Maken Liner 0011 Henshin Seyo!

Maken Liner 0011 Henshin Seyo! (Wonderdog Liner 0011 Transform!) is a 1972 Toei sci-fi anime movie. It seems like a descendant of 1970's Kaitei 3-man Mile (30,000 Miles Under the Sea): same director, very similar character designs, bare-bones sci-fi plot. Maken Liner is even shorter, though, and rather clumsier in its execution.

Earth is being invaded by insect-descended aliens from Planet Devil. They plan to destroy the Earth and plunder its resources, or maybe the other way round. (All this is told by voice-over exposition.) Only Professor Hayashi recognizes that an invasion is in progress. However, his warnings are ignored, except by his loyal young son Tsutomu. When the evil aliens kill Tsutomu's dog Queen and her pups Ace, Jack, and Joker, Hayashi resurrects them as transforming cyberdogs. The dogs can transform and unite to form key parts of space attack ship Liner. 

However, Hayashi is killed, and Tsutomu must fight the invading Devilians on his own. The villains plan to use the Moon as a gigantic bomb to destroy the Earth (yet more voice-over). Will Tsutomu succeed in thwarting the aliens' evil designs? Well, we're all still here, so I guess the answer is clear.

As you might suspect, I don't think Maken Liner is one of Toei's stronger offerings. The clumsy exposition, the lack of character development, and the rushed plot and resolution, make the movie seem like a by-the-numbers alien invasion movie. The dogs are cute, but in cyborg form, they conveniently possess exactly the skills needed to defeat the particular villain or villains they face. Tsutomu shows no lasting grief over his father's demise. The songs are pedestrian. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

The voice actors include:

• Satomi Kiyoko (Tsutomu) played the title role in Rainbow Sentai Robin and Rune in Jungle Taitei Susume Leo.
• Kitahama Hiroku (Queen) played Ichimatsu and Todomatsu in the original Osomatsu-kun, Oman in Itoshi no Betty Monogatari, Baron Ashura in Mazinger Z, Panther Zora in the original Cutie Honey, and Rafflesia in Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
• Nozawa Masako (Ace) is a legend. She played the title roles in The Adventures of Gamba, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry no Bouken, Billy Inu nan demo Shoukai, and Hey! Bumboo. She was Enma-kun in the original Dororon Enma-kun, Son Goku in the original Dragonball, Taira no Tokuko in Genji Pt 1, and Kitarou in the 1968 and 1971 versions of GeGeGe no Kitarou, as well as Hakaba Kitarou. Even though her first role was in 1965, she was active in the early 21st century, appearing as Obaba in Ping Pong the Animation, Madame Curie in Marie & Gali, and of course, Medama Oyaji in the most recent version of GeGeGe no Kitarou. She played the title roles in Manxmouse and The Green Cat, Isamu in Kaitei 3-Man Mile, Lek in Cool Cool Bye, the wolf in Kiku-chan to Ookami, and Costar in 15 Shounen Hyouruuki, all Orphan releases. She won a lifetime achievement award in 1997.
• Matsushima Minori (Jack) had a storied career, starting with early Tezuka Osamu series. She played Dororo in the 1969 version of Dororo to Hyakkimaru, Jim in Animal Treasure Island, the title roles in Akane-chan, Candy Candy, and Lucy of the Southern Rainbow, Shun's mother in Dallos, Misako in Junkers Come Here: Memories of You, and Peach (Pinoko) in Fumoon. The last three are Orphan releases.
• Soga Machiko (Joker) played the title role in Obake no Q-taro and 007 in the Cyborg 009 franchise.
• Yamanouchi Masato (Professor Hayashi) appeared in Casshan, Future Boy Conan, Racoon Rascal, and Shounen Santa no Daibouken. He played the prophet Samuel in Tezuka Osamu's Tales of the Old Testament, an Orphan release.
• Kobayashi Osamu (narrator) played the title role in Ogon Bat. He played the villain Hugo Stronburg in Ziggy Sore Yuke! R&R Band, an Orphan release. He had featured roles in Be Forever Yamato, Crusher Joe: the Movie, Zillion, Roots Search, Future War Year 198X, and many other shows.

The director, Tamiya Takeshi, moved into planning and production after 1975.

Maken Liner was one of Iri's BlueFixer releases. He wanted to release it again in order to correct some errors in the original script. ninjacloud retimed the release. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. The raw is a 1080p webrip from Ioroid.

The English title is one of the key changes. Iri originally rendered "maken" as "Hellhound", because "ma" can mean devil or demon. But it can also mean "magic," so "maken" is now "Wonderdog." This is a better fit. The pups are not hell-hounds; they're the good guys.

So here's a revised, full HD version of Maken Liner 0011 Henshin Seyo! It's both a critter-feature and a creature-feature, so it kills two aliens with one stone. You can get this new version from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Kaitei 3-man Mile SD

Here's a standard-definition version of Kaitei 3-man Mile, encoded from the R2J DVD. There's not much to say about this release; it's a smaller version of the movie Orphan already released in high-definition. 

The DVD release was not remastered. As a result, the colors are darker than the HD release:

The sound is muddier too. So why bother? Although this version is one-seventh the size of the HD release, is there really demand for small encodes anymore? I don't know. This is intended to honor M74's work on the show, including his initial encode. This release may not be strictly necessary, but it was certainly earned.

The script is basically the same as the HD release. The typesetting has been adjusted to the different color tones and anamorphic encode, and one typo has been found and fixed. (No prizes if you find it.) M74 did the initial translation from a European language, and the initial timing as well. Sunachan checked against the original Japanese. Yogicat did final timing. I edited and typeset. Uchuu, VigorousJammer, and Nemesis QCed. M74 encoded. This is a joint Orphan and M74 release.

If you'd like this release, it's available from the usual torrent site and on IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. The HD release is there too.

Toei's Kitten

Several major themes run through Orphan's releases: rescuing shows stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide; rescuing shows abandoned by other groups (orphans); and the works of Tezuka Osamu. But there's are minor themes as well. One of them is cats, and another is the early works of Toei Douga, the pioneering Japanese animation studio. Orphan has released Saiyuuki, Wan Wan Chuushingura, Horus: Prince of the Sun, and Kaitei 3-man Mile, among Toei's feature-length films, and we'd like to do more. Today, we're releasing a double feature, a pair of short Toei cartoons from the late 1950s that are part of both themes: Koneko no Rakugaki (The Kitten's Doodles) and Koneko no Studio (The Kitten's Studio), from animator Mori Yasuji. Both feature an artistically-inclined kitten and a pair of mice antagonists/sidekicks. Doodles is black-and-white, without dialog; Studio is in color, with some dialog.

With a cat as protagonist and mice as adversaries, I was expecting a Japanese version of Tom and Jerry, but the Konekos doesn't resemble standard 1950s Hollywood fare. For one thing, both are longer - about 15 minutes vs the Hollywood standard of 8. For another, there's no real violence. The kitten bosses around the mice, and the mice tease the kitten, but they're all just having a good time.

In The Kitten's Doodles, the kitten is penciling doodles on the white wall of Grandpa Bear's house, much to the displeasure of the owner. The doodles come to life, and kitten and mice have a slapstick chase on trains and in automobiles (no planes).

In The Kitten's Studio, the kitten is trying to direct the mice in a samurai epic. Out of frustration with the ineptitude of the mice and the totally antiquated movie-making equipment, the kitten creates an automated studio with robot actors. With a little help from the mice, matters get totally out of hand.

In the tradition of Hollywood cartoons, all the voices are done by a single seiyuu, Nakamura Meiko. She played the title roles in Uchuujin Pipi and Shounen Jack to Mahou Tsukai, among other roles in early anime productions.

This project is Skr's brainchild. He found the high-definition TV streams (both are remastered), encoded, translated, typeset, and did the initial timing. I did a bit of timing and additional typesetting, as well as editing on Studio, and QC. Nemesis and Uchuu also QCed. The images are fairly wobbly, so the signs, although simple, all had to be motion tracked. (Skr also found this tweet, which clarifies that the kitten is named Miko and is doodling on Grandpa Bear's house.)

These short films are simply wonderful: gentle, humorous, and inventive. With the world engulfed in pandemic and war, they're a welcome break. You can download The Kitten's Doodles and The Kitten's Studio from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #new on irc.rizon.net

 

 

Kaitei 3-man Mile

Toei Douga pioneered the feature-length theatrical cartoon in Japan, starting with 1958's Hakujaden. Orphan has released several Toei features:

• Saiyuuki (1960)
• Wan Wan Chuushingura (1963)
• Taiyou no Ouji: Horus no Daibouken (1968)

Orphan and M74 are pleased to release the first English-subtitled version of another one, 1970's Kaitei 3-man Mile (30,000 Miles Under the Sea, or, for a literary pun, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea). 

Kaitei 3-man Mile is an all-ages shounen adventure fantasy. Young Isamu and his pet cheetah (named Cheeta, natch) are playing soccer on a volcanic island when they encounter a mysterious girl named Angel. Their playful bickering is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a monster, a Flame Dragon. Isamu saves Angel, so she invites him to visit her home. They travel to the bottom of the ocean in Angel's craft, the Seathrough. Once home, Angel informs Isamu that in addition to the surface world, there is an Underground Kingdom, ruled by King Magma VII, and an Underwater Kingdom, ruled by her father. Yes, Angel is a princess, and one with a taste for adventure to boot.

While attempting to return Isamu home in the Seathrough, Angel is captured by the Underground Kingdom's Magma VII. He uses her as a hostage to keep the Underwater Kingdom neutral while he wages war on the surface with his Flame Dragons. Isamu, aided by Cheeta and the Seathrough's comic crew members, Octopus and Tuttle (Turtle?), must rescue Angel and team up with her to stop Magma VII's evil plans. Do they succeed? Is this a G-rated kids' movie?

Because it was made more than 50 years ago, the voice cast consists of stalwarts from an earlier era:

• Nozawa Masako (Isamu) is a legend. She played the title roles in The Adventures of Gamba, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry no Bouken, Billy Inu nan demo Shoukai, and Hey! Bumboo. She was Enma-kun in the original Dororon Enma-kun, Son Goku in the original Dragonball, and Kitarou in the 1968 and 1971 versions of GeGeGe no Kitarou, as well as Hakaba Kitarou. Even though her first role was in 1965, she is still active, appearing as Obaba in Ping Pong the Animation, Madame Curie in Marie & Gali, and of course, Medama Oyaji in the most recent version of GeGeGe no Kitarou. She played the title roles in Manxmouse and The Green Cat, Lek in Cool Cool Bye, and Costar in 15 Shounen Hyouruuki, all Orphan releases. She won a lifetime achievement award in 1997.
• Kobato Kurumi (Angel) played the lead in the Attack No. 1 franchise before leaving anime work to teach at a university.
• Naya Gorou (King Magma VII) played Koichi Zenigata in Lupin III, Juzo Okita in Space Battleship Yamato, Shocker in Kamen Rider, Yupa in Nausicaa, Schott in Hashire! Shiroi Ookami, Weedon Scott in White Fang, and Yamaarashi in Botchan; the last three are Orphan releases. His deep voice provided the narration in Shinzou Ningen Casshern, Vampire Miyu, Golden Boy, the original Dororo, and other shows.
• Kitegawa Kunihiko/Yonehiko (Underwater King) played Konaki Jiji in the first Gegege no Kitarou, the chairman in the Kinnikuman franchise, Poseidon in Umi no Triton, Jacob in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, and Zhang Song in the third Sangokushi movie. The last two are Orphan releases.
• Umino Katsuo (Octopus) also appeared in Wan Wan Chuushingura, an Orphan release.
• Hitomi Akira (Tuttle) was a stage actor.

The director, Tamiya Takeshi, mostly did planning and production.

This project has a long history, with its origins now lost to (my) memory. M74 got the ball rolling back in 2017, encoding the DVD and doing an initial translation from another European language. I did an initial edit, and Sunachan agreed to check the translation. It proved to be her last project for Orphan, and it wasn't clear how much she had done.

In early 2021, I took a look at the state of the script. I found that Sunachan had actually finished her translation check. I updated the editing and typesetting, and Uchuu and VigorousJammer QCed. At the same time, Skr captured a high-definition broadcast of a "4K remaster" of the film. Although rather bit-starved, the remastered version had better color balance than the DVD, as well as more detail. bananadoyouwanna agreed to encode the web stream, downscaled to 720p because of the bit rate. Yogicat retimed the script to the new raw, and I tweaked the editing and typesetting yet again. Nemesis checked the finished script. Because M74 did the original translation, timing, and SD encode this is a joint Orphan-M74 release.

Kaitei 3-man Mile is mid-tier Toei Douga - better than Saiyuuki but not a masterpiece like Horus: Prince of the Sun. There's a Disney-like abundance of sidekicks (Cheeta for Isamu, Octopus and Tuttle for Angel), a few non-intrusive songs, lots of comedy, and lots of action. (The Flame Dragon attack is probably too intense for younger children.) Some of the sequences without dialog, like Isamu's soccer practice with Cheeta and the underwater ballet at an undersea banquet, are really well done, both visually and kinetically. The movie goes by quickly, partly because it's less than an hour long. And the ending is unexpected - not modern ironical, but not formulaic either. You can get Kaitei 3-man Mile from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Saiyuuki (1960) HD

In honor of the 60th anniversary of its release in 1960, Orphan is releasing a high-definition version of Saiyuuki, encoded from an HDTV version of the movie's recent 4K remastering. Our loyal fans (all six of them) have been asking for a high-definition version of Saiyuuki ever since a 1080p web rip became available in 2017. However, I felt the video in that raw was no better than the original release, which used ARR's DVD encoding and remains available. This new version is a major improvement, with more vibrant colors and greater image stability.

Saiyuuki was based on Tezuka Osamu's highly popular manga of the same name, which in turn was based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West. Tezuka's name was used prominently in promoting the film, although he always denied active involvement in the production. According to some sources, he was displeased with the film's happy ending, and that spurred him to form his own animation company, Mushi Productions.

Saiyuuki is set in China and recounts the adventures of Son Gokuu, a monkey king. Son Gokuu is both powerful and willful. In his arrogance, he challenges heaven itself and is punished by exile to Mount Gogyou. He is eventually released on condition that he accompany a monk named Sanzou to India in order to receive the Buddhist sutras. Along the way, he defeats and then befriends the pig-man Cho Hokkai and the ogre Sa Gajou. Together, they must confront and defeat the terrible bull demon Gyuumaou before Sanzou can accomplish his mission.

 

 

The core cast is supplemented by Rin Rin, a love interest for Son Gokuu, and Shouryuu, a mischievous imp whose head horn doubles as an antenna for a 1960s mobile phone.

Like the original manga, Saiyuuki is a mishmash of styles, with plenty of anachronistic elements. Broad comedy is mixed in with action and chase sequences. Western influences coexist with Asian styling and thought. For example, the gods are depicted with angelic halos, and some of heaven's denizens are from Greek mythology. When Cho Hakkai is trying to impress his bride-to-be (actually Son Gokuu in disguise), he appears successively in formal Western attire, then in a Russian Cossack costume, then as an Indian chief, and then as a hula dancer. Still, Saiyuuki is recognizably a children's film in the 1950s Disney mold. Action sequences alternate with slower sections to allow kids to "cool off." Songs are used to underline the characters or delineate chapters. (Songs account for 10% of the lines in the script.) And despite trials and tribulations, the good guys triumph.

 

Saiyuuki was Toei Douga's third color animated film. The animation is fluid and represents a real advance over the studio's previous animated movies, although there are obvious animation errors; for example, Son Gokuu disappears in one frame of a sequence. Personally, I find the movie a bit bland. I prefer Takahata Isao's Horus: Prince of the Sun, which shows signs of his unique directorial sensibility, even though it too is a G-rated children's movie. Horus is lively, while Saiyuuki is frenetic. However, Saiyuuki was a greater commercial success in Japan. It was redubbed and re-edited for the North American market as Alakazam the Great but failed at the box office.

Because the movie is sixty years old, the voice cast belongs to an earlier era of Japanese animation:

• Komiyama Kiyoshi (Son Gokuu) appeared as the puppeteer in Oedo ga Nemurenai!, an Orphan release. He also appeared in the original Astro Boy, the original GeGeGe no Kitarou, Candy Candy, and other roles.
• Kinoshita Hideo (Cho Hokkai) played Rock in Wan Wan Chuushingura, an Orphan release. He also appeared in other Toei Douga movies, including Sinbad and Wanpaku Ouji.
• Shinoda Setsuo (Sa Gajou) also appeared in Wanpaku Ouji.
• Sekine Nobuaki (Sanzou) appeared in Jungle Taitei, Devilman Lady, Heat Guy J, and Salaryman Kintarou.
• Shindou Noriko (Rin Rin) appeared in Wanpaku Ouji, Sinbad, and Princess Knight.

A few translation notes:

• ri is an old unit of distance, equal to 3.927 kilometers.
• Gogyuu, the mountain where Gokuu is imprisoned, takes its name from the five elements of Chinese medicine: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water.

The subs are little changed since the first release, although the typesetting had to be redone. Magistral did the initial translation; convexity checked the dialog and translated the songs. M74 timed the first release; Yogicat cleaned the timing up for the new raw. I edited and typeset. Calyrica and konnakude did QC on the first release. banandoyouwanna encoded the raw from a TV capture; the resolution is 1280 x 544 (effective 720p). Even though this version is based on the 4K remaster, the video quality wasn't good enough for a 1080p encode. Perhaps we'll get a real Blu-ray someday and be able to release in full HD.

If you missed Saiyuuki the first time, here's an opportunity to see it at higher resolution, with its glorious colors restored.. You can find this release on the usual torrent site or download it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru

Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru (The Three-Eyed One: The Prince of Devil Island) was aired in 1985 as part of NTV's "Love Will Save the Earth" telethon. It was the seventh of nine specials to draw on a Tezuka Osamu story and the only one produced by Toei Animation instead of Tezuka Productions. The other eight were:

1978: Hyakumannen Chikyuu no Tabi: Bander Book
1979: Kaitei Choutokkyuu Marine Express
1980: Fumoon
1981: Bremen 4 
1983: Time Slip Ichimannen Prime Rose
1984: Daishizen no Majuu Bagi
1986: Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet
1989: Tezuka Osamu Monogatari: Boku wa Songoku 

Akuma Tou no Prince is the only special that lacks a high-definition source.

Akuma Tou no Prince is based on Tezuka Osamu's manga character Sharaku, the Three-Eyed One. Sharaku is a descendant of a nearly extinct tribe of three-eyed humans that created an advanced civilization 50,000 years ago and then perished. When his third eye is covered, he is a childish eighth-grader who prefers the company of kindergartners and is frequently bullied at school. However, when his third eye is uncovered, he is a super-genius with a penchant for trying to conquer the world. He is guarded, unofficially, by an older high school girl name Wato Chiyoko, who is exasperated when he behaves like a toddler and terrified when he acts like a psychopath.

Sharaku and Wato-san, as she is always called, are a reference to Sherlock and Watson, but there's no detective work in this episode. Instead, Sharaku, Wato-san, and Inspector Unmei, who thinks he's the reincarnation of Beethoven, are lured aboard a derelict ship and shanghaied to a mysterious island. The captors are none other than neo-Nazis led by Hitler's granddaughter, Pandora. They seek the ultimate treasure of the three-eyed tribe, a weapon that will allow them to (dare I say it?) Rule The World. Pandora and her minions use Sharaku to unlock the path to the treasure, but he is, as one might imagine, three steps ahead of them. Fortunately, Wato-san is one step ahead of Sharaku, and all ends happily for the world, if not Pandora.

The voice cast includes:

• Fujita Toshiko (Sharaku) played the title role in Ikkyu-san, Rui in Cat's Eye, and Yawara's mother in Yawara! She also played cyborg 1019 in Oz, an Orphan release.
• Takashima Gara (Wato-san) played Hild in the Aa! Megami-sama franchise and Julia in Cowboy Bebop. She played Lingming in the Sangokushi OVAs, which Orphan released. She is still active, appearing in the most recent incarnation of Gegege no Kitarou.
• The late Kumakura Kazuo (Unmei) played Papa Panda in the Panda Go Panda movies, the wizard in The Wizard of Oz anime movie, and Shuijing in the Sangokushi OVA, an Orphan release. He died in 2015.
• Yanami Jouji (the mustachioed old man, in a cameo role as a much put-upon ramen cart vendor) narrated most of the Dragon Ball Z properties. He played Ittan Momen in several of the GeGeGe no Kitaro series and movies and Chuta Ban in all the Kyojin no Hoshi TV series. He appeared as Lump in Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet, Big Bird in Grim Douwa: Kin no Tori, and of course, Ibari in Stop!! Hibari-kun, all Orphan releases.
• Yokozawa Keiko (Pandora) is probably best known for her starring role as Sheeta in Castle in the Sky. She played the title roles in Charlotte (1977), the Dorami-chan properties, and ESPer Mami, as well as leading roles in Plastic Little and Legend of Lemnear.

The director, Serikawa Yuugo, is not well known.

Interestingly, the DVD release of Akuma Tou is apparently abridged (or edited or censored, your choice). According to Japan Wikipedia, the original show included a scene where a monster bird attacked the Kinmochi Clinic while Sharaku was watching Kinnikuman on TV. This scene is missing from the raw we have. (A tip of the hat to Gyumaoh for pointing this out, as well as ANN's name confusion about the seiyuu who played Wato-san.) That could explain why the special is only 85 minutes, when all the others are 90.

Moho Kareshi did the original script, and tenkenX6 checked the translation. ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and VigorousJammer QCed. The raw is from heponeko and appears to be a DVD rip. It includes eyecatches at every commercial break (roughly every 12-13 minutes). In the Blu-ray Tezuka Osamu specials, the eyecatches have been removed.

Apparently, Tezuka Osamu didn't like Akuma Tou no Prince. The official web site complains that "more emphasis was placed on entertainment factors than on theme." That's certainly true; the usual environmental messaging is missing. But the helter-skelter plot and giddy twists are certainly mainstream Tezuka Osamu, and it is entertaining. You can get Akuma Tou no Prince from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Wan Wan Chuushingura

Wan Wan Chuushingura (The Doggie March) is a 1963 Toei Douga feature-length cartoon (they weren't called anime in those days). Starting in 1960 with Saiyuuki, Toei put out a feature-length color cartoon every year. These movies were aimed at children and have been characterized sometimes as faux Disney, with G-rated plots, lots of sidekicks and hijinks, and interpolated songs. In the hands of a master, like Takahata Isao, the formula worked brilliantly (1968's Horus no Daibouken); in less inspired hands, it produced mediocre results. Wan Wan Chuushingura is better than most. It is one of just two Toei productions from the 1960s that has not been translated into English. (The other is Andersen Monogatari.) It is best known for two things: first, it's based on a manga by Tezuka Osamu; and second, it was Miyazaki Hayao's first film as an animator (he did in-between animation).

Wan Wan Chuushingura tells the story of Rock, a country pup who lives in a mountain forest. His mother, Shiro, is a fierce defender of the local fauna from the depredations of Killer the tiger and his evil but clever sidekick, Akamimi the fox. (Never mind that tigers live in jungles, not on mountains, and are solitary except when mating.) When Akemimi lures Shiro into a fatal encounter with Killer, Rock vows revenge. However, he is too young and small to achieve much. He sets out for the city to recruit allies and falls in with a rough but lovable gang of street mutts. After many adventures, Rock eventually leads the city dogs into battle against Killer and Akamimi, with predictable results, if not exactly in a predictable way.

In the title, "wan wan" is Japanese onomatopoeta for a dog's bark, as "nyan nyan" is for a cat's meow. "Chuushingura"  (Treasury of Loyal Retainers) refers to a famous Japanese historical episode, the 47 Ronin, which is frequently dramatized in Japanese movies and plays. Except for the dogs seeking revenge against Killer, the anime doesn't draw on any part of the actual incident. (There aren't even 47 dogs.)

The animation in Wan Wan is fluid, and the action sequences are both exciting and good-looking. The movie is mercifully free of the soulful and romantic songs that periodically wrecked the pace of 1960's Saiyuuki. Aside from the opening and ending, the only other song is a lullaby that Shiro sings to Rock, and it's entirely appropriate in the context. On the other hand, there are a couple of "poetic" dream sequences that seem to be padding. Perhaps they were intended to give younger viewers time to calm down before the next thrill ride.

Because Wan Wan was made more than 60 years ago, the voice actors belong to a different era and are little known to modern audiences. Hori Junko, who played young Rock, had an amazing career, starting in the 1960s and appearing as recently as the last decade. The late Kamo Yoshihisa, who did a great comic turn as the clever but craven Akamichi, worked mostly in the 1960s. The fluid and engaging animation was directed by the late Daikuhara Akira, who worked on several Toei Douga features. He received a Lifetime Achievement Prize in 2006. The musical score is functional, but the catchy opening and closing song, The Doggie March, is a total earworm.

Iri translated the show, and M74 timed it. I edited and typeset (not much to do there), Nemesis and bananadoyouwanna did QC, and Skr encoded from a high-definition stream. The video is full of grain, which led to a large encode; of course, it might just be dirt on a non-remastered print rather than true film grain:

Maybe we'll get a real Blu-Ray someday.

So fall in line with the 47 (well, 31 or so) doggies and march, march, march to see this entertaining story. You can get it from the usual torrent sites and from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Saiyuuki (1960)

Here is the first English-subtitled version of the 1960 Japanese animated movie Saiyuuki. Up until now, the only available English version has been the 1961 dub Alakazam the Great. As was often the case back then, the script for the dub bears little or no relation to the original Japanese script. The changes in Alakazam the Great were quite extensive: all the Buddhist and Taoist elements were eliminated; the movie was shortened by several minutes; the musical score and songs were redone completely. Despite the attempt to reshape Saiyuuki into generic Disney fare, the movie was a commercial failure in the US.

Saiyuuki was based on Tezuka Osamu's highly popular manga of the same name, which in turn was based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West. Osamu's name was used prominently in promoting the film, although he always denied active involvement in the production. According to some sources, he was displeased with the film's happy ending, and that spurred him to form his own anime company, Mushi Productions.

Saiyuuki is set in China and recounts the adventures of Son Gokuu, a monkey king. Son Gokuu is both powerful and willful. In his arrogance, he challenges heaven itself and is punished by exile to Mount Gogyou. He is eventually released on condition that he accompany a monk named Sanzou to India in order to receive the Buddhist sutras. Along the way he defeats and then befriends the pig-man Cho Hokkai and the ogre Sa Gajou. Together, they must confront and defeat the terrible bull demon Gyuumaou before Sanzou can accomplish his mission. The core cast is supplemented by Rin Rin, a love interest for Son Gokuu, and Shouryuu, a mischievous imp whose head horn doubles as an antenna for a 1960s mobile phone.

Like the original manga, Saiyuuki is a mishmash of styles, with plenty of anachronistic elements. Broad comedy is mixed in with action and chase sequences. Western influences coexist with Asian styling and thought. For example, the gods are depicted with angelic halos, and some of its denizens are from Greek mythology. When Cho Hakkai is trying to impress his bride-to-be (actually Son Gokuu in disguise), he appears successively in formal Western attire, then a Russian Cossack costume, then as an Indian chief, and then as a hula dancer. Still, Saiyuuki is recognizably a children's film in the 1950s Disney mold. Action sequences alternate with slower sections to allow kids to "cool off." Songs are used to underline the characters or delineate chapters. And despite trials and tribulations, the good guys triumph.

Saiyuuki was Toei Douga's third color animated film. The animation is fluid and represents a real advance over the studio's previous animated movies. Despite that, I find it a bit bland. There's really nothing to engage an adult, and there's a lot of padding. I prefer Takahata Isao's Horus: Prince of the Sun, which shows signs of his unique directorial sensibility, even though it too is a G-rated children's movie. Horus is lively, while Saiyuuki is frenetic. However, Saiyuuki was a greater commercial success in Japan.

This is Orphan's second Journey to the West-themed project, after Tezuka Osamu Monogatari in 2014. Both projects originated with Al_Sleeper in the BakaBT community. For Saiyuuki, he provided the encoded raw and a very rough English translation as a starting point. Magistral (also from the BakaBT community) redid the translation and filled in some of the rough spots; then convexity gave the script a complete going over and translated the signs and the songs. M74 timed, I edited and typeset, and Calyrica and konnakude QCed. The raw is from ARR, minus their Russian voice-over track and subtitles. The encode is serviceable, but the source suffers from jitter and transcription problems. The film really needs restoration and a Blu-Ray release, but that seems unlikely.

 A few translation notes:

•  ri is an old unit of distance, equal to 3.927 kilometers.
• Gogyuu, the mountain where Gokuu is imprisoned, takes its name from the five elements of Chinese medicine: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water.

So even though it's Tezuka Osamu at one remove, enjoy Saiyuuki!

Horus (BluRay)

After expounding at some length on why I'd never give credit to more than two groups in a file name, how do I explain [tubesoda&neo1024-tipota-Orphan] Taiyou no Ouji -Horus no Daibouken-? All I can say in my defense is that every rule has exceptions, and this needs to be one.

First, though, the movie. Horus no Daibouken (The Great Adventures of Horus, Prince of the Sun, 1968) is one of the early great anime movies from Japan. Directed by the legendary Takahata Isao, it took more than three years to complete and launched the career of Miyazaki Hayao, among others. The project ran so late and so far over budget that the production studio, Toei, allowed it to play in theaters for only ten days and demoted Takahata from directing. He left Toei, as did Miyazaki. After some years working on World Masterpiece Theater adaptations, Takahata joined Ghibli, where he directed the classic Grave of the Fireflies, as well as Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, and My Neighbors the Yamadas. His latest film, Kaguya Hime no Monogatari, has not been subtitled in English.

Horus no Daibouken is an "all-ages" adventure tale set in Scandinavia. The young hero, Horus (anglicized as Hols in some translations), leaves his adopted home and returns to the village of his people to confront the evil demon Grunwald, who is determined to wipe the population from the face of the earth. Horus encounters people good and bad, as well as an enigmatic young girl named Hilda, (spoilers ahead) who despite her beautiful singing is a lot more dangerous than she appears. After thrilling adventures, Horus redeems Hilda, unites the village population to face danger head on, and leads the good guys to victory.

Horus is very much a film of its time. The hero is plucky, brave, and one dimensional. He has a comic animal sidekick. The villain is a black-and-white baddie (literally). There are lots of adorably cute children and lots of songs. Even so, it's terrific. The plot moves along briskly, the action sequences are very well animated, and the musical interludes (like the fish harvest and the wedding celebration) burst with energy. Hilda's songs are beautiful, sad, and more than a touch ambiguous. The ultimate message ("united we stand") is inoffensive and not thrown in the audience's face, but it resonated with the young Japanese of the era. Miyazaki is often called "the Walt Disney of Japan," but that's more about his towering stature in the animation scene than about his style. Horus no Daibouken feels like a classic Disney film, and it leaves you smiling the same way. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now, back to the file naming. The DVD version of Horus no Daibouken was encoded and subtitled with great care by neo1024 and tubesoda. (Information on the DVD edition, along with a lot of background about the film itself, can be found in the BakaBT torrent.) The subtitles from that version have been used here. tipota encoded the newly-released BluRay. That encode is used here. Orphan retimed the subtitles completely, restyled them, retypeset them (particularly the trailer), and did additional QC. So how can any of these groups be omitted? tubesoda&neo1024's subtitles needed very little work. A few missing lines have been added, and the grammar tweaked here and there, but no more than 30 lines have been modified. tipota's encode is unchanged. On the Orphan side, convexity filled in the few missing lines, I retimed the script, Eternal_Blizzard and I did the typsetting, and CP and Saji provided additional QC. So [tubesoda&neo1024-tipota-Orphan] it is. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Or would you prefer [mashup]?

Enjoy Horus no Daibouken in this beautiful BluRay edition!