Memories Off 3 - How to Save a Life

I thought for once I'd present a screenshot with relevant characters, since this is the final episode of the 2001-02 Memories Off OVA. This installment features cheery, artsy, and sickly girl Minamo Ibuki, who has an unexpected connection to Tomoya's past. After going through a certain amount of drama, the episode ends on a sad and ambiguous note. At least the animators remembered to include the title this time.

Batch (BakaBT) || Batch (Nyaa)

I'm not sure if I'll start in on Memories Off 2nd right away. However, I have new encodes available for it in both 8-bit and 10-bit h264. Both versions have equal file size. So the question is, do you want...

* 8-bit only?
* 10-bit only?
* Both 8 and 10-bit?

Rizelmine 24 - A Decent Proposal

It feels like it's taken forever, but here is the final episode of Rizelmine. After the insanity of the previous two episodes, it's a short, sweet, and low-key finale. Note that it refers back to certain events and objects from episodes 14-16.

This is actually the fourth DVD version of the second season, following Hono-Bono, AIP, and Retrofit's releases. Still, I think most will agree that this is the best and most definitive version, at least until someone comes along and does a 10-bit encode with the same amount of filtering and manual correction that Desbreko put into this release. And I don't think that's too likely.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT) EDIT:

A patch for episode 07v2 can be found here. That file will be in the complete batch on BakaBT. The only difference is that it adds a font that wasn't included in the .mkv. If you have the Candara font on your system, you won't notice a difference.

Memories Off 02 - Head Games

After fixing half a dozen embarrassing editing errors that I introduced, not to mention countless more TL, editing, timing, and other errors from the Anime-Keep subs, I bring you episode 2 of Memories Off. This episode features Shion Futami (the older sister of Ami and Mami? Probably not), a quiet librarian type of girl who harbors a hidden side and some dark secrets. She's not as moe as Shiori Shiomiya, though.

Note that the English and Japanese episode titles are added in as softsubs, because the post-production team apparently forgot to place the Japanese title in the video. Given how simplistic and shoddy this OVA's animation is, it wouldn't surprise me. So if you're seeing rectangles at that point, your system isn't set up to display East Asian characters properly. To avoid that issue, I normally don't use kanji in my subs, but this warranted an exception. If you wish to fix it, GIYF.

Batch (BakaBT) || Batch (Nyaa)

And as before, I'm still searching for the MangAnime release of Memories Off #5. If you have or can acquire it, let me know. (Luckily, they eventually re-uploaded it.)

Rizelmine 23 - Hetalia: Waifu Powers

What started as an arranged marriage between a middle school boy and a strange girl outside of his preferred age group has morphed into an international incident. And now, we get Rie Kugimiya playing five characters with a variety of foreign accents. And that's something of a rarity. If she's not playing a robot (this show, Hand Maid May), an alien (G-On Riders), a suit of armor (FMA), or a being from another dimension (Shana), Kugimiya usually plays traditional Japanese/super-ojousama characters. (ToraDora, AkaSaka, Hayate the Combat Butler, Idolm@ster, etc.) I guess there is Louise, but that's in an other-world setting. About the only other time I can think of where she plays a human non-Japanese character in an Earth setting is her role as Shannon in Umineko no naku koro ni.

Anyway, the end of this episode shows how Rizelmine can throw tons of ridiculous action and fanservice at you, and then blindside you with an emotional suckerpunch. Look for the final episode sometime after Sunday.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Memories Off 01 - Amefuri Koneko

Once again, I'm reaching into the vaults to bring out another old and somewhat forgotten OVA from the early 00s. Memories Off was based on a romance game of some sort, though I don't know if it was ero or not. Rather than forming a complete story, the three episodes adapt different story paths from the game. They all deal with a male lead who's lost a childhood friend/girlfriend to Japan's #1 Backstory Killer (a traffic accident), and his attempts to move on amidst guilt and regret.

Since I could not find the Baka-MX version for comparison, I took the subs from the commonly-available Anime-Keep release. As always, they've been retimed and edited, this time to fix TL/timing errors, improve flow, and remove embarrassing internal notes that were accidentally left visible in the final release.

Batch (BakaBT) || Batch (Nyaa)

More technical details available at the torrent link. I'm sure some will question the use of wmv and wma, and my answer is:
1) That's how the raws were.
2) Since the wma used 16-bit depth rather than 24-bit, it worked in Aegisub without the need to transcode to another codec. Therefore, I decided not to transcode the audio, which would've degraded the sound quality.

Before anyone asks: yes, I do intend to release later OVAs in the Memories Off series. Someone has been working on finding/encoding raws for MO 2nd and 3.5 for me. However, I'd like to get the MangAnime release of Memories Off #5, so if you have that file, let me know and seed the torrent.

Rizelmine 22 - Welcome to Married Life

Tomonori's in for a rude awakening in Rizelmine 22, as Rizel doesn't seem interested in repeating the in-her-mind-successful attempt at the "Adult C." So he's feeling understandably frustrated and a little, uh, blue. Tensions run high, and they're not the good kind of tensions, either. This sets the stage for the final crisis that will unfold in the last two episodes.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)