Shakotan Boogie (1987) [35mm 4K HD Scan]

Another collaboration with Kineko Video—been a while since I've done a movie film scan release, and despite my snail pace I've been itching to do another one of these too, so believe me when I say I'm happy about this particular release :^)

Today on the menu we have Shakotan Boogie—a 1987 live-action film adaptation of the manga of the same name by Michiharu Kusunoki. The manga chronicles the misadventures of two Japanese teens who are into lowriders, known as "shakotan" in Japan. Given the type of manga that the source material is and the company that produced this, this movie's plot is kind of all over the place. I don't mean that in a bad way or anything, it's just how these manga film adaptations in the 80s are typically made—Igano Kabamaru & the first Be-Bop High School movie kinda fall under this same category too where the movie seems like a compilation of various chapters adapted into film. I enjoyed watching this regardless but be warned in case that type of movie isn't to your liking.

Anyways—a copy of this movie was listed for sale online back in 2021. Didn't want to waste any chances, so I went & grabbed it. This wasn't scanned until mid-2024 I believe... the movie was later finished with timing & translation in Sept. 2024 but I did absolutely nothing with it until a few months ago where I finally got off my ass and began editing this movie & sending it out for both TLC & QC. 

The film copy I got does have your fair share of wear & tear throughout, with the occasional scratching & dirt marks—it's more noticeable during the reel changes but I'd argue it's pretty minor throughout the movie and it's not super bad to the point of it distracting the viewer. Colors are pretty good too, which I consider impressive given the condition this was in! Worth noting though that there is one spot in the movie past the 1hr mark where it skips for like 2 frames—not too jarring, but unfortunately I can't do anything about that.

The audio is a completely different story, though... for some reason, there were multiple points throughout this movie in which there would be very loud audible buzzing heard in the background. Re-scanning the movie did fix the buzzing in some spots but introduced new buzzing in other sections where it previously wasn't heard before and the whole thing began a mess to deal with—so ultimately it was decided to mix both the film reel's optical audio with audio from the movie's VHS version. I would have preferred LD audio but copies for that go up for way higher than what I would prefer to spend, so VHS was the preferred option here.

I think that's it. Not sure what else to add here. This movie never got a DVD release and whatever is on streaming over at Amazon JP uses a shitty tape master, so this is probably the only way to be able to see this in HD at all for now.

You can grab this release at the usual spot.

Tongari Boushi no Memole - Episode 13

 

Memole's village initiates another tug-of-war contest to settle for not just one, nor two, but three things instead: the village chief must shave his mustache if he loses in order to make himself appear more friendly to the younger children, Torirone must resort to stealing things that the villagers don't want, and Forten must refrain from breaking his violins every time he finishes making one.

You can grab this episode at the usual spot.

Inka's write-up:
https://www.inka-subs.net/2025/08/lonelychaser-inka-tongari-boushi-no-memoru-13/ 

 

 

The Future of Borgman

So, now that Sonic Soldier Borgman is finally finished—the TV show at least...

What's next?

There is a bunch of extra material out there, so I'll try my best to highlight each of these and talk about the plans with them. 

• As far as the TV show goes, I will not be making a complete batch for it just yet. Main reason being that the Spanish subs for this show are still being worked on—at a slow pace, sure, but ideally I would really like to put out a single multi-sub release.
  
  This next point, I really don't have much faith in it, considering that nobody has done it ever for my other ongoing TV sub projects—but I'd also like to give it some time for people to watch this & point out anything that needs fixing that might have slipped by me and the other team members during the production of this fansub project.  

• There were two OVAs released after the show was finished, serving as sequels to the main story. These very same OVAs were licensed & released in the US under ADV Films as a single DVD, but this has been out of print for years now. (To date, this material serves as the only Borgman material to be officially released in the US, though I guess that's not relevant here). Despite already having official English subs, one of the team members on the Borgman fansubbing project says that the subs for these aren't very good and are in a need of an update. Rest is self-explanatory.
  
  Fun fact: apparently the original translator of the English subs by ADV went on to do the English subs for Netflix's Evangelion release. Who would have thought? 

• Music and audio stuff—for music, there's "Madnight Gigs", a music video LD that also contains an epilogue for the TV show at the end. Orphan Fansubs already put out their own release for this, but I'd like to put out a new release that utilizes a new raw captured with Domesday instead. I think this would probably trump the version released on BD in terms of video quality, and would certainly serve as an upgrade over the raw used for Orphan's release. (I want to make some additions & changes to their subs too, but that's for another time). 
  
  For audio... two drama albums were released as well—the first one was published on CD under the name "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and the second drama album was a cassette-only release published under the "Animate Cassette Collection" series. I don't have any way of verifying this and am only going off by whatever it says on Wikipedia JP but the cassette seemingly serves as a sequel to the aforementioned drama CD. Regardless, I do have interest in these and would like to look into getting these translated eventually.

That's about all I got at the moment.
So, when will this be worked on?

Not soon LOL

Real talk though, I do actually mean that. The TV show batch is probably the only one from this list that realistically will be released sooner than the rest, but even I don't have an estimated release date for that. Honestly, I'm juggling too many projects at the moment (partially my fault, which I'll admit to) and I have several that I've stalled for way longer than they should have been. Since the TV show's fully subbed now, I'd really like to prioritize working on some of those projects first before I resume anything Borgman-related.

Please be patient, and hang in there. 

Sonic Soldier Borgman - Episode 34 & 35

 

Whew... What a ride this has been.

Ironically enough, despite this not being the first TV fansub project started under the "LonelyChaser" tag, this release now officially marks Sonic Soldier Borgman as the first anime TV project that this fansub group has now finished in its entirety. I'm so proud 🥲

There's actually more Borgman-related material I want to address, but I'll save that for a later post.

Anyways: in episode 34, Ryo & Dust Gead fight to the death, while Mesh drops a bombshell of info (bombshell for the audience, at least) revealing the mysterious connection between Dust Gead & Memory. The Demon King gets finally unleashed in episode 35—both Memory & the Borgman team resort to a final tactic to defeat him once and for all.

Both episodes are now available for downloading at the usual spot.

I'll create a proper credits list for this project once I inevitably release a final batch for this show, but in the meantime, thanks to everyone who helped cooperate on this in one way or another. You know who you are ;^) 

Whirlpool of Joy (1992)

 

It's not often that I sub random episodes from TV shows (actually, I think this is the first instance of me doing so...?) but I had to make an exception here under very special circumstances.

So, what exactly is this? Let's look at Wikipedia JP...

In 1990, an anthology TV show debuted titled DRAMADAS—this show consisted of separate stories that were split into five 15-minute episodes, with the stories ranging from eroticism & surrealism to violent content. 

It seems like one of the show's notable key points is the fact that there were various notable directors & screenwriters who were involved with some of the show's episodes—Wikipedia JP lists a few examples but the only ones I could identify from it were Kiyoshi Kurosawa & Chiaki J. Konaka.

Anyways, DRAMADAS ceased its daily broadcast format in April 1991 and was relaunched as DRAMADOS—shifting from its five 15-minute episode schedule to a single weekly 30-minute episode schedule. Additionally, this new revamped show ditched the genres of its predecessor and instead now focused on "three elements"—Dream (D), Occult (O), and Strange (S), which according to Wikipedia JP was meant to align closely with the worldview of The Twilight Zone.

Unfortunately, neither DRAMADAS nor DRAMADOS have complete home media releases—only select episodes were ever published on both VHS & DVD. A DVD release was put out in 2005 containing the only stories that Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed for both DRAMADAS & DRAMADOS, the latter of which today's release comes from.

What is it about? Honestly, I couldn't really tell you even if my life depended on it, because I found it to be really confusing & I don't even know if you have to be Reddit-levels of smart to understand it. The main gist is that the protagonist—played by Keiji Matsuda (who I just so happened to see recently in the 1989 film Kitchen, lol)—is surrounded by "joy" every day, which he severely despises. He revolts against his father (a fortune-teller) and his own fate, though I'm really not sure if that ever goes anywhere at all, considering how this ends.

Truthfully speaking, I can't say I really liked this. It's not bad, but the first thing I ever watched that was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa was his Sweet Home movie—this episode honestly felt like an amateur student film with regards to overall quality and it's kinda crazy that he went from directing an influential horror film with lots of effort put into it... to this 🥴. 
But regardless of what I think, the only existing fansub of this episode that was online before today's release was an AI + machine-translated version. Nobody deserves to watch anything of that level of quality and I was certain nobody else was going to provide their own translation any time soon, since that's unfortunately the norm with most titles in the live-action JP drama community.

Final note: maybe I might go and sub Kurosawa's DRAMADAS story that was included in the same DVD as Whirlpool of Joy. Not a priority at the moment, though.

Nevertheless, enjoy! This can be found at the usual spot.