Touka Gettan 18 - Into the Ocean, End it All

(Does anyone else out there think that Touka looked way too cute in that scene? Refer to comment on TT.)

Here we are for Touka Gettan's take on that beloved anime staple, the swimsuit episode. I think it says something about the show that an incident where three shapeshifting butterfly triplets torture their crazy-driving split-personality rival by insta-building a massively tall waterslide system that passes by and through various world landmarks is not the strangest thing that happens in this episode. No, the strangest thing is that I actually did some real typesetting for once. Next up is one of the most plot-important episodes of the entire series. Hopefully I can get it out before 2010 comes to a close.

Torrent [CRC=0EEAC8BF] ||

P.S. I should be getting a better Internet connection soon, so maybe I'll be able to provide DDLs more often and upload torrents at speeds faster than 30 kB/s.

To Heart ~RmM~ 10 - Sad Girls in Snow

Just in time for Christmas, here's the Christmas episode of To Heart ~Remember my Memories. People stand outside in the snow and talk about stuff, I guess. Oh, and there's also considerable focus on lolfang-tan blonde malapropist foreigner girl Lemmy, who knows how to celebrate Christmas American-style.

And due to that snow, episode 10 is a little bigger than the average for this show. Still smaller than average DVD-rips of other series, though.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 17 - I have bested fruit, spike, and moon!

No, Makoto's not asking about the first time you might think she's asking about. Trust me, you don't want to know. Or do you? If so, then DL Touka Gettan 17, which in addition to "first times" features crazy driving, explosions, car crashes, the true debut (and thus exit) of Kaya the Catgirl, and some helpful cooking tips from Touka.

The subbing of this episode was also marked by more TL notes and silly mistakes (like putting an {\alpha&HFF} in the wrong line, or not timing some preview lines at all) than usual. I'd been thinking, "Is it really worth QCing these releases just to find a half-dozen minor mistakes that nobody's going to notice?", but these errors would've been noticeable. As with all of my scripts, you can find a little more insight to the translation and editing by extracting the .ass file and reading the {notes} or commented lines.

Torrent [CRC=CB905D74] ||

To Heart ~RmM~ 09 - Amping up the Angst

Screenshot has little to do with what actually happens in this episode. But I'd thought I'd give Shiho a little feature and show off her investment intelligence. That girl's going places, mark my words. But no, the real focus of episode 9 is (surprisingly) on the central relationship between Hiroyuki and Akari, where the latter calls out the former for preferring a robot girl over a human girl.

This release was mildly delayed by one stupid sign, the cell phone at 07:10. I had actually gone in and typeset it the same way Conclave-Faith had it, with the translation fading in and overlaying the Japanese text. But for some reason, the color of the overlay boxes, which looked fine in Aegisub, didn't render correctly after muxing. After 3 tries, I had to give up and go the lazy route. But I really didn't want to be lazy this time -- you can even look at the script and see the TS commented out.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 16 - I just saw Haley's comet, she waved

I might've had this out yesterday, if not for freakin' AVG making my PC run so loud that I couldn't sleep, and causing things to break to the point where WinXP wouldn't boot normally. But all that seems resolved for the time being, so I'm able to present Touka Gettan 16. This episode features Nene's younger sister, Kaya, and some backstory on the two of them. (As well as some lovely scenes that range from adorably cute to incredibly hot.) This backstory will make the Yamibou gang's time-traveling in episode 14 make a lot more sense. Or it'll just confirm what you already suspected.

And oh, that Kaya... if there's anything I love more than thigh-highs, it's torn thigh-highs.

Torrent [CRC=3FF9F5AA] ||

To Heart ~RmM~ 08 - Robot Roll Call

This episode brings us the first true emotionally-wrenching content in To Heart ~Remember my Memories~. But I've always been a sucker for sad robot-girl stories ever since I saw episode 20 of Love Hina 7 years ago. Additionally, we start to see something of a love triangle between Hiroyuki, Akari, and Multi. Yes, there may be no place for Hiroyuki amdist the interspecies yuri passion between his childhood friend and the robot maid. *checks sankaku* Dang it, why is there no Akari x Multi Rule34 out there?! I am disappoint. Shoutbox denizens, can you come to the rescue??

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Summer of UFOs in the Dead of Winter?

So, the 6-episode OVA Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu is up in my rewatch queue. And thanks to somebody's little prank several years ago, I have access to Lunar's k-timed OP/ED karaoke and timed scripts (signs aside) for five out of the six episodes. So it'd seem almost a crime not to do a softsubbed version with them. And with the AnY-Spork and Ayu releases on my HDD, I have all the translation cross-reference I'd ever need.

That leaves the question of which set of raws to use. There's this set, which appears to have better specs (720x480/h264/mkv/FLAC), but the comments on nyaa indicate that the encode isn't that great. Or there's this other one, which is 640x480/XviD/avi/mp3 but at least nobody's saying outright that it sucks. Then again, set 2 might not be any better quality than the hardsubbed DVD-rips that already exist.

I'm currently DLing an ep of each to compare, but I thought I'd poll the audience on my options:
1) Use Raw Set 1 (better specs but possibly worse encode).
2) Use Raw Set 2 (average specs, might not be a quality improvement beyond the subs).
3) Wait for something better to come along.
4) Pass on the show.

If anyone has the DVD isos and wants to encode them, I'll gladly take them up on that offer. Or if anyone else has a burning desire to release the show, I can hook them up with the subs.

Touka Gettan 15 - Tsundere Time Loop

So here we are at Touka Gettan 15, which offers us this show's take on the "time loop unknowingly caused by individual with reality-warping powers" plotline. Thankfully it's only two loops instead of 15,000+. Next time: Catgirls!

Torrent [CRC=5E21F78] || DDL

To Heart ~RmM~ 07 - Now Sasameki Koto

After the events of the tournament in episode 5, Aoi Matsubara becomes the darling of the school and the media. That puts her friend Kotone Himekawa (pictured above) in a tight spot, as she's still looked on with fear for having rather cool telekinetic powers. Perhaps a transfer to Academy City is in order? Anyway, episode 7 of To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ actually shows signs of plot advancement in the form of several love confessions. So the pleasant days of being able to watch nothing happen for 24 minutes may be at an end.

Also, I think this was the first episode where I didn't get any 3-line subs during my test watch. I wouldn't intentionally create them, but the anamorphic squishing to 4:3 tends to make weird things happen.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Kimi ni Todoke - is it worth it?

Just a little question for anybody out there reading these posts... Amidst all the other projects I want to take on, I had the idea of doing Kimi ni Todoke. It'd be Eclipse subs with improved styling (since Eclipse never mastered the concept of "padding" in their 5 years of existence), the occasional spelling/grammar glitches fixed, and some different approaches to karaoke and typesetting. But when I DLed some of the Zero-Raws DVD-rips, I discovered that several eps have audio/video desynch issues, which would require extra time and trial&error to correct. So that's the first obstacle.

The second obstacle is this: Is Kimi ni Todoke one of those shows where the HDTV broadcasts are better quality than the DVDs? As always, I watched the low-res version, so I wouldn't know. If 720p-HDTV is better, it'd mean that any DVD-rips would only be an upgrade over Eclipse's 400p-XviD release. And even that looked pretty good to me. But softsubs/h264 are theoretically an improvement, and I always like working on good shows with good scripts. As opposed to good shows with bad scripts (Touka Gettan), or bad shows with bad scripts (Strawberry 100%). (I guess some might consider TH~RmM~ a bad show with good scripts, so that completes the 4 possibilities.)

But anyway, Kimi ni Todoke DVD-rips+Eclipse subs -- is there an audience for them, other than low-enders looking for a marginal upgrade over Eclipse's XviD release?

And in other news, I finally started doing some more work on editing and TLCing the Shin Koihime Musou OVA, so expect that in glorious 480p before too long.

Touka Gettan 14 - Caught up in the Crossover

I now bring you a break from your irregularly/randomly scheduled Touka Gettan releases to bring you Yami to Hon to Boushi no Tabibito episode 5.5. In this story, Hazuki and a hungover Lilith journey to the world of Kamitsumihara, wherein they search for Hatsumi across present and past. Ken-chan's also along for the ride, spending time with the lovely ladies of the Kamiazuma household while trying to avoid traps, bats, and knives. Overall, this episode (which also qualifies as Touka Gettan 14) was a brilliant idea with masterful execution. As stated on TT, it's quite possibly the best episode of anything ever.

Torrent [CRC=8DEBE55B] || DDL

P.S. Astute viewers will see what I did there with the styling.

To Heart ~RmM~ 06 - Was this trip really necessary?

Aaah! It's a Diclonius! Run for your life, kid!! Sadly no, that's not true, but that would've made this episode slightly more interesting. The gang goes to Kobe and... watches soccer tryouts, visits shops, looks at skylines, and talks about stuff. Oh, and there's a return appearance by former class rep Tomoko Hoshina, if you remember her from previous seasons.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 13 - Now with moar Higurashi

Just in time for Halloween, I present episode 13 of Touka Gettan. It was only a matter of time before we had a hot springs episode, except this story features the gang splitting up in true Scooby-Doo fashion and exploring an old abandoned mansion. And the secrets they uncover there are downright disturbing, if you ask me. Oh, and there is some of the usual bathing fanservice, though there still isn't any real nudity to be seen.

Aside from the usual types of changes to the subs, there's one critical line I fixed at about 18:17 that will make the diary/flashback sequence make a lot more sense. Releases may be a little scarce for the next week and a half. I'm staffing at Anime NebrasKon in Omaha, NE next weekend, and I've got several panels to prepare and various other duties to fulfill. If you're going to be there, stop by my "10 Years of Digital Fansubbing" panel and say hi.

Torrent [CRC=47D58A42] || DDL

To Heart ~RmM~ - 05 This hand of mine glows with an awesome POWER!!

For the conclusion of the mini-arc dealing with Aoi Matsubara, we have the Ultimate Raw No-Holds-Barred Extreme eXecutor Fighting Tournament. So yeah, a fair chunk of this episode is girls fighting. Surprisingly though, there's no pantyshots or clothing damage. What are the odds? And there's not much going on with other characters either, other than Multi finding things either amazing or scary.

Oh, there's a fair chance of some phail typesetting in this, but at least I made the attempt with \move on some lines instead of just doing \an8.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 12 - Who let the dog out?

The world of animation has brought us many sad dog stories. There's "Menchi's Great Adventure" in Excel Saga, "Jurassic Bark" from Futurama, and now "Life," episode 12 of Touka Gettan. This is where the backwards structure of Touka Gettan twists an emotional knife into your heart and mine. A mysterious dog who seems to have Kuroko Shirai's powers of teleportation appears... but did the Kamiazumas have a dog in episode 11 or before...?

For some reason I saw some subtitle flashes when I was test-watching this episode, even though the times in Aegisub indicated that the lines in question were linked. But I recently updated several things like Haali Media Splitter (for AMV Hell 5), CCCP 10-10-10, and CoreAVC (so maybe my shitty machine can play 720p once in awhile), so maybe the problem is on my end. Let me know if you observe flashes or other oddities.

Torrent [CRC=81E31BB3]

To Heart ~RmM~ 04 - All the lights on the ground are strawberries

Just when I thought I was done with strawberries after finishing that other show, To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ 04 has to throw this episode at me. It must be nice to be Hiroyuki and have so many rich female friends with vacation houses and plenty of room/food to spare for all the tagalongs like Akari and Shiho. Then again that aspect is not exactly unique among anime characters. Anyway, Aoi and Ayaka have some Extreme Practicing, while Multi goes strawberry-picking and meets a random old guy of no significance whatsoever. And... that's about it, really.

I think I missed a few lines that should've had the "Offscreen" style, but I don't think they're worth doing a v2 over. Unless I can get patches working, anyway.

Torrent [CRC=4CE0A41E] || DDL

Touka Gettan 11 - It's a Trap!

In addition to maids and traps, Touka Gettan 11 hits up other fetishes like shoujo-ai, shounen-ai, lolicon, and shotacon to tickle your fancy, as the Toukadai Academy Festival is in full swing. Between the maid cafe, haunted house, host club, talk show filming, doujinshi convention, and tons of food stalls, there's plenty of entertainment to be had for all characters involved. This episode probably has the longest script in the series, thanks to all the signs. Expect lots of lazy \an8 typesetting. Then again, most of the signs weren't translated in the TV-fansub to begin with, so I think I can be cut a little slack.

And over these 2 weeks of no actual releases, I've been working behind-the-scenes on a few things, like Rizelmine transcriptions and scanning the Touka Gettan TV-rips for missing lines and signs. TH~RmM~ 4 just needs to be QCed, so maybe I can have that out later tonight.

Torrent [CRC=FCA94090] || DDL (eventually)

To Heart ~RmM~ 03 - Fun Things are Fun

In this third episode of To Heart ~Remember my Blurry Video Memories~, Hiroyuki has a little amusement park outing with Akari and Multi, the two other members of To Heart's One True Threesome. There, they try to teach Multi the true meaning of fun, before learning of the cruel yet not unusual fate that awaits her.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 10 - I can't escape Ayaka Saito

While listening to Nebraska's outright embarrassing victory over South Dakota State in college (American) football, I've managed to crank out Touka Gettan 10. This episode introduces the character of Yurika, and thus continues my streak of working on shows that feature voice actress Ayaka Saito. She's most known for some male roles, such as Momiji Sohma in Fruits Basket and Mitsukuni Haninozuka in Ouran High School Host Club. And, she always seems to pop up in shows I work on, including such roles as Waffle in Sugar Sugar Rune, Minori Hyuuga in Pretty Cure Splash Star, Kyocho in Koihime Musou (OVA), and then of course Yurika in Touka Gettan.

Of course, "introduces" is misleading, as we've seen Yurika in almost every episode so far. But ep 10 features her at her lesbian-vampire-catgirl best.

Torrent [CRC=AF690004]

To Heart ~RmM~ 02 - Know Your Role

As the picture shows, episode 02 of To Heart ~RmM~ has Hiroyuki laying down the law and showing where women robot maid girls belong. I kid, I kid! Also, some history/flashback both to the 1999 To Heart series and what happened to Multi in the time between that series and this one.

For some reason I kept getting 3-line subs when I muxed test versions to watch, even though the Aegisub display showed only 2 lines. I think I've gotten rid of them all, by dropping the overall font size down a point, and using scaling/margin tricks where the 3-liners occurred.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Touka Gettan 09 - Why can't my Christmases be like this?

For all its strangeness and uniqueness, Touka Gettan cannot escape the obligation to have a Christmas episode. But with giant trees, exploding vehicles, and weaponized cakes, this is one Christmas that will be hard to beat. Note the "my hand slipped" line from the Monarchs that Shouko "later" echoes in Episode 08. And of course, there's some cute Touka x Momoka and Makoto x Kikyou moments to balance things out, alone with some discourse on the True Meaning of Christmas. Or something to that effect.

Torrent [CRC=3B3C5637]

Touka Gettan 08 - You're as cold as ice to me

In this episode, Touka and Momoka get up, eat breakfast, say a normal goodbye to Yumiko, and enjoy a peaceful afternoon at a school skating event, with no mass snowball fights, supernatural disasters, or attempted stranglings. Oh who am I kidding, this is Touka Gettan, the series that is second only to Revolutionary Girl Utena in the field of "cars in misplaced places." So let's say that some of the preceding things happen, and others don't.

Torrent [CRC=4D75EA1A]
Warning: Slow connection is slow today.

P.S. I came across a rather interesting book excerpt dealing with Touka Gettan. It's pretty good reading, but be aware that it's very "academic" prose.

Touka Gettan 07 - Unleashing the Dragon

Has this ever happened to you? You wake up one morning, and the sky's turned strange colors, your hot not-mom is strangling your hot cohabitating not-really-girlfriend, everybody's name gets changed, your bedroom turns into a magical interdimensional portal, and suddenly you're flying around dodging energy whips and Spirit Bombs? Did I mention the dragons? Well, all this and more happens to Touka Kamiazuma in the 7th psychedelic episode of Touka Gettan.

My secondary motivation for working on this show was the hope that going over each episode multiple times would lead to a greater understanding of the storyline. And little by little, I think it has.

Torrent [CRC=DAF31EF9]

To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ - 01

Just so I didn't forget about this show, here's To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ 01. Before To Heart 2 and its unending run of sequels, there was this 2004 sequel to the original 1999 series. And I have to say, the cel art in the old version looked a lot better than this modern rendition. The extreme popularity of robot maid Multi is also in play, as To Heart ~RmM~ features her return and continuing adventures. But if you like this set of characters, this is a decent little show, with more of an ongoing plot than the original had.

Vital Stats:
Source: DVD (Zero-Raws, transcoded from wmv via HandBrake)
Container: .mkv
Video: 704x480 Anamorphic 4:3 h264/AVC, ~550-800 kbps, 23.976 fps
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Stereo AAC, 128-160 kbps
Subtitles: English styled .ass softsubs
Subtitle Source: Anime-Keep&Anime-Faith (1-8), Convlave&Anime-Faith (9-13)

Is it better quality than the TV-rips? Honestly, I'm not really sure, given that I'm working with re-encodes of pre-encoded raws here. But at the very least, you get:
* Softsubs instead of hardsubs.
* Some TL and editing fixes. The originals were pretty good, though.
* Less intrusive insert karaoke. Here's some samples:


* On the minus side, you get slightly worse typesetting, as my TS skills are not as good as the average fansub group TSer. I also didn't include things like staff credits and some irrelevant signs. But I tried to imitate the originals where possible.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Koihime Musou OVA - Sworn Sibling Standoff

This is something I'd been working on long before I had the idea of creating ReDone-Subs. Koihime Musou is a fun series featuring chibis, ecchi, shoujo-ai, idol singers, and something to do with Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Unfortunately, the only English release of the spinoff OVA had eyecancer styling and Hong Kong bootleg levels of mistranslations, Engrish, spelling/grammar fail, wrong timing, and non-existent typesetting. Not to mention the inexplicable no-effect hardsubbed OP/ED lyrics. So I set out to fix the subs, though not before a newer better encode was kindly provided to me. Eventually, I wound up almost completely retranslating the OVA from the ground up, in addition to retiming ever line, doing all-new typesetting, and doing new softsubbed OP/ED karaoke. I didn't actually change the song lyrics, so that viewers can have consistency with the AonE/Menclave fansubs and the PFsubs DVD-rips that use them.

Vital Stats:
Raw: Encode by Desbreko (DVD .iso source)
Original Translations: eX-Alpha&Monti*
Video: h264, 720x480 (16:9 anamorphic), 947 kbps, 23.976 fps
Audio: Japanese, 2.0 Stereo AC3, 448 kbps
Subtitles: English, soft styled .ass
Styling: Based on Commie's styling as seen in Shin Koihime Musou TV.

*Again, there's barely any traces of the original translations left in these subs, but I must credit them anyway.

Touka Gettan 06 - Stationery Standoff

This episode of Touka Gettan brings the rivalry between two school factions into sharp focus. On one side, you have Ninomiya, led by a set of triplets whose goal in life is to surpass Naga The Serpent's OHOHOHOHOHO (why not whore ourselves?) laughing technique. On the other side, we have the Lotus Association, led by Shouko Rokujou when she's not busy obsessing over and stalking Makoto. Things come to a head in a Serious Business cooking battle. Astute viewers who remember the Serin subs will probably notice some divergent localization choices in this release. Two come to mind:

1) "Japanese Confectionery" is precisely what my dictionary software gives when looking up "wagashi." As it felt too boring and annoying to type it out every time, I've changed it to "J-Sweets." But it could've been "worse." (Or on some level, "better.") I had originally planned to give people a.f.k. Lucky Star flashbacks by calling them "Japastries," but decided against that.

2) The triplets who lead Ninomiya are referred to as "The Monarchs." I may have used the term in a previous episode, but I don't think I've explained it until now. I chose this term because it conveniently conveys a double meaning for their status as butterflies and their status as authority figures. "Butterfly Triplets" was too wordy and too obvious, while the commonly-used term "Kouchou" is too much Gratuitous Japanese for my tastes.

Fortunately, this episode's original subs didn't suffer from the "Editor and QC went on vacation" syndrome that ep 5 displayed.

Torrent [CRC=ACE5DC47]

Touka Gettan 05 - The Big Sleep

So here I am back with Touka Gettan episode 5. Sorry this took so long, but I felt like I'd been spending more time subbing than doing actual anime watching lately. Plus, this was one of the worst-subbed episodes in the original release. Tons of spelling/grammar errors, gross mistranslations, incoherent sentences, a [TLC] left visible, you name it. Take a look at the script, some of the original lines are left in comments for perusal.

But I got through it, and can present yet another wonderfully incomprehensible episode of Touka Gettan. Ep 5 features some of the Warring Triad of goddesses spending time with each other, although as we saw in episode 4, Mihashi of the Shikigami isn't going to stand idly by and let Sei get away. Oh, and Makoto sneaks into Touka's room for some reverse raep in revenge for ep 4, only it's more of reverse-preemptive revenge since ep 4 hasn't happened yet... oh, just watch the ep and see.

Torrent [CRC=19302CC3] || DDL

New ideas and 1 cancellation

So, it seems not a week goes by when I don't come across some older show and think, "Gee, this would be a great idea to work on!" But we all have our limits, so I'm trying to narrow things down a little.

Shows where work has been done, releases imminent:

To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ (2004) | Subs: A-Keep/Conclave&Faith | Raws: Transcoded from Zero-Raws .wmvs
As before, all OCR, basic checking, and karaoke are finished. Bonus eps and extras already released.
Rizelmine (2002) Subs: AIP, reconciled with AC and h-b | Raws: New encode by Sora-no-Shiro
1st 11 scripts transcribed, OP and ED1 karaoke complete.

Cancelled:

Pita Ten (2002) -- I found out that the folks at Retrofit were planning to release this show. So I decided to leave it to them, since (1) I was having difficulty with the raws, and (2) HnK's subs don't really need extensive editing or TLC for a good re-release, not in the way that Touka Gettan and Strawberry 100% have. I passed along OP/ED karaoke and scripts for the first two episodes to them, so go there for your Pita Ten fix.

Planned:

Kakyuusei 2 (2004) | Subs: Lunar | Raws: Random (so-so DivX5 DVD-rips)
Haven't seen this show, but I "somehow" came into possession of the actual English sub scripts awhile back, so it should be an easy release. I may do 2-14 of the 1999 previous TV series as a solo TL project.

Lime-iro Senkitan (2003) | Subs: ANBU-AonE | Raws: transcodes of .wmv DVD-rips (pending transcoding by another individual)
Eps 3-13 of the 2005 sequel series are another possible original TL project, assuming I can get raws.

Magic Users' Club (1996 OVA) & (1999 TV) | Subs: Modified from R1DVD, by way of anime-takeover | Raw: from the "HD Remastered" version that got released in Japan.
I'm hoping to make this a dual-audio release, since the English dub is not too bad for its age. For the subtitles, I'll "fansubize" the R1 subs a bit, with karaoke, honorifics, Japanese name order, and whatever other rewrites I feel like doing. That also involves manually adding all the songs and signs, since they were hardsubbed on the R1 discs.

Futakoi Alternative (2005) | Subs: AnimeYuki | Raws: some shoddy DVD-rips
The DVD raws may suck, but I found the AnY subs in .srt form, so I can't resist such low-hanging fruit.

And again, there's probably a few others I'm forgetting about. If there's anything else you want to request that has DVD raws available and isn't being actively pursued by another group, let me know and I'll look into it.

Strawberry 100% Final Update

And now, what I hope is the final post on this blog about the Strawberry 100% franchise. MDC has released all the remaining TV episodes and OVAs since my last post, and I hope they're a sufficient upgrade over the previous versions. Not that I've seen them, because if I ever revisit this show just to watch, it won't be for a long long time. Doing the OVAs was an interesting experience, as it gave me some practice in transcribing subs that I'll put to good use for future shows. And doing 6 different karaokes for 5 episode has helped me speed up and streamline that process as well. Find+Replace is a new good friend of mine, I can say that much.

So, while you enjoy the complete lack of conclusion in either the TV or OVA series, I'll be moving on to work on other shows, most of which should be better than Strawberry 100%. But at least there's always the manga.

(Note: links removed due to reasons)

Touka Gettan 04 - The jester stole her thorny crown

So yeah, that hiatus lasted a little longer than I wanted it to. I returned from my family reunion, spent 3 days at home, then went back on the road to see The Protomen and attend Anime Iowa. And at AI, I had a wacky weekend involving lots of alcohol, not much sleep, winning the entire Maison Ikkoku manga in a Jeopardy game, and filling in as a glowstick seller at the rave. Fun times.

But anyway, I'm finally back with episode 4 of Touka Gettan. Various evil forces are afoot, trying to control Sei, Momoka, Touka, and the Stone Sword. Has Touka lost it? Does he know he can kill? Plus, Momoka Kawakabe attracts no small amount of attention by appearing in a rather saucy torn-clothes ensemble, exposing some quite appealing waki, oppai, and pantsu. The scenes in question can be inspected via the download link below:

Torrent: [E4D93368] || DDL

Hiatus: The Return

I'll be leaving town for the weekend, and won't be back until Monday night. I wanted to get more Touka Gettan out this week, but I decided to put my energy into finishing Pretty Cure Splash Star instead. But TG 4 has been retimed, and is currently in editing. So I should be able to get a few eps out next week before I leave town again for an anime convention. Time permitting, I'll try to release a few first episodes of other projects like Rizelmine and To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ as well.

Touka Gettan 03 - Wincest for the... win?

Back when it aired, this episode raised some eyebrows (among other things) over a few select scenes. But really, that stuff is just business as usual for Touka Gettan. The primary focus of the episode is on the elements that lead into episode 02, ranging from the gravely-important concert preparations to what Momoka has for a latenight snack. And remember, Yurika is the scythe-wielding vampire catgirl; Yuriko is Yumiko's mother. I think Serin mixed up the names a few times, but I can't fault them -- I remember being confused on them myself when I first watched the series. Be patient with my slow upload speed, and enjoy:

Torrent [CRC=491ACAE1] || DDL

Sidenote: The timing on this show would be so much easier to check if the characters didn't whisper all the time. It's enough to make me appreciate subbing Magical Girl shows all the more. After all, they have so much dialogue consisting of distinctive and yelled power-ups, attack calling, "We'll never give up!!", etc.

Touka Gettan 02 - Don't die, monster! You belong in this world!

The good thing about working on Touka Gettan is that most of the scripts are pretty short -- several don't even break 200 lines before I add the OP/ED/episode titles in. (An average 25-minute anime episode will have 300-400 lines of dialogue.) However, what Touka Gettan lacks in "lines per minute" density, it makes up for in difficulty. So just an advance warning, there's probably still some guesslation in this episode, either Serin's or mine. The translations for Makoto's song at 14:00 are all-new for this release. Luckily, the most confusing eps are these first few. And if you liked the Momoka X Makoto scenes in this episode, just wait until ep 03.

Torrent [CRC=DCBD6DE5] || DDL

Strawberry 100% OVAs 01-03

A few more episodes from the never-imitated, often-equaled Strawberry 100% franchise have come out from MDC.
EDIT 7-5-10:
OVA 01 features a disastrously hectic attempt to prepare for the Cultural Festival, which introduces another "refers to self in 3rd person" girl, named Chinami. Also, all the girls except Aya get abducted or chased away by schoolboy would-be gang-raepists. But I'm sure there's no way Junpei and Aya will get trapped in a passionate, compromising position, or nearly "caught in the act" by the rest of the Film Club. Didn't they learn their lesson in OVA 00? (Somewhat grounded in chapter 81 or so of the manga.)

OVA 02 (screenshot above) has our brave hero on a brave yet gratuitous infiltration mission. For being set at Yui's school, this episode has a severe shortage of Yui. Yui won't forgive those who take away her screen time! Otoh, we get to see Ran Kotobuki Tsukasa Nishino saving the day. (Based on manga chapters 58-60)

EDIT:
OVA 03 is a completely original story with no basis in the manga at all, which complicated the TL checking for both me and dp. Some lines were way off base, particularly one where a character used "Mademoiselle." As usual, there's absolutely no worthwhile story progression in this episode. But you do get some panchira and cosplay exhibitionism for your viewing pleasure.

Final note: the folks at Viz, who are releasing the manga in the U.S., have begun streaming Strawberry 100% TV. So if you want a legitimate, ad-supported viewing option, it's out there. Frankly I think the subs leave a little to be desired; at least I didn't have any embarrassing English errors like "You're was the one who fell on me."

Brief Hiatus

I will be out of town and without PC/Internet access until Wednesday night (GMT-6). So no more releases until then.

To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ Extras pack

I know you're all craving for more Touka Gettan, and possibly more Strawberry 100% OVAs. I'm currently editing the next episode of those two projects. But To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ was originally going to be my first project. And since I've had the raws and subs sitting around for a few months, I wanted to release something for it. I'll probably get some more of Touka Gettan out before I launch into the main series, though. Let me know if you think I should do something differently on the karaoke fonts/colors/sizes, and also if I'm "doing it wrong" when it comes to the anamorphic scale compensation. (I set the Y scale to 91%, since the video is being compressed horizontally from 704 to 640.)

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Extras include:

Included in this torrent:
Clean OP
Clean ED
Clean ED (Alternative Version)
Clean ED (Episode 13 Version)
Heart Fighters Omakes 01-07 [Contains some ecchi content, especially omake 7.]

Source: DVD (Zero-Raws, transcoded from .wmv)
Container: .mkv
Video: h264, 704x480 (anamorphic 4:3), 24fps*
Audio: Japanese, 2.0 Stereo AAC
Subtitles: English, soft, styled .ass.
Subtitle Source: Anime-Keep&Anime-Faith (OP/ED), yu (Heart Fighters)

*24fps is a bit odd, since 23.976 is the norm. However, I suspect that the raws were also 24.000 fps, since I didn't change any frame rate settings when I ran them through HandBrake. So it's beyond my ability to fix, unless somebody can dig up the .isos and encode new raws.

Touka Gettan 01v2 - Let's End This Again

Nobody likes to do v2s, but this one is for a good cause. If you've been watching the shoutbox lately, you know that Seto_Sun's been passing me better raws than the ones I originally had. And at the suggestion of an anon in the ep 01v1 comments, I made some changes to the OP translations. Honestly, they're probably still not perfect, due to my middling translation abilities. So I hope you'll allow me some artistic license as I tried to make them somewhat coherent in English. I didn't do a full watch of the v2; the timing seemed close enough that a little keyframe snapping should have brought things into line. If you spot any major errors, let me know and I'll go about learning how to create a v3 patch.

Torrent [CRC=BA458FD5] || DDL

Vital stats, once again:
Source: DVD
Video: 864x480 ~16:9, h264, 23.976 fps, 1036 kbps (ep 1 has this bitrate, haven't checked later eps)
Audio: Japanese, 2.0 Stereo, 448 kbps AC3
Subtitles: English, soft, styled .ass.
Subtitle Source: OCRed from the Serin TV-rips, but heavily modified.

Strawberry 100% OVA 00 & updates

So, I've been slacking on posting Strawberry 100% OVA info. And who could blame me, with a show as compelling and conclusive as this one? Anyway, the main focus of this post is "OVA 00," which is also known as the 2004 Shounen Jump Festival OVA. For you manga readers, this takes place at around chapter 70. It's funny, back in late 2005 when I first saw this, I didn't automatically associate "guy + girl together in outdoorsy area" with "nearly-naked taking shelter from the rain." Later, there's some Junpei X Tsukasa service with a test of courage.

Again, subtitles for the Jump Festival and all future OVAs are based on DigitalPanic's translations. Good thing I had yesy's release of OVA 00 sitting around, since dp didn't translate the ED.

Some updates on other fronts: I've sent MDC the script for the true "first" Strawberry 100% OVA episode, the one where Junpei and Aya get trapped in a room and wind up nearly naked. Wait, deja vu anybody? On Touka Gettan, I'm hopefully going to get better raws, and try to improve my translation of the OP a bit. It's just like TG to throw weird archaic poetic words into its songs...

Touka Gettan 01 - The End

Throwing caution to the winds, I've decided to launch into this project, with Touka Gettan episode 01. I would try and release it with an English title, but it means something like "Peach Blossoms in Awe of the Moon"... and that's just too unwieldy. Now, the first thing about this show is that it is told backwards, aside from episode 25. So this first episode is really the end of the story. Needless to say, it can be quite confusing. So if you don't like series like Fafner and Shin Mazinger Z because they didn't lay out and explain every little thing in the first episode, this might not be a show for you. I found it fascinating and compelling the whole way through, despite not know what the hell was going on at first.

Vital Stats:

Source: DVD, unknown raw. The raws unfortunately have an uncropped black bar at the top of the image. But since the bitrate/quality is already so-so, I didn't want to risk re-encoding and reducing the quality further.
Video: 704x480 anamorphic 16:9 (853x480 displayed), 23.976 fps, ~850-1100 kbps.
Audio: 2.0 Stereo AAC, ~260 kbps.
Subtitles: Based on the only existing English translation, by Serin-Fansubs. Let's just say they were a bit too literal for my tastes, not to mention fraught with translation and editing errors. In fact, improving on them was my main impetus for doing this project. The TV -> DVD audio/video quality upgrade is just a convenient bonus. So expect to see a major overhaul in terms of translation, editing, styling, phrasing, and localization. As usual, I'll respect the honorific and naming conventions of the original group. Things like "TL Note: Neko means cat", not so much.

So whether you're a first-time or repeat visitor to the land of Kamitsumihara, I hope you'll enjoy Touka Gettan as I'm presenting it. You may also want to check out Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito (2003), which shares some production staff with and hasother connections to this series.

Torrent [CRC=751B9DCD]

Touka Gettan Advance Goodies Release!

Torrent || DDL

I've been wanting to get something related to this series released for awhile, and here it is. This torrent contains:

Creditless OP (Standard Version)
Creditless OP (Black & White Version from episode 21)
Creditless ED
136 trailer (standard staff, story, & production info)
104 sec trailer (ECCHI!!!)

Video: h264 704x480 (853x480 anamorphic 16:9)
Audio: Japanese AAC 2.0 Stereo

OP/ED have English subs, but subs should be off by default for your viewing pleasure. I started with the lyrics in the Serin TV-rips (which made it into this gallery), but wound up almost completely re-translating them from Japanese lyrics I found online. If you have any suggestions for different fonts or colors for the karaoke subs, post them here so I can consider them for the kara in the actual episodes. Also, let me know if I screwed up the anamorphic scaling on the subtitles.

Overall progress on Touka Gettan:
Karaoke is complete, obviously enough. OCR for all episodes 01-26 is complete. Spell-check and visual checks for OCR-related and obvious spelling/grammar errors in the original subs is complete. Next step is to fast-forward scan through all the episodes to add in signs, missing lines, and relevant translation notes. I may do this scan in chronological order rather than airing order, to help keep things consistent. However, the actual release will be in the normal 01-26 order.

I must say, I'm excited to start working on a great show like this, after the incomplete mediocrity of Strawberry 100%. But there's still those pesky 4 OVAs to go...

Strawberry 100% - New Version

A little update on Strawberry 100%, just when you thought it'd gone away. While I pride myself on making subtitles as good as they can be, I understand that the audio/video aspects of raw+remux releases aren't always the greatest. But fear not. There are not one, but two groups who are releasing or planning to release encodes from R2JDVD .isos using my subs:

MDC-Anime
Kira-Fansub

TV episodes 1-2 from MDC are available now. While I thought the Zero-Raws files I used looked pretty good compared to the old TV-rips, I'm sure these new encodes look and sound even better. Also, MDC has agreed to encode and release the OVAs, so be sure to keep an eye on his blog. Of course, news of those releases will be cross-posted here, since I will be doing the necessary work to create softsubs for them. So far, I've completely transcribed dp's subs for all five episodes. That leaves:

Editing / TL Check
Retiming
Some small amount of typesetting
6 songs worth of karaoke (1 OP, 5 separate EDs)

Look for these in about 2 weeks, at the earliest.

Strawberry 100% 12 - Who needs an ending?

Well, Strawberry 100% TV is finally finished, at least in terms of this re-release project. As for the story... not so much. The incompleteness made me rage back in 2005, but I was still fairly new to anime back then. I hadn't learned to expect grossly incomplete manga adaptations from ~12-episode anime. Nowadays, it's pretty much par for the course. If you want more, there's always the OVAs, and of course the manga. I haven't read it beyond a few chapters I skimmed through for translation checking, but it's supposed to be good. You can find it here.


Now that my first project is complete, let me know how I did. If you liked or disliked it, sound off here or at some public venue like AniDB or MAL. Or on bakabt, if a batch gets hosted there.

Strawberry 100% 11 - Girl Fight Tonight!

Here it is, the penultimate episode of Strawberry 100%. Once again, Junpei does a bunch of wishy-washy things, angers at least one girl, and yet still gets forgiven for the sake of maintaining status quo. So if you're looking for character and plot development in this episode, look elsewhere. But if you're looking for pantsu, chick fights, and a distinctive little sister character, you've come to the right place. Anime needs more little sisters like Misuzu Sotomura. The docile, submissive, adoring/brother-complex type is just plain overdone. And not representative of reality, in my experience. We can probably chalk this bit of realism up to the manga being written by a woman.

Strawberry 100% 10.5 -- The Pickup Artist

No doubt you're wondering about the fractional value of this episode. What I'm calling "Episode 10.5" is otherwise known as the TV Special, entitled "Come Pick Me Up! / I'm Always on Your Side". Using differential equations and integration on everything, I've determined that it occurs between Episodes 10 and 11. So it's 10.5. Ep 10.5 is unique in a couple of ways:

1) It doesn't appear to be based on anything out of the manga. For all the previous episodes, I've been able to skim through the manga and find some relevant section.
2) It only features one heroine. In this case, the lovely and rambunctious Yui Minamito.

Also, subs for this episode are based on DigitalPanic's subs, as yesy did not release it. Sorry to all you Commonwealth English speakers out there, but I probably smoothed out some of the Britishisms dp used. Nonetheless, I think it still comes through in a few places. Styling is the same yesy-esque styling used in all other eps, for the sake of consistency. Besides, Impress BT is a clichéd fansub font anyway.

Strawberry 100% 10 - A Challenger Appears!

Here it is, episode 10, where Junpei learns of the consequences of his and Aya's careless night of passion some weeks ago. Either that, or Junpei somewhat succeeds in giving White Day presents and going on an awkward movie date. You make the call. Oh, and there's also a girl named Misuzu who dreams of flying through the sky offers unsolicited movie criticism to total strangers.

On another note, I've decided that I will go ahead and do the Strawberry 100% OVAs. I can't guarantee they'll look or sound better than the existing releases. But people wanted softsubs, and I can give them softsubs. I've got the raws, and I can transcribe dp's subs to the timed Chinese subs and avoid OCRing each episode twice. So I may as well. However, I'll probably take a break after finishing the TV series in order to get some other projects started. Plus, there's unique ED karaoke to do for all 5 OVAs.

Strawberry 100% 09 - Chocolate Pain

No, Manaka, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. As usual. You know what would've made this episode a lot hotter? At 11:12 --

Junpei: Give it!
Yui: I already ate it.
Junpei: Then I'll just have to take it back. (kisses her aggressively)
Suddenly, the kindling of 8 years' worth of their childhood friendship ignites into a raging blaze, etc. etc.
*Sigh* But Manaka's not that kind of guy, and this is not that kind of show. And I shouldn't quit my day job to write romance novels. Oh wait, I don't have a day job. I'd better stick to subtitle writing.

Some Future Plans

Looking ahead past Strawberry 100% TV (and maybe the OVAs) a little bit, these are some shows I'm planning on doing or at least thinking about, in no particular order:



Touka Gettan (2007)
An amazingly awesome show about love transcending time and space. Also demons, butterflies, a magic sword, a magic car, catgirls, immortals, incest, yuri, and more. Not to mention the incomprehensibility factor stemming from the backwards airing.

Raw: Unknown source raws with Japanese filenames
Video: 704x480 (16:9) h264
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Stereo AAC
Subtitles: Serin-Fansubs, HEAVILY modified. While I might not be able to fix every translation problem, I can sure deal with the spelling/grammar errors, the poor styling, the bad writing, the subber comments, and the unnecessary TL notes.
Progress: Raws downloaded, karaoke prepared, 1-14 OCRed.



To Heart ~Remember my Memories~ (2004)
Raw: Zero-Raws (transcoded .wmv -> .mkv)
Video: 704x480 (4:3) h264 (transcoded from wmv)
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Stereo AAC (transcoded from wma)
Subtitles: Anime-Keep & Anime-Faith (1-8), Conclave & Anime-Faith (9-13), yu (Heart Fighters Specials). Major fixes to the yu subs, minor modifications to Keep/Conclave&Faith.
Progress: Raws DLed, raws transcoded, karaoke prepared, 01-13 OCRed, 01 retimed and in editing.



Tonagura! (2006)
Something about reunited childhood friends, with ecchi and fanservice involved, I dunno lol

Raw: Zero-Raws
Video: 720x480 (16:9) h264
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Stereo AAC
Subtitles: Ryoumi. Have only seen the 1st ep, so I don't know how much fixing I'll be doing.
Progress: Raws DLed, TV-rips DLed, not sure if I'll watch them first or go in "blind" to start OCRing.

EDIT: didn't know / forgot that PowerPinoy-Subs was working on this. AniDB's there for a reason, guys :P. If he doesn't pick up the project again, I'll give it another look. But that gives me time to watch the TV-rips.



Pita-Ten (2002)
Like A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, Pita-Ten features character designs by Koge-Donbo. Also like ALSFS, Pita-Ten is a cloyingly cute show that works its way into your heart and leaves you in tears.

Raw: Unknown
Video: 640x480, wmv transcoded to h264 (1-7, 9, 17-18, 20-21, 26) or XviD (8, 10-16, 19, 22-25)
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Stereo AAC or mp3
Subtitles: Hikari no Kiseki, shouldn't need much fixing.
Progress: Raws downloaded, Ep 01 OCRed.

Those are the tentative plans for the near future, anyway. RealLife(tm) may slow things down. Also, just because I've mentioned a show in the past but not here, it doesn't mean I've dropped it from consideration. Rizelmine and Shinigami's Ballad come to mind. Lastly, if there's anything else you want me to take a look at, post it here.

Quick guidelines: no R1-licensed anime unless the subs seriously fail, no Blu-Ray-only anime 'cause my PC can't take it. Disregard that, I might try doing some Blu-Ray shows, starting with Kemeko Deluxe (2008). However, you still won't be seeing 720p/1080p from me. All BD-raw-based releases will be downscaled to 576p or below, if my PC can re-encode them in a reasonable amount of time.

Pretty Cure Splash Star 37... is not here.

If you followed the mistaken info link I posted on nyaatorrents for [PCSS] Pretty Cure Splash Star 37, then you'll want this site. Of course, if you've been following that show, you probably know that already.

[Zalis] Happy Lesson OVA 05 (END)

It seems like I can't escape strawberry panties, even if I go and work on a different show. Here it is, episode 5 of the 5-episode Happy Lesson OVA. Due to Chitose's own incompetence and Fumitsuki's violent tendencies, he winds up possessed by a spirit whose name I invented from whole cloth. That means it's up to his shrine-maiden/school-nurse mother, Yayoi Sanzenin. This also means you get to hear a lot of Yayoi's VA, the ever-talented Kikuko Inoue. She's also one of maybe two Happy Lesson VA anyone's ever heard of.

Specs are about the same as episode 4. The raw was smaller and more bitrate-starved, so there's even more artifacting/blocking in high-motion scenes.

Torrent [CRC=F21483A1]

And this little mini-project is finally over. I've been working on it in some capacity for maybe 3 years, and it feels good to finally get it out the door. Chances are you'll see a batch torrent for it with eps 1-3 from some other group on bakabt before too long. (EDIT: batch here)

[Zalis] Happy Lesson OVA 04

Torrent [CRC=F72BDF75]

Time for something drastically different from the usual re-releases. This is episode 4 of the 5-episode Happy Lesson OVA series, which was released in Japan in 2001-2003. Happy Lesson has had an odd history. The first three episodes were fansubbed back in the day, and then ADV Films announced the license. All the fansub groups dropped the project (because that was normal and expected back in the old days), but ADV only ever released the first three episodes. Thus, episodes 4 and 5 fell through the cracks. Fansubbers didn't want to touch them because of the license, DVD buyers couldn't buy them because ADV never dubbed/subbed/released them, and obviously, R1DVD-ripping groups couldn't rip what didn't exist. So these two episodes have never been available in English. Until now. Here's the rundown, same as you saw at NyaaTorrents:

Source: DVD (DivX5/mp3/avi raw transcoded to h264/AAC in order to crop black bars and filter some combing)
Container: .mkv
Video: 640x480 4:3 h264 23.976 fps (1042 kbps)
Audio: Japanese 2.0 AAC (128 kbps)
Subtitles: English, soft, styled .ass.
Localization Level: Somewhere between typical fansub and typical R1. Western name order, Onee-chan/Onii-chan translated, standard honorifics retained. Songs have English/Romaji, no karaoke effects.

If the old Anime-Kissaten fansubs ever resurface, I'll do an XviD/avi/hardsub release to complement them, and tweak the subs to make them more fansub-esque. Like karaoke and onee-chan's and all that junk. Enjoy, and stay tuned for episode 5 -- it's already translated, timed, and typeset, so I just need to transcode the raw and obsess over the subs a little more.

Strawberry 100% 08 - Sad Girl in Snow

Here's episode 8, which sort of brings us to the 2/3rds point in the series. Or at least it would, if not for the "TV Special" episode. I like this episode, despite the typical Japanese ridiculous overreaction to cold weather. Yui Minamito ftw once again. But of course she'd be awesome: she's played by the same voice actress as Fate Testarossa and Utau Hoshina.

Also The torrent I'd found with the OVA raws appears to be dead, so that tips my decision a bit farther away from doing the OVAs, unless something resurfaces.