Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 06 - RUN!! Get to the CHOPPAH!

I so wanted to use the title of this post in the scene above, but I thought better of it. At any rate, it only took me a few months to get through the 6 episodes of Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs, and this is the grand finale. Naoyuki swings between the extremes of powerless and powerful, as his relationship with Iriya proves to hold the fate of the world in its balance. All in all, it's a bittersweet ending that's not without a few unanswered questions. Though be sure to watch after the credits, as there's a very brief but poignant epilogue.

Batch (Nyaa)
Batch (BakaBT)

There may be some slight weirdness when watching the ED in fullscreen... if you hadn't noticed, I used overlay blocks to create a faux-16:9 effect so that the karaoke wouldn't conflict with the credits. I couldn't get them to display quite right in several attempts, and while eps 1-5 had black backgrounds to hide things, the ED plays on a white background this time.

In terms of future plans, I'll be releasing a few shorter OVAs while finishing up Rizelmine, before starting up more TV series. (Possibly My Wife is a High School Girl and Minami-Ke Okawari.)

Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 01-02 v2

After some of the comments on the first two episodes, kaishakunin went through and did new encodes for episodes 3-6 to correct some interlacing errors in the video. He also did new encodes for eps 1 and 2, which I hadn't gotten around to releasing. Until now.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 05 - Initiate the Survival Strategy

After the events of episode 04, Asaba and Iriya go on a romantic getaway adventure, with plenty of thrills and chills in the form of rain, trains, transients, and psychotic breakdowns. And meanwhile, a bell is ringing in the village square for the rabbits on the run, as the Sonohara Base crew won't let their prized pilot escape quite so easily.

This episode betrays some signs of rushed adaptation; some spots feel like they're missing connecting scenes, content that might be better explained in the novels. But I guess that goes with the territory for 6-episode OVAs. Also, there was one line at 06:30 that all three translations (Lunar, Ayu, AnY-Spork) got wrong, but I managed to fix it.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 04 - Gentlemen Prefer Platinum Blondes

In this lighthearted, fun-filled episode, our shy heroine Kana Iriya breaks out of her shell a little bit and engages in a wide variety of activities, like dyeing her hair, a girls' day out, an eating contest, and a little amateur surgery. But seriously, this has got to be one of the most concentrated cases of mood whiplash I've ever come across. Enjoy it if you can, just... not during or shortly after a meal.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 03 - Dance in the Manta Pilot Bund

Here we are at the strangely dark school festival episode of Iriya's Sky. Though I don't mean dark in terms of subject matter, just in terms of lighting. (This extends to all encodes I've seen of ep 03.) Maybe it's all to set up a contrast to the memorable sunset "dancing" scene at the end? Oh, and before I forget again, this release in general is semi-dedicated to anime blogger and real-life acquaintance Xebek; this OVA is among his first and favorite anime. And if you're in the Midwestern USA and into science fiction, check out this event that he and a long-time friend of mine put on. I may also be there.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

P.S. You may think it's trolling, but I think the line fits the situation. Watch the ep and you'll likely see what I mean.

Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs 02 - The Hazards of Dating

Not quite in time for Valentine's Day, here's episode 2 of Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs. It's Asaba and Iriya's first date, and with it comes a host of thrills, chills, and dangers. A small chain of "stalkers stalking stalkers" develops, culminating in an action sequence that's worthy of the Back-to-the-Future-esque music. Later, we get a look into Iriya's past. And who else thinks that Naoyuki's younger sister Yuuko should've been played by Rie Kugimiya or Sakura Tange? Too bad the latter wasn't doing anime voice acting at the time.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)

Now, you may notice that the file for Ep 02 is a bit on the large side, especially for a 480p release. However, keep in mind the content of this episode. Aside from the constant flickering light of the theater scenes, there's a grainy flashback sequence... of a sandstorm. All of that drives video bitrate requirements through the roof. If you compare the flashback scenes (20:15-22:15) in this release with the 233 MB AnY-Spork file, or especially with the 154 MB Ayu release, I think you'll see a clear advantage. And fear not, none of the remaining 4 episodes are any larger.

Sky of Iriya, Summer of UFOs 01 - Here come the Men in Black

Thanks to a bit of fortune nearly six years ago, I did not have to transcribe or OCR subtitles for this nice little OVA from 2005. So I'm going to try and bring it out as a fairly quick release. Like SaiKano from 2002, Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs is a story about a girl being turned into a weapon of war, and about the boy who loves her. But compared to SaiKano, it's more down-to-earth and less bleak.

Being an OVA, the existing hardsubbed releases by Ayu and AnY-Spork are already DVD source, so there's obviously no decensoring or added scenes involved. However, this is a new encode by Jumonji-Giri, rather than a remux with existing raws, and there are substantial video quality improvements over AnY-Spork's XviD/avi release and Ayu's h264/avi(?!) release. You may also hear an upgrade in the audio department, as this uses FLAC rather than transcoded mp3.

In addition to the two groups listed above, Iriya's Sky, Summer of UFOs was also translated (though not fully released) by Lunar. These subtitles contain the best of all three scripts, along with my usual brand of improvements. The OP and ED have been largely rewritten, and I used letterbox overlays to make the ED "fake 16:9," thus allowing for subdued ED karaoke that does not clash with the scrolling credits.

Anyway, the file sizes will be bigger than the older releases due to FLAC and other reasons, but I think you'll find it all worth it in the end. Additional technical info can be found on the torrent page.

Batch (Nyaa) || Batch (BakaBT)