Sangokushi Daiichibu Eiyuu-tachi no Yoake (HD)

This has been in the works for a while. High-definition versions of the Sangokushi movies appeared on Japanese streaming sites in the spring of 2019. It has taken more than two years to move Orphan's standard-definition scripts to these raws. Our fans (all seven of them) might rightly ask, "What took so long?" Well, a couple of things:

1. The web streams were at the wrong frame rate - 29.97 fps instead of 23.976 fps. This normally wouldn't matter much, but it wrecked the extensive frame-by-frame typesetting in the originals. It took 16 months to persuade an encoder to transcode the original streams down to the right frame rate.
2. The typesetting had to be redone more or less completely. The original encode was anamorphic; the high-definition raws are not. The caused any sign set at an angle to be askew when scaled. (I don't know why.) In addition, the original encode had less visible jitter than the high-definitions streams; that required more frame-by-frame typesetting.
   
3. Fatigue. I had watched these movies multiple times in the original project and more times while scaling to the high-definitions raws. I just couldn't bear to watch them again for the final release check.
   

So, not reasons exactly, but at least some excuses.

Here's an example of what went wrong when the typesetting was simply scaled. With no rework, the sign at 1:02:59 looked like this:

It should have looked like this:

The scaled sign is at the wrong angle; it's not parallel to the stonework.

The original blog post covers Sangokushi Daiichibu Eiyuu-tachi no Yoake (Sangokushi: Dawn of the Heroes) in great detail; I see no need to repeat it. This first movie in the series is probably the best. It has some great set pieces, such as Liu Bei's initial encounter with and escape from the Yellow Turbans. The cast is relatively small at this stage, so the action is easy to follow. It has compelling villains in Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu. And it keeps the moralizing to a minimum.

Iri translated all three movies, which are the equivalent of a two-cour TV series. Sunachan, who has since left the team, checked all the names. Yogicat timed the originals and tweaked the timing for the new raws. I edited and typeset (twice). BeeBee and Topper3000 QCed the original release; TougeWolf did a thorough check of this one. The encoder asked to remain anonymous. He's holding out for real Blu-rays.

So if you're ready for another stroll through the Three Kingdoms era, this time in high-definition, you can get Sangokushi Daiichibu Eiyuu-tachi no Yoake from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

 

Body Jack (Laserdisc Version)

I wasn't planning on doing any more of the Pink Noise series after Call Me Tonight, but the laserdisc for the fourth and last show in the series, the 1987 OVA Body Jack: Tanoshii Yuutai Ridatsu (Body Jack: Sublime Separation), was lying around, so I thought, "Why not?" Well, it turns out there were good reasons why not, but I didn't know them when the project began.

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.

Body Jack tells the story of a typical horny high-school boy, Asagaya Takaya. He lusts after the vivacious Ikenoue Komaba, but he also has a yen for his childhood friend, the tall and athletic Koenji Nakano. His pursuit(s) are going nowhere when he is suddenly approached by Dr. Tomaya, a typical mad scientist with a Frankenstein-like helper. Tomaya offers the boy a machine that will provide an "out-of-body experience." Takaya snaps it up and promptly tries it out. It works.

Now a disembodied spirit, Takaya invades and takes over Komaba's body. He then indulges in all the typical adolescent male fantasies: going swimming with Nakano, going into the girls' changing room with Nakano, and ultimately going home with Nakano for some yuri action, followed by furious masturbation. The erotic antics overload the out-of-body machine, and it blows up. Takaya's spirit is wafted back to his own body, now seriously injured. Back in high school, he tries to approach Nakano as himself, with mixed results.

All this seems harmless enough, if rather mindless. So what are the issues? First, the laserdisc video is just terrible - the worst mastering the encoder has ever seen (although it's better than the VHS tape). Second, the laserdisc is censored, not by adding mosaics (unnecessary) but by cutting an entire five-minute scene present in the VHS tape. Third, even with the censoring, the OVA is just pointless sexcapades, "a 13-year-old's wet dream," as one QC described it. For that reason, it's being released under the Okizari label.

The creators seem to have realized that Body Jack was a step too far, compared to the other Pink Noise shows, because the entire cast used pseudonyms based on baseball players. Only the three leads have been convincingly identified:

• Futamata Issei (Asagaya Takaya) is best known for his roles as Godai Yuusaku in Maison Ikkoku, Akira (Chibi) in Urusei Yatsura, Onizuka in Shonen Jumai-gumi, and Saburo in Sazae-san. He played Yoshio in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, Cross in Hi-Speed Jecy, Guy in Greed, the announcer in Elf 17, and Sakigami in Doukyuusei: Climax, and he appeared in Fukuyama Gekijou - Natsu no Himitsu, What's Michael? OVA 2, and Tokimeki Tonight, all Orphan releases.
• Takada Yumi, aka Iijima Saki (Ikenoue Komaba), played Yoshinaga-sensei in many of the Crayon Shin-chan movies and Ayeka in the Tenchi Muyo franchise. She played Saya and Monmo in Cosmic Fantasy, Purinpurin in Hoshi Neko Full House, Atover in Exper Zenon, Yumi the barkeep in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, and bit parts in Cool Cool Bye and Nora, all Orphan releases. She appeared in many classic h-animes, including Adventure Kid, Angels in the Court, Balthus: Tia's Radiance, Bizarre Cage, Black Window, La Blue Girl, Countdown, the Demon Beast and Darkness series, Dragon Knight, F3, Fencer of Minerva, Lyon Flare, Trouble Evocation, Twin Dolls, and Venus 5.
• Aoba Miyoko, aka Kubo Miyoko (Koenji Nakano), appeared in the first Sangokushi movie, an Orphan release.

The director also used a pseudonym.

So what made everyone shy away getting their names in this production, even after appearing in actual hentai anime? Perhaps it was the deleted scene. Komeba (Tayaka) is masturbating furiously out of frustration when her stepbrother and some of his friends burst in. They all have sex with her, sequentially and together, possibly against her (his) will. Why the scene was cut from just the laserdisc is a mystery. Maybe laserdiscs were considered "higher class." They certainly cost more than VHS tapes at the time (and still do).

The translation is from Box Subs. In the spirit of the cast members' names, I'll attribute transcription and timing to Yogi Bear, editing and typesetting to Hoardr, QC to Nyx's Daughter and Topper's Ghost, and encoding to Foolhardy.

Anyway, if you want to see this mess, it's available on the usual (adult) torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Hashire! Shiroi Ookami

Orphan hasn't done a critter feature in a while, so we're quite chuffed to present the first English-subtitled version of the 1990 movie Hashire! Shiroi Ookami (Run! White Wolf). This is based on the 1970 children's book Flight of the White Wolf by wildlife author Mel Ellis... and therein lies a tale (or a tail).

Flight of the White Wolf had been adapted, quite inaccurately, by Disney in 1976. In 1990, Toho made an anime version called Hashire! Shiroi Ookami. It reflected the book fairly faithfully, although it was condensed for time. Then, in 1991, Disney made a live action version of Jack London's White Fang, which was quite successful. To cash in on the new movie, a Canadian licensing firm brought out a cheapie dub of Hashire!, titled it White Fang, and claimed that it was "based on characters from the classic Jack London" novel." In fact, the only connection between the dubbed anime and Jack London's White Fang was a title card and a change of character names. You can read the whole sordid story in these reviews from Anime Bargain Bin. So this release is the first accurate representation of Hashire! Shiroi Ookami in English.

The story is set in the middle of the last century, in an area in southern Wisconsin known as Kettle Moraine. The Clagg family - father Cal, mother Emily, and son Russ - are dog trainers. They have been nurturing an orphaned wolf cub whom they name Gray. Russ has become particularly close with the wolf. One day, Gray is confronted by an aggressive boxer dog, kills it, and escapes. The outraged owner (and local mayor) Mr. Schott demands that Gray be put down as a menace to the community. Russ refuses to go along and hatches a plan to take Gray all the way up the state to Nicolet National Forest, where wild wolves still run free. With his parent's reluctant consent, and with only partial cooperation from the increasingly wild Gray, Russ sets out on a 300km northward trek, scrounging food, dodging trucks, traps, and hunters, and trying to keep his increasingly recalcitrant wolf in line, in an attempt to deliver Gray to a safer wilderness habitat.

The movie is highly visual. The dialog is sparse, and quite a bit of it is Russ calling out "Gray" to get the wolf's attention. 

The background music is all excerpts from Dvorak's Serenade for Strings. The movie is also wide-screen. This is a problem because the only source is VHS; it was never even released on laserdisc, let alone on a digital medium. The anime was made in Open Matte. The dub is full frame and looks better (to me). Unfortunately, haphazard cuts in the dub make it impossible to fit the Japanese audio track to that video.

Because the movie is basically a two-hander between Russ and a (non-speaking) wolf, the named voice cast is small:

• Toriumi Katsumi (Russ) played the male leads Wakamatsu in Miyuki and Ryou in Call Me Tonight, and he appeared as Shigeru in Yume Kakeru Kougen and Ishmael in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament. The last three are Orphan releases.
• Naya Gorou (Mr. Schott) played Koichi Zenigata in Lupin III, Juzo Okita in Space Battleship Yamato, Shocker in Kamen Rider, Yupa in Nausicaa, King Magma VII in Kaitei 3-man Mile, Weedon Scott in White Fang (the real one), and Yamaarashi in Botchan; the last two are Orphan releases. His deep voice provided the narration in Shinzou Ningen Casshern, Vampire Miyu, Golden Boy, the original Dororo, and other shows.
• Arikawa Hiroshi (Cal, Russ' father) is best known for dubbing the voice of Gandalf in the Japanese releases of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He also played the main character, Kawaji, in Bakumatsu no Spasibo.
• Munakata Tomoko (Emily, Russ' mother) played maternal figures in Bremen 4, Yamatarou Comes Back, and Zetsuai 1989, all Orphan releases.
  

The director, Maeda Tsuneo, did chief animation direction on Eleven Hungry Cats, the first Nine OVA, and the Touch movies, and he directed the Tama-chan TV series.

Iri translated and did the initial timing. (He also translated Orphan's release of the real White Fang anime as well as Wan Wan Chuushingura, among other critter flicks.) Yogicat fine timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from an "All in Wonder" uncompressed capture of a Japanese VHS tape. The tape is worn, and there are both video and audio defects. The original image is 640 x 384 (5:3, the Japanese standard for widescreen back then):

The encode is upscaled to preserve a 480p vertical dimension. I don't necessarily agree with upscaling a VHS tape, but I don't make the encodes.

So follow along with Russ and Gray as they navigate the wilds of rural Wisconsin seeking a safe haven for a wolf. You can get Hashire! Shiroi Ookami from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.