Laughing Target

Orphan concludes (for now) its Rumiko Takahashi festival with the third Rumic World OVA, 1987's Warau Hyouteki (Laughing Target). This is a supernatural suspense yarn centering on a high-school student Shiga Yuzuru and his cousin (and childhood fiancée) Shiga Asuzu. Yuzuru has forgotten all about this childhood betrothal and is going steady with his classmate and fellow archery club member Satomi. After the mysterious death of Asuza's mother, Yuzuru's father brings the girl home to live with them. Yuzuru expects that Asuza has forgotten all about their childhood promise, but Asuza has not. She is determined to marry Yuzuru, by any means at her disposal, even if this means disposing of Satomi. And since Asuza is a demon, or at least possessed by demons, she has some rather scary powers available.

Laughing Target is a tightly knit story, essentially a three-hander (Asuza, Yuzuru, and Satomi), so the voice cast is small:

• Tsuru Hiromi (Asuza) 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 Sara in Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve, 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, Kiyomi, the motorcycle rider, in Sotsugyou: Graduation, and big sister Shizuka in Tomoe's Run!, all Orphan releases.
• Shioya Yoku (Yuzuru) played Triton in the Umi no Triton TV series and movies, Ryouta in Slam Dunk, Jinpei the Swallow in Gatchaman, Cosmo Yuki in Space Runaway Ideon, and the title role in Kariage-kun. He played Mickey in Milky Passion: Dougenzaka - Ai no Shiro and Zhuge Jun in the first Sangokushi movie, both Orphan releases. He also did sound direction on many series.
• Matsumoto Iyo (Satomi) was primarily an actress and an idol, with only a few other anime credits. 
• Sawada Toshiko (Asuza's mother) has played teachers, mothers, or grandmothers in numerous shows, including Maison Ikkoku, The girl from Phantasia (an Orphan release), The Big O, Usagi Drop, the Magi franchise, and Hinako Note.
• Satou Ai (Satomi's mother) played many maternal roles, including Light's mother in Death Note, Masami's mother in Wedding Peach, Misaki's mother in Dear Brother, Ban's mother in Getbackers, Shigeru's mother in Noramimi, the unnamed mothers in Cinderella Express, Ai Monogatari, and Guyver: Out of Control, as well as Kristin Adams in Yawara!. Other roles include the refined mother in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, Ibuki's mother in Kiss wa Me ni Shite, Taichi in The Cake Tree in the Ruins, the narrator in The Boy and the Sea Turtle, The Mother Who Became a Kite, and Kiku and the Wolf, and the unnamed girlfriend in Lunn Flies into the Wind, all Orphan releases.
• Hirai Takahiro (Yuzuru's father) appeared in Area 88, Castle in the Sky, and They Were 11. He worked mostly as a sound director.

The director, Takahashi Motosuke, founded his own studio, Studio Dootaku. He directed the first three Rumic World OVAs among numerous other projects.

I didn't like Laughing Target as much as Fire Tripper or Maris the Choujo. There's no great suspense about Asuza's nature; that's made clear in the prologue. The archery motif is a sort of a "Chekhov's arrow"; the emphasis on it at the beginning of the show means it will feature prominently in the climax. Nonetheless, the feeling of creeping dread builds steadily, and Asuza's stalking of Satomi has the relentless terror of a nightmare.

The original subtitles are from Kotomi. They probably derive from the US Manga Corp subtitled VHS release in the 1990s. tenkenX6 checked the dialog and revised the songs from official lyrics. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset (more on that anon). Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from a Japanese laserdisc ripped on the Domesday Duplicator. The source is a mess of blended frames and worse, so Intrepid encoded it at 59.94 fps to minimize the visual awfulness. There are still places that don't look great, but it's the best that can be done with the source material.There is no English audio track this time. US Manga Corps did release dubbed versions, but only the UK audio track is currently online. Maybe someday.

Unlike Fire Tripper, Laughing Target has a few signs, and they needed to be motion tracked. This did not work out well. Although all the tools claim to handle 59.94 fps, the tracked subtitles were out of sync. Accordingly, one moving sign is done "Yawara style": {\an8}Sign: The first three Rumic World OVAs deserve to be remastered and released on digital media.

So here's Laughing Target, completing Orphan's work on the Rumic World OVAs. The last two - Mermaid Forest and Mermaid's Scar - were released on DVD in North America and have been ripped several times. One Pound Gospel is sometimes included in the Rumic World OVAs, but it derives from a different manga series. You can get Laughing Target from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Late breaking news: a dual-audio version is now available. A patch to upgrade from single- to dual-audio is available in the torrent description. The audio track was provided by niki and is from the UK dubbed release, so be prepared for your Japanese characters to speak with English accents. A song-signs subtitle track is also included.