Cool Cool Bye v2

You were maybe not expecting this. Then again, neither was I.

Cool Cool Bye is a 1986 fantasy OVA. Orphan subbed it back in 2020, based on the original Random Masters script and a new Domesday Duplicator laserdisc rip. As I wrote at the time, the hardest part was wrestling a workable encode from rotted discs and buggy DdD software. The OVA didn't make much of an impression, and I didn't bother to release the 15 minute extra, which focused on a short-lived animation studio called Bebow, the principal animation house for Cool Cool Bye and Greed.

But someone did care a great deal more: MartyMcflies, proprietor of LonelyChaser Fansubs. He inveigled me into finding the extra in archival storage and then commissioned a translation of it. The translator also looked through the OVA script, found some significant errors, and fixed them. Marty then made me a deal: if I would typeset the extra, he would give me the revised script for the OVA. Unlike the claims of certain world leaders, we had a deal.

There's no need to rehash Cool Cool Bye itself; the blog post covers the plot, the seiyuu, and the encoder's travails in getting to a workable encode. In brief, it tells the story of two "Han warriors," Len and Fleke, who are enticed by offers of food to take on a gigantic monster that's been terrorizing a village and kidnapping its women. 

They're joined by villagers Syril and Coron, who have lost loved ones, and an enigmatic woman named Klee, who is actually some sort of fairy or flying spirit.

This revision tightens the dialog considerably. It corrects a major error in the old script, which conflated the villain's name (Tanguin) with the name of his monster fortress (Penguine), as well as other translation mistakes. It also corrects an error in the ordered chapters that caused a ten-second repeat at 22:10.

The extra is a brief look at Bebow in its brief heyday, starting with its founder, Kogawa Tomonori, who was director, character designer, and story author for Cool Cool Bye and Greed. It showcases Kogawa's philosophy, everyday activities at the studio, and the young animators on the staff.

 

Each staff interview starts with a caricature, continues with a couple of sentences from the animator, and concludes with a short animation of perhaps 15-25 seconds. The shorts vary widely in level of finish and tone. 

 

The staffers are engaging, and their short animations quite interesting. One translation note: there's a running gag among the staff about Yuki Saito, an actress and singer.

 

The OVA started with the Random Masters script. This version was translation checked and heavily revised by justj22. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. imatu QCed the revision. The encode is unchanged. justj22 also translated the extra. I edited and typeset. imatu and MartyMcflies QCed. The encode is also from 2020, but it was not previously released. Because of Marty's pivotal role in getting the extra subbed, the extra is a joint Orphan-LonelyChaser release.

 

So here's a new version of Cool Cool Bye, with a considerably improved script and the same old encode, as well as its extra. I was too harsh on the OVA when I first worked on it. It has likable characters, some good comedy, a bit of nudity, and a ton of shiny explosions. (The ending is a great example of what Roger Ebert used to call "the impregnable fortress impregnated.") 

 

The extra features the Bebow animators before they went their separate ways when the company dissolved and gives them a chance to showcase their talent. You can get the new release from the usual torrent site. Because this version of the OVA is just a script and chapter change, the original can be patched; a patch file can be found here.

 

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P.S.A. If you have version 1 of Cool Cool Bye, you may find that it doesn't play correctly in recent versions of MPC-HC. (It plays fine in VLC, mpv, or MPC-BE.) This is due to a bug in MPC-HC about the interpretation of tags in scripts that started as SSA and were converted to ASS in Aegisub 3.2.2. This same problem also affects Orphan's releases of Ai no Kusabi, Aoki Honoo, Cathexis, and Megami Paradise. If your playback of these releases is malfunctioning, you can either use an alternate player or upgrade MPC-HC to 2.8.3 or later.