Junod

Marcel Junod (1904-1961), a Swiss doctor, was a field representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during some of the most tumultuous times of the 20th century - the 1930s and 1940s. He worked tirelessly to ease the suffering of victims of violence, first in the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935-36, then the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, and ultimately in World War II. By happenstance, he arrived in Japan just after the atomic bombs had been dropped. He was the first non-Japanese doctor to visit Hiroshima, where he delivered 15 tons of badly needed medical supplies. His life story is documented in a 2010 Japanese educational anime entitled, simply, Junod.

Dr. Junod's story was indeed remarkable. He was a first-hand witness to Italy's use of poison gas and its indiscriminate bombing of civilians in the war with Ethiopia. In Spain, he successfully brokered prisoner exchanges, even though the ICRC had no legal standing in a civil war. Eventually, his tireless work on behalf of prisoners of war brought him into contact with two of the most prominent Allied prisoners held by the Japanese: Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright (US) and Lt. General Arthur Percival (UK). Although there was little he could do for them, his refusal to knuckle under to the Japanese prison camp commander earned their respect. Following Japan's surrender, Wainwright and Percival were flown to Japan for the signing of the formal surrender documents. There, they met Junod as he was attempting to organize a relief mission to Hiroshima. Their influence with Douglas MacArthur led to the release of 15 tons of badly-needed medical supplies for Junod's work. After the war, Junod became a prominent activist in UNICEF, continued his work at the ICRC, and worked as a surgeon, until felled by a heart attack at the relatively young age of 57.

Dr. Junod's life deserves commemoration, and this film covers the highlights. However, it could have been stronger. For example, the film uses a framing device to make the story more accessible to children. Two middle school students named Yuu and Mii (ho ho) revisit scenes from Junod's career via a time-travel dream during a school trip to Hiroshima. The lesson they draw (and the film draws) - that one must stand up to school bullies and not just stand by - is a pretty small-scale conclusion for such dramatic events. A simpler, more documentary focus would have worked better and had greater impact, I believe.

As a historian, I would have liked more attention paid to the ambiguities of Junod's situation. The ICRC was constrained both legally and politically. Legally, the only treaties it could rely on were the Geneva Conventions about the treatment of the wounded and of military prisoners. (Treatment of civilians would not be addressed until after World War II.) Politically, it was constrained by Swiss neutrality and the geographic reality of being surrounded by Axis military might. As a result, the ICRC turned a blind eye to German atrocities against civilians, even though it had detailed information about the Holocaust by the end of 1942. (The Allied governments and the Vatican had the same information and kept silent as well.) Did Junod know? When he went to visit Japan in 1945, was he aware of the extent of Japanese crimes against Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners? The film does not address these questions.

This release uses an HDTV capture; the raw is badly marred with both logos. Iri translated, Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis, M74, and bananadoyouwanna QCed. The encode is by tipota and is as good as the source material allows. (The animation is fairly low-grade.) There is no Blu-Ray release of the film, and even DVDs are only available to charitable and educational institutions.

One translation note: the film refers to the two sides in the Spanish Civil War as Republicans (supporters of the Spanish Republic) and Francoists (supporters of the military insurrection led by General Franco). The insurrectionists never used that term, referring to themselves instead as Nationalists. I have used "Nationalists" in the dialog.

Despite its flaws as a movie, Junod is a timely reminder of the need for good men to do good work in the face of evil. Its lessons seems particularly apropos these days. You can get it from the usual torrent sources or from Orphan|Arutha in channels #news or #nibl or irc.rizon.net.

Time Slip Ichimannen Prime Rose (Blu-ray)

From 1978 to 1989, NTV's annual 24-hour telethon, "Love Will Save the World," frequently featured an animated special from Tezuka Productions. Over the next decade, eight of them were broadcast:

• 1978 - Hyakumannen Chikyuu no Tabi Bander Book (One Million Year Trip: Bander Book)
• 1979 - Marine Express
• 1980 - Fumoon
• 1981 - Bremen 4: Jigoku no Naka no Tenshi-tachi (Bremen 4: Angels in Hell)
• 1983 - Time Slip Ichimannen Prime Rose (A Time Slip of 10,000 Years: Prime Rose)
• 1984 - Daishizen no Majuu Bagi (Baggy)
• 1986 - Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet (Galaxy Investigation 2100: Border Planet)
• 1989 - Tezuka Osamu Monogatari: Boku wa Son Gokuu (Tezuka Osamu Story: I Am Son Goku)

(The 1985 special, Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru, was derived from a Tezuka Osamu manga but was produced by Toei without his involvement.)

All eight special have, at various times, been released on DVD and translated, the last two by Orphan. Recently, all of them have been collected in a pair of Blu-Ray box sets. M74 has now released a 720p high-definition encode of the fifth, Time Slip Ichimannen Prime Rose.

After the failure of Mushi Production's attempts to create "anime for adults" (as opposed to adult or h-anime), Osamu repaired his reputation by returning to manga. Eventually, he started Tezuka Productions and began working on feature length anime again. Unlike the ill-fated Animerama series, Tezuka Production's feature length films were intended to appeal to a broader viewing demographic, although there were certainly some elements not intended for children.

Prime Rose is pretty typical of the group. The story begins with a present-day catastrophe. A giant space fortress, shaped like a death mask, breaks apart, and the pieces crash into Kujikuri Beach in Japan and Dallas in the United States. Both cities are thrown 10,000 years into the future. Sometime later, time patroller Tanbara Gai is sent to discover what happened. He encounters a future where one future city (Groman) has enslaved the other (Kukritt). Aided by a runaway noblewomen, Emiya, who is actually the princess of Kukritt, Prime Rose; and hindered by the inconvenient presence of his little brother, Bunretsu; Gai must coach the Kukritten slaves into rebellion, defeat the Groman army, and confront the sinister force behind it all - the secret hidden within the original Death Mask space fortress. This is done with a maximum of action and humor and a minimum of common sense, as a hard sci-fi story evolves into a sword-and-sorcery fantasy.

 

The voice cast includes:

• Okamoto Mari (Prime Rose) played the title role in Hana no Ko Lunlun, Ai-chan in  Time Bokan Series: Yatterman, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz movie. She played Tomoko in Makoto-chan the Movie, Coda in Bremen 4, Misako in Nijuushi no Hitomi, Rococco in Fumoon, and Haruka's mother in both Ultra Nyan OVAs, all Orphan releases. 
• Mizushima Yuu (Gai) 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, Shukumaru in Fire Tripper, Makabe Shun in Tokimeki Tonight, and Dai-chan in Katte ni Shirokuma, all Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in Golden Kamuy. 
• Hori Junko (Bunretsu) is best known as the voice of the protagonists in three Fujiko Fujio works, Obake no Q-tarou, Ninja Hattori-kun, and Chinpui. She played the title role in Cat-Eyed Boy and also appeared in Wan Wan Chuushingura, Taiyou no Ouji: Horus no Daibouken, Rain Boy, and Makoto-chan (all Orphan releases), as well as Moomin, Akage no Anne, Cinderella Boy, and Unico. 
• Shiozawa Kaneto (Taro, Prime Rose's doomed lover) 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 Tezuka Osamu Story: I am Son Goku, Kouhei in Karuizawa Syndrome, Amakusa Jiro in One Pound Gospel, Kaname in Bride of Deimos, Minamoto, the mad inventor, in Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai: Tsuyoshi no Time Machine de Shikkari Shinasai, 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.
• Ikeda Shuuichi (Pillar, the evil governor) played Char in Mobile Suit Gundam, Gilbert Durandal in Gundam Seed, and Ulrich Kessler in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. He starred as the Dragon in the Naki no Ryuu OVAs and played Alex in Dallos and Azuma in Starship Troopers, all Orphan releases.
• Chiba Kouichi (space fortress, Sigma 99) played Don Dracula in Marine Express and the Fox Elder in Akuemon, both Orphan releases.

The director, Dezaki Satoshi, also directed Marine Express, Grey: Digital Target, the Urusei Yatsura OVAs, the Riki-ou OVAs, and numerous other shows.

Prime Rose is not all-ages entertainment. The show includes a fair amount of bloodshed and violence, including an on-screen execution and a flogging. There's also lots of fanservice:

(This doesn't strike me as the most practical costume for a swordswoman, but what do I know? And a later bathing scene poses interesting questions about how Prime Rose manages to fit in this outfit at all.) But mostly it's comedy and zany touches; for example, Tanbara Gai's superior officer is a dead ringer for Mr. Spock. In the end, good triumphs, the bad guys (and space fortresses) get their comeuppance, and the hero and heroine are ready for new adventures.

The basic script is a professional translation and has not been checked. M74 timed and encoded. I edited and QCed. Beatrice Raws provided the BDMV (thank you!). You can get in from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #news or #nibl on irc.rizon.net.

I hope that more of these specials will be released in high-definition in the future.

Grimm Douwa - Kin no Tori

Here's a bluebird, or more accurately, a golden bird - the 1987 movie Grimm Douwa - Kin no Tori (Grimm's Fairy Tales - The Golden Bird). Released as part of Toei's Manga Matsura series, it was actually animated by Madhouse and released after a three year delay. The delay earned it a reputation as a "lost masterpiece." That's a bit overstated, but it's a beautiful and comic cartoon "for all ages" - rather different from Toei's faux Disney fare in the 1960s. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As one of the QCs said, it's adorable.

Kin no Tori is based on a fairy tale (number 57) collected by the Brothers Grimm. As is often the case, the original tale includes grim elements - such as attempted fratricide - not considered suitable for modern audiences, so the anime is considerably toned down. In this version, a wicked witch sends out her tame golden bird to steal the golden apples of the king of Kaiser Castle. He sets this three sons to watch for the thief, but only the youngest, Hans, stays awake and sees the bird. He tries to shoot it and succeeds in dislodging a golden feather. The three brothers are sent to pursue the bird, but only Hans really takes the task seriously. After many adventures and hazards, Hans reaps his reward. And they all lived happily ever after... sort of.

The summary can't convey the movie's humor, its imaginative visuals, and its outstanding voice cast. Madhouse not only did the animation, but the head of the studio, Maruyama Masao, did the layout. Here are two examples of the visual imagery:

The voice actors are amazing, led by legendary seiyuu Tomiyama Kei's bravura (and cross-gender) performance as the wicked witch. Kei, who won a posthumous Special Achievement Award in 2007, appeared in numerous series and OVAs before his untimely death in 1995. Yanami Jougi gave a hilarious turn as the wine-loving Big Bird (no relation to Sesame Street). He's better known to me as Ozora Ibari in Stop!! Hibari-kun. Takiguchi Junpei, who played the villainous king of Kanemacchi Castle, and Miyauchi Kohei, who played the more virtuous king of Kaiser Castle, also each appeared in one episode of Stop!! Hibari-kun. The female seiyuu playing the children (male or female) are uniformly good as well. The music, by Kawachi Kuni, is mostly lighthearted and fits the mood well, and the songs are a lot of fun, particularly the witch's insert song. The director, Hirata Toshio, directed numerous other movies and TV shows.

Iri translated the movie. M74 did the pre-timing before translation, and ninjacloud did fine timing after translation. I edited and typeset (there are only two signs, although one of them accounts for 80% of the script). Nemesis and konnakude QCed. The raw is an HDTV encode from heponeko.

Enjoy this golden-age classic in beautiful high-definition! You can get the release at the usual torrent sites or bot Orphan|Arutha in IRC channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

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.

Stop!! Hibari-kun! 1-6

Orphan Fansubs is releasing Stop!! Hibari-kun!, which aired in 1983-1984. The only attempt to fansub the show was abandoned after five or six episodes, making it a true orphan. Stop!! Hibari-kun! is 35 episodes, so we'll be releasing it in batches, as translation checking is completed.

Stop!! Hibari-kun! is nominally the story of an orphaned teenager named Sakamoto Kosaku, who moves in with the family of a "friend" of his mother. This friend, Ozora Ibari, just happens to be the head of a Tokyo-area yakuza group. The actual Ozora family, as opposed to the mob family, consists of three daughters (Tsugumi, Tsubame, and Suzume) and a cross-dressing son, Hibari, who is the best-looking of them all. Kosaku is initially smitten with Hibari but tries to draw back when he finds out that Hibari is actually a boy. Comedic mayhem ensues.

This description makes the show sound like a madcap anime comedy with a "trap" lead character. Cross-dressing boys (or traps) are fairly common in anime and manga (BakaBT has more than 300 entries with the trap label). However, Stop!! Hibari-kun differs in a couple of respects. First, it is quite clear than Hibari is not cross-dressing for fun but really wants to be a girl ("identifies as female" in the current jargon); that is, Hibari is transgender. Second, Hibari's sexual identity is played straight. She is not an object of ridicule. The comedy arises from the reactions of the people around her, from her apoplectic father to her irritated sisters to the utterly confused Kosaku, who is increasingly attracted to Hibari even though she is physically a male.

I don't want to make Stop!! Hibari-kun sound like some politically correct precursor to modern gender attitudes. It often falls in with Japanese stereotypes about gay and transgender characters, as can be seen in chapter 21 of the manga (animated in episode 22). However, Hibari-kun herself is presented respectfully. This treatment of a transgender character is rare in Japanese anime and manga, outside of serious stories about gender dysphoria such as Hourou Musuko. For example, the 1994 OVA Otaku no Seiza also features a transgender character, Jonjon. She is presented as useless, and her ultimate fate – getting gang-raped by three effeminate bodybuilders – is treated as a joke. In contrast, Hibari is shown as a superb athlete, a capable martial artist, a good singer, an A student, and an excellent planner. She's also rather proficient with firearms. At the same time, she's a more or less typical teenaged girl, worried about her body, crushing on Kosaku, and exchanging clothes with her sisters.

Both the manga and the anime peter out without resolution. The mangaka, Eguchi Hisashi, said that he ran out of ideas. This becomes quite obvious as the anime series progresses. The same jokes are recycled over and over, particularly how men of all ages are smitten with Hibari at first sight. The mangaka couldn't fashion an actual plotline, because the passage of time would create increasingly intractable problems for Hibari as her body matured and changed; so the manga just stops. After episode 22, the anime stumbles on with anime-original filler episodes that push Hibari aside in favor of other comic clichés and tropes. The series really should have been half as long.

Kosaku was played by Furuya Tohru, a well-known voice actor of that era. He also played the lead male roles in Kimagure Orange Road and Sailor Moon. Hibari was voiced by a female seiyuu, Majima Satomi, as might be expected. Satomi married Tohru, and after that she retired, a happier ending than Kosaku and Hibari were allowed. Hirano Fumi, who played Tsugumi, went on to voice Lum in all the Urusei Yatsura properties, but none of the other featured players rose to prominence.

Stop!! Hibari-kun is an unusually difficult series. The dialog is fast-paced, the signs (all hand-drawn) are numerous, and the show is long. Moho Kareshi translated the entire series. Iri, Onibaba, and tenkenX6 did translation checking on these first six episodes. Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, Juggen styled the OP and ED, and Nemesis, konnakude, and VigorousJammer QCed. M74 encoded from a remastered DVD box. The remastering did little to improve the film burn and jitter in the show, but it's better than the original DVD release.

Some translation notes:

Romanization. All the long Japanese vowels are transliterated as is, so Kosaku rather than Kohsaku or Kousaku. This causes some discordance with the English names shown in the ending song.

Wani. Under stress, Ozora Ibari sees "shiroi wani," white alligators. "Wani" can mean either crocodile or alligator. I've chosen alligator because the critters are drawn with rounded snouts, like alligators, rather than trapezoidal ones, like crocodiles.

Tsugumi, Tsubame, Hibari, Suzume. All the Ozora children are named for birds: thrush, swallow, skylark, and sparrow, respectively. 

Opening. The flying “superhero” at around 0.55 is the author, Eguchi Hisashi, dressed as Takechan-man, the comic superhero played by Kitano Takeshi before he started making films. Eguchi appears frequently as a character, breaking the fourth wall to comment on the action. He is usually drawn wearing a red sweatshirt that says "KOTOBUKI" (寿), which means "congratulations" or "long life to you."

Ep01. "I’ll give you one of Nakamori Akina’s armpit hairs." Nakamori Akina was one of the most popular singers in Japan in the 1980s.

Ep02. Sparta Tatsugoro's name includes “tatsu” (dragon), so he's known as the Spartan Dragon.

Ep03. Ibari's farewell haiku uses the lyrics of the Japanese children's song Donguri korokoro. The song is featured in several other episodes.

Ep04.

• "What's your name? Joe? Gen? Ryuji?" The heroes of boxing animes Ashita no Joe, Ganbare Genki, and Ring ni Kakeru, respectively.
• Kujikuri Beach is a 60km beach north of Tokyo. The town of Kujikuri was one of two places transported into the future in Tezuka Osamu's Time Slip Ichimannen: Prime Rose.

Ep06. "Who am I, Pegira?" A monster that appeared in episode 5 of the Ultra Q TV series.

Orphan started on this series 18 months ago. All of the episodes are done, except for translation checking. It has proven difficult to keep a translation checker engaged; three different people worked on the first six episodes. If you're an experienced translator and want to give the dialog a thorough review, please let me know ASAP. Maybe we can get the next batch of episodes out a little faster.

Meanwhile, enjoy Stop!! Hibari-kun! and forgive its numerous trespasses. You can get it from the Orphan|Arutha bot on irc.rizon.net in #news or #nibl or from the usual torrent sites.

Scoopers

I try not to criticize other fansubbers. After more than a decade working on fansubs, I know just how hard, tedious, and time-consuming the process is. It's easy to make mistakes, through inexperience, carelessness, or both. Leechers and blogging critics can be merciless. Mostly, I abide by Thumper's rule: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." But every now and then, a fansub appears that simply drives me up a wall.

Scoopers, a 1987 OVA, had been on my list of possibilities ever since it appeared in an endless BakaBT forum topic about old shows needing subtitles. I had banked the raw for future use. Then, a group called Kingmenu offered a version with English subtitles, and it showed up as an offer on BakaBT. I eagerly downloaded their version and started to watch. Then I started throwing things at the screen.

Kids, I'd like to offer a few simple rules if you're thinking about fansubbing an old show into English.

1. Don't upscale your source, particularly if the source is bad, like a VHS or Laserdisc rip. Enlarging a bad source makes it look worse. Artifacts look 100% worse when they've been upscaled by 50%.
2. If your source is an encode and not an original VHS tape or Laserdisc, don't re-encode it. Whenever you re-encode, you make the source worse. There's no more information available than what's in the original source. This implies that with a pre-existing encode, you should use softsubs and not re-encode it to add hardsubs.
3. Don't subtitle random noises and grunts. "Arak" and "Ook" are not English words (although they might be Unix commands, for all I know), and they don't add value to the translation.
4. Don't use different font sizes as a way of conveying loudness or forcefulness. That's what punctuation like exclamation marks, and typographic conventions like italics, are for.
5. Make sure there's someone on the team who actually speaks and writes passable English.

You get the picture.

Had Scoopers been Kingmenu's first offense, I could have written it off to inexperience, but it's just one of a series of terrible subtitled offerings. Among the more bizarre was a 112p re-encode of Orphan's Adachigahara - the opening typesetting is a dead giveaway to where it came from. The world is indeed full of really, really bad fansubs. I know I can't fix all of them, but in this case, M74 and I felt compelled to try.

I OCRed the Kingmenu subs and eliminated the random noises. M74 retimed the show. Iri translation-checked (close to half the dialog was changed). I edited and styled, and Calyrica and M74 QCed. M74 tried to make better encodes from both a VHS tape and a VHD optical disk, but they turned out to be no better than the Internet raw: barely passable. Nonetheless, this version's subtitles are an improvement in every respect.

Scoopers is a fairly standard sci-fi action OVA about two newspaper reporters, Yoko and Beat, a beautiful woman and an android, respectively. They're out to expose the identity of an international gangster and terrorist who calls himself Mister X. (This name would not pass muster in a James Bond movie.) They trace Mister X to his hi-tech amusement park, Techno Land, where they must escape from roller coasters that end in mid-air, withstand the wiles of robotic Valkyries, and infiltrate Mister X's all-powerful AI, Baudelaire. Needless to say, not one second of this can be taken seriously, but it's a decent if nonsensical thrill ride. It has the usual violence and nudity of 80s OVAs, but there's not much sense of real menace, perhaps reflecting its origins as a Monkey Punch manga.

I'd like to offer hope for better versions of other Kingmenu releases, but as I said before, the world is full of bad fansubs, and life is too short to fix them. If other subbers want to take up the challenge, I'll be happy to cheer from the sidelines.

Update (20-May-2017): Scoopers is now available at the usual torrent sites.

Chameleon 2

Well, he's back.

Yes, Yazawa Eisaku, pint-sized wannabe delinquent, returns in the second episode of Chameleon for another round of hi-jinks, braggadocio, and narrow escapes from doom and his cross-dressing would-be girl(boy)friend. Having won the reluctant admiration of the hoods at Narita Minami High, he becomes the target of gangs at Kasu High, who hope to establish their reputation as "bad hombres" by taking down the formidable (and did they but know, cowardly) Yazawa. Fortunately or unfortunately, he's rescued by Kyuuko Akio, a bullied student turned psychopathic fighter. Kyuu, as he's known, "adopts" Yazawa as his brother and defends him against all comers - including Yazawa's friends. While Yazawa likes having protection, he's increasingly uneasy about the ferocity of Kyuu's temper and the over-the-top aggressiveness of Kyuu's responses. He tries to reign his protector in, but that makes Kyuu suspicious. They end up in a confrontation, and Yazawa ends up back in the hospital.

I liked this episode of Chameleon considerably better than the first. There's far less gross-out gags and toilet jokes. The humor seems to flow more organically from the story, and there's an actual plot. The songs are good, particularly the doo-wop pastiche used as the OP and ED. And the voice actor for Kyuu (Nakao Ryuusei) is outstanding, with an idiosyncratic delivery that can change from comic to menacing in a heartbeat. Nakao has been a voice actor for more than fifty years, starting in 1965. He's had recurring roles in Dragonball and One Piece. His most recent role was King Falke II in this year's ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka.

As before, Moho Kareshi did the initial translation. convexity checked the dialog translation and translated the songs, which are just great. ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset, and Vigorousjammer and konnakude did QC. The raw is from the Internet.

A few translation notes:

• When Yazawa is released from the hospital, he says, "It's so bright out here in the free world." He's trying to act like a yakuza released from jail.
• "Stop multiplying like Matsudaira Ken in a Konaka ad!" The ad is online here.
• Short Peace in the OP/ED refers to the 70mm length version of Peace cigarettes.

When will episode 3 be ready? I don't know. Because the episodes are double length, each one requires a substantial block of the translation checker's time, which is at a premium right now. So enjoy this dose of Chameleon. Maybe there will be more, someday. Meanwhile, get it from Orphan|Arutha in #news or #nibl on irc.rizon.net or from your friendly local torrent site.