The Izu Dancer

Seishun Anime Zenshuu (translated as Animated Classics of Japanese Literature for its English release) is a 1986 anthology series that retold well-known stories from modern Japanese literature. It's very much in the mold of its contemporaries, the World Masterpiece Theater series. Most of the 34 episodes were standalone, although there were a few two- and three-parters. The show was licensed by Central Park Media, but the English version was left incomplete when CPM went bankrupt. Only twelve episodes were released on DVD:

• Episode 1: The Izu Dancer by Kawabata Yasurani. 
• Episodes 2,3: The Sound of Waves by Mishima Yukio.
• Episodes 7,8: Botchan by Souseki Natsume.
• Episode 10: The Dancing Girl by Ougai Mori.
• Episode 14: Growing Up by Higuchi Ichiyou.
• Episode 16: Kaidan: The Song of Hoichi by Lafcadio Heran.
• Episode 20: Season of the Sun by Ishihara Shintarou.
• Episodes 25,26: The Harp of Burma by Takeyama Michio.
• Episode S1 (33): Student Days by Kume Masao.

I first encountered Seishun Anime Zenshuu through Medgirl's rip of the R1 DVDs. After correcting the timing, I started rounding up other episodes, which came from a variety of sources, including YouTube rips. The English version of episode 30, The New Story of Touno, has never been found; Japanese Wikipedia indicates that it was omitted from the initial home video releases.

I always felt that the series deserved better than the R1 DVD rips, with their ancient encodes and bad R1 timing. I bought the available DVDs on Ebay and, after an untoward delay, got them encoded and translation checked. Orphan will be releasing them one story at a time, that is, nine releases in total. I would like to do the whole series, from R2J DVDs preferably. I know they exist, but years of searching have failed to turn up any copies. Even Japanese VHS tapes are rare, but if we find any, we'll do those stories too.

The first story is The Izu Dancer, based on the novella by Kawabata Yasurani. It's a deceptively simple story and has been filmed at least six times. The protagonist, Mizushima, is a 20-year-old student. During summer break, he is walking the Izu peninsula to cheer himself up. He encounters a family of traveling entertainers; the youngest is 14-year-old Kaoru, a dancer.

He is smitten and finds excuses to travel with the family for a few days. He would like to get closer to Kaoru,

but her mother realizes that the social gap between a Tokyo student and an uneducated dancing girl is too great to be bridged.

She gently pushes them apart. Eventually, the student returns to Tokyo, with mixed emotions. 

The script is straightforward and spare. It's difficult to capture the nuances of the story, and beyond the protagonist's inner monologue, the anime doesn't really try. One oddity: there are, in effect, two narrators. There's an overall framing narration, provided by a female voice actor; but the protagonist's inner monologue also narrates part of the story. The framing narration is rendered in a distinct style (blue outline), and the protagonist's narration is provided as thought (normal outline, italics).

The animation is straight out of the World Masterpiece Theater playbook: beautiful depictions of country scenes and awkward character designs. The Izu Dancer frequently cuts between the rural countryside and closeups of Karou, to emphasize her natural and unforced beauty. 

The voice cast includes:

• Kamiya Akira (Mizushima) is best known for the title roles in the City Hunter properties, the Kinnikuman franchise, and Babel II. He played Kazamatsuri in Yawara!, Roy Focker in Macross, and Mendou in Urusei Yatsura. He also played Abe Edinburgh in MAPS, young Kiro in Nayuta, Sergent Zim in Starship Troopers and Musakato Taira in Elf 17, and he stole the show as the lecherous robot Chiraku in Hoshi Neko Full House, all Orphan releases.
• Shimamoto Sumi (Kaoru) debuted as Clarisse in The Castle of Cagliostro. She starred as Sara in Princess Sara, Nausicaa in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Chocchan in Chocchan Monogatari, 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.
• Komiya Kazue (Chiyoko, Kaoru's mother) played Youshi in Giant Robo and Gin Rei, Jeanie in Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, Maam in Synduality: Noir, Mutan in Tekkaman, Ran in Urusei Yatsura, Chigusa in Hiatari Ryouko, and Alice in White Fang. The last two are Orphan releases.
• Tsukayama Masane (Eikichi, Kaoru's father) played Washizu in Akagi, Kouichirou in Crystal Triangle, Zouken in Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel, Leo in Jungle Emperor Leo (1997), father in Lady Georgie, Scarface in Millennium Actress, Gold Roger in One Piece,and the  title role in Ulysses 31.
• Ogata Kenichi (paper merchant) played the put-upon father in Maroko, Suzuki in Kigyou Senshi Yamazaki: Long Distance call, the crooked casino boss in Okane ga Nai!, the Hong Kong chef in Yuukan Club, Chichi's father in Chiisana Koi no Monogatari, the business chief in Okama Hakusho, Tadinori Tachimi, the Terayama family lawyer, in Asatte Dance, and the Narrator/Lord of Kaga in Oedo wa Nemurenai!, all Orphan releases. He also played Smee in Peter Pan no Bouken and Gran Torino in Boku no Hero Academia. However, he's best known to me as the voice of Ranma 1/2's Sataome Gemna, whose alter ego - the grumpy panda - is my avatar on most anime forums.
• Imai Kazuko (Otatsu) played Calpurnia in Cleopatra, an Orphan release. 
• Takamura Akiko (Old Teahouse Woman) played Grandma Ayanokouji in 3x3 Eyes, Obaa-chan in Doraemon: Obaa-chan no Omoide, and Mama Moomin in New Moomin. 
• Kiuchi Midori (framing narration) narrated multiple episodes in this series.

The overall director for the series was Kurokawa Fumio, who also directed Princess Sara and Little Women for World Masterpiece Theater. The director for The Izu Dancer was Takasuka Katsumi, who directed episodes for Doraemon, Galactic Patrol Lensman, and Blue Sonnet, an Orphan release.

The original subs were from the CPM R1 release. Perevodildo translation checked. I retimed (this one only - ninjacloud is doing the rest), edited, and typeset. Paul Geromini and Nemesis QCed. The encoder wishes to remain anonymous. He noted:

A surprisingly clean IVTC back to 23.976 fps without blended frame for material of this age and sourcing. That said, one can see the filmstock master was showing it's age at the time of this DVD set's release with plenty of dirt spots and celluloid damage around the edges visible during scene transitions that would require professional restoration of the physical negatives if we were ever so fortunate. Also the fact that the DVD volumes were a mixture of various episodes and not in any real order made labeling them a bit confusing.

Believe it or not, I did apply some denoising to reduce source artifacts even if it doesn't look like it [did much to] grain and texture detail in testing. Some dehaloing, derainbowing, and significant anti-aliasing were also applied along with grain matching of the darker scene areas. See the comparison sets above. I think the results are an appreciable step-up from Medgirl's encode in regards to lineart and texture detail retention as well as some slight extra vertical resolution via less cropping. 

CPM's remastering includes hardsubbed translations for some of the Japanese credits. They are incorrectly timed and don't line up with the Japanese credits, but as hardsubs, they can't be fixed. That's one reason, among many, why I would like to find a Japanese source.

I'm glad that Orphan is revisiting these stories from almost forty years ago. You can get The Izu Dancer from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.