Ten Years Ago on a Cold Dark Night...

It sort of slipped my mind with everything else that's going on these days, but this month is the tenth anniversary of Orphan Fansubs' first formal release.

As I described in this blog post, the name dates back to 2007, when I used it as a one-and-done cover for finishing the h-anime Kage. I came back to the name in the summer of 2010, when I started resubbing shows that suffered from truly horrific defects in their subtitles, like Hand Maid Mai and Nagasarete Airantou, or that had been abandoned in incomplete form. It took a couple of years to find a staff of like-minded enthusiasts, and to shift the focus from resubs to original projects, and from Internet raws to original source material. Now, ten years have passed. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket, but Orphan keeps on truckin' through the anime back catalog.

Throughout the decade, I have been blessed with talented collaborators - translators, timers, typesetters, QCs, encoders, raw providers. They made it possible to tackle more projects as well as larger scale projects. Orphan is a small team but quite harmonious - no "dorama" allowed. It's also geographically diverse, with team members in Europe, South Asia, and North America, plus a sizable contingent in Japan. After hundreds of projects, the team is still going strong.

None of this was planned. The group's focus changed over time, driven by the interests of the team members and by happenstance. Many of us, including most of the translators, are Tezuka Osamu fan(atic)s, and that drove a lot of projects: Cleopatra, Senya Ichiya Monogatari, the Lion Book OVAs, the "Love Will Save the World" TV specials, and of course, Hidamari no Ki. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions has an amazing collection of anime laserdiscs and the ability to encode them, and that led to a focus on anime titles stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. Our Intrepid Media Maven's curiosity about analog transcription systems brought the Domesday Duplicator and the All-in-Wonder uncompressed VHS capture system to bear on old sources, with outstanding results. Video streaming provided access to sources that seemed lost or out of reach. An anonymous benefactor financed some of the costliest purchases. And so on.

So after ten years, what are my favorites among Orphan's numerous projects? I was tempted to give myself more rope, by allowing groupings (e.g., all the Lion Book OVAs as one selection), but I decided to be disciplined and select my ten favorite individual titles.

1. Hidamari no Ki. This historical seinen series, based on a manga by Tezuka Osamu, tops the list. It hits all my sweet spots. It is dramatic and entertaining, with excellent characters, an exciting plot, and a bittersweet ending. The Orphan series to watch, if you haven't already.
2. Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet. This is my favorite among Tezuka Osamu's "Love Will Save the World" specials. It is by turns romantic, scary, funny, and poignant. It exemplifies everything that's good in Tezuka's "entertainments".
3. Sanctuary. A dark, violent, and at times sexy one-shot that epitomizes what I expect in a 1990's OVA: drama, relevance, sex, and violence. It is an unstintingly harsh look at Japanese society in general and Japanese political corruption in particular. It seems just as relevant today.
4. Grim Douwa: Kin no Tori. This exuberant children's tale features amazing animation and outstanding voice acting.
5. Shirokuma Cafe. This show occupied a special place in my heart and weekly schedule for a year. It's funny, charming, and gentle. Give yourself a respite from these troubled times and drop in for an excellent cafe au lait or cafe mocha, while you savor the interplay between the characters and the never-ending puns.
6. Oruorane the Cat Player. You knew there would be a show about cats in my top ten, didn't you? Orphan's done quite a few, and this is my personal favorite. It's mysterious and playful, rather like cats themselves, and casts a spell from its opening frames to the ending.
7. Al Caral no Isan. "Hard" sci-fi about first contact with aliens. Human arrogance meets hidden alien powers with near disastrous results, but the show avoids the usual cliches and moves to an interesting and unexpected conclusion.
8. A Penguin's Memories. Cute penguins act out a serious drama about PTSD following a prolonged and meaningless war. The contrast between form and story is startling and keeps the viewer focused on the content.
9. Amatsuki. Another historical series, although more of a shounen than a seinen. A happy-go-lucky teenager is trapped in a virtual alternate Edo and finds that he is the inadvertent pivot for the entire alternate reality. Based on a long-running manga that has just finished.
10. Yume Tsukai. This show about "Dream Masters" is a deceptively deep study about the traumas of mental illness and the consequences they can have in the real world.

And what's my least favorite among Orphan's projects? That's easy:

1. Twinkle Nora Rock Me! Worst Anime of All Time™, bar none.
2. Bavi Stock II. The runner-up, but it's not really close.

Orphan has spawned a sub-label, Okizari, for h-anime. In addition, some releases (like the Happy Science movies, done for reasons now lost in the past) were left unlabeled.

Orphan will continue to evolve, driven, as much as anything, by demographics. As I get older (and I've been a senior citizen for quite a while), I've become increasingly reluctant to commit to or get involved with long projects. I feel I should leave the lengthy anime series to younger folks with longer time horizons. Meanwhile, there are enough movies, OVAs, and TV specials needing help to keep me entertained. I hope they'll entertain you, our faithful audience, as well.