Heavy

Orphan has done a couple of shows about boxing already: Takahashi Rumiko's 1989 OVA One Pound Gospel and the 1992 three-part OVA Nozomi Witches. We're now releasing another, the 1990 movie Heavy. All three tell the story of the rise of a boxing champion and the unlikely mentors or helpers who started him along his journey. One Pound Gospel and Nozomi Witches have splashes of comedy and romance to lighten the story. Heavy, on the other hand, is unremittingly serious, almost grim..

Heavy is based on an eight volume manga by Murakami Motoka. It has never been translated into English. The protagonist is Guy Hyuga, a karate fighter living with his father in Harlem, New York City. 

The streets are violent, his school is violent, and his neighbors are thugs and whores. Dr. Alex Gordon is a sports physiologist. He's dying of cancer and is haunted by a dream about a champion-level fighter of his creation. 

One night, Gordon is caught up in a swirl of people going to see a "Champion Fight" to settle a dispute between two high schools. Guy is his school's "champion" and promptly demolishes his opponents conventional wrestling moves. Suddenly, Gordon is seeing the champion of his dreams, in the flesh.

Gordon tries unsuccessfully to convince Guy to become a boxer when they witness a local gang raping Lily, a street girl. 

Gordon rushes to help and nearly gets himself killed. Only Guy's intervention, which maims Billy, one of the gang members, saves them all. The gang vows revenge and eventually put Guy's father in a coma. In desperate need of funds, Guy agrees to Gordon's proposition.

Gordon wants to recruit a famous trainer, Lucky Roman, to train Guy. But Lucky is a flamboyant cross-dresser, dying of AIDS, and is ostracized by everyone. He only agrees to help after experiencing Guy's skills at first hand. 

The training regimen is hard, but Guy's a natural athlete and a natural fighter. Gordon draws on past friendships to get guy a boxing license and sets up a debut fight against Don Bailey, a Harlem brawler and neighborhood favorite. 

The odds are loaded against Guy - hostile crowd, devious opponent, no prior experience - but the rest writes itself.

Despite the underdog status of everyone involved - Gordon and Lucky are terminally ill, Guy is a stranger both in this country and his city, Don Bailey is trying to carve out a living for his family - I didn't find Heavy engaging. Gordon's cancer and Lucky's AIDS diagnosis are props, and their characters lack depth. Guy is a Japanese good guy victimized by US discrimination. Lily is primarily there for eye candy. The portrait of African-Americans is more than a little racist. And the denouement, culminating in a heartfelt plea by Don's little sister that soothes the anger of a murderous crowd, is unbelievable. Still, the story moves along briskly, with a mix of melodrama and violence. But it's tonally flat and downbeat.

The voice actors include many of the usual suspects for Orphan releases.

• Matsumoto Yasunori (Guy Hyuga) starred as Ichitaro in Ushiro no Hyakutaro, Akira in Mellow, Johnny in Starship Troopers, Kaname in Singles, and Tooru in Every Day Is Sunday, all Orphan releases. He was in numerous OVAs in the 1990s, including Houkago no Tinker Bell, Ziggy Sore Yuke! R&R Band, Seikimatsu: Humane Society, Fukuyama Gekijou: Natsu no Himitsu, and Al Caral no Isan, also Orphan releases. Among his other notable roles were Wataru Akiyama in Initial D, Jean Havoc in Fullmetal Alchemist, Gourry Gabriev in Slayers, Ryou in Sonic Soldier Borgman, and a personal favorite, Dick Saucer in Dragon Half.
• Takayama Minami (young Guy) starred as the title roles in Kiki's Delivery Service and Space Girl Yamamoto Yohko, and, most famously, played Conan Edogawa in the more than 1000 episodes, OVAs, movies, and specials of the Detective Conan franchise. She played Kuroyanagi Meiji in Chocchan Monogatari, Yuu in Cosmic Fantasy, and Emi in Genji, Part 1, all Orphan releases.
• Naya Gorou (Dr. Alex Gordon) played Koichi Zenigata in Lupin III, Juzo Okita in Space Battleship Yamato, Shocker in Kamen Rider, Yupa in Nausicaa, Schott in Hashire! Shiroi Ookami, King Magma VII in Kaitei 3-man Mile, Weedon Scott in White Fang, and Yamaarashi in Botchan; the last four are Orphan releases. His deep voice provided the narration in Shinzou Ningen Casshern, Vampire Miyu, Golden Boy, the original Dororo, and other shows.
• Tsuru Hiromi (Lily) 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 Sawamoto Aki in Junk Boy, 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, Asuza in Laughing Target, Sister Angela in One Pound Gospel, and big sister Shizuka in Tomoe's Run!, all Orphan releases.
• Ikeda Masaru (Ryuu Hyuga, Guy's father) had major roles in Yatterman and Sakura Taisen. He appeared in Utsu no Miko, Don Dracula, Bagi, Greed, Kasei Yakyoku, Every Day Is Sunday, Bakumatsu no Spasibo, Techno Police 21C, Tobira o Akete, and the first Sangokushi TV special, all Orphan releases.
• Genda Tesshou (Don Bailey) played Colonel Muto in Joker Game, Moloch in Yondemasu Azazel-san, Rei in the Urusei Yatsura franchise, Moguro Fukuzou in New Laughing Salesman,  and "Oyaji" in Mitsuboshi Colors. He also played Tyler in Michite Kuru Toki no Mukou ni, Tamura in Ore no Sora, Akauma in Fire Tripper, Jin Kiryu in Blue Sonnet, Zigong in Eiyuu Banka Koushi-den, Paul Rusch in Yume Kakeru Kougen, Jim Hyatt in AWOL Compression Remix, Galbreath in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, Baguda in Greed, the narrator in Akai Hayate and Meisou-ou Border, Dog McCoy in Dallos, Mayor Carlo in Inochi no Chikyuu: Natsu no Dioxin, Hebopi in Wild 7, Oosukune in Izumo, Miyoshi in Sanada 10, and Kuroki and Kirishima in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, all Orphan releases.
• Yara Yuusaku (Lucky Roman) played the destroyer captain in Zipang. He had many featured roles, appearing in Tooyamazakura Uchuuchou: Yatsu no Na wa Gold, Kimu no Juujika, Kimama ni Idol, Hayou no Tsurugi, Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, Eguchi Hisashi no Nantoko Narudesho, Next Senki Ehrgeiz, Eien no Filena, Hidamari no Ki, Nozomi Witches, both Sangokushi OVAs, Prime Rose, the second Sangokushi movie, and both What's Michael? OVAs, all Orphan releases.
• Yajima Akiko (Mary Bailey) played the title role in Idol Densetu Eriko, Lemon in VS Knight Ramune & 40 Fresh, Takami in Geobreeders, Dorothy in The Big O, Pino in Ergo Proxy, Kogitsune in Natsume Yuujinchou, Mipple in the Futari wa Precure franchise, and the title roles in Shin-men and of course Crayon Shin-chan. She played Lesser Panda (Red Panda) in Shirokuma Cafe, Maijima Karen in Sotsugyousei, and Hikari in Kakyuusei (1995), and Unico in Tezuka Osamu Works: Kyoto Animation Theater, and she appeared in Gakkou no Yuurei, volume 2, all Orphan releases. 
• Umezu Hideyuki (boxing license clerk) played Akadama-sensei in Uchouten Kazoku and Uranos Corsica in Gangsta. He had featured roles in Shibuya Honky Tonk, Asatte Dance, Star Dust, Apfelland Monogatari, Blue Sonnet, Hashire Melos, Hi-Speed Jecy, Hidamari no Ki, Nana Toshi Monogatari, Neko Neko Fantasia, Singles, the What's Michael? OVAs, Yamato 2520, Genji, Part 1, Mellow, Ushiro no Hyakutaro, and Ziggy Sore Yuke! R&R Band, all Orphan releases.  
• Sawaki Ikuya (referee) played Gooley in the Dirty Pair franchise. He also played Kentaro in Ushiro no Hyakutaro, Samuel Hunter in Wolf Guy, Masayoshi Hotta in Hidamari no Ki, Barry in Joker: Marginal City, Alan in Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve, Itakura Shirouemon in Sanada 10, the Kaiser in Apfelland Monogatari, Gonbei the cat in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, and multiple role in Shibuya Honky Tonk, as well as bit parts in Dallos, Heart Cocktail, and Chameleon, all Orphan releases.
• Ono Kenichi (Jack Redman, Guy's training opponent) played Toujirou in Mikan Enikki, Shiro Shirota in Dai-Guard, Asurada in the Future GPX Cyber Formula franchise, and Touma in Dirty Pair Flash. He played Abe no Yasuna in Akuemon and Sugawara in Kindaichi movie 2, and he appeared in AWOL Compression Remix, Bavi Stock, Seikima II Humane Society, Wolf Guy, Shibuya Honky Tonk, and Ziggy Sore Yuke! R&R Band, all Orphan releases.
• Hirose Masashi (Jack's trainer) appeared in Tengai Makyou, Al Caral no Isan, Dallos, Nora, Kage, Shibuya Honky Tonk, Wolf Guy, Junkers Come Here: Memories of You, and Kageyama Tamio's Double Fantasy, all Orphan releases.
• Shioya Kouzo (Billy, gang member) appeared in GeGeGe no Kitarou since 1985, as well as dozens of featured roles. He also played Kumada in Princess Army, Wildcat B in Grimm Douwa: Kin no Tori, Tsunaga in Blue Sonnet, the Announcer in Nora, Kaji in Stop!! Hibari-kun!, a policeman in Dallos, a bodyguard in Elf 17, and multiple roles in Hi-Speed Jecy, all Orphan releases.
• Kojima Toshihiko (Commissioner Gaston) appeared in Laughing Target and Eiyuu Banka Koushi Den, both Orphan releases.
• Narahashi Miki (Ronnie) played Hanako in the Chibi Maruko-chan franchise and Misae in the Crayon Shin-chan franchise. She appeared in Asatte Dance and St. Michaela Gakuen Hyouryuuki, both Orphan releases.

The director, Ishiguro Noboru, was an industry veteran who directed several episodes of Animated Classics of Japanese Literature. He also worked on Mushishi (another Artland property), Hoshi Neko Full House, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Tytania.

An internet raw for Heavy had been banging around the Orphan archives for years, but the project didn't really get started until WOWmd encoded a new raw. Perevodildo translated and timed, Paul Geromini edited, I typeset, VigorousJammer and I QCed. WOWmd's encode is based on his Domesday Duplicator rip of the Japanese laserdisc.

So here's another "all Discord" Orphan project - all the contributors hang out on Discord rather than IRC. Although Heavy didn't resonate with me, I'm glad that it's now available to an English-speaking audience. You can get the movie from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Chocchan Monogatari

Orphan is really pleased to present another full-length anime movie set before and during World War II: 1996's Chocchan Monogatari (Chocchan's Story). Based on an autobiographical story for children by Kuroyanagi Cho, mother of the famous actress Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, it tells about Cho's life as a wife and a young mother before and during the war. It's another fine addition to Orphan's releases about this terrible period. And like Hoshizora no Violin, a violin has a prominent role.

Cho is a musically-inclined teenager, born in Hokkaido. (We meet her singing the chorus of the Habenera aria in Carmen.) She is attending the Tokyo Conservatory, when she meets and falls in love with a violinist in an orchestra, Kuroyanagi Moritsuna. 

When her parents refuse to countenance a marriage, she and Moritsuna elope to Tokyo, where he ekes out a living as concertmaster of the New Symphony Orchestra. Despite their poverty, they start a family and find happiness. After some difficulties, Cho finds a progressive school suitable for Tetsuko's ebullient temperament. 

But the war soon casts a long shadow over their lives. One of the children dies of septicemia, and then Moritsune is drafted. 

Cho is left to fend for herself and her three surviving children, as the war brings the horrors of aerial bombardment and starvation closer and closer, including the firebombing of their home in Tokyo in March, 1945. 

We know from the outset that the family will make it through, but it's a close-run thing.

As might be expected, the movie includes a lot of period songs. Fragments are heard as insert songs:

• 5:40 "Sun is setting..." From Yuyake Kokaye. 
• 17:54 "Father, you were strong..."  父よあなたは強かった, a Japanese patriotic military song.
• 41:58 A folksong, Yasubigushi; its lyrics differ from performer to performer. 

The voice cast includes:

• Shimamoto Sumi (Kuroyanagi Cho "Chocchan") debuted as Clarisse in The Castle of Cagliostro. She starred as Sara in Princess Sara, Nausicaa in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Otonashi Kyouko in Maison Ikkoku, and Dayan in Neko no Dayan. She also played Nayotake no Kaguya-hime in Utsu no Miko the movie, Shokupanman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Tinkerbell in Peter Pan no Bouken, Antoinette in Reporter Blues, and Big Mama in Bakuretsu Hunter. She also played Sue in Maris the Choujo, Elice in Fire Emblem, Miss Akiko in The Girl with Blue Eyes, Suzuko and Suzu in Fire Tripper, the female lead in volume 3 of the original Heart Cocktail, the unnamed female lead in Heart Cocktail Again, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf, all Orphan releases.
• Tanaka Hideyuki (Kuroyanagi Moritsuna) played Terryman in the Kinnikuman franchise and Rayearth in Magic Knight Rayearth. He also played Kusuri in Tenjou Hen: Utsu no Miko, Max in Dallos, Unno Rokurou in Sanada 10, Harmer in Al Caral no Isan, Sammy in Bavi Stock, Sawamura in Nozomi Witches, Ronron in Greed, Aoto in Oedo ga Nemurenai!, Katze in Ai no Kusabi, Minowa Takanari in Karuizawa Syndrome, Kazuhiko, Chiko's father in Ohoshi-sama no Rail, Ma Su, Fengji's lover, in Sangokushi movie 3, and an extra in Heart Cocktail, volume 5, all Orphan releases.
• Tamagawa Sakiko (Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, oldest daughter) played Natsumi Rumi in Call Me Tonight, Shiori in Akai Hayate, Lar Lipp in Greed, Shuko in Genji, Part 1 (all Orphan releases), Athena in Appleseed XIII, Tachikoma in GITS SAC, Kanoko in Shouwa Monogatari, Dotta in Sorcerer Hunters, Rouge in Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko, Masaki in the Tenchi Muyo franchise, Natsumi in the You're Under Arrest franchise, and Princess Suurya in Kamasutra.
• Kanai Mika (Kuroyanagi Noriaki, first son) played the title role in the Licca-chan franchise, Normad in the Galaxy Angel franchise, Histoire in the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise, Melonpanda in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Misato in Nana, Lotte in Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko, Kanna in Gakkou no Yuurei volume 1, Tanaka Kumi in Tanjou: Debut, and Hime in Bakuen Campus Guardress. The last three are Orphan releases.
• Takayama Minami (Kuroyanagi Meiji, second son) starred as the title roles in Kiki's Delivery Service and Space Girl Yamamoto Yohko, and, most famously, played Conan Edogawa in the more than 1000 episodes, OVAs, movies, and specials of the Detective Conan franchise. She played Yuu in Cosmic Fantasy and Emi in Genji, Part 1, both Orphan releases.
• Ito Hiroshi (Kadoyama Shuutsuu) played Kousaku in Barakamon, Souchirou in F, Hugues in Lord Marksman and Vanadis, and the Aquironian commander in Nana Toshi Monogatari, an Orphan release.
• Niki Terumi (Kadoyama Miyoshi) played Simone in Etoile de la Seine and Miyoko in the Ganbare!! Tabuchi-kun!! movies
• Nakajima Toshihiko (Kobayashi Sousaku) played Sakon in Moeyo Ken, Masami in Paranoia Agent, Da Ruma in Tenchi Muyo! GXP, Doc Gaward in Angel Links,  and small parts in Next Senki Ehrgeiz and Nozomi Witches, both Orphan releases.

The director, Tokito Hiroko, helmed many famous series, including Touch, Hiatari Ryouko, Yawara!, Miracle Girls, Yami no Matsuei, and Kaikan Phrase. After 2002, she turned her talents to screenwriting.

The R2J ISO for this show has been knocking around for a while. Because the DVD for this show is badly mastered, particularly the audio, the team debated working on it but finally decided to proceed. Perevodildo translated and rough-timed. Eternal_Blizzard fine-timed. I edited and typeset. Eternal_Blizzard, Paul Geromini, and bananadoyouwanna QCed. The encoder was an anonymous friend, who tried valiantly to deal with the audio and video issues:

As you mentioned, the footage was quite atrocious. Despite ostensibly being progressive, it looks almost like they took a telecined source and hard deinterlaced it to the disc (which would explain the "progressive" 29.97 frame rate and innumerable frame blends). I can hardly believe it was sold to the public in such a state.

Trying to manually freeze/replace each blend would be unfeasible, but fortunately I was able to detect and eliminate about 85-90% of the blended frames automatically and then preserve the correct film frame rate of 23.976 fps. It's not quite perfect but should yield an appreciably cleaner and smoother playback. The footage also displayed some gnarly aliasing which I applied some light AA to help correct to extent possible without harming fine detail, even if it appears like I hadn't. Stronger AA filtering passes could be applied to fully resolve it, but in testing I found the required amount oversoftened the image to the point that small details like a character's beard whiskers would get blurred out, so I decided against it. Even so, if you think the overall presentation still appears too jagged, let me know and I can go back and apply stronger AA for a v2 and you can see which is option is less objectionable. [Ultimately, we used the "stronger" AA version; easier on the eyes.]

Other than the above and some light dehaloing, the source was slightly bitrate starved in dark scenes, with noticeable smoothing/macroblocking. Instead of applying DNR, I inserted a bit of adaptive grain matching to dither it out.

With respect to the audio, sheesh, you weren't kidding.  :-/ We've had sources from the 80s (on Laserdisc!) that sounded more comprehensible in places. I'm not sure if it was the result of poor mixing, where dialogue just was given lower priority than the classical BGM and prominent violin accompaniments, or what. Audio restoration is not really my forté, but I decided to try a few rudimentary steps to clean up the DVD audio track imported into Audacity. I losslessly exported the result and compressed it to FLAC and included it above, which I think did improve the audio clarity for the treble/midrange for speaking, particularly in quieter aside-remarks/inner-monologues such as around ~25 minutes in... [We used the edited audio as well.]

Just as with Aoi Kioku, this show really needs a remastered release from film source. And just as with Aoi Kioku, it's unlikely to get one. Cho's antiwar views are clear, and the film's sympathies are equally clear. This movie would not be popular with today's Japanese government.

Despite the video and audio flaws, Chocchan Monogatari is really good. I recommend it highly, as does the rest of the team. (Perevodildo awards it his highest accolade, "kino.") You can get the release from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. 

Shin Takarajima (DVD)

Orphan presents a revised version of Tezuka Osamu's 1965 TV special Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island). The first version, done four years ago, was based on a web raw. This one uses an R2J DVD encode. The DVD encode is crisper and has better contrast, and the script has undergone minor cleanup, but otherwise, nothing much has changed. 

Here's a comparison of the DVD release

to the original release

I wrote about Shin Takarajima at length for the first release, so I don't see a need to rehash the plot or the voice credits. Shin Takarajima doesn't really follow the story line of Tezuka Osamu's 1947 manga of the same name. Instead, it hews more closely to the plot of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel, Treasure Island, but with animal characters. The good guys are mostly herbivores: Jim Hawkins is a rabbit, Dr. Livesey a deer, Squire Trelawney a pig, Captain Smollet a bear. The pirates are all carnivores: John Silver is a wolf, Bill Bones a mountain dog, Pew a wildcat, Ben Gunn a lion, and so on. It's a lot of fun, with a rollicking blend of action, suspense, and humor, in Tezuka Osamu's trademark style. The sight gags when the ship sets sail are non-stop, including a misspelled sign that is far funnier today than when the show was made sixty years ago. 

Because of the improvement in video quality, I would recommend this version unconditionally, except for a couple of things: the encode is anamorphic and five times bigger. (No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to break encoders of this habit.) As I documented here, angled signs may play incorrectly. Further, some players will shrink the 720x480 video to 640x480 instead of stretching it to 720x540. If your video player renders the angled signs wrong, or shrinks the video, you'll want the first version, or a new video player.

For the first release, Iri translated and kokujin-kun kindly filled in a few lines that were difficult to hear. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Nemesis pointed out that a black-and-white anime should not have subtitles with colored outlines, so Orphan's usual color scheme for overlapping and song lines was changed to gray-scale. Uchuu supplied some interesting notes, particularly on verbatim quotations from the novel. For this release, WOWmd supplied a new encode from the R2J DVD. Perevodildo did a translation check, and Paul Geromini a release check. They pointed out that lyrics for "Fifteen Men" were incorrect; they should have been "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest," not "a dead man's chest."

I loved Shin Takarajima when Orphan first worked on it. I still do, and so does everyone who worked on either release. The original release stands the test of time and will continue to be available; the new one improves on both the video and the subtitles, at the cost of a five-fold increase in file size and the usual anamorphic caveats. If you want the new release, you can get it from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.