Call Me Tonight

Pink Noise was a series of unrelated OVAs released by C.Moon, the "adult" label of Bandai Visual. It consisted of four titles:

1. Call Me Tonight (1986)
2. Gakuen Tokusou Hikaruon (1987)
3. Maryuu Senki, 3 episodes (1987-1989)
4. Body Jack (1987)
   

It's not clear what they had in common, except perhaps some sexually suggestive material (hence "Pink"). In Japan, they were only issued on analog media (VHS and laserdisc). Some encodes claim to be DVD sources, but they are probably based on laserdisc rips in a DVD ISO container.

Call Me Tonight, the first OVA in the series, was considered to be near-hentai when it was released. Today, it looks positively tame compared to shows like Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi. A hardsubbed English release from Toy-RC, based on a laserdisc rip, has been available for more than a decade. It's a fine effort, but it's showing its age. So when a laserdisc of Call Me Tonight showed up in one of Orphan's multi-disc purchases, I suggested redoing the show. And here it is.

Call Me Tonight centers around Natsumi Rumi, owner and occasional worker at Telephone Communication Madonna, a somewhat shady operation that seems to be a cross between a telephone sex business and an advice-for-the-lovelorn service. One evening, Sugiura Ryou calls up with a rather unusual problem: when he gets aroused and tries to masturbate, he has visions, and his room and clothing end up wrecked. Intrigued, Rumi meets him at a coffee shop to discuss his problem:

When she uses her undoubted sex appeal on Ryou, he turns into an out-and-out monster, with tentacles sprouting from his back, which indeed explains why his room and clothing get wrecked. Rumi, though, is undeterred and takes Ryou on a "desensitizing" tour of Tokyo's steamy nightlife, with results more comic than terrifying.

Ryou's transformations attract the attention of a fearless, muscular Yakuza group heiress named Nohara Maki and her shorter and more timid sidekick Hayata. They track Rumi and Ryou around the city and photograph Ryou's transformations. The photos intrigue Maki's sister, Nohara Oyuki, leader of a juvenile gang, who thinks that Ryou might be a monster in bed as well. Oyuki and her gang kidnap Rumi and Ryou. Oyuki seduces Ryou (successfully), and the gang tries to rape Rumi (unsuccessfully). Neither initiative turns out as planned, but again, the emphasis is more on comedy than violence. And in the end, Rumi does solve Ryou's problem.

The synopsis makes Call Me Tonight sound like a routine sexploitation show, and some reviewers have seen it that way. However, it's more than that, as Justin Sevakis pointed out in his Buried Treasure review on Anime New Network. There's a lot of satire about gender roles and what adolescence does to young men, and some sly digs at then-current trends in Japanese hentai anime, as exemplified in Urotsukidoji. As Justin wrote, it "almost plays like a sketch comedy send-up of common adult anime tropes." I found it to be a lot of fun.

The voice cast includes:

• Tamagawa Sakiko (Natsumi Rumi) played Shiori in Akai Hayate, Lar Lipp in Greed (both Orphan releases), Athena in Appleseed XIII, Tachikoma in GITS SAC, Kanoko in Shouwa Monogatari, Dotta in Sorcerer Hunters, Rouge in Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko, Masaki in Tenchi Muyo, Natsumi in the You're Under Arrest franchise, and Princess Suurya in Kamasutra.
• Toriumi Katsumi (Sugiura Ryou) played the male lead, Wakamatsu, in Miyuki. He appeared as Shigeru in Yume Kakeru Kougen and Ishmael in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, both Orphan releases.
• Ukai Rumiko (Nohara Maki) played Fraw Bow in the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Rose in the Godmars franchise, and Kiyomi in Miyuki. She played Rachel in Dallos and Michelle in Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet, and she appeared in What's Michael? 2, all Orphan releases.
• Seki Toshihiko (Hayata) was one of the leading male seiyuu in this period. He played the title role in Izumo, Riki in Ai no Kusabi, the hero Seitarou in Hoshi Neko Full House, the gang leader Hiba in Wild 7, Yoshitarou in Mikeneko Holmes, Miroku in Yuukan Club, Chuuta in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, the fighter Nagase Jun in Akai Hayate, the unnamed protagonist of Oruorane the Cat Player, Ootsuki in Milky Passion: Dougenzaka - Ai no Shiro, and Sara's younger brother Junichiro in Kasei Yakyoku, all Orphan releases. He also played Matsuda in the Yawara! properties, Sanzo in the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro.
• Koujiro Chie (Nohara Oyuki) appeared in many featured roles.

The director, Okamoto Tatsuya, also did the screenplay and the storyboards.

Toy-RC's dialog translation was good and required little revision. The songs, on the other hand, were pretty far off in places. This was because the songs contain a large number of English words, which were sometimes misinterpreted as Japanese. Fortunately, the EP with the songs became available online in the last few years, and the rip included scans of the official lyrics. That helped a lot; in particular, it provided lyrics for the insert songs, which had not been translated. Still, issues remain. One line in the song Call Me Tonight says:

    夜は Mevious 不安めいて

Mevious? Your guess is as good as mine.

Toy-RC did the original translation. Yogicat transcribed and timed the dialog, and he also transcribed the kanji song lyrics. Various team members helped put the songs in shape. I edited and typeset. This release has a lot more typesetting than the Toy-RC version, but there are far too many signs in the background to do them all. Nemesis, TougeWolf, and VigorousJammer QCed. Intrepid encoded from a Domesday Duplicator rip of a Japanese laserdisc.

Unlike the Lion Books, Orphan doesn't intend to redo all the Pink Noise OVAs. For one thing, we don't have sources for half of them. They're either not available or for sale at exorbitant prices. So it's sheer luck that we're able to offer a new version of Call Me Tonight, the best of the bunch. You can get it from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.