Zetsuai (Desperate Love) was a shounen-ai (boy's love) manga that started its run in 1989. It was adapted into an OVA in 1992. Although it was not the first shounen-ai anime by any means, it was very influential. Its operatic plot, tragic characters, and strange character designs defined the genre for years afterwards. The manga and OVA both received sequels (Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989). In addition, the Zetsuai OVA was followed in 1994 by an anime music video, Bronze Kouji Nanjo Cathexis (or Cathexis for short), supposedly a set of music videos by one of Zetsuai's protagonists, musician Kouji Nanjo. Cathexis has not been available with English subtitles since the VHS fansub era... until now.
As a compilation of music videos, Cathexis has no plot. Instead, it's a fever dream of five rock songs:
Some of the images are moderately NSFW, but it's all fairly tame by current standards. Following the music videos, there's a still image gallery of drawings by the manga author, Ozaki Minami.
The subtitles are from Lupin Gang Anime and have not been checked. Yogicat timed the songs, I edited and styled them, and M74 did QC. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from his own Japanese laserdisc. For a while, I thought the audio in the encode was defective, because in the second song, the music is interrupted for one second by a test tone. Apparently, this is deliberate; the same tone appears on the original soundtrack.
So, love it or hate it, here's the first digital version of Cathexis with English subtitles. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net
As a compilation of music videos, Cathexis has no plot. Instead, it's a fever dream of five rock songs:
- Bad Blood
- Jesus Christ Love for You
- Katuai
- 20XX Zetsu-ai
- Moonlight Eternal Mobius
Some of the images are moderately NSFW, but it's all fairly tame by current standards. Following the music videos, there's a still image gallery of drawings by the manga author, Ozaki Minami.
The subtitles are from Lupin Gang Anime and have not been checked. Yogicat timed the songs, I edited and styled them, and M74 did QC. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from his own Japanese laserdisc. For a while, I thought the audio in the encode was defective, because in the second song, the music is interrupted for one second by a test tone. Apparently, this is deliberate; the same tone appears on the original soundtrack.
So, love it or hate it, here's the first digital version of Cathexis with English subtitles. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net
Erik of Piyo-Piyo here (and formerly of Lupin Gang Anime): I had forgotten about the beep, but we used to pretend Koji said something REALLY filthy.
ReplyDelete"Cathexis" is pronounced "ca-THAR-sis," but I say "ca-THEKS-iss" anyhow.
Also, Cathexis is pretty awesome. The last video does have a little plot, in that it shows events that happen in the manga after the end of the Zetsuai 1989 OVA. An alternate version of the same is shown at the beginning of Bronze.
Erik from Piyo-Piyo and ex-One Way?
ReplyDeletePiyo-Piyo for sure. Don't know about One Way.
DeleteI cannot thank you enough for sharing this piece of art with us. Those lyrics are one of the most intellectually challenging literature I have ever seen. :) If someone asks me for an anime that is an absolute "experience", this is what I'll recommend to them.
ReplyDelete