Monday, February 7, 2022

Salvaging an Investment (Cherry no Manma)

Many, many years ago, members of the team were interested in translating Umi no Yami, Tsuki no Kage, a three-part horror OVA from 1989. The raws available at the time weren't great, so the team purchased a set of second-hand video tapes in Japan to make new encodes. The tapes turned out to have serious wear and stretch issue, and the project was abandoned. In late 2019, R-Raws captured a stream broadcast in excellent quality. The folks over at OldCastle, bless 'em, promptly subbed the show, and that was that.

After Orphan had resubbed a couple of BOX Sub releases, including Body Jack and Elf 17, I was idly looking through the group's page on AniDB, to see if any other releases would benefit from an update. I saw a short film called Cherry no Manma, just the sort of amuse bouche that would be quick to toss off.  However, I couldn't find a raw by that name on Japanese second-hand media sites. The reason, of course, was that it wasn't a separate show but a bonus appended to the first volume of Umi no Yami, Tsuki no Kage. I asked Intrepid if the tapes we had were good enough to rip this short film. They were.

To my surprise, the video is not identical to the BOX version, which used the laserdisc release. The VHS tape has a "promo" for Ano Ko ni 1000%, the bonus on the next volume of Umi no Yami, Tsuki no Kage. So they are slightly different. Is that enough to justify a new release? Dunno, but here it it anyway.

Cherry no Manma is a teaser - a very short one - for Sugi Emiko's shoujo manga of the same name. Kanoko (nicknamed Nocco) is a young girl, living alone with Yuzuru and Yuuki, two young male housekeepers, who could not be more different. While Yuzuru is kind and refined, Yuuki is rude and crude. They try to keep their unusual family together in the face of a conflict over Yuuki's ogling of Nocco's cherry-print panties. That's the whole show; now go buy the manga.


As a three-hander, the voice cast is small:

  • Kawata Taeko (Nocco) played Arale in the Dr. Slump franchise, Tanpopo in Seraphim Call, Leo in the 2009 special Jungle Taitei, and Shypre in the Precure franchise.
  • Anbe Atsushi (Yuuki) appeared in Ano Ko ni 1000% and Ryokunohara Labyrinth.
  • Tsukui Kyousei (Yuzuru) appeared in many featured roles, including Meisou-ou Border and Call Me Tonight, both Orphan releases.

The director, Nagaoka Yasuchika, directed the Crest of the Stars franchise (a personal favorite) and Kiss Dum: Engage Planet. He did a key animation on Stop!! Hibari-kun! and the first Sangokushi special, both Orphan releases, as well as numerous Lupin III specials and movies.

The original translation was by Zalis of BOX and Redone Subs and needed few changes. kokujin-kun filled in the preview lines. M74 transcribed the BOX hardsubs and did the initial timing. I fine-timed, edited, and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from a used Japanese VHS tape.

So here's a quickie - quick to do, quick to watch, quick to forget. You can get Cherry no Manma from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

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