independence from his family. He systematically seduces and extorts money from a series of women, starting with a local hostess, Sayuka, and then the local rich girl, Naito Emi. However, he promptly abandons or two-times his current girlfriend, whoever she is, when a more promising opportunity appears. Because Ryuuichi is so cold and calculating, it's difficult to understand why women fall under his spell. Perhaps this screencap offers an explanation:
He has big hands, too.
Ryuiichi was voiced by Horuichi Kenyu, who played Nest in Eien no Filena, and Emi was voiced by Andou Arisa, who played Filena herself. Another of Ryuuichi's victims, Kuroeda Keiko, was voiced by Ikura Kazue, who had leading roles in the City Hunter and All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku franchises. The director, the late Ishikuro Noboru, had an extensive resume with a focus on sci-fi. His projects included Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Megazone 23, and Tytania.
The original script was by Random Masters and has not been checked, although a few obvious issues have been fixed. M74 transcribed and timed the subtitles from the ACR release. I edited and typeset. bananadoyouwanna and M74 did QC. M74 encoded from an uncompressed VHS rip. (The show has been released on Laserdisc but not on DVD. If we can find the Laserdisc, we'll do a second version.) This is a joint Orphan-M74 release.
Aoki Honoo is competently made and focuses on a character type that is rare in modern anime. There's a lot of nudity and sex, so it's definitely NSFW. If you're interested in spite of that (or because of that), you can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net
Streaming has transformed the hobby of fansubbing. Traditional fansubbing, that is, the creation of amateur translations for current series, has almost completely disappeared, because almost all series are streamed with professional (or near professional) English translations. The most active and popular "fansubbing" group is HorribleSubs, which uses automated processing to package up anime streams for computer playback. For most people, that's good enough.
At the same time, interest in the anime back catalog has increased, but nowhere near as much as traditional fansubbing has declined. Orphan has been able to increase its output substantially (from a low starting point), but that is precariously balanced on the availability of a small number of contributors, particularly translators. The community of back-catalog enthusiasts, split across groups like Orphan, Soldado, Saizen, Live-eviL, etc., is pretty much the same as it was a few years ago. And I see no evidence that the fan base for old shows is getting much bigger.
That's a shame, really, because for back-catalog enthusiasts, this is the Best of Times. More and more material is becoming available. There are a number of factors at work:
- Used laserdiscs and VHS tapes are flowing into the second-hand markets, particularly in Japan, as owners and collectors age and try to dispose of bulky physical artifacts. This has been Orphan's best source for material that was stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. We've occasionally found shows that have never appeared in Western online references like AniDB, ANN, and MAL.
- Japanese media companies are remastering and releasing Blu-Ray editions of shows that were hits when shown. Most of these are from the 21st century and are awful-looking upscales from the 480p digital animation era. However, a few are beloved shows from the cel-animation era, like Yawara!, Oishinbo, and the Tezuka Osamu "Love Will Save the World" specials; and after remastering, they look wonderful. I'm hard pressed to understand the market for a $1000 complete edition of Yawara! in hi-def, but I'm grateful nonetheless that it exists.
- Most recently, Japanese streaming companies are putting older anime online to beef up their offerings. Amazon Japan is the leader, but NetFlix Japan, Hulu Japan, and UNEXT all have substantial catalogs of older shows and movies.
This third development is relatively recent and rather unexpected, but it makes economic sense for the media companies. Digitization of cel-based animation is only one step, and not necessarily the most expensive step, in preparing a physical release. Blu-Rays typically require remastering as well as creation of extra content to entice buyers. After digitization, Blu-Ray production requires mastering of physical media, design and manufacture of a physical enclosure, creation of marketing campaigns and material, predicting and managing inventory, and so on. In contrast, streaming only requires digitization and a licensing agreement with a streaming company. While a few of the streaming offerings have clearly been remastered, most have not.
So if you love older anime and you live in Japan, this is a Golden Era. But as Arthur Clarke pointed out in Childhood's End, gold is the color of autumn, and winter will follow. The analog-only releases will become unreadable as tapes and discs age and playback equipment breaks. It's a race against time to get VHS tapes and laserdiscs digitized, and success depends on the continuing efforts of a handful of collectors. Remastering old show as Blu-Rays is a hit-or-miss proposition economically. Once the major hits are done, the media companies will have little incentive to continue. And finally, the streaming model has unproven payback and longevity. Content disappears as licenses expire or streaming companies need to reclaim storage space. And if you don't live in Japan, you're SOOL.
When Orphan released Dragon Fist last year, we used an Internet raw based on a VHS tape; it was the only raw available at the time. Subsequently, the team's ongoing shopping spree for second-hand Japanese laserdiscs turned up a copy of Dragon Fist. After some delay, it was shipped to Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions; after further delay, he released a new encode; and after even further delay, we retrofited the original script to the Erik's encode, producing a new version of the show.
The new encode is a significant improvement in video quality over the original; however, the show is the same old Dragon Fist - mystical Chinese martial arts crossed with high-school drama crossed with sci-fi cloning experiments. You can read the original blog entry for more details and the original credits. For this version, ninjacloud tweaked the timing, I tweaked the typesetting, and banandoyouwanna did a release check.
This new version supercedes the previous version, which will be deleted. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland has inspired several Japanese anime projects, including a 1983 World Masterpiece Theater adaptation and the more modern Heart no Kuni no Alice. Alice in Dreamland is the latest, a 2015 independent anime movie by Kentaro Hachisuka. It appears to be be his first movie (he's done three more since), and it's quite strange: a stop-motion animation done with dolls created by Mari Shimizu. The dolls perform against backdrops that are part Hieronymus Bosch and part Yellow Submarine:
The expressionless dolls and the strange backgrounds impart a nightmare-like feeling to the movie, which is probably what the director intended.
The plot is suitably meta, as befits a modern retelling. Alice is summoned by the White Rabbit to save Wonderland from spreading Darkness. However, she knows Alice in Wonderland is a story and that this must be a dream. And so it proves, but at the end, the now grown-up Alice sees the events of her dream begin to unfold for real. Shades of 1953's Invaders from Mars, a sci-fi movie that colored my nightmares for years. (There's also a little homage to a famous scene from The Seventh Seal; see if you can spot it.)
The two leads are played by well known seiyuu:
- Uchida Aya (Alice) has had featured roles in many recent series, including Ai Mai Mi, Izetta the Last Witch, Kemono Friends, and Trinity Seven. She played Ascoeur, one of the co-leads, in Kiddy Girl And.
- Shimono Hiro (White Rabbit) burst on the anime scene as the lead in RahXephon and has had major roles ever since, including the leads in 30-sai no Hoken Taiku, ACCA, the BakaTest franchise, The World God Only Knows properties, and my personal favorite, Nagasarete Airantou.
The other voice actors are less famous. The songs are by a group called Black Violets and are suitably weird.
So how did the thoroughly modern production end up as an Orphan release? Sometimes, projects are the result of long, painstaking planning; and sometimes, they just fall on you unexpectedly. A BakaBT member who goes by the handle of Champstice messaged me out of the blue. He had commissioned a script of Alice in Dreamland and done preliminary work on it, but he needed help in making it a finished production, so off we went. Heatmetal, who usually works in J-drama, did the translation. Champstice did the preliminary timing, editing, and styling. Yogicat did fine timing, I did final editing and typesetting, and Calyrica and Nemesis QCed. M74 encoded from the R2J DVD purchased by Morellet. (There's a Blu-Ray release too, but we haven't found it.) Alice in Dreamland is a joint release between Orphan and Champstice's J-drama group MegaBeast Empire (MBE).
So let me invite you to another trip down the rabbit hole. You may not find it to be your cup of tea, but if you're interested in leaving the well-trodden paths of typical anime, take the Cheshire Cat's advice and "Follow me." You can get Alice in Dreamland from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Because of a mistake in the credits, the files have been updated to v2. A patch to go from the v1 files to the v2 files can be found here.
By coincidence, today (September 8) is the second anniversary of the passing of our wonderful colleague, CP, QC extraordinaire and passionate anime devotee. A lot of time has passed, but our loss remains undiminished.
Nozomi Witches is 1992 three-part OVA about the astonishing rise of Shiba Ryoutarou from happy-go-lucky first-year high school student to championship boxer. It is based on a 48-volume (!) manga by Nobe Toshio and was released before the mid-point of the manga's ten year run. Drawing on the early volumes, the OVA tells a complete story, through the conclusion of the Olympic tryouts. It's not just a teaser for the manga.
When Shiba moves into a new housing development, his next door neighbor is another high-school student, Egawa Nozomi, who has just returned to Japan from New Zealand. She spots potential in Shiba that no one else sees, including Shiba himself, and tricks him into taking up boxing. Before long, Shiba is winning fights, always by a knock-out, and attracting the attention of professional trainers and scouts. His rise is so fast and so unexpected that he half-believes Nozomi has bewitched him. In a way she has; before every fight, she gives Shiba her "good luck charm" in the form of a classic shounen mantra: "Don't worry. Have confidence. If you set your mind to it, you can do anything." Shiba fights for her and her dream as much as anything else.
The title, Nozomi Witches, is an unfortunate bit of Engrish. At first glance, it appears to be an adjective and a plural noun, but that can't be right, because Nozomi is a name. Actually, "witches" is being used as a verb, in the archaic meaning of "casts a spell." Modern English would use "bewitches," and indeed, the first translator of the show titled it Bewitching Nozomi. I've stayed with the usual title because the show is listed as Nozomi Witches in all the anime databases.
When I started on the show, I thought Nozomi was an Adachi Mitsuri work, because of the similarity of the character designs to Hiatari Ryoukou:
This is not a coincidence. Nozomi Witches has the same director, composer, character designer, art designer, and production company as Hiatari Ryoukou.
Although Nozomi adheres closely to classic sports shounen tropes, it's a very enjoyable show, with appealing characters, a lot of comedy, and some modest rom-com undertones. I'm rather skeptical about Shiba's ability to "power up" and find some new punch or counter just when he needs it, but shounen is shounen. Also, many of Shiba's opponents look too big and heavily muscled. In 1992, the weight spread in the Olympic lightweight boxing division was only four kilograms (nine pounds). However, these are minor quibbles.
Shiba was played by Hayashi Nobutoshi, whose best known role was Guts in Berserk. He also played the title role in Generator Gawl and the antagonist Nanbara in Hand Maid May. Nozomi was played by Tsuru Hiromi, whose storied career includes the title roles in Ghost Sweeper Mikami and Perrine Monogatari, Kajima Miyuki in Miyuki and Keiko in Hiatari Ryoukou (both Adachi Mitsuri shows), as well as Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road. Morikawa Toshiyuki (Nanjou) played the lead role in Gallery Fake and Inugami Akira in Wolf Guy, which Orphan translated. He has also appeared in hundreds of video games. The late Miyauchi Kohei (Eddie) played the grandfather in Tsuki ga Noboru made ni, which Orphan translated. The director, Sugii Gisaburou, started as an animator on the first color Japanese cartoon, Hakujaden, worked on all of Tezuka Osamu's Animerama movies, and went on to direct such classics as Night on the Galactic Railway.
The impetus for the project came from Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions. Back in the VHS-fansubbing era, Erik had worked on one of the early subtitled version of Nozomi Witches, created by Lupin Gang Anime. He had always hankered for a better version. Fortunately, he had the original scripts, the laserdiscs, and the Orphan team. Iri checked the dialog, and convexity translated the songs from official lyrics. ninjacloud retimed the dialog, and Yogicat did the songs. I edited and typeset, and Juggen styled the OP and ED, which are terrific. banandoyouwanna and Nemesis did QC. Erik encoded from his own laserdiscs.
Orphan is quite proud to present this version of Nozomi Witches. Sports anime is not my thing, and neither is shounen, but I enjoyed the show from start to finish. I hope you will too. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. We'll be uploading the original soundtrack as well.
Yes, our inventory is overflowing here at Orphan Fansubs, so it's time for a big back-to-school sale to clear the backlog. We're literally giving things away here, folks, so don't hesitate to pick something up for your PC or Mac. Everything must go!
Seriously, the team has been accumulating materials far beyond its limited bandwidth for translation and translation checking. Accordingly, we'll be doing two things:
- Torrenting unique raws for which there is no translator, in hopes of inspiring a Japanese translator to help. (Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions has always torrented his raws, so those are already available.)
- Releasing shows that need translation checking but have no resources as "works in progress," again in hopes of inspiring a translator.
So let's get the party rolling!
Our first release under this policy is the raws of Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, a 1989 three-part ecchi OVA. (Finding translators for ecchi materials is even harder than normal shows.) It has languished in our raw archive for close to two years. M74 encoded these raws from a laserdisc rip provided by ics-. The only other raws available are VHS rips, so this is a noticeable improvement.
This release is available from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.
Stay tuned for more bargains from Orphan Fansubs!
