Heart Cocktail Colorful: Winter Stories

DarkOrphanChaser is back with its final set of Watase Seizou's Heart Cocktail Colorful episodes. These five are set in Winter (actually, Fall and Winter); hence, "Winter Stories". Despite the season, these stories are a bit more optimistic, a bit more hopeful.

1. "Mr. Frog." Takuto Yoshimura has fallen in love with his co-worker, Mei Shimamoto, but she wants to focus on her career. As Takuto is folding an origami frog for children in foster care and brooding over his misfired romance, he remembers an older man making an origami frog for him to "jump over his shadow." At Jessy's Bar, Takuto recovers his determination and makes his own origami frog jump.
   
   
   
   
   
2. "Button." When he was younger, Souta Misumi shared a house with a would-be poet, Ito, and an older woman, Kanna, an accomplished seamstress he had a crush on. When a button she sewed on for him pops off, Souta reaches out to Kanna for the first time in years. At a poetry reading, he discovers that she is married, with children, and now she sews for them.
   
   
   
   
   
3. "Nandina." A divorced man has not seen his daughter, Yuri, for a decade, to avoid disrupting her relationship with her stepfather. One day, she tracks him down and invites him to her wedding. Despite misgivings, he attends, bringing a branch of the Nandina he had planted to commemorate her birth.
   
   
   
   
   
4. "A Town Where Snow Falls." Whenever he visits a strange town, Kunikata Shirakawa always visits a hostess bar and asks for "Midori," the work name his single mother used to earn money when raising him. On a snowy night in a strange town, he finds a "Midori" who is also a singe mother, and he vows, to himself, that he will return to see her again.
   
   
   
   
   
5. "A Christmas Miracle." A long time ago, an older man donated blood that saved the life of a young girl. In the present, he is facing a lonely Christmas when they meet again. Although they are complete strangers to one another, there is an instant connection: a Christmas miracle. 

I liked all the stories in this set, particularly "Nandina," with its possibility of reunion and reconciliation, and "A Town Where Snow Falls," where romance surfaces in the most unlikely of circumstances. "A Christmas Miracle" is completely far-fetched, but the Japanese do believe in blood-type astrology.

One translation note: Nandina or sacred bamboo is not a bamboo but an erect evergreen shrub that grows up to two meters tall. 

As in the other Heart Cocktail series, the animation is minimal, but the shots aren't completely static, as they are in Chalk-iro no People or the other "animated manga". But this lack of movement, and the much larger full HD canvas, created a problem: the scenes look empty and are visually boring. So this series adapts a trick out of the statically animated shows: it puts some (but not all) of the dialog into signs. There's no point in having the same English line as both dialog and sign, so the dialog signs are not typeset. Rest assured, real signs (there's only a few in these episodes) are typeset.

The voice cast is unchanged, as is the fansub staff. Darkonius translated and timed. Yume translation-checked. I edited and typeset; the biggest typesetting challenge was the rainbow in the title. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Skr snarfed the raws off Japanese TV, and an anonymous friend encoded. MartyMcflies provided support and coordination. Like previous Watase Seizou projects, this is a joint DarkWispers, Orphan, and LonelyChaser release. 

You can get this final mini-batch of "Winter Stories" from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news. Final batch soon.

 

Heart Cocktail Colorful: Summer Stories

DarkOrphanChaser is back with a second set of Watase Seizou's Heart Cocktail Colorful episodes. These five are set in Summer; hence, "Summer Stories". Despite the season, these stories seems a shade more wistful, even melancholic at times, than before.

1. "Perfect Girlfriend." Shuujirou Nishina and Keiichi Hayama are hanging out together, enjoying time at the beach. She's his "perfect girlfriend," but he's marrying someone else, for reasons going back all the way to their shared childhood.
   
   
   
   
   
2. "Otoha and Tatsuya." On a business trip, Tatsuya has an unexpected encounter with his childhood friend, Shiho Hamanshi. She's achieved her long-held dream of becoming a geisha, stage name Otoha, but his dream of becoming a novelist has faded away.
   
   
   
   
   
3. "Beyond the Tube." Young Junya discovers that his father, a famous painter, had had a long-term relationship with his beautiful model. She wants to return a kimono that his father treasured, but Junya can't bring himself to show it to his mother.
   
   
   
   
   
4. "Hidden Behind the Rain." The backstory of Jessy, owner of Jessy's bar. When he was young, he fell in love with Marie, a cruise ship singer. They were supposed to be together, but he ended up alone... until a warm summer's evening decades later.
   
   
   
   
   
5. "Two Paper Planes." Hiroyuki Tsuyama and his wife Miho are getting a civilized divorce. When he visits her to deliver the divorce papers, he discovers that she's become an accomplished ceramics artist... and he's brought the wrong documents.

"Beyond the Tube" is bittersweet, as a son attempts to grasp a side of his father's life he had never known. (It's also recycled from the first story in Boku no Oldies wa All-Color.)  "Hidden Behind the Rain" has a nicely melancholic atmosphere, although the gimmick explaining Marie's current situation is strictly an anime contrivance; but all the stories are good.

As in the other Heart Cocktail series, the animation is minimal, but the shots aren't completely static, as they are in Chalk-iro no People or the other "animated manga". But this lack of movement, and the much larger full HD canvas, created a problem: the scenes look empty and are visually boring. So this series adapts a trick out of the statically animated shows: it puts some (but not all) of the dialog into signs. There's no point in having the same English line as both dialog and sign, so the dialog signs are not typeset. Rest assured, real signs (there's only a few in these episodes) are typeset.

The voice cast is unchanged, as is the fansub staff. Darkonius translated and timed. Yume translation-checked. I edited and typeset; the biggest typesetting challenge was the rainbow in the title. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Skr snarfed the raws off Japanese TV, and an anonymous friend encoded. MartyMcflies provided support and coordination. Like previous Watase Seizou projects, this is a joint DarkWispers, Orphan, and LonelyChaser release. 

You can get this mini-batch of the "Summer Stories" from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news. The remaining five episodes will follow soon.

Heart Cocktail: Spring Stories

As hoped/promised/threatened, DarkOrphanChaser is back with more Watase Seizou; in this case, his latest spin on the Heart Cocktail formula: Heart Cocktail Colorful. This series of 15 shorts is organized around three seasons: spring, summer, and winter. (No fall, I guess.) We're bringing you the series in seasonal bursts, starting with the "Spring Stories."

Colorful doesn't break any new ground. It follows the familiar Heart Cocktail formula of romance found, lost, or regained, in five-minute stories usually focused on one man and one woman. The five stories in this group are:

1. "Stone Letter." A separated couple, Shinju and Emi, keep in touch by snail mail. One day, Emi sends Shinju a single pebble as a message. What could it mean?
   
   
   
   
   
2. "The Planet Beneath Our Feet." A single mother named Kaede is supported, at a distance, by her former high-school classmate Yuusuke, who still remembers their encounter in the Astronomy Club.
   
   
   
   
   
3. "Tandem Venus". Yuwaka is interested in both his junior, Natsuki Noda, and his boss, section chief, Saya Tokitou, only to discover that the two women are romantically involved with each other.
   
   
   
   
   
4. "Gentle Rain." Karen, the daughter of Takeshi from the original series, comes to Jessy's Bar to leave a letter for her estranged father. She is getting married and wants her father to know, because she and her husband are going to Africa to work for an NGO. But Takeshi has been watching over her all along...
   
   
   
   
   
5. "The Beauty Who Turned Around." At a company event, an unnamed man falls in love with Shizuka, but she is still entangled with another. They promise to meet in a year, but she takes another job. He returns the next year anyway, but is she there?

My personal favorite is "Gentle Rain," because of the callback to the original series and the use of Jessy's Bar, but they're all decent stories.

As in the other Heart Cocktail series, the animation is minimal, but the shots aren't completely static, as they are in Chalk-iro no People or the other "animated manga". But this lack of movement, and the much larger full HD canvas, created a problem: the scenes look empty and are visually boring. (A lot of blossoms blow through to fill the frame.) So this series adapts a trick out of the statically animated shows: it puts some (but not all) of the dialog into signs. There's no point in having the same English line as both dialog and sign, so the dialog signs are not typeset. Rest assured, real signs (there's only one in these episodes) are typeset.

The voice cast is also minimal:

• Mitsushima Hikari played Carina in One Piece Film Gold and Mayu in cocoon Aru Natsu no Shoujo-tachi Yori.
• Kamenashi Kazuya played Odagiri Ryuu in Gokusen live action and Shizuku Kanzaki in Kami no Shizuku live action.
• Okuda Tamiyoshi is primarily a narrator. He appeared in Heart Cocktail and Heart Cocktail Again.
  

This is director Yagi Junichirou's first anime project. 

The fansub staff is the same as before. Darkonius translated and timed. Yume translation-checked. I edited and typeset; the biggest typesetting challenge was the rainbow in the title. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Skr snarfed the raws off Japanese TV, and an anonymous friend encoded. MartyMcflies provided support and coordination. Like previous Watase Seizou projects, this is a joint DarkWispers, Orphan, and LonelyChaser release. 

I remain quite fond of the Heart Cocktail concept; its slow pace and lack of melodrama suits me. Admittedly, the author is ringing changes on plots he has used before, but there's still room for new ideas. You can get this mini-batch from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news. The remaining ten episodes will follow, although the exact timing is unpredictable.

Heart Cocktail Again

Twenty years after the original Heart Cocktail manga, Watase Seizou released another anime collection, Heart Cocktail Again. Unlike the original series, which languished on the wrong side of the Digital Divide, Heart Cocktail Again was released on DVD, with an English dub and English subtitles. Although the DVD sells for exorbitant prices in Japan, it has been available as a DVD remux for a while.

The Heart Cocktail team was not happy with the timing or accuracy of the English subtitles, so we decided to do a new version with a new translation. The result is this release: eight new stories, a prologue, an epilogue, and a dialog-free special. It's good to be back in the Heart Cocktail universe again.

The format hasn't changed. The stories are four or five minutes long, typically involving a nameless man and nameless woman exploring the contours of romance - found, lost, or regained. If this set seems a bit more wistful and melancholy - with more emphasis on the lost than the found - that's only an impression. I still find the stories immensely appealing. The last story, "The Station I Passed in Two Seconds," is a particular favorite.

Chapters 1, 6, and 8 use the leads from the original Heart Cocktail volume 3:

• Okuda Tamiyoshi is primarily a narrator. He also appeared in the recent reboot of the series, Heart Cocktail: Colorful.
• Shimamoto Sumi 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 Shokupanman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Tinkerbell in Peter Pan no Bouken, Antoinette in Reporter Blues, Big Mama in Bakuretsu Hunter, 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, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf. The last six are Orphan releases.

In the other chapters, the unnamed male and female leads are played by new actors:

• Yamadera Kouichi (man) played many leading roles, including Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop, Sukeroku in Shouwa Ginroku Rakugo Shinju, Ryouga in all the Ranma 1/2 properties, and the nameless hero of Otaku no Seiza. He plaued the title role in Hashire! Melos, Almarick Aswaer in Nana Toshi Monogatari, Benten in Oedo ga Nemurenai!, Happyaku in Wild 7, and Ryouan in Hidamari no Ki, all Orphan releases.
• Tanaka Atsuko (woman) played Mauve in ACCA, Nena Hargen in Aika, Cassandra in Alexander: Reign the Conqueror, Caster in the Fate franchise, Motoko Kusanagi in the GITS franchise, Bynas in Ozma, Claudette in Queen's Blade, and Jagara in Wolf's Rain. She also played Yuri in Nemure Omoigo, Sora no Shitone ni, new Mamamega in Megami Paradise, and Dana in AWOL Compression Remix, all Orphan releases.

The nameless extras are played by well-known seiyuu too:

• Imai Yuka starred as Jinto in the Crest/Banner of the Stars franchise. She also played Ranchiki in Maze, Otani in the Saber Marionette franchise, Shibuya in the Uta no Prince-sama franchise, and Sugimoto in Doukyuusei 2, an Orphan release.
• Koyama Takehiro had featured roles in Cowboy Bebop, Demon Lord Dante, Project Blue Earth SOS, and Robotics; Notes. He appeared in Nagasaki 1945: The Angelus Bell, an Orphan release.
• Ueda Yuuji played Johannes Krauser II in Detroit Metal City (OVA), Fuuma Yousuke in Wedding Peach, Sagara Sonosuke in Rurouni Kenshin, Tenkata Akito in Kidou Senkan Nadeseico, Keitarou in Love Hina, Makoto in Futari Ecchi, and Takeshi in Pokemon. He also voiced Shuichi in Arisa Good Luck, Takagi-kun in Let's Nupu Nupu, and Nanbara in Hand Maid May, all Orphan releases.
• Yasamura Makoto played Fumihiko in REC, Johnny Beppu in the Aikatsu franchise, Shouji in Ookiku Furikabutte, the father in Chii's Sweet Adventure, Shouzou in the Rinne no Lagrange franchise, Gasteau in the Galaxy Angel franchise, and Will Davis in Heroman.
• Okuda Tamiyoshi is primarily a narrator. He is listed as a 友情出演 (friendship performance). This usually indicates that the director, original creator, or the actor himself requested the performance, and that it was probably done at a "friendship price".

The director, Nishikubo Mizuho, also directed the Miyuki TV series, as well as some of my favorite Orphan OVAs - Karuizawa Syndrome, Purple Eyes in the Dark, and Ourorane the Cat Player.

The release has a plethora of tracks to choose from:

• Japanese 5.1 surround audio (default)
• Japanese 2.0 audio
• English 5.1 surround audio
• Music-only 5.1 surround audio
• Styled subtitles (default)
• Official English subtitles (VOBsub)
• Official Japanese subtitles (VOBsub)

So you can "pick a path" to create your own experience; for example, music-only plus subtitles, for a "silent movie" experience; or English dub, for a subtitle-free viewing.

The credits are basically the same as Heart Cocktail. This is a joint project from Orphan Fansubs, DarkWispers, and LonelyChaser Fansubs. Darkonius translated. ninjacloud cleaned up the timing. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Darkonius (for DarkWispers), Collectr (for Orphan) and MartyMcflies (for LonelyChaser) did the planning and coordination. Rezo encoded the raw from the aforementioned DVD remux. There are no animated credits - quite a departure from the lengthy (5 minute+) credit sequences in the original Heart Cocktail. Instead, the credits are displayed interactively in a special section of the DVD menu; the extracted frames can be found here.

This is not the end of the team's exploration of Watase Seizou's work. He released three dialog-free OVAs, Chalk-iro no People, Boku wa Oldies na All-Color, and Two on the Road. The stories are similar to Heart Cocktail, but the dialog is presented as signs rather than spoken aloud. We'll be getting to them in due course, if we find sources.

Meanwhile, here is Heart Cocktail Again, for your enjoyment. 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.

 

Heart Cocktail (Batch)

Here, as promised, is the batch release for Heart Cocktail.

There are no changes.

I really liked Heart Cocktail. I found it interesting, at times compelling viewing, despite the short length of the episodes - under four minutes - and the narrow focus on the themes of love - starting, ending, and the stages in between. Perhaps it's because the show is about adults, and adult issues. Perhaps it's because the short length of the vignettes allowed me to dip in and out whenever I liked.

I'd like to repeat the staff credits.

• Translation - Darkonius
• Translation Check - Yume
  
• Timing - Darkonius, ninjacloud
• Editing & Typesetting - Collectr
• QC - Moelancholy (vol 1-2), Nemesis (vol 3-6), Rezo (all)
• Encoding - anonymous
• Coordination - MartyMcflies (front end), Collectr (back end)

Special thanks to 6/10 and Makoto-kun for additional translation help, and to VigorousJammer for scanning the Japanese manga volumes. MartyMcflies and I underwrote the financial costs of the project.

You can get the Heart Cocktail batch from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Thanks for watching.

Heart Cocktail Vol 6

Heart Cocktail, based on a manga series by Watase Seizou, is a joint project between DarkWispers (Darkonius), Lonely Chaser (MartyMcflies), and Orphan. Here is the last volume, volume 6. It's basically just like the other five: a series of vignettes, three minutes or less, each telling a short story of love found or lost, or sometimes both.

This volume has perhaps a slightly more optimistic tinge than some of the previous ones. There are more stories of love started or ongoing than ending or gone. But one of the best, in my view, is about an ending: My Former Aunt. It's told from the point of view of her nephew, who discovers during the breakup of his uncle's marriage, that he likes his soon-to-be former aunt a lot more than his blood relative:

The male and female leads, and the music composer, are unchanged from volume 5. Staff credits are also unchanged. Darkonius translated the show and did initial timing. Yume translation checked. ninjacloud fine timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Rezo QCed. MartyMcflies provided overall coordination of the front-end work; I coordinated the back end. Special thanks, again, to 6/10 for his initial translation work. There wasn't room to include him in the credits this time.

This concludes our work on Heart Cocktail. There are several sequels, Heart Cocktail Again and Heart Cocktail Colorful, as well as OVAs that appear stylistically related, such as Chalk Colored People. Perhaps we'll get to them in the future. Meanwhile, you can download this episode from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Batch in a few days.

Heart Cocktail Vol 5

Heart Cocktail, based on a manga series by Watase Seizou, is a joint project between DarkWispers (Darkonius), Lonely Chaser (MartyMcflies), and Orphan. Here is volume 5. This volume is basically just like the other four: a series of vignettes, three minutes or less, each telling a short story of love found or lost, or sometimes both.

The protagonists are mostly unnamed. The animation is simple, with many still frames. In this volume, the "in-between" segments use an animated rabbit dressed as a vaudevillian.

The male and female leads are unchanged from volume 4. The bunny was played by:

• Fujita Toshiko played the title roles in the Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken properties, Fujiko Fujio no Kiteretsu Daihyakka, Ikkyuu-san, Tomcat's Big Adventure, and Ganbare Genki. She starred as Rui in Cat's Eye and Ryoko in Goku: Midnight Eye. She also played Lulu in Grimm Douwa: Kin no Tori, Takao in Oedo wa Nemurenai!, Cyborg 1019 in Oz, Gordon in Hitomi no Naka no Shounen: 15 Shounen Hyouryuuki, Sharaku in Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru, and Princess Iron Fan in Tezuka Osamu Monogatari: I Am Son Goku, all Orphan releases.

Several seiyuu who became much better known later played extras in this volume.

• Tanaka Hideyuki played Terryman in the Kinnikuman franchise and Rayearth in Magic Knight Rayearth. He also played 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, and Ma Su, Fengji's lover, in Sangokushi movie 3, all Orphan releases.
• Sawaki Ikuya played Gooley in the Dirty Pair franchise. He also played 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, and the Kaiser in Apfelland Monogatari, as well as bit parts in Dallos and Chameleon, all Orphan releases.
• Katou Masayuki played multiple characters in the Doraemon franchise and appeared in Yawara!, Giant Gorg, and several World Masterpiece Theater series.
  

The music for this volume was by Shigeaki Saegusa, who also did the music for Tetsuwan Atom (1980), Gundam Z and Gundam ZZ, and Amon Saga (an Orphan release).

Staff credits are unchanged from volume 4. Darkonius translated the show and did initial timing. Yume translation checked. ninjacloud fine timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Rezo QCed. MartyMcflies provided overall coordination of the front-end work; I coordinated the back end. Special thanks, again, to 6/10 for his initial translation work. There wasn't room to include him in the credits this time.

We're almost done with Heart Cocktail. You can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

 

Heart Cocktail Vol 4

Heart Cocktail, based on a manga series by Watase Seizou, is a joint project between DarkWispers (Darkonius), Lonely Chaser (MartyMcflies), and Orphan. Here is volume 4.

This volume is basically just like the other three: a series of vignettes, three minutes or less, each telling a short story of love found or lost, or sometimes both. The protagonists are mostly unnamed. The animation is simple, with many still frames. There's a lot of music, most of it upbeat and jazzy, this time by Shima Ken. Each vignette is followed by some live-action footage that comments on the settings or the props of the previous story. The live-action sequences have sound but no music, so they act as breaks between stories. Several of the stories in this volume are set in southern islands - or at least an island with palm trees - and there's one or two extended stories, like "The Seagulls Brought a Girlfriend."

Volume 4 includes a new voice actor for the female lead:

• Asagami Youko played Saeko Nogami in the City Hunter franchise and its spin-off, Angel Heart, Selene in Queen Millennia, Mrs. Hudson in Sherlock Hound, Mori Yuki in the original Yamato franchise, and Amesis in Yamato 2520, an Orphan release.
  

In addition, several seiyuu who became much better known played extras in this volume.

• Namikawa Daisuke was only 11 when he appeared in Heart Cocktail. He also played Jack in 15 Shounen Hyouryuuki, an Orphan release, that same year. He later starred as the title role in Tottoi: Secret of the Seals, Elc in Arc the Lad, Yang Guo in Condor Hero, Iks in The Third, Rock in Black Lagoon, Chuuei in Ikkitousen, and Italia in the Hetalia franchise.
• Ikeda Shuichi played Char in Mobile Suit Gundam, Gilbert Durandal in Gundam Seed, Ulrich Kessler in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Alex in Dallos, and Azuma in Starship Troopers. The last two are Orphan releases.
• Mitsuya Yuuji played Tatsuya in Touch, Pen Pen in Mr. Penpen, Kouji in Kiteretsu Daihyakka, Irabu in Kuuchuu Buranko, Yuusaku in Hiatari Ryouko, Jecy in Hi-Speed Jecy, Seki in Majo demo Steady, and Daisuke in Stop!! Hibari-kun. The last four are Orphan releases.
  

A tip of the hat to 6/10 for pointing out the famous voice actors playing bit parts.

Staff credits are unchanged from volume 3. Darkonius translated the show and did initial timing. Yume translation checked. ninjacloud fine timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Rezo QCed. MartyMcflies provided overall coordination of the front-end work; I coordinated the back end.

Heart Cocktail continues to entertain. You can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Heart Cocktail Vol 3

It would be difficult to riff changes on my previous blog posts about Heart Cocktail, so I'll focus on a different aspect of the series: the music. While the show usually features a light, jazzy background, it frequently interpolates western music. For example, volume 1 included instrumental covers of three classic rock/pop songs: California Dreamin', Donna the Prima Donna, and Let It Be. Volume 2 includes excerpts from a couple of classical pieces: Chopin's Prelude in G Minor and Schubert's Heidenröslein. But volume 3 amps this up to another level, with vocal covers and pastiches from the best 60s bands:

• The chapter "Mr. Moonlight, the Prankster" starts with a cover of the opening of John Lennon's Mr. Moonlight.
• The chapter "The Day the Carousel Horse Sang" features a pastiche of the Beatles She Loves You, sung, of course, by the eponymous carousel horse.
• The ending song is a complete cover of the Beach Boys' Surfer Girl. The harmonies are uncanny, and only the usual issues in pronouncing English show that it's a cover.
  

This volume also features music by Tony's Show and an original insert Garasu ni Yubiwa (グラスに指輪) in "Cinderella Express 4," sung by Wise, a group consisting of Takumi Yamamoto and Shingo Kanno. Tony's Show was a collection of notable jazz musicians who only used that name to record the Heart Cocktail volume 3 soundtrack, with Yamamoto, Kanno and Masashi Hirashita handling composing and arranging.

The use of these classic songs raises the question, of course, as to whether the anime's creators obtained the rights to use these songs. Probably not. In the 70s and early 80s, anime shows were fairly cavalier about using copyrighted or trademarked intellectual property. Heart Cocktail is filled with renderings of the actual Coca Cola and Coors logos. That changed fairly suddenly in the mid 80s, probably when studio lawyers realized the problems IP infringement might cause. After that, brand names were spelled with one letter changed or just used generically.

In addition to the music, this volume is notable for introducing multi-segment stories. "Cinderella Express," about a relationship maintained through long-distance railroad commuting, covers four segments. Otherwise, the stories are pretty much the same as before: short vignettes about relationships: started, stopped, resumed, or broken forever. Only a few of the stories have live-action segments afterward; and two of those segments have narration instead of just sound effects. In keeping with Surfer Girl, many of the segments appear to have been filmed in California.

The principal voice actors changed in this volume:

• Okuda Tamiyoshi (man) is primarily a narrator. He also appeared in the recent reboot of the series, Heart Cocktail: Colorful.
• Shimamoto Sumi 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 Shokupanman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Tinkerbell in Peter Pan no Bouken, Antoinette in Reporter Blues, Big Mama in Bakuretsu Hunter, Sue in Maris the Choujo, Elice in Fire Emblem, Miss Akiko in The Girl with Blue Eyes, Suzuko and Suzu in Fire Tripper, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf. The last five are Orphan releases.

Once again, Darkonius of DarkWispers translated and did initial timing. Yume translation checked. ninjacloud did the fine timing. I edited and typeset. In a change, Nemesis and Rezo did QC. The encoding is by an anonymous friend, based on laserdiscs purchased in Japan over many months. MartyMcflies of LonelyChaser Fansubs coordinated the complicated, multi-continent effort. I'd like to acknowledge the help of 6/10 with initial translation as well.

I should warn the viewer that Surfer Girl is an EAOT (Earworm of All Time), and if you listen to the ending more than once, as I have, you will never get it out of your head. If you're willing to risk that, you can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Heart Cocktail Vol 2

Heart Cocktail, based on a manga series by Watase Seizou, is a joint project between DarkWispers (Darkonius), Lonely Chaser (MartyMcflies), and Orphan. Here is volume 2.

This volume is basically just like the first: a series of vignettes, three minutes or less, each telling a short story of love found or lost, or sometimes both. The protagonists are mostly unnamed or have common names like Takeshi and Takeru, or Misako and Reiko. (On the other hand, subordinate characters, such as cafe owners, are usually named.) The animation is simple, with many still frames. There's a lot of music, most of it upbeat and jazzy. Each vignette is followed by some live-action footage that comments on the settings or the props of the previous story. The live-action sequences have sound but no music, so they act as breaks between stories. If this volume seems to have a few more stories about love lost to tragic death, that's only an impression.

Staff credits are unchanged from volume 1. Marty got the ball rolling by finding the manga raws and getting them scanned. Darkonius translated the show, using the manga as a reference, as well as prior partial scripts. Marty arranged for Yume to translation check the script. I then put the script through Orphan's normal back-end process: fine timing (ninjacloud), editing and typesetting (me), and QC (Rezo and Moelancholy).  6/10 provided initial or partial translations to the project. VigorousJammer scanned the manga volumes that provided the underlying references for the translation. Marty and I both underwrote the project financially, including media acquisition and other services. This is very much a team effort, rooted in the Discord community.

One note for this volume. Rengatei, in the vignette "Warmth That Lasts for Only One Generation," is the named for one of the first Western restaurants in Tokyo. The real one opened in 1895 and is still operating. It originated several now-classic Japanese dishes, including tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet), omurice (omelet rice), and yes, hayashi rice. There's more information here and here.

Heart Cocktail is a mood, an atmosphere, a lingering aftertaste. I really like it, and I hope you will too. You can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Heart Cocktail Vol 1

Heart Cocktail, based on a manga series by Watase Seizou, has been on my wish list for a long time. Our media maven in Japan acquired the six laserdisc volumes through several years of patient surveillance of Japanese second-hand media websites. He then ripped them on a Domesday Duplicator and encoded them. Unfortunately, no translator could be found, and they were released as raws two years ago. Then, enter Discord.

As readers may remember, a year or two ago, younger team members dragged me, if not exactly kicking and screaming, then grumbling and rumbling, over to Discord, because they regarded IRC as ancient history (it is). I found Discord, like most social media, to be a significant time-waster. However, I made new contacts in the fansubbing world, particularly with other back-catalog groups. The result of those contacts in this project, a subtitled version of Heart Cocktail, at long last.

The principal organizers of this project are Darkonius (of DarkWispers), MartyMcflies (of LonelyChaser fansubs), and me (from Orphan). I met Darkonius because of his interest in World Masterpiece Theater projects; I provided the C1 script archives for Perrine and Peter Pan. I met Marty through a shared interest in anime music; he has found and uploaded the music from numerous obscure shows, including some of Orphan's. We all liked Heart Cocktail and wanted to see if subbed. Marty got the ball rolling by finding the manga raws and getting them scanned. Darkonius translated the show, using the manga as a reference, as well as some prior partial scripts. Marty arranged for Yume to translation check the script. I then put the script through Orphan's normal back-end process: fine timing (ninjacloud), editing and typesetting (me), and QC (Rezo and Moelancholy). We'll be releasing one volume at a time.

Heart Cocktail is difficult to describe. It's a series of vignettes, three minutes or less, each telling a short story of love found or lost, or sometimes both. The characters are mostly unnamed: a man, a woman, and the people in their environments. (One exception is a cafe owner named Jessy, who appears several times.) The animation is simple, with many still frames. There's a lot of music, most of it upbeat and jazzy. Each vignette is followed by some live-action footage that comments on the settings or the props of the previous story. The live-action sequences have sound but no music, so they act as breaks between stories.

Some of the voice actors include:

• Shimazu Saeko (woman) played Shinobu in Urusei Yatsura, Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, Miz Mishtal in El Hazard, and Yuri in Dirty Pair. She had featured roles Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, and Inuyasha. She also played the titles role in Bagi and Lunn Flies into the Wind, Chocola in Don Dracula, Sanae in Izumi (1991), Kyouko in Hiatari Ryouko, and Scanny in Techno Police 21C, all Orphan releases. 
• Shiozawa Kaneto (man) played the title role in To-Y, Orochimaru in Tengai Makyou, Shin in Hiatari Ryoukou, Iason in Ai no Kusabi, Rock Holmes in Fumoon, Shiina in Chameleon, Sanzou in I am Son Goku, Kouhei in Karuizawa Syndrome, and Kurahashi Eiji in Nine, all Orphan releases. He also played Joe in Tokimeki Tonight, Yoshio in Miyuki, Takeshi in Touch, D in Vampire Hunter D, Narsus in the Arslan Senki OVA, Rosario in Dragon Half, and Abriel senior in Crest of the Stars.

The voice credits in the show and in anime databases don't agree, so it's difficult to know who actually voiced some of the characters. One of the directors, Morita Hiromitsu, mostly did storyboards and animation, but he also directed Oyayubi Hime Monogatari, Kobo-chan, and World of Narue. The other credited director, Shinpei Wada, is not in the public anime databases. The music is by Matsuoka Naoya, a jazz pianist. There are also a few well-known songs, such as instrumental versions of California Dreamin', Donna the Prima Donna, and Let It Be.

In addition to the named staff, I want to thank some other contributors. 6/10 and Makoto-kun both provided initial or partial translations to the project. VigorousJammer scanned the manga volumes that provided the underlying references for the translation. Marty and I both underwrote the project financially, including media acquisition and other services. This is very much a team effort, rooted in the Discord community. I guess social media isn't so bad, after all.

Heart Cocktail is very different from today's plot-driven, slam-bang anime. It's a mood, an atmosphere, a lingering aftertaste. I really like it, and I hope you will too. You can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha (yeah, I'm still loyal to IRC) in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.