Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve

Here's another project whose antecedents are lost in the mists of time: an English subtitled version of the 1993 sci-fi movie Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve (Mother: Eve, the Last Girl). The movie had only been available in an English dub version, titled E.Y.E.S. of Mars. From archival evidence, M74 started the subtitling project in 2018, after finding a Japanese VHS tape of the movie. He commissioned a script from Moho Kareshi and timed it to his own encode. In 2019, he did another encode, and glenn retimed the script to the new raw. In 2020, Intrepid reripped the tape on his non-compressing capture setup and made yet another encode. Still, the project languished: no one was willing to translation check the script.

Recently, I dusted off the script, retimed it to the latest raw, and set about editing. I thought it looked okay, except for a few missing lines, so I asked convex for help. He not only filled in the missing lines, he also made significant corrections to critical scenes. We were in business.

Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve is another take on an origin story for humankind. In the movie, humans originated on the fifth planet of the solar system, the now vanished Atlas. Technological arrogance and environmental devastation destroyed Atlas, and the surviving humans migrated to Mars. Now, the settlement on Mars - Atlan City - is falling victim to the same forces, and humanity appears doomed.

The leaders on Mars undertake two separate and diametrically opposite projects to save humankind. The first is AIS (the "EYES" of the dub), an institute attempting to isolate psychically-gifted youngsters in an artificial forest paradise. AIS hopes that the youngsters can live without technology and prosper in a "natural" world free of pollution. The second is a government security service attempting to build a rocket for escaping to Earth, where humanity will start over yet again. Opposing them both is a rebel faction that hopes to restore Mars to viability.

The protagonist is a young girl named Eve. She has been brought to AIS, where her memories have been erased, but she is troubled by nightmares about the destruction of the world. Then, a young rebel named Dew contacts Eve and promises to bring her to her parents, whom she has forgotten. His real agenda is to use Eve to contact the legendary Messenger - the original settlers of Mars - in the hope that the Messenger can tell the rebels how to save their planet. Meanwhile, Sara, who is working undercover at AIS as an agent for the security service, tries to stop Eve from going to Atlan City and contacting the Messenger. However, Eve's psychic outreach succeeds, and that sets off the final conflagration.

As sci-fi, Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve doesn't break any new ground. Eve is a standard, rather colorless shoujo heroine with extraordinary powers, Sara a tormented antagonist, Dew a plucky young fighter. Much of the running time is devoted to pastoral scenes in the AIS forest and to infodumps on the complex backstory; both bring the movie to a standstill. Still, the opening and concluding action sequences are pretty good, and the denouement is not straightforward.

The voice cast includes:

• Mitsuishi Kotono (Eve) played the title roles in Excel Saga, Birdy the Mighty, and the Maze TV and OVAs, Mink in Dragon Half, Katsuragi Misato in the Evangelion properties, Rosalia in the Angelique franchise, Kagura in the original Fruits Basket, Eri in Love Get Chu, and of course, Sailor Moon in the Sailor Moon franchise. She played the lead in Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru and Oshina in Hidamari no Ki, as well as appearing in Blazing Transfer Student, Nagasarete Airantou, and Yamato 2520, all Orphan releases.
• Tsuru Hiromi (Sara) debuted as Perrine in Perrine Monogatari. She went on to play Kashima Miyuki in Miyuki, Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, and Mikami Reiko in Ghost Sweeper Mikami. She also played Sonnet Barge in Blue Sonnet, Fengji in the third Sangokushi movie, Keiko in Hiatari Ryoukou, Nozomi in Nozomi Witches, Jill in A Penguin's Memories, UFO-chan in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou, Milk in Karuizawa Syndrome, and big sister Shizuka in Tomoe's Run!, all Orphan releases.
• Kashiwakura Tsutomu (Dew) played Cal in Ai no Kusabi, Genbu in Akai Hayate, Ranmaru in Chameleon, and Japheth in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, all Orphan releases. He played the lead in Boku no Sexual Harassment and appeared in several other h-animes. He is also a sound director.
• Neya Michiko (Mesa, Eve's mother) played the title character in Shin Cutey Honey, Emilia in Macross 7: Ginga ga Ore o Yonde Iru!, Rally in Gunsmith Cats, Barnett in Vandread, Mako in the Initial D franchise, and Nancy in R.O.D. She also played Aya in Hidamari no Ki and Lena in Fire Emblem, both Orphan releases.
• Sawaki Ikuya (Alan, Eve's father) played Gooley in the Dirty Pair franchise. He also played Masayoshi Hotta in Hidamari no Ki, Barry in Joker: Marginal City, and the Kaiser in Apfelland Monogatari, as well as bit parts in Dallos and Chameleon, all Orphan releases.
• Yoshio Kawai (Sheldon, head of the government faction) appeared in Sei Michaela Gakuen Hyouryuuki, Sanctuary, Starship Troopers, Yamato 2520, and Zetsuai 1989, all Orphan releases.

The director, Suzuki Iku, also directed the Maze TV and OVA series, the Lime-iro Senkaitan TV and OVA series, Happy Lesson and Happy Lesson Advance, Moonlight Mile, The Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas, and other shows.

Moho Kareshi did the initial translation. convexity translation checked. M74 timed the first raw, and glenn the second one. I timed the third raw, edited, and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from an uncompressed capture of a Japanese VHS tape. The English dub seems to follow the Japanese script in broad outlines, but it has a different running length, and slightly different playback speed, so it isn't possible to produce a dual-audio version. Two untranslated extras - a promotional video and a live-action omake - are included in the release.

So here's the first version of Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve with Japanese audio and English subtitles. You can get the film from the usual torrent site or download it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.