. (They were in the box they were supposed to be in.)
I have a complete set of translations - all but two of them as fully timed subtitle files. Many of the files are in JACOsub format, an old Amiga program, but I have an old Amiga, and anyway, I have a JACOsub to SSA converter. (The rest of the files that are timed are SSA format.) I think Matroska can use SSA format, and if not, there are heaps of programs that can.
Does anyone know if Dirty Pair TV is actually licensed outside Japan? I suppose I could ask ADV. Or Sunrise.
1
ADV has the rights (at least for North America).
http://www.animecastle.com/dirtypairoriginaldvd.html
Posted by: Will at Tuesday, February 14 2006 11:16 AM (SOx9v)
2
http://animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=57
ADV: Not going bankrupt fast enough
Posted by: Tom at Tuesday, February 14 2006 03:57 PM (Yrp4Z)
3
They have the OVA and movie licenses, but there's no actual statement anywhere that they have the TV series. Well, ANN says so, but nothing else does.
But you can pick up the
whole OVA series on DVD for $15, so it's not all bad.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, February 14 2006 06:04 PM (YmEX/)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, February 14 2006 07:27 PM (pqiW9)
5
Well, crap. I do that way too often (confuse OVA and TV series).
Posted by: Will at Tuesday, February 14 2006 07:42 PM (SOx9v)
6
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading about ADV having the TV licence years back when I bought the OVAs on VHS. Of couse I could have seen it on ANN.
Anyway, I assumed the TV series is (and was) licenced due to the lack of modern fansubs given the series popularity. So were the scripts given out allowing for reuse?
Posted by: Tom at Tuesday, February 14 2006 08:34 PM (wqjch)
7
I downloaded the scripts
years ago, long before I got the DVDs. Some of the files date to 1993, I think. I have no idea what conditions were attached.
I'm just wondering if everyone is assuming that the TV series is licensed because there are no fansubs, and therefore not releasing any fansubs...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, February 14 2006 09:10 PM (LUBRF)
8
Mununian fansubs. Yay !!!
Posted by: Andrew at Wednesday, February 15 2006 12:32 AM (RWEVY)
9
Can someone explain to me the hate that some have for ADV? I don't get it at all.
Is it just because they're the biggest of the anime licensers, and people instinctively despise the person on top? Or is there more to it than that?
I mean, I'm looking at my collection, and realizing that there's a heckuva lot of ADV stuff in it...
Kaleido Star, Azumanga Daioh, Nadesico, Noir, both versions of the
Dirty Pair, BGC2040, Gunsmith Cats... it just goes on and on.
...and now that they've gone to the thinkpak format, you can get a 26-episode series for $40, except for
Evangelion.
What's wrong with this?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Wednesday, February 15 2006 01:57 AM (7+BNY)
10
They've put out a lot of good stuff over the years, that's certainly true. The reason some people dislike them is the habit they have (or at least had) of licensing something and then sitting on it for
years.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, February 15 2006 02:13 AM (LUBRF)
11
Have. Licensing a good series and then leaving it in limbo is just plain cruel.
Posted by: HC at Thursday, February 16 2006 08:40 AM (1A2zn)
12
That's certainly the most important reason I'm down on them. I've got more DVDs from ADV than anyone besides Funimation, but there are even more yet I'd love to buy if only ADV would bother getting around to releasing them. (And because ADV owns the rights, no one else can do it, either.)
I think it was the second season of Kaleido Star which really was the one which awoke my anger at ADV. It's only just beginning to come out now (like one DVD so far).
Apparently they just plain loused up their business planning and overestimated market demand. As a result they went hog wild buying licenses, and then found out that the market wasn't there for the kind of volume they had been planning for release. And after they tried to start a cable channel (what became of that, anyway?) they ended up in a massive cash crunch. So they shut down their manga division entirely, and got rid of one of their two dubbing teams, and suddenly you couldn't rely on any ADV schedule for release. Bah; that's why I've badmouthed them so regularly on my site.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thursday, February 16 2006 06:49 PM (pqiW9)
13
So it's because they don't release immediately something that's been in Japan for multiple years before we ever
hear about it?
I don't mean to come off like an ADV fanboy, but at least when it's licensed, we stand a good chance of it being released
eventually. It may be bad business planning, but they appear to have the money to do it. *shrug* And if we buy it when it comes out
anyway, aren't they being rewarded for waiting? I'm just glad they've got pricing plans that allow us to buy good anime at decent prices...
Just one duck's opinion, flame away!
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, February 16 2006 08:22 PM (+FLIL)
14
Wonderduck, I'm not so sure we actually will "see it eventually" in every case, at least from ADV.
The problem was that for a while they seem to have been buying rights faster than they were releasing stuff, which means their backlog was building up. It can't keep going like that, and what you'd expect is that eventually their rights to some of the unreleased stuff would expire and the original owners might find someone else to sell to.
But how long is it until the timeout? Probably years, and in the mean time we're outaluck.
Meanwhile, there are enough places doing this now so that the delay between original release in Japan and release in the US isn't all that outrageous. These days for most new series it's one to two years -- unless ADV buys the rights. Then it's anyone's guess.
For example, "Someday's Dreamers" was released in Japan in 2002 and in the US in 2003. Same for Haibane Renmei. Those were both from Geneon (aka Pioneer) which has been doing a very good job of timely releases.
So has Funimation. Fruits Basket was just about the first non-DB title they did; it originally came out in 2001 in Japan and was released here starting in late 2002.
Media Blasters has been setting all new records. The new Ah! My Goddess TV series was broadcast in Japan in 2005 and the first DVD of it was released here in the US last September.
On the other hand, there's ADV. The second season of Kaleido Star was broadcast in Japan in 2003, and the first DVD was just released here a couple of weeks ago, in 2006.
Other ADV titles: Excel Saga took three years. So did Happy Lesson. And the beat goes on...
That's just the stuff they finally got around to releasing. I can't tell you how many times I saw some title and was interested in it, only to have the wind taken out of my sails when I saw that ADV was the Region 1 licensee.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thursday, February 16 2006 11:36 PM (gQYQg)
15
"I'm not so sure we actually will 'see it eventually' in every case, at least from ADV." (emphasis added)
Which was exactly my point. Either ADV will release it, or they'll go under and someone else'll pick it up, or the rights will lapse and someone else will pick it up.
One can argue that big titles (
Ah! My Goddess TV, for example) will be released immediately, no matter who picks it up. Titles like
Excel Saga, which has a slightly more limited appeal (being somewhat more 'what the heck was that?' in flavor) might need a bigger installed base for it to be a success. Ergo the longer wait.
Of course, I'm just talking thru my hat. Quack.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Friday, February 17 2006 01:50 AM (7+BNY)
16
I'm going to hazard a guess that Excel Saga wasn't held that long for market reasons, but for the extra work required for the "ADVid Notes." It fell into the 'what the heck was that' category largely because it was one gigantic inside joke for Japanese anime fans and producers. Getting "inside" that curve to help the North American viewer understand what in the holy hell is going on would take a lot longer than simply translating and dubbing the show.
That leads me to the other reason I think it took so long. I've always been curious exactly how much material is supplied to a licensee. I hope they were given written scripts to work from, because I can't imagine trying to translate Mitsuishi Kotono's performance from audio alone.
Has a licensee or industry insider ever published their typical expiration period?
Posted by: Will at Friday, February 17 2006 12:15 PM (SOx9v)
17
The Win32 subtitling tool 'Subtitle Workshop' supports Jacosub import -> SSA export. ('Sabbu' is the only Mac OSX tool I've heard about, and it doesn't import Jacosub. OTOH, I haven't done a survey of subbing tools.)
The mkvmerge gui tool mmg.exe, part of mkvtoolnix, makes adding SSA subtitles a simple drag-and-drop operation.
Whichever way you get there, enjoy the show.
_____
About ADV: They acquire some of the best material, and then compromise it by assigning production to inexperienced / insufficient / overcommitted staff.
Specific example: There were many segments of dialog in Elfen Lied that needed to be voiced intimately and, in the Japanese soundtrack, were. The ADV dub had the actors declaiming their lines as if from a stage, projecting to the little old hearing-impaired lady at the back of the hall under the balcony. On that basis I suspect ADV was getting their dubbing crew, director included, from the students of a community college drama department. ADV's dub took all the heart out of the story...just the opposite of 'value added.' (Not saying that ADV is the only publisher with this problem, though.)
Posted by: Timothy Fox at Saturday, February 18 2006 07:56 PM (r7p56)
18
"(Not saying that ADV is the only publisher with this problem, though.)"
Good, because they aren't. I know that I haven't been able to sit thru ANY dub version of ANY show by ANY production company in years.
In any case, what you're describing about
Elfen Lied (say, didn't I just post about that show on my 'blog?) isn't the fault of the actors; that'd be the Director's doing. The actors would just be doing what Mr. Director told them to do.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, February 19 2006 01:00 PM (7+BNY)
19
Well, this is anime related to a degree but is offtopic. But since this is the only weblog that I read that also covers anime...
A bunch of US based voice actors of anime have decided to publically express their embrace of the peace-now movement.
http://www.voicesfor.org/
And anime is popular among the US military...
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Monday, February 20 2006 02:13 AM (yZQeR)
20
Just another reason to ignore the dubs...
Posted by: Wonderduck at Tuesday, February 21 2006 02:12 AM (7+BNY)
21
Dubs are evil!
Except for some of the old Pioneer ones. Tenchi and El Hazard were mostly pretty good.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, February 21 2006 02:35 AM (LUBRF)
22
I guess I can live with the Cowboy Bebop dub, too, but that's only because I've not seen it any other way. I'd rather've seen it subtitled.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Tuesday, February 21 2006 09:16 PM (zBXYv)
23
Take a look at an interview with one of the organizers of the album...
Interview
The mind can not even begin to fisk the ideas expressed.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Wednesday, February 22 2006 12:04 AM (Kd1oT)
24
Good grief. Wouldn't it save time for people like this to just write "MORON" on their foreheads? Whoever Jan Scott Frazier is, she is stupid to the point of incoherence.
Oh look. She worked on the Bubblegum Crash dubs. Have you
heard the Bubblegum Crash dubs? Stupid
and incompetent.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, February 22 2006 12:21 AM (LUBRF)
25
If there's any reason I hate ADV, it's not their sitting on licenses, it's their sitting on an original work: Weber's Mutineer's moon. It was all but done (they were ready to start the voiceover) when the crunch hit, and now they pretend it doesn't exist. Not a word on when, or IF we'll ever see it. They just leave their broken website sitting out there.
http://www.mutineersmoon.com/ Why do they bother?
Posted by: ubu at Wednesday, February 22 2006 10:30 AM (dhRpo)
26
Well, ADV were the same people who wanted to turn Weber's Honor Harrington series into a live action production. That seems to have also shifted to the right indefinitely...
The same goes for the mysterious Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2041, which was announced at the same time as Mutineer's Moon - which, given how much I liked BGC 2040, is a real shame.
On the other hand, they dubbed Nurse-Witch Komugi with the four principle Ocean Group VAs from The Soultaker, which is a major plus in my book.
As for Jan Scott Frazier...Well, what
can be said about her?
Speaking of dubs, I prefer them since I like to watch a series and not read a book on TV. But I only recently got the El-Hazard collection, and you are right on about their excellent dub. Then again, Pioneer/Geneon, along with Bandai, always had some of the best dubs around.
Let us not even begin to talk about the mess Dreamworks made with Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence...I am seriously thinking of importing a Region 2 PAL DVD player for the purpose of watching Manga Entertainment's release of Innocence, as well as Millenium Actress.
That reminds me that I should start watching Planetes, given my investment in the series.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Wednesday, February 22 2006 09:18 PM (W9P6g)
27
My god, someone else who likes BGC2040! I might just cry...
At least Dreamworks had the good sense to replace copies of
Innocence if people asked. I got my corrected copy back in about a week.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, February 23 2006 01:55 AM (7+BNY)
28
I guess that makes three. BGC2040 was decent, but the credits sequence sucked and that "space elevator" was a joke.
Posted by: Will at Thursday, February 23 2006 10:15 AM (Yx471)
29
1. BGC2040 is rather underrated.
2. Did anyone ever contact ADV about Dirty Pair TV?
3. Having started with the ADV hating I guess I should explain. I own many,many ADV DVDs and books despite their various quality/releasing issues. They have actually started releasing many series I was waiting for but...
I told almost everyone I know that they should buy Yotsuba& when it was released, because it's awesome, and if don't adore it then I'm very sorry about your soul. Then they shut down their manga division.
For those of you who haven't read it this is a crime like dropping Calvin & Hobbes. Haibane Renmei:TV::Spirited Away:Movie::Yotsuba&.:Manga *Note to Steve: More cute than Azumanga; No Kimura*
Fortunately many of their series are being scanlated anyway, (ADV's effect on fansub ethics is another topic), because I don't intend to wait for them to get their act together, and they don't seem to be selling off the rights so the fans/industry avoid the fallout of their avarice.
Nowadays when I see a favourite new series licenced the name I hope to see is Geneon, because they have been very reliable. With the past few seasons (Ichigo Mashimaro,Shana,Fate/SN) it's good to see they have been rewarded for quality work.
4. O/T If you like odd anime of the sort recommended on AI, you may well like Akagi: http://animesuki.com/series.php/727.html
Posted by: Tom at Thursday, February 23 2006 04:32 PM (APMi0)
30
You think being a fan of BGC 2040 makes you unique? You have seen nothing before you see one of the only fans of Betterman!
Betterman is number 2 on my list of favorite anime, right behind Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, and right in front of Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure. Can you guess who my three favorite English language voice actresses are by who plays the female leads in my three top three favorite series?
I even got the Betterman artbook/guide that was released for the series (And need to get another because of water damage of my two copies, the last courtesy of the US Postal Service.), as well as one of the CD dramas they released, despite the fact I do not know how to read or speak a single word of Japanese.
BTW, Martain Successor Nadesico is one of my favorite series too. I wonder how much I will like watching it again knowing that two of the female VAs were involved in the project listed above. I'll probably get the same feeling I sometimes feel when I watch reruns of Sports Night.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Thursday, February 23 2006 04:59 PM (w//vL)
31
Betterman, but bad anime.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, February 23 2006 09:13 PM (zBXYv)
32
You, my friend, have obviously not been enlightened.
(Or just been infected by Algernon.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Friday, February 24 2006 05:59 PM (gfnfO)
33
BTW...Regarding
Innocence, I was referring to Dreamworks' silly decision to not record an English dub for the movie, and their boneheaded explanation of their reasoning, which can charitably be described as "deficient." Manga Entertainment UK's release was far and away better, and better handled.
As for the close-caption for subtitles, you still have a sporting chance of getting a glitched disc despite the re-release in the US, with really no way to determine one or the other. And you really should NOT have to go to Dreamworks directly to be absolutely sure you got a fixed DVD.
Anyone ever seen Gallery Fake? Just reading a few stuff makes me interested in the series, but no broadband means no downloading anime.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Friday, February 24 2006 09:04 PM (57LIs)
34
No broadband? I had that for a month recently after moving house. It's not fun.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, February 25 2006 12:48 AM (LUBRF)
35
"Regarding Innocence, I was referring to Dreamworks' silly decision to not record an English dub for the movie..."
Oh, that! Eh. I wouldn't've listened to the dub in any case, so it doesn't bother me much... but I understand what you mean.
"you still have a sporting chance of getting a glitched disc despite the re-release in the US, with really no way to determine one or the other."
Au Contraire! There is a way to tell... when you look at the spine of the DVD, if it says
v4, you've got a corrected disc. Otherwise, you've got the hearing-impared version. Of course, mine doesn't say "v4." But I did get the replacement in a week, so...
Posted by: Wonderduck at Saturday, February 25 2006 01:52 AM (zBXYv)
36
Oh yes, the "v4" on the spine or top of the packaging is suppose to represent a fixed DVD of Innocence inside the case...
...Unfortunately, Dreamworks managed to louse that one up too. There are cases where people were still finding the CCed discs despite the DVD case saying "v4". That is the other reason why I have not gotten a Region 1 copy of Innocence, and probably never will while Dreamworks hold the license.
Re: Voices. I was musing over creating a webpage just for purpose of announcing that here is one anime fan (Given how "otaku" is a Japanese perjorative, I still find it odd that people take pride in calling themselves that.) who support the US military straightforwardly and wholeheartedly. A few links to the USO, etc. Nothing fancy. And also sign my USO donations with "An anime fan thanks you."
Now, let me see if I want to pre-order the regular edition of the first Patlabor movie, or get the special edition that cost $90...
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Saturday, February 25 2006 07:55 PM (9s0nL)
37
Incidentally, in case any one really cares, the Voices website has been updated...And they taken off the link to the only NGO out of the original three that was actually concerned at all with the welfare of servicemen and women.
Reminds me to donate to the USO transit lounge at the airport the next time I am there.
C.T.
Posted by: C.T. at Sunday, March 19 2006 06:15 PM (9SikF)
38
In answer to your question (I am a Dirty Pair affciando from way back) the originial Dirty Pair tv series 1-24 and 25 and 26 which were released as ova's were never licensed or released in the US except as fansubs. I recently got all of the dvds for this series from Japan and am in the process of subbing them. I have the same fansub scripts as you do and was wondering what in the heck JACO subs were. Now I know. Wish me luck, I'm doing this as my homage to Kei and Yuri as they were the ones responsible for getiing me in anime.
Posted by: zrdb at Tuesday, April 04 2006 10:10 PM (ieOxu)
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