Animated Classics of Japanese Literature (batch)

Seishun Anime Zenshuu (translated as Animated Classics of Japanese Literature for its English release) is a 1986 anthology series that retells 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 are standalone, although there are 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. Orphan has now released them all.

• Episode 1: The Izu Dancer by Kawabata Yasunari. 
• 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: A Ghost Story by Lafcadio Hearn.
• 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.

The batch torrent is intended to replace nine individual torrents for ease of downloading. There is one revised episode, and two others have changes in their file names:

• Episode 1, The Izu Dancer, has minor revisions to typesetting and styling, to match later episodes.
• Episodes 2 and 3, The Sound of Waves, lacked the CRC in their file names.

A patch for episode 1 can be found here. Episodes 2 and 3 should simply be renamed to include their CRCs, as shown in the batch torrent.

The staff credits are the same throughout, more or less:

• Original subtitles - Central Park Media
• Translation check - Perevodildo (plus Muzussawa on Growing Up and kokujin-kun on A Ghost Story) 
• Timing - ninjacloud (plus Collectr for The Izu Dancer)
• Editing and typesetting - Collectr
• QC - Nemesis and Paul Geromini 
• Encoding - anonymous 

Animated Classics is a mixed bag, as most anthology series are. I liked A Ghost Story best, for its atmospheric take on a classic Japanese legend, followed by The Harp of Burma and The Sound of Waves. All of the adaptations are straightforward, without much flair. Accordingly, I find the 1980 TV special of Botchan better than this version; it has more humor, better character designs, and livelier animation.

This batch is the end of Orphan's efforts on Animated Classics for now; but experience has taught me never to say never. If decent sources surface for other episodes — for example, Japanese VHS tapes or, mirabile dictu, the R2J DVDs — we may come back to the series.

Meanwhile, thanks for watching.