Studio Bebow Documentary (v2)

 
Tomonori Kogawa's Cool Cool Bye OVA originally came included with a short little extra—a small documentary centered around his animation studio, Studio Bebow (also the same studio that animated the OVA). Within this documentary are short interviews from various staff members, as well as a short introduction from Kogawa himself at the beginning.

I had subbed this myself many years ago, but it was in need of a huge update. Aside from the fact that it could have benefited from a better video source, the translation was handled by someone whom I stopped working with ages ago for two reasons. One, their translation work was awful (which I didn't realize until later), and two, this person in general was just not very professional to work with.

(Fun fact: after a long time had passed since we both last spoke to each other, he randomly DM'ed me out of the blue asking me for money so that he could purchase a new cell phone with it. WTF?)

I had been wanting to revise this documentary as a result, but I just never got around to it due to a boatload of reasons. That changed when Collectr from Orphan Fansubs expressed interest in wanting to release a new version of the documentary several years ago. Once again, this sort of stalled for a bit since I couldn't find a suitable translator for it, but I was able to get the ball rolling on this re-translation project after I was introduced to user "justj22". He helped translate the documentary while Collectr edited/typeset it afterwards, and it was finished off with extra QC'ing from imatu and myself.

A final note:
This documentary can be found at the usual spot, but it is not a standalone release. This was actually bundled alongside a new version of Orphan's Cool Cool Bye fansubbed release. I can't post a direct link to it but you'll easily find it on that site under the "Orphan" tag.

Click here to be re-directed to Collectr's blog post on this release.

Mamoru Nagano in 3159 — MAKING OF THE BABY SITTER (1991)

 

EDIT 6/25/2025: Due to multiple DMCA notices that I received, torrent link has been removed for the safety of this blog. The actual content itself can still be found on the usual spot—that is, if the torrent page there wasn't deleted by me.

Fansub credits can be found in the link above.

Whew... this one is a doozy.

Okay, so lemme get this out of the way first:
This is another collaboration with Kineko Video—an English-subbed version of a rare VHS-only documentary starring Mamoru Nagano. It's supposed to go into detail behind the production of an image album he made himself based off his Five Star Stories manga, released by Nippon Columbia in September 1990.

The thing about that, though... the documentary doesn't really cover the actual tracks themselves and is mostly just Nagano talking about the instruments he uses (some of them being custom-made), how he acquired them, etc. This documentary has a book version (now out of print) and even Nagano himself admits that you should check that out if you want extra details behind the production history, some of which includes background on the sound recording. Bummer, but at least he was honest about it! 

Second half of the VHS centers on him visiting Hong Kong for some kind of anime/comics convention—he answers some interview questions here, which I think is a little neat treat for fans of Nagano looking to grab more information about him.

 

 

This project had been in the works since 2023. It started with a user named Dominic Kopp who had approached me via Twitter DMs, letting me know that he had this on VHS and was looking to get it captured. I re-directed him towards the folks at Kineko since I don't have any fancy VHS capturing gear myself. I sent this over to a translator after Kineko finished encoding it—naturally, it needed a TLC pass.

 

However, a JP user took a look at the subs and noticed that the first few lines were already incorrect. Nothing to do with the translator's skills, BTW... he's trustworthy. But he admitted this VHS was a hard one for him to work with due to the accents and all that. As far as TLC passes go on my projects, I don't get the whole thing checked—only marked lines that the translator had trouble with. But in the case of this project, everything needed to be checked, literally. The JP user who looked at the subs in the first place offered to do it but ultimately he got really busy and wasn't able to get to it anymore. 

 

There wasn't anybody else I knew in any fansubbing circles who could tackle this (or who was willing to, anyways), and even after asking for help on Twitter, I got no reply...
 

Unfortunately, the only option I had left was to place this on indefinite hiatus.

 

That changed several months ago when MercuryFalcon introduced me to another Japanese user who's fluent in English and accepting translation commissions at the same time—OverworkedSalaryman. I sent the subs down his way and to my surprise he was actually able to successfully TLC the whole thing with no issues whatsoever!! The thought of having to put this on hiatus actually stressed me out a little bit so I'm glad I was finally able to put this project to rest.

 

Final note:

I'm intending on putting out a v2 of this, eventually. The capture does have a noticeable increase in visible quality compared to what was available on YT previously but the downside is that it has lots of ringing—some tests were done and the ringing can be reduced after all, but it has to be done on the raw capture and due to various IRL circumstances it's not something that can be looked at any time soon. Frankly, I don't know when it'll happen, so I can't give estimates... but I'm not in a rush for it.

 

Regardless, enjoy!

Astro Boy (2003) - Interview Documentary

9-minute documentary featuring short interviews from some of the staff members behind the 2003 anime version of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy. Pretty brief, but still worth a watch imo.

EDIT 6/24/2025: Due to multiple DMCA notices that I received, torrent link has been removed for the safety of this blog. The actual content itself can still be found on the usual spot—that is, if the torrent page there wasn't deleted by me.

Original translation:
Joseph Willis 

Translation QCing:
Sky79 

Timing:
MartyMcflies & Sky79 

Typesetting: MartyMcflies

Royal Space Force: Early Promo Video (1986)

You guys remember that early promo video I uploaded for the Royal Space Force anime movie a while back on YT? Finally managed to get a high-quality recording of this promo that looks much better than the one I recorded myself and posted on there, so now I'll be providing a proper link for archival purposes. Link below:

EDIT 6/24/2025: Due to multiple DMCA notices that I received, torrent link has been removed for the safety of this blog. The actual content itself can still be found on the usual spot—that is, if the torrent page there wasn't deleted by me.