Stop!! Hibari-kun! Batch

Here is Orphan's final word on Stop!! Hibari-kun: the batch torrent, with all 35 episodes. Episodes 12 and 13 received additional checking, while episodes 15, 16, 17, 20, and 23 have minor corrections. A patch file is available here for updating these seven episodes to their corresponding v2s.

The project took almost three years. The first translations arrived in late summer of 2015. The first group of episodes was released in May, 2017, and another in January, 2018. The project languished due to translation checking issues until laalg rejoined Orphan in May. She translation checked 24 episodes in less than a month, allowing us to complete the project quickly. I am very grateful for laalg's return to the fray.

Moho Kareshi translated all 35 episodes. Iri, Onibaba, and tenkenX6 checked various early episodes, while laalg checked episodes 12 to 35. Yogicat timed all the episodes, and I did all the editing and typesetting. konnakude and Nemesis QCed all the episodes, and VigorousJammer did an additional QC on the first ten. M74 encoded all the episodes from an R2J DVD box set. Juggen styled the OP and ED. I want to thank all the members of the team for sticking with this project along its long and winding road.

Stop!! Hibari-kun! proved to be much more difficult than the madcap comedy I was expecting. The dialog was spoken at breakneck speed, sometimes in regional dialects. The show was full of 1980s topical and cultural references; the blog posts have functioned as much as magic decoder rings as commentary on the show itself. And the typesetting... The show is filled with signs, all of them hand-drawn. The encode is mostly free of blended frames, so tracking mostly worked, but there were a lot of signs. Despite my efforts to be more conservative, more than 75 fonts ended up being used.

I gave my perspective on the show's contents in my first blog entry about it. It seemed then like a remarkably even-handed portrayal of a transgender girl, especially for an early 80s series, and it still does. Although some of the later episodes mine easy (or uneasy) laughs out of gay stereotypes, Hibari-kun is treated respectfully throughout. Her family is fleshed out in comic detail, including her apoplectic father Ibari, her bemused older sisters Tsubami and Tsugame, her boss-in-training baby sister Suzume, and her utterly confused love interest, the orphan Kosaku. At the end, nothing is resolved, of course. Hibari loves Kosaku, Kosaku pines for Rie-chan, Rie-chan is hung up on Shina, and Shina wants Hibari. As Hibari sings at the end of every episode, "It's a mixed-up, messed-up, complicated relationship."

In fact, Hibari invariably has the last word, so she might as well have it here too:

You can get the batch torrent at the usual torrent sites or download individual episodes from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Thanks for watching.

Stop!! Hibari-kun! Episodes 31-35

So Stop!! Hibari-kun! stumbles across the finish line with five random episodes showing the scriptwriters scraping the bottom of the barrel for reused story lines and tropes. Time travel, body swapping, psychic powers... as far from the core story of Hibari-kun and Kosaku as you can imagine. As always, the episodes are intermittently amusing, but like Tokimeki Tonight!, Stop!! Hibari-kun! should have ended at the standard 24 or 26 episodes.

The usual notes:

Ep31. An ensemble episode featuring every recurring character. Once again, Suzume is the real center of the story.

Ep32. The cast is transported to the Heian Era, where they meet... E.T.?

• The title is a nonsense mixture of The Pillow Book (枕草子) and The Tale of Genji (源氏物語).
• Shina's bull (his Heien era substitute for a motorcycle) is named Nanahan (750), after Honda's line of 750CC motorcycles that took Japan by storm. The sticker on Shina's back (see above) is the sign for a beginning driver.
• "Lady Iwasaki." Iwasaki Shibiku - Shibiku was a title for ladies serving in the palace.
• The "kiss coupon" destination is a play on the lyrics of the Japanese children's song Donguri korokoro. Instead of "oike ni hamatte saa taihen" (acorn rolled into the pond), it's "oike ni hamate saa hentai" (pervert rolled into the pond), so Pervert-in-the-Pond Station.
• The train line is "okame," meaning an effeminate man. "Okame" is usually a derogatory term; transgender women refer to themselves as "newhalves," a wasei-eigo.
• The coupon is dated 4/4, an unofficial day for cross-dressers, which falls midway between Girls' Day on 3/3 (hinamatsuri) and Boy's Day on 5/5 (tango no sekku).
• The ogre story is based on Rashomon, a Noh stage by Kanze Nobumitsu about the hunt for an ogre near Rashoman (south Kyoto gate).
• The decrepit gate sign is a play on the word "rashomon," with the middle kanji changed to "crazy" (rakkyomon), so Crazy Gate.
• The UFO is a zenpoukouenfun style kofun or a keyhole.

Ep33. Hibari and Kosaku switch bodies. A tour de force by the voice actors. This episode required more typesetting than any other in the series.

•  Occult Ottosai's "Disguise #28" is a parody of Tetsujin #28.
• The sentence from the Tokyo University entrance exam is verse 15:23 of the Analects of Confucius. The translation has been slightly abridged for time.
• When Kosaku successfully translates the passage, Iwasaki-sensei rings the victory chimes in the style of the long-running music program NHK Nodo Jiman.
• "The great blue sky is on my side." From 人を恋うる歌, a poem by Yosano Tekkan.
• The billboard advertising "Takamumasamune" is a parody of 菊正宗, Kikumasamune, a brand of moisturizing cream.
• In Kosaku's second dream, he gets roasted by three movie monsters (see above). Anguirus is on the left, Godzilla in the center, and Rodan on the right.
• The audience for the climactic boxing match includes (again) Hulk Hogan and Q-taro, as well as Captain Kaji in thick black glasses.
• The yellow book in the preview is titled "Chinko (Penis) Inc."

Ep34. An episode centered around Captain Kaji and his unrequited - and never to be requited - passion for Tsubame.

• Okita Soji was the captain of the first Shinsengumi unit.
• Confronting Kaji, Ibari is shown as Chandlar from Ultraman.
• Tsubame's pose, shown above, is a parody of the popular 1974 soft-core porn movie, Emmanuelle.
• Hibari tries to curse the Kotetsu High team using the ushi no toki mairi ritual.

Ep35. Hibari-kun receives psychic powers from the household's white alligators.

• "I am an alligator. As yet I have no name." A parody of the opening lines of Natsume Soseki's I Am a Cat. 
• "I'm the gold man who can tell the difference." A parody of a Nestle Gold Blend coffee advertisement.
• Among the toys that Ibari tries to give Hibari is a Robby the Robot figurine from Forbidden Planet.

The staff is the same as for the previous mini-batches. Moho Kareshi translated; laalg checked the translation, added additional signs, and decoded many of the references. Yogicat timed; I edited and typeset. Juggen styled the OP and ED; and Nemesis and konnakude QCed. M74 encoded from a remastered DVD box.

There will be a batch torrent to clean up oversights in the original releases. Meanwhile, you can get this group of episodes at the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Stop!! Hibari-kun! Episodes 25-30

So here's some more Hibari-kun hijinks and mayhem, episodes 25-30. This batch includes the wrap-up of the Kurikara Detectives arc (thank goodness) as well as the last episode adapted from manga chapters. In between are stories featuring youngest sister Suzume, old man Ibari, and the recurring joke that the prettiest women in the series are cross-dressing men.

The references and parodies are almost non-stop now, filling in for the absence of compelling stories.

Ep25. The end of the Kurikawa Detectives arc.

• Kawahana Hiroshi is a parody of "川口浩探検隊" Kawaguchi Hiroshi's Expedition, which is full of staged bits and jokes. The parody name replaces 口 (mouth)  with 鼻 (nose), hence the close-up of his nose.
• Shimizo no Jirocho was a 19th century yakuza.
• Akagi no Chugi refers to another yakuza, Kunisada Chuji.
• Momotaro is a popular hero in Japanese folklore.
• "Ribahi" is "Hibari" spelled backwards in hiragana (りばひ vs ひばり).
• Ribahi's pet sharks, Taro and Jiro, are named for two Huskies, from a pack of 15, that were abandoned in Antartica in 1957 and survived a full year on their own.

Ep26. Yakuza baseball! What could go wrong?

• "Burning fighting spirit" was the stock phrase of professional wrestler Antonio Inoki.
• When Ozora and Umiushi are fighting, they're depicted as monsters from Daimajin.
• Geronimo knocks down Hibari's home run with Ultra Seven's iconic attack (around four minutes into the linked clip).
• Kosaku's memories of his middle school baseball career are a parody of Star of the Giants. Hoshi Hyuma was the protagonist of the series.
• The umpires listed on the scoreboard are different kanji that all spell the same thing - wani, or alligator/crocodile. 

The preview for the next episode is clearly from a VHS source. The original cel masters must have been lost.

Ep27. Ibari falls in love with the beautiful owner of a coffee shop. Queue recurring joke.

• The "Three Wise Gators" are of course a parody of the Three Wise Monkeys.
• Kosuki is reading Chuunen Jump (Geezer's Jump), a parody of Shounen Jump (Boy's Jump).
• North Pole Story is a parody of the 1983 film Antarctica, starring Takakura Ken and Oginome Keiko.
• The stars of Flascodance (i.e., Flashdance) are Jennifer Chiefs (literally Jennifer Typhus) instead of Jennifer Beals and Michael Youri instead of Michael Nouri.
• "It's tough being a man" is from the series Otoko wa Tsurai yo.

Ep28. Suzume-chan takes on some juvenile gangsters.

• Morita Kensaku, the Kid Delinquents gang, and Shadow Boss are from Eguchi's Hinomaru Gekijou.
• The monsters in the picture are from Ultraman: white full moon monster Lunatick, center kidnapper Alien Kemur, red friendly monster Pigmon.
• "Unbaba" may be a parody of the Japanese professional wrester Giant Baba.
• "Ghosts don't come out in winter." In Japan, telling ghost stories is a summertime activity.

Ep29. Kosaku falls in love with the wrong girl,  yet again. The last episode taken from manga material.

• The attack of the Korukyu Boxing Club is set to West Side Story's "Cool."
• Yakushimaru Hiroko was an idol in the 1980s. She played the lead in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, a story about a high-school girl becoming heir to a weak yakuza group.
• Sayuri's "I fell in love at first sight with a pervert" is a 5-7-5 haiku in Japanese.

Ep30. The Phantom Thief Mouse Kid strikes!

• The butler is modeled on Klaus Nomi, a German countertenor who died in 1983. 
• "My name's not Shibari. Actually, it's Hibari." A play on the shitsuji (butler) / hitsuji (sheep) joke. Shibari is Japanese rope bondage.
• The Ibaru/Neone/Rux/Gambar sign is a parody of Subaru and its real car brands back then: Leone, Rex, and Sambar.

The staff is the same as for the previous mini-batch. Moho Kareshi translated; laalg checked the translation, added additional signs, and decoded many of the references. Yogicat timed; I edited and typeset. Juggen styled the OP and ED; and Nemesis and konnakude QCed. M74 encoded from a remastered DVD box.

You can get this group of episodes at the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Only five more to go... and the batch, of course.

Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo movie 1 HD

Aren't you sick of the first Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo movie yet? I certainly am. First, Orphan did the laserdisc version. Then we did the "full 480p" version. And now, here is a 720p version, encoded from an HDTV broadcast. It's certainly the best looking of the three, but watching the show for the third (and because of encoding problems, fourth) time has been a true test of patience.

The release has actually been ready for some time. Skr encoded the raw back in December, 2017, and the script was ready in March of this year. However, when I put the final version together, I discovered a video glitch. At my request, Skr had image stabilized the encode, in order to make the typesetting easier. However, that caused black bars to flicker in and out in four separate scenes of an out-of-focus figure running through a heat haze. A new encode was needed, and as this requirement was surfacing, Skr was packing up to move a new apartment. He's come back online only recently.

I've already written extensively about this movie, so I don't see any reason to rehash the plot or the cast. Iri did the original translation and M74 the original timing. I did the original editing and typesetting and bananadoyouwanna, M74, Nemesis, and VigorousJammer the original QC. For this release, Yogicat shifted and retimed the 480p script. I edited and typeset (third time's the charm). konnakude did a release check. Skr did the encode (three times as well). The raw is rather large for a 720p show, but there were banding and grain-loss issues at lower sizes. It was easier just to throw bits at it, as was done before for Hashire, Melos!

Is this the end for Kindaichi Hajime, boy detective, and the Phantom of the Opera, or could there be yet another version, based on an actual Blu-ray release? For the sake of my sanity, I hope not, but one never knows, do one? The two Kindaichi movies have clearly been remastered for high-definition. A Blu-ray is only a matter of a little bit of licensing and a lot of money.

Meanwhile, you can get this high-definition version of the first Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo movie from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.


 

Stop!! Hibari-kun! Episodes 19-24

Towards the end of this group of six episodes, Stop!! Hibari-kun! finally and irretrievably jumps the shark.

The first 18 episodes had roughly three episodes of anime-original material; the last 17 have 14 episodes that are anime-original. It shows. The anime not only repeats itself, it also borrows material from other Eguchi Hisashi manga and ramps up the parodies and references in a desperate quest to find funny gags. Less time is spent on the relationship between Hibari and Kosaku and more on side characters. Episode 22 (based on chapter 23 of the manga) features dated stereotypes of gay men as effeminate leather boys. The same stereotypes would appear in 1994's Otaku no Seiza - not surprising, because it was also based on character designs by Eguchi Hisashi. Episode 23 introduces a multi-episode story arc in which the Ozora yakuza group tries to reinvent itself as a detective agency. And it's downhill from there.

The translation notes seem to be getting more voluminous and complicated as the series goes on:

Ep19. An American mafia bigwig (named Don Corleone, of course), come to Japan seeking a bride for his son, Michael. This episode has so many gags and references that it needs its own blog entry. 

Ep20. Kosoku and Hibari receive a home visit from the yakuza-groupie homeroom teacher, Iwasaki-sensei.

• Takakura Ken was a famous Japanese film star, known for his brooding presence. He starred in numerous crime dramas and action films.
• Tetsuya Watari was another Japanese film star, known for his yakuza roles.
• Iwasaki-sensei says hello to Sabu with "Ohikaenasu," a special greeting between gamblers.
• Ibari mishears "young leader" as "Yamamoto Linda," a well-known singer of the 1970s.
• Ibari consults a manga book 日の丸劇場 (Hinomaru Gekijo), which is a parody of Egushi's own manga ひのまる劇場 (Hinomaru Gekijo). The page shown in the anime is a real page from ひのまる劇場.

Ep21. Hibari-kun and Rie-chan become involved with women's pro wrestling.

• Panther Yokohata is based on Mimi Hagiwara. She was an idol before she became a pro wrestler. She released a song called "Sexy Panther." 
• Rikidouzan was a Japanese-Korean pro wrestler. His signature move was a karate chop.
• The Sharpe brothers were Canadian pro wrestlers. They worked for Rikidouzan’s Japan Wrestling Association.
• The line "Come on! Get up, Joe!" and Ibari's eyepatch are an Ashita no Joe Tange parody.

Ep22. Otari Jun, the captain of the girls' volleyball team, becomes smitten with Hibari.

• The title is, literally, "The School's Lovely Takarazuka Star." Takarazuka is a famous musical review in Japan. It has been localized to "Broadway." 
• "The sky lies far above the mountains." This is from Carl Hermann Busse's Uber den Bergen, as translated by Ueda Bin.
• Sign: Matsuzawa, are you watching? Matsuzawa was one of the assistant producers on the show.
• The audience at the volleyball match includes Fujiko Fujio's Obake no Q-taro and Hulk Hogan.
• V for "Victory!" is from a 1968 shoujo manga and live action TV drama.
• Ibari's pinky gesture connotes sexual activity.

Ep23. To ease the financial difficulties, the Ozora Group forms a detective agency, with the expected results.

• Computer Ittosai (also appearing in episodes 27 and 33 as Coffee Ittosai and Occult Ittosai). Ito Ittosai was a famous swordsman.
• Ibari's freak-out uses the Japanese children's song Ito maki maki. It is also featured in other episodes.

Ep24. The Ozora detective agency tries to solve a terrifying (i.e., ridiculous) mystery on a southern island.

• Nakamori Akina was one of the most popular singers in Japan in the 1980s.
• "Can't you see this police notebook?" A Mito Komon parody. The hero always say "Can't you see this family crest?" after he beats up the bad guys.
• "When the Nue cries, people die." A line from the Kindaichi Kousuke books of the 1940s and 1950s. The "Village of the Eight Tombs" is from the same series.
• Akado Suzunosuke was a cartoon samurai from the 70s.
• The Tanokin Trio was a male idol group from the 80s.
• Shibugakitai was another male idol group from the 80s. 
• Tengu are bird-like demons or spirits in Japanese folklore. Kurama Tengu was the title of several Japanese movies.

The staff is the same as for the previous mini-batch. Moho Kareshi translated; laalg checked the translation, added additional signs, and decoded many of the references. Yogicat timed; I edited and typeset. Juggen styled the OP and ED; and Nemesis and konnakude QCed. M74 encoded from a remastered DVD box.

You can get this group of episodes at the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.