One Pound Gospel

Takahashi Rumiko is best known for her long-running manga and anime series, like Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Inuyasha, and Kyoukai no Rinne, but I love her shorter works. They showcase her talent for creating characters and comedy. Few are as good as One Pound Gospel, a 1988 OVA derived from her four volume manga of the same name. It was a pleasure to work on and a pleasure to watch.

One Pound Gospel (1 Pound no Fukuin) tells the story of Hatanaka Kosaku, a promising young boxer undone by his gargantuan appetite, particularly for street food. 

As a result of gorging out, he has had to move up from flyweight, where he debuted, to bantamweight - an increase of 14 pounds, or 13%. As a result, he is fighting bigger and stronger opponents, and his promising start has turned into a losing record.

After another loss, he finds himself down, out, and hungry in front of a church. There, a novice nun named Sister Angela spies him sitting bereft on the steps and assumes he is homeless. 

She feeds him, only to discover that he is well known for cadging food. This fateful meeting brings Sister Angela into Kosaku's life. She encourages him to try for a comeback and supports him - and scolds him - as necessary.

She becomes an ally of Kosaku's coach, Mokuda, in his increasingly desperate efforts to get Kosaku to shape up. Eventually, Kosaku gets a shot at redemption in a match with Amakusa Jiro, an Olympic champion just turned pro. While there are undertones of romance - Kosaku is clearly smitten with the pretty young novice - in this part of the story, at least, Sister Angela remains true to her vocation. For the rest, you'll have to read the manga, which is fully translated.

The voice cast is terrific:

• Furuya Tohru (Kosaku) played the lead male roles in Kimagure Orange Road and Sailor Moon, the title roles in Casshern Sins and Kyojin no Hoshi, and recurrent roles in the Dr. Slump, Dragonball, and Mobile Suit Gundam franchises. He also starred as Niimi in Nine, Kosaku in Stop!! Hibari-kun, Beat, aka the Rabbit, in Choujikuu Romanesque Samy: Missing 99, and the title role in Bavi Stock, all Orphan releases.
• Tsuru Hiromi (Sister Angela) 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 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, and big sister Shizuka in Tomoe's Run!, all Orphan releases.
• Shiozawa Kaneto (Amakusa Jiro) 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. 
• Nagai Ichirou (coach Mokuda) starred in numerous shows, playing grandfather Jigoro in Yawara!, the off-the-wall narrator in Gosenzosama Banbanzai!, Professor Hajime in Queen Millennia, and Happosai in the Ranma 1/2 franchise. He appeared in Rain Boy, Manxmouse, Nora, Hidamari no Ki, Yuukan Club, Amon Saga, Botchan, Ipponbouchou Mantaraou, Tengai Makyou, and Yamato 2520, all Orphan releases.
• Futamata Issei (Ishida, coach's assistant) is best known for his roles as Godai Yuusaku in Maison Ikkoku, Akira (Chibi) in Urusei Yatsura, and Saburo in Sazae-san. He played the main character, Yoshio, in Dokushin Apartment Dokudami-sou Kouji Tanaka in Okama Hakusho, and the psychopathic brother, Cross, in Hi-Speed Jecy, and he appeared in Fukuyama Gekijou, all Orphan releases.
• Tatsuta Naoki (Tabuchi, Kosaku's sparring partner) played Oolong in the Dragonball franchise, the Cat Bus in My Neighbor Totoro, and Beta in New Dream Hunter Rem. He appeared in every GeGeGe no Kitarou series since 1985 and in Amon Saga and Wolf Guy, both Orphan releases. 

The director, "Saki Makura", is an alias for Dezaki Osamu, who needs no introduction to readers of this blog. (The "postcard memories" throughout the show are a dead giveaway.) 

The OP and ED, "Cry No More" by Hamada Mari, is an absolute banger. The OST was never released, but the OP/ED and insert songs can be found on Hamada Mari's album, "Love Never Turns Against."

No translation notes, but the staff found a few plot-driven inaccuracies. About the scene where Kosaku confesses to Sister Angela about eating five yakitori, Perevodildo noted, "Nuns can't hear confession." About the climactic fight, Topper3000 noted, "As the resident sports fan, I would be remiss not to point out that Kosaku would have been immediately disqualified as soon as he headbutt Amakusa in the stomach." Details matter, guys.

The original subs are from the Viz R1 release, now out of print, via Melonsubs. Perevodildo translation checked. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis, Rezo, and Topper3000 QCed. The raw is a stack of three Japanese laserdiscs, ripped on the Domesday Duplicator and encoded by Orphan's anonymous media maven. (The laserdisc is better than the DVD.) The audio is digital and encoded as FLAC.

This release brings to an end Orphan's work with Takahashi Rumiko's 1980s OVAs. Mermaid Forest and Mermaid Scar were licensed in R1 and released on DVD; we won't be working on them. I've enjoyed all four of the OVAs, but One Pound Gospel is the best. Whether you've seen it before or not, download this vesion and enjoy it (again). You can get the release from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #new on irc.rizon.net

Laughing Target

Orphan concludes (for now) its Rumiko Takahashi festival with the third Rumic World OVA, 1987's Warau Hyouteki (Laughing Target). This is a supernatural suspense yarn centering on a high-school student Shiga Yuzuru and his cousin (and childhood fiancée) Shiga Asuzu. Yuzuru has forgotten all about this childhood betrothal and is going steady with his classmate and fellow archery club member Satomi. After the mysterious death of Asuza's mother, Yuzuru's father brings the girl home to live with them. Yuzuru expects that Asuza has forgotten all about their childhood promise, but Asuza has not. She is determined to marry Yuzuru, by any means at her disposal, even if this means disposing of Satomi. And since Asuza is a demon, or at least possessed by demons, she has some rather scary powers available.

Laughing Target is a tightly knit story, essentially a three-hander (Asuza, Yuzuru, and Satomi), so the voice cast is small:

• Tsuru Hiromi (Asuza) 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 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, and big sister Shizuka in Tomoe's Run!, all Orphan releases.
• Shioya Yoku (Yuzuru) played Triton in the Umi no Triton TV series and movies, Ryouta in Slam Dunk, Jinpei the Swallow in Gatchaman, Cosmo Yuki in Space Runaway Ideon, and the title role in Kariage-kun. He played Mickey in Milky Passion: Dougenzaka - Ai no Shiro and Zhuge Jun in the first Sangokushi movie, both Orphan releases. He also did sound direction on many series.
• Matsumoto Iyo (Satomi) was primarily an actress and an idol, with only a few other anime credits. 
• Sawada Toshiko (Asuza's mother) has played teachers, mothers, or grandmothers in numerous shows, including Maison Ikkoku, The girl from Phantasia (an Orphan release), The Big O, Usagi Drop, the Magi franchise, and Hinako Note.
• Satou Ai (Satomi's mother) played many maternal roles, including Light's mother in Death Note, Masami's mother in Wedding Peach, Misaki's mother in Dear Brother, Ban's mother in Getbackers, Shigeru's mother in Noramimi, the unnamed mothers in Cinderella Express, Ai Monogatari, and Guyver: Out of Control, as well as Kristin Adams in Yawara!. Other roles include the refined mother in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, Ibuki's mother in Kiss wa Me ni Shite, Taichi in The Cake Tree in the Ruins, the narrator in The Boy and the Sea Turtle, The Mother Who Became a Kite, and Kiku and the Wolf, and the unnamed girlfriend in Lunn Flies into the Wind, all Orphan releases.
• Hirai Takahiro (Yuzuru's father) appeared in Area 88, Castle in the Sky, and They Were 11. He worked mostly as a sound director.

The director, Takahashi Motosuke, founded his own studio, Studio Dootaku. He directed the first three Rumic World OVAs among numerous other projects.

I didn't like Laughing Target as much as Fire Tripper or Maris the Choujo. There's no great suspense about Asuza's nature; that's made clear in the prologue. The archery motif is a sort of a "Chekhov's arrow"; the emphasis on it at the beginning of the show means it will feature prominently in the climax. Nonetheless, the feeling of creeping dread builds steadily, and Asuza's stalking of Satomi has the relentless terror of a nightmare.

The original subtitles are from Kotomi. They probably derive from the US Manga Corp subtitled VHS release in the 1990s. tenkenX6 checked the dialog and revised the songs from official lyrics. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset (more on that anon). Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from a Japanese laserdisc ripped on the Domesday Duplicator. The source is a mess of blended frames and worse, so Intrepid encoded it at 59.94 fps to minimize the visual awfulness. There are still places that don't look great, but it's the best that can be done with the source material.There is no English audio track this time. US Manga Corps did release dubbed versions, but only the UK audio track is currently online. Maybe someday.

Unlike Fire Tripper, Laughing Target has a few signs, and they needed to be motion tracked. This did not work out well. Although all the tools claim to handle 59.94 fps, the tracked subtitles were out of sync. Accordingly, one moving sign is done "Yawara style": {\an8}Sign: The first three Rumic World OVAs deserve to be remastered and released on digital media.

So here's Laughing Target, completing Orphan's work on the Rumic World OVAs. The last two - Mermaid Forest and Mermaid's Scar - were released on DVD in North America and have been ripped several times. One Pound Gospel is sometimes included in the Rumic World OVAs, but it derives from a different manga series. You can get Laughing Target from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Late breaking news: a dual-audio version is now available. A patch to upgrade from single- to dual-audio is available in the torrent description. The audio track was provided by niki and is from the UK dubbed release, so be prepared for your Japanese characters to speak with English accents. A song-signs subtitle track is also included.

Fire Tripper

Orphan's Rumiko Takahashi mini-festival continues with 1985's OVA Fire Tripper. This is a terrific time-travel adventure, the first of the Rumic World OVAs. Orphan is proud to release a new version with a translation-checked script, encoded from a Japanese laserdisc. (The first three Rumic World OVAs have never been released on digital media. Why?)

The story opens in Warring States Japan. Bandits led by the villainous Akauma attack a peasant village, burning it to the ground. A little girl named Suzu is trapped in her burning house, but just as the flaming ceiling beams fall on her, she disappears. Miraculously, Suzu is found, unharmed, outside a modern Japanese city, where she is adopted by a local family. Fast forward a decade or more. Suzuko is now a normal high school student, watching over a youngster named Shu. She is walking Shu home when a gas explosion catapults her to her original era and home - although she doesn't remember them. She is about to be raped (or worse) by Akauma's bandits when she is rescued by a local boy named Shukumaru, who takes her home to meet his little sister Suzu.

Although shocked and confused by her new surroundings, Suzuko gradually figures out the truth. She is a "fire tripper", able to traverse time when she is in dire peril from flames. Shukumaru is the Shu from her era, thrown back by the gas explosion, and Suzu is Suzuko in the Warring States period, before she traveled forward during the bandit attack. Can she straighten out the time-line confusion? Is she really Shukumaru's sister? And above all, where in time does she actually belong?

The principal voice cast includes:

• Mizushima Yuu (Shukumaru) played played the title roles in Ai no Senshi Rainbowman, God Mars, and Guyver: Out of Control. He also played the title role in Bander Book, Makabe Shun in Tokimeki Tonight, and Dai-chan in Katte ni Shirokuma, all Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in Golden Kamuy.
• Shimamoto Sumi (Suzuko, Suzu) 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, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf. The last four are Orphan releases.
• Genda Tesshou (Akauma) 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 Jin Kiryu in Blue Sonnet, Zigong in Eiyuu Banka Koushi-den, Paul Rusch in Yume Kakeru Kougen, Jim Hyatt in AWOL Compression Remix, the loyal lieutenant Galbreath in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, the dragonman Baguda in Greed, the narrator in Akai Hayate and Meisou-ou Border, Dog McCoy in Dallos, Hebopi in Wild 7, rebel leader Oosukune in Izumo, and Rikiishi's trainer Kuroki and Kirishima in Eguchi Hisashi no Kotobuki Gorou Show, all Orphan releases.
• Tanaka Mayumi (young Shu) made her debut at age 10 in Kimba the White Lion. She's probably best known for her roles as Pazu in Castle in the Sky, Giovanni in Night on the Galactic Railway, Kuririn in the original Dragonball, and of course, Monkey D. Luffy in every incarnation of One Piece. She also played Tokishima Gen in MAPS: Densetsu no Samayoeru Seijin-tachi , Flene in Cool Cool Bye, Mit-sah in White Fang, Rocco the fox in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, and Son Gokuu in I am Son Gokuu: Tezuka Osamu Monogatari, all Orphan projects.
  

The director, Takahashi Motosuke, founded his own studio, Studio Dootaku. He directed the first three Rumic World OVAs among numerous other projects.

The original subtitles are from Kotomi. They probably derive from the US Manga Corp subtitled VHS release in the 1990s. tenkenX6 checked the dialog and revised the songs from official lyrics. ninjacloud timed. I edited and typeset (very little to do). Nemesis and Rezo QCed. Intrepid encoded from a Japanese laserdisc ripped on the Domesday Duplicator. The source is a mess of blended frames and worse, so Intrepid encoded it at 59.94 fps to minimize the visual awfulness. There are still places that don't look great, but it's the best that can be done with the source material. niki provided an English dub track, taken from the US Manga Corps dubbed VHS release. There is a signs-and-only-songs subtitle track to go with it.

Fire Tripper is a great watch, showing Rumiko Takahashi in a dramatic rather than comedic mode. 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. The torrent post also contains a patch for updating the single-audio release to dual audio, and the dual-audio version can be downloaded from the IRC bot directly.

(Maris) The Choujo - Dual Audio

So... a dual audio version of Maris the Choujo, that is, an updated release including an English dub track. You may be asking yourself, "Has Collectr finally lost his marbles?" The answer is no; that happened years ago. However, my initial distaste for dubs has softened over time, as I documented in this blog post. If a dub makes an anime more accessible to an English speaking audience, that's all to the good.

The origins of this release stem from an Internet pen-pal who uses the handle niki. He's been extracting English dubs from 90s VHS tapes and synchronizing them to Orphan's releases. This must be a fairly tricky process. VHS tapes are analog, and player speeds can vary. Orphan's sources are also usually analog and are ripped on different VHS or laserdisc players. Getting an audio track to match the particular idiosyncrasies of our release is audio editing magic, at least to me. niki has produced English audio tracks for Fire Emblem, Amon Saga, Hitomi no Naka no Shounen: 15 Shounen Hyouryuuki, and other shows.

I would have left the tracks as do-it-yourself muxing projects except for one other development: Orphan is working on more Rumiko Takahashi releases. I wanted to start this mini "Rumic World" festival with something completely different, and a dual audio release of Maris the Choujo, the second OVA in the series, fit the bill perfectly. It's no secret that I loved the show, and I'm happy to have an excuse to bring it to an audience again.

I've already covered Maris the Choujo in detail, and I won't rehash the release post here, except to provide a new screencap of Maris at her best:

niki created the dub track, which is taken from the 1994 US Manga Corps VHS release. I created a signs and songs subtitles track to go with the English dub track. The new release is about 120MB bigger, so don't bother downloading it unless you really want the dub. (There's a patch available to convert single audio to dual audio, if you prefer.) This release is available from the usual torrent site and from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.