Mikosuri Han Gekijou

Mikosuri Han Gekijou dates from 2013. It's basically a collection of short (30-40 second) dirty jokes grouped together by setting. It's based on a 4-panel comic strip of the same name by Iwatani Tenho. You may find it funny, or you may find it offensive; I found it juvenile. It reminded me of what passed for risque humor when I was a boy: books like Over Sexteen and collections of the Playboy jokes columns. In today's age of PornHub and OnlyFans, it feels positive quaint.

Still, Mikosuri Han Gekijou posed interesting problems for translation, because humor is very local, and sex slang even more so. Let's start with the title. Gekijou means "theater"; easy enough. But Mikosuri is not a real word, and Han means "half." So is the title Mikosuri Half-Theater? Not even close. Mikosuri han is Japanese slang for premature ejaculation; it's apparently a pun on mikudarihan, meaning divorce papers. (I guess the former could lead to the latter.) But "Premature Ejaculation Theater" doesn't exactly strike the right note in English. The team did extensive research on US and UK slang equivalents, but they all tended to be too long or too explicit. Finally, someone suggestion "quickshot," so the English title is Quickshot Theater.

Some other examples:

• In two cartoons with a doctor examining (ogling) a naked woman, she says, "Please examine me already," and he replies, "I'm already looking." This is a pun on 診る, medical exam, pronounced miru, and 見る, looking, also pronounced miru.
• In a cartoon where a samurai-era policeman admonishes a woman with a vibrator, it's a visual pun on jitte, a blunt melee instrument carried by Edo-era police.
• In the credits, a girl skipping rope has dialog balloons saying "106," "107," "Shakuhachi". It's a pun on how the sequence, including 108, would be pronounced in Japanese: hyaku roku, hyaku shichi, hyaku hachi. A shakuhachi is a Japanese flute played by blowing in the end; it's also slang for "blowjob."
  

There are probably more than the team missed.

The show has eight sections, with a common setting or theme, and four to six jokes per section:

• Family
• Police
• Third Street (meaning a generic suburban street)
• Company
• Hospital
• Couple
• Train
• Historical Drama

In addition, there's a short extra with four more jokes, illustrated statically.

As in other anthologies, the plethora of characters are played by a small number of voice actors:

• Tanaka Kazunari played Nyuudo in Brave 10, Dorowa in Freedom, Ijuin in Green Green, Ukai in Haikyuu!!, Hoshino in Planetes, and Matsukane in Chameleon, an Orphan release.
• Saitou Kimiko played the title role in Snack Basue, Rem in Death Note, Marie in Dimension W, Sofia in Golden Kamuy, Muugi in Made in Abyss, Micchan in Migi & Dali, Chieko in Princess Jellyfish, and Cerona in Kingdom of Chaos, an Orphan release.
  
• Okiayu Ryoutarou starred as the title roles in Gambler Densetsu Tetsuya, Toriko, and Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun, Mitsui Hisashi in Slam Dunk, Matsura Yuu in Marmalade Boy, Jinnai Katsuhiko in the El-Hazard franchise, Nueno Meisuke in the Hell Teacher Nube series,Samejima Ranmaru in Kizuna, Souma Shigure in Fruits Basket (2003), Berserker in Fate/Zero, Hideyoshi in Sengoku Basara, and Atsushi in Recorder to Ransel. He also played Takao-san in Let's Nupu Nupu, Yamazaki in Mellow, Abel in Fire Emblem, Gion in Okane ga nai!, Akram in Haruka Naru Toki no Nake de 2 (a repeat of his role in Haruka Naru Toki no Nake de: Hachyoushou), and Hakuryuu in Haruka Naru Toki no Nake de 3, all Orphan releases.
• Komatsu Yuka played Deunan in Appleseed Alpha, Dorothy in The Great Pretender, Saeko Tanaka in Haikyuu!!, Setsuna in the Precure franchise, and Minako in Yuri!!! on Ice.

The director, Magari Hiroaki, has only one other directing credit: Majokko Tsukune-chan.

I saw a FHD webrip of this show and thought it looked terrible, so I found the R2J DVD ISO and asked a friend to encode it. Perevodildo translated and timed. I edited and typeset. (There were too many signs, a sure sign of cheap animation.) ImAWasteOfHair and Uchuu QCed. Paul Germoni released checked, and his interactive suggestions with Perevodildo helped point up (so to speak) some of the jokes. The encoder asked to remain anonymous, and who can blame them? The crude, digipainted animation allowed for high levels of compression with no loss of video quality; the encode is very small.

Finally, a diatribe, yet again, about why encodes should never, never, NEVER be anamorphic. Here is a sign from the police segment, as seen on (my) Aegisub, VLC, and MPC-HC with xyvsfilter:

And here's the same sign as seen on MPC-HC with its default renderer, libass:

The angle of "MORGUE" is whacked. This is a straight up bug, caused by applying anamorphic stretch before or after the sign is rendered. The blame may lie with MPC-HC or libass or God knows what, but the simple point is: if the encode wasn't anamorphic, this wouldn't happen. Remember that, encoders.

Mikosuri Han Gekijou defies recommendations. It's either the sort of thing you'll laugh at, or it isn't. If you want to sample it, you can get the show from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net