What's in a Name?

Today, in honor of the anniversary of the passing of our late colleague, CP, QC extraordinaire for many groups, we have a mass release of ongoing shows: three episodes of the Yawara! Blu-ray series, and no less than six specials from the Laughing Salesman high-definition series. And great episodes they are too. Yawara! is in the heart of the arc about Mitsuba's first judo tournament, where Fujiko finds her footing as a serious competitor (and finds romance as well). The Laughing Salesman specials delve even deeper into the series' dark and sometimes nightmarish humor.

Yawara! is a FroZen-Evil project; Laughing Salesman is a Evil-Saizen project. The hybrid group names obviously meant something back when the projects started - mid-2011 for Yawara!, late 2013 for Laughing Salesman. But what about today? "FroZen-Evil" stood for Frostii, Saizen, and Live-EviL. Frostii shut down shortly after the project started, but the name never changed. Laughing Salesman got started after the Yawara! DVD project finished and had pretty much the same staff. However, Frostii was long gone, so the joint name was shortened to Evil-Saizen.

The decade since then has seen many changes. CP has died; Juggen, Eternal_Blizzard, sangofe, and many others have mostly left fansubbing. Saizen is a shell of its former self. The projects are now staffed by a smorgasbord of people from the back catalog "kairetsu", including Orphan, Saizen, Inka, Live-Evil, and others. But the original project team names remain, as momento mori.

I find it quite sobering that I've been working on Yawara! for almost twelve years, and Laughing Salesman for almost nine. When I started, the prospect of a really lengthy series didn't seem all that daunting. I had all the time in the world. Now, I no longer feel that way, and the leisurely pace of these series is serious problem. In a world threatened by pandemic and war, with friends far younger than me removed from the scene by illness or other circumstances, the prospect of taking another six or seven years to finish these shows seems out of the question. The teams have made tentative steps towards a faster pace. I hope these steps lead to a more rapid cadence for both shows. If Yawara! could release weekly, like the original series team did, it would be done for CP day in 2023. Laughing Salesman needs a 3-4 week cadence. We'll see.

Meanwhile, enjoy watching Fujiko release her Ouchi Gari on unsuspecting rivals

while Fukuzo lures more victims into his increasingly sinister traps:

Happy holidays!

This Is Where I Came In...

I just had the pleasure of editing the Blu-ray version of episode 58 of Yawara! - the last one I had never touched (or seen) before - and then picking up the Blu-ray version of episode 59, where I started on the project more than ten years ago. Now I've seen (and edited) all 124 episodes, the movie, and the TV special. It's been a fun ride.

I've written more than enough about Yawara! In my post on the Blu-ray version of the Atlanta special, I described the main voice actors in the series. Here I'd like to focus on some of the smaller parts. These include some of Yawara's competitors at events and the members of Fujiko's scratch judo team at Mitsuba Women's College:

• Satou Ai (Kristen Adams) 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.
• Mine Atsuko (Tohdoh Yuki) played Miwa, the artist's wife, in Lunn Flies into the Wind and Maris' mother in Maris the Choujo, both Orphan release, as well as numerous featured roles in other series.
• Ichijou Miyuki (Jody Rockwell) played Akane in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, an Orphan release, and appeared in several Detective Conan movies.
• Sasaki Run (Belkens) played Himiko in Izumi (1991), an Orphan release.
• Mizutani Yuko (Anna Tereshkova) played Pinoko in all the Black Jack properties, as well as Rika in Sei Michaela Gakuen Hyouryuuki, Lila in Eien no Filena, Hitomi in Milky Passion: Dougenzaka - Ai no Shiro, and Dr. Uematsu Kikue in Yume Kakeru Kougen, all Orphan projects.
• Suzuki Mei (Minamida Yoko, aka Paddyfield) played Cross in Hitomi no Naka no Shounen: Juugo Shunen Hyouryuuki, an Orphan release, and had a recurring role as Masao-kun in the Crayon Shin-chan franchise.
• Touma Yumi (Kyonkyon) played the title roles in Emma: A Victorian Romance and Baby Felix and Urd in the Aa! Megami-sama franchise. She appeared in numerous Orphan releases, including Boyfriend, Condition Green, Fukuyama Gekijou, Tezuka Osamu ga Kieta?!, Gude Crest, and Eguchi Hisashi no Nantoko Nareudesho.

I could go on and on. For example, Hayashibara Megumi, arguably the most famous female seiyuu of the 1990s, appears in a small role, as does Hara Eriko. Like other long series of the time, Yawara! graces the resume of many seiyuu from the 80s and 90s.

Although I've now come full circle on the project, I don't have any intention of dropping out, but... It's taken six years to get this far on the BD project - less than ten episodes per year. At this rate, the project won't finish for another seven years. By then, I'd be 82 or thereabouts. No one can foretell the future, but that's really pushing the demographic odds. The Blu-ray project simply has to move faster - or it has to get a different editor. I'm not being alarmist; I'm being realistic. Maybe the second half will go faster, because the scripts are in better shape. But one never knows... do one?

 

Yawara Atlanta Special (Blu-ray)

It's been more than four years since FroZen-EviL finished the standard-definition Yawara! project by releasing Yawara! The Atlanta Special, more formally known as Yawara! Ever Since I Met You... The Blu-ray version of Yawara! has been proceeding by fits and starts, so the team has leaped ahead to the end to bring you the conclusion, in high-definition.

The climax of Yawara! was supposed to be set at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but the series didn't finish until after those Olympics were over. There was a four-year gap before a project was started to provide an actual conclusion to the series, so the setting was moved to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and all the signs in the TV show about "xyz days until Barcelona" were removed in the Blu-ray releases.

Yawara! The Atlanta Special wraps up all the story lines of the show: Yawara's less-than-enthusiastic pursuit of Olympic glory; the subsurface romance between Yawara and the "third-rate reporter" Matsuda; Kazamatsuri's increasingly desperate attempts to evade the grasp of Honami Sayaka. Most of the subordinate characters put in an appearance: Fujiko and Hanazono, now married with an infant; Jody Rockwell, now bigger and stronger than ever; Kuniko, Matsuda's colleague and wannabe love interest; Kamoda, Matsuda's much put-upon photographer; and of course, Master Jigoro, ever ready to steal a scene, a medal, or a massive plate of food. Despite romantic mixups and the problems imposed by Japanese reticence, all ends happily. Or rather, the main characters all get what they deserve.

In all my blogs on Yawara!, I've never talked about the voice cast, which is just wonderful.

• For Minaguchi Yuuko (Inokuma Yawara), Yawara! was her breakout and defining role. She made her debut as Kii in Greed, an Orphan release, and appeared in numerous other shows, including Dragon Ball Z and GT, Sailor Moon, and One Piece. She played Roxanne in Alexander (Reign: The Conqueror) and Felicia in Oz (another Orphan release).
• The late Nagai Ichirou (Yawara's grandfather Jigoro) appeared in numerous shows, including Gosenzosama Banbanzai!, Nora, and Hidamari no Ki (the last two are Orphan releases).  He also dubbed Albus Dumbledore in the Japanese versions of the Harry Potter movies.
• Okabe Masaki (Yawara's absentee father Kojiro) played Shinichi, the conniving and lecherous politician brought down by Hojo and Chiaki in Sanctuary, an Orphan release.
• Seki Toshihiko (Matsuda) should be quite familiar to readers of this blog. He appeared as Riki in Ai no Kusabi, the hero Seitarou in Hoshi Neko Full House, Miroku in Yuukan Club, Chuuta in Satsujin Kippu wa Heart-iro, the fighter Nagase Jun in Akai Hayate, and the unnamed protagonist of Oruorane the Cat Player, all Orphan releases. He also played Sanzo in all the Saiyuuki TV series and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro.
• Chafuurin (Kamoda) played Inspector Maguro in the Detective Conan franchise. He also appeared as the Tera leader in Next Senki Ehrgeiz and Jog in Yamata 2520, both Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in Basilisk, Baki, and Pop Team Epic in 2018.
• Kamiya Akira (Kazamatsuri) is best known for the title roles in the City Hunter properties and the Kinnikuman franchise. He also played Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers and stole the show as the lecherous robot Chiraku in Hoshi Neko Full House, both Orphan releases. 
• Takamori Yoshino (Sayaka) played the twin roles of Juliet Douglas and Sloth in Full Metal Alchemist. She also appeared in the What's Michael? OVAs and Yousei Ou, Orphan releases.
• Kawashima Chiyoko (Fujiko) played Clair in Galaxy Express 999, Sailor Pluto in the Sailor Moon franchise, Okiyo in Haguregumo, and Iko in Greed, an Orphan release. She retired in 2001.

The director, Asaka Morio, did not work on the original TV series. After this special, he went on to direct many well-known and well-regarded shows, including Cardcaptor Sakura (and its recent revival), Galaxy Angels, Chobits, Nana, Chihayafuru (both series), and Ore Monogatari.

The staff credits are basically the same as for the standard-definition release. kokujin-kun translated and typeset; Juggen timed; I edited; CP, Saji, Juggen, Mamo-chan, and Skr all worked on QC. Suzaku encoded from the BDMV box set, which CP purchased. 

Today is the anniversary of CP's passing. His presence has been, and continues to be, sorely missed by all his friends and colleagues.

Yawara! Sore Yuke Koshinuke Kids!! (HD)

FroZen-EviL just released the 1992 Yawara movie, Yawara! Sore Yuke Koshinuke Kids!!, loosely translated as Yawara! Go Get 'Em, Wimpy Kids!!, in glorious high-definition. (The last word in the title is often misrendered as Kiss, by the way, which puts a wholly incorrect spin on the content.) This is a side story that occurs somewhere in the middle of the TV series. Hanazono asks Yawara for help coaching a pickup team of judo losers who are up against an elite judo club sponsored by none other than arch oujo-sama Honami. The plot follows almost the same arc as the one of the Mitsuba Women's Junior College matches in the TV series, but Yawara! has never been known for the originality of its plot arcs. However, the spotlight is very much on the wimpy kids and their dysfunctional families, rather than Yawara-chan and her friends and her dysfunctional family.

When I first worked on Wimpy Kids!!, I was somewhat disappointed, because it all seemed so familiar. It's a traditional sports movie: a team of losers, up against a superior foe, decide to fight back and triumph after a lot of hard work. Now, I find its standard story arc endearing. The wimpy kids are well characterized, their struggles are given proper weight, and the ultimate fight is suspenseful. Yawara and the rest of the main cast play a subordinate role; this is very much a movie about the kids. It moves along quickly and doesn't overstay its welcome.

This version was done directly from the remastered Blu-Ray box set, and it looks glorious. The script is not much changed from the original VHS-based release, but I have excised a few more exclamation points. The incomparable kokujin-kun did the original translation and timing; he also found and added the insert song lyrics for this version. ninjacloud retimed for the new encode. I edited both versions and added actual typesetting; kokujin-kun fixed up my mistakes. The original QC team included CP, kokujin-kun, Juggen, sangofe, Saji, and Skr; Mizu no Kamo and I QCed the new release. Suzaku encoded from the Blu-Ray box set, which was obtained by our late colleague, CP. As always, we miss him very much.

So enjoy this new version of Yawara! Sore Yuke Koshinuke Kids!! Even if you have the previous version, I recommend this one for its superior visuals, improved typesetting, and additional song translation. I hope there will be more Blu-Ray Yawara in the near future.

Yawara-chan Returns!

Yes, the FroZen-EviL gang has reunited to put on another show, in this case, the Blu-Ray version of Yawara! The first two episodes have been released, and despite a mixup about fonts, it's now possible to see Yawara-chan in her HD and color-restored glory.

The process for this project will be a little different than before. For the first 40 episodes, the team is going to use the AnimEigo R1 subs as a base. For episodes 41-58, the team is using the Froth-Bite/Live-eviL subs, which will require OCRing the original episodes (the scripts were lost in one of several FTP catastrophes). From episode 59 onward, we'll use the FroZen-EviL scripts. All episodes will be scrutinized carefully to get consistent styling and terminology, and episodes 1-58 will receive a full translation check. Complete typesetting, instead of the simpler {\an8}Sign: style of the original show, will be done. Karaokes will be styled (simply) instead of just line-timed.

Editorial changes should be relatively few. The award that Jigoro wants Yawara to win is properly called the People's Honor Award, not the National Merit Award. All of the terms in the judo ring will be left untranslated, not just "Hajime" and "Matte." Judo terms will be given consistent spelling and capitalization.

Now, I must confess that I never watched the first 58 episodes of Yawara! In was easy enough to pick up the show in media res, and real-life time constraints made devoting 20 hours to catching up impractical. Now that I'm retired, I could watch the whole series, but I'm enjoying the week-by-week unrolling of the first few episodes. The main characters don't change much from beginning to end, of course. Still, it will be fun watching them run their courses over several years.

To me, the Blu-Rays (like the "Special DVD Edition" of episode 1) look gorgeous. Colors are vibrant, edge-burn is gone, interlacing and blended frame issues much less prominent. The first OP and ED - Miracle Girl and Stand by Me - are excellent. Miracle Girl is a J-pop earworm, albeit quite a good one, but Stand by Me is a soulful ballad that stands repeated listening. Be sure to get the second versions to avoid font problems with the OP karaoke.

So welcome back, Yawara-chan! I look forward to following your progress in the coming months and years.

Yawara: Back to the Beginning

FroZen-EviL just released episode 1 of Yawara! Does that mean we're going back to the beginning and redoing the 58 episodes done by Live-evil? The answer, alas, is no. This is a one-shot... probably.

The encoder for Yawara! is currently attending university in Japan, and he found a disc called Yawara: Special Selections. This consists of four random episodes, including episode 1. The attraction is that episodes have been remastered. So he couldn't resist encoding the first episode, just to see how it looked, and then he persuaded the rest of the old team to jump back in. This episode is the result, and it looks very good indeed. No more film burn at the scene changes, no more washed out colors, no more random jumpiness in the image. This is what Yawara! should look like.

Although the subtitles are from the R1 DVD, they were translation checked by kokujin-kun and then edited by me. kokujin-kun did full typesetting. Juggen, CP, and Saji checked the results, and Skr encoded. It was fun to get back to Yawara-chan and also to do a proper job on the amazing first OP and ED.

Will there any more? "It depends." If the Special Selections are going to be random episodes released as random promotions, probably not. But why would anyone go to the trouble of remastering Yawara! without more ambitious plans? Do these releases presage, perhaps, a BluRay version? Now that would be something to consider.

However, redoing Yawara! from BluRays would be an enormous undertaking. The Live-eviL subtitles are lost, so episodes 1-40 would probably use the R1 DVD subtitles. Episode 41-58 would need to be OCR'd from the Live-eviL releases. And then episodes 59-124 would use the current softsubs. The disparate sources mean that there would be serious consistency issues to resolve. And could the team be content with the simplistic typesetting that we used before, now that everyone has seen what real typesetting looks like? Hard to say.

All this is hypothetical. Meanwhile, here's a change to visit with Yawara-chan at the outset of her career, when a chance encounter with a purse-snatcher and a captured photograph of some white pantsu will change history. Enjoy episode 1!

Final Yawara! Bits and Bobs

FroZen-Evil had had a last Yawara! fling by subtitling the 15 minute extra that came with the R2J DVDs. It's a documentary/promotion, combining live action footage of the voice actors in the studio with a couple of commercials, an interview with the mangaka, an episode preview, and the wonderful first OP "Miracle Girl" and ED "Stand by Me."

I've also put up a torrent of the four original soundtrack albums from the TV series:

• Yawara! Original Soundtrack (1990)
• Yawara! Sound Selection (1991)
• Yawara! Songs (1992)
• Yawara! Memories (1992)

I want to thank my fellow fansubber doll_licca for obtaining and ripping these wonderful souvenirs of the show.

And that, I think, is it for Yawara! and me. There's more audio material out there - the soundtrack from the "Wimpy Kids" movie, for example - but I'll let others take up the chase at this point. It's been great fun, but now it's time to move on to other shows. Sayonara, Yawara-chan, and arigatou.

Goodbye, Yawara-chan (For Now)

FroZen-Evil has just released Yawara! The Atlanta Special. This actually wraps up the entire storyline, showing Yawara competing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1992. (Yes, the TV show said she was going to the Barcelona Olympics in 1988, but the TV show didn't finish until those Olympics were over.) It also brings conclusions, of sorts, for all the characters in the show.

This release has a complicated history. The previously available raw was just terrible - a VHS rip that had been brightened far too much and showed obvious signs of tape stretch. The team's attempts to find a better source turned up nothing for a long time, until finally a copy of the LaserDisc release was offered at an auction in Japan, at an incredibly exorbitant price. Despite the cost, one of the team members bought it. Getting it shipped required working through a third-party broker, which added further delays and costs. Finally, the disc was shipped from Japan via Europe to the US, where Suzaku from Live-Evil has a working LaserDisc setup based on an industrial-grade player. Then came further problems with ripping the disc. Most video capture cards these days apply compression in hardware, but Suzaku wanted a pure, uncompressed rip, so that filtering, if any, could be done in software. The rip looked rather dark, but any attempt to brighten it resulted in the sort of wash-out that plagues the VHS raw floating around the Internet. So the encode is, so to speak, sweet and unfiltered.

Our intrepid translator, kokujin-kun, translated the script. In addition, to honor the project's status as the final Yawara release, he fully typeset all the signs, with motion tracking. The results look very nice indeed.

All the usual suspects worked on this release; I won't repeat their names. I would like to thank the newest member of the team, Suzaku, for encoding. I also must thank CP for engineering the acquisition of the source material, which required coordinating buyers and shippers on three continents.

So that's it for now. Apparently there's an omake on the DVDs that's never been subbed before; perhaps it will get done at some point. The original soundtracks will show up one of these days, and we'll release them as well. Meanwhile, the team is moving on to another project, but that will have to wait for another blog post.

More Yawara-chan!

FroZen-EviL just released the Yawara movie, Yawara! Sore Yuke Koshinuke Kids!!, loosely translated as Yawara! Go Get 'Em, Wimpy Kids!! (The last word is often misrendered as Kiss, by the way, which puts a wholly incorrect spin on the content.) This is a side story that occurs somewhere in the middle of the TV series. Hanazono asks Yawara for help coaching a pickup team of judo losers who are up against an elite judo club sponsored by none other than arch oujo-sama Honami. It follows almost the same arc as the one of the Mitsuba Women's Junior College matches in the TV series, but Yawara has never been known for the originality of its plot arcs. If there's any defect, it's that the spotlight is on the wimpy kids and their dysfunctional families rather than Yawara-chan and her friends and her dysfunctional family.

This version was done directly from a VHS tape that the team found online. It's considerably better than the Internet raw that has been floating around, but it's still a VHS tape rather than a DVD or LaserDisc. If anyone has a better original source, the team would be very interested.

Meanwhile, the team has successfully found the Atlanta special on LaserDisc, and our intrepid encoder is trying to wrestle this antique medium into a workable encode. I've also found the original soundtrack albums, and they're on their way here from Japan too. More Yawara-chan in the offing!

Yawara! Completed!!

The entire team's been waiting years for this:

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1... done!

124 episodes to the ultimate, inevitable conclusion.

This is the longest series I've ever worked on — 66 episodes from the point where the project restarted as a joint effort between Frostii, Saizen, and Live-Evil. (Chi's Sweet Home had more episodes, but they were three minutes each.) It would not have been possible without the dedication of a small core team that stayed with the project from start to finish:

• Translation: kokujin-kun (most episodes), blakbunnie27
• Timing: Juggen (most episodes), sangofe
• Editing: Collectr
• QC: CP (all episodes), Mamo-chan (most episodes), Saji, Rosti, sangofe, kokujin-kun, retro, Skr, tlynnec, it06128
• RC: Juggen
• Muxing and release: Sqall, Juggen
• Encoding: Skr (most episodes), toster
• Raws: CP (R2J DVDs)

The project has some lessons for any group that wants to sub a long back-catalog series:

1. Find a dedicated and proficient translator. The project never lost steam because kokujin-kun stayed well ahead of everyone else. This kept the pressure on the rest of us. The translations were almost finished products, requiring very little in the way of editing and thereby smoothing the QC process as well.
2. Maintain staff continuity. By having the same editor, lead QC, and RC throughout, and mostly the same translator and timer, the team was able to maintain continuity on a show with lots of characters and arcane terminology. The team compiled an editing guide and a judo terminology guide to help with that.
3. Keep it simple. The entire series was softsubbed. Typesetting was kept to a minimum, with most signs simply done as \an8 notes. (Occasionally, Juggen or I would show off a bit and try something more complex.) The encode was straightforward; no attempt was made to correct the numerous defects in the source, which was clearly just a transcription of the original VHS tapes.
4. Stick to a regular cadence. The project took 15 months to do 66 shows. This was basically a weekly cadence, although the releases tended to occur in bunches, with pauses around vacations, exams, and the like. The steady pace meant that everyone on the team could see ongoing progress and maintain interest. Long breaks allow team members to get involved with other projects.

As for Yawara! itself... well, it's not a masterpiece, but it's quite a lot of fun. Yawara herself is a most appealing heroine. Her judo triumphs, while amazing, are not beyond the realm of possibility: at the Barcelona Olympics, Ryoko Tamura, a Japanese female judo player, won the silver medal. All of the judo moves are real. The plot structure is circular (see this blog entry), so it's easy to anticipate what will happen in any given story arc, but that's fairly typical for a shounen-like sports anime. The biggest weakness, in my view, is that most of the supporting characters are tropes: the haughty ojou-sama Honami, the conniving jii-san Jigoro, the clueless male protagonist Matsuda, and the scheming would-be suitor Kazamatsuri.

The team isn't quite done yet. The "Wimpy Kids" movie in in prepartion, based on a new encode taken directly from a relatively good VHS tape. We'd also like to do the "Atlanta Olympics" TV special, but the available source is a bad tape transcription. We're trying to get a LaserDisc of the special, but it's still an open question whether we can transcribe it once found.We're also looking for the four soundtrack albums:

• Yawara! Original Soundtrack
• Yawara! Sound Collection
• Yawara! Songs!!
• Yawara! Memories

We're not planning to do the Live Action series.