"Five orphans with a spacecraft battle a lipsticked maniac from the Crab Nebula and his unlikely big flying robots. No one gets hurt."
In 1972, the anime action-adventure show
Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman,) premiered on Japanese television. Featuring graphic violence, extensive profanity and a transgendered
villain, it was one of the most popular animated series of its time. Envisioning similar success in the US,
Sandy Frank Entertainment acquired the series in 1978 but deemed it too graphic and shocking for domestic audiences. So they hired two Hanna-Barbera vets to "
re-version" totally
bowdlerize the episodes with new scripts, voiceovers music and effects, animation, etc., at a cost of $5 million and turn it into a brand new show:
Battle of the Planets. Here are the
original 1978 Battle of the Planets feature film (in 7 parts,) and the
first 19 episodes of the show, all available on Youtube.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 28, 2011 -
61 comments
Unlike many cinematic exports,
the Disney canon of films distinguishes itself with an impressive dedication to
dubbing.
Through an in-house service called
Disney Character Voices International, not just dialogue but songs, too, are
skillfully re-recorded, echoing the voice acting, rhythm, and rhyme scheme of the original work to
an uncanny degree (while still leaving plenty of room for
lyrical reinvention).
The breadth of the effort is surprising, as well -- everything from
Arabic to
Icelandic to
Zulu gets its own dub, and their latest project,
The Princess and the Frog, debuted in
more than forty tongues.
Luckily for polyglots everywhere, the exhaustiveness of Disney's translations is thoroughly documented online in
multilanguage mixes and
one-line comparisons, linguistic kaleidoscopes that cast new light on old standards.
Highlights:
"One Jump Ahead," "Prince Ali," and
"A Whole New World" (
Aladdin) -
"Circle of Life," "Hakuna Matata," and
"Luau!" (
The Lion King) -
"Under the Sea" and
"Poor Unfortunate Souls" (
The Little Mermaid) -
"Belle" and
"Be Our Guest" (
Beauty and the Beast) -
"Just Around the Riverbend" (
Pocahontas) -
"One Song" and
"Heigh-Ho" (
Snow White) -
"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (
Cinderella) -
Medley (
Pinocchio) -
"When She Loved Me" (
Toy Story 2) -
Intro (
Monsters, Inc.)
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 12, 2010 -
31 comments
"The Japanese Tradition" was a series of nine short, parody "How To" videos that gently mocked the formality of Japanese culture, from comedy duo
Rahmens (
ラーメンズ) and Japan Culture Lab. They're
available on DVD, but nearly all of them can be seen on YouTube, including
Sushi and
Ocha (tea).
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 25, 2010 -
54 comments
"There's something very shabby about a noble grave... Political power and the power of wealth result in splendid graves. Really impressive graves, you know. Such creatures never had any imagination while they lived, and quite naturally their graves don't leave any room for imagination either. But noble people live only on the imaginations of themselves and others, and so they leave graves like this one which inevitably stir one's imagination. And this I find even more wretched. Such people, you see, are obliged even after they are dead to continue begging people to use their power of imagination." -
Yukio Mishima via Kashiwagi in
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. On this, the anniversary of Mishima's transformation into a headless god, a collection of video links.
[more inside]
posted by eccnineten
on Nov 25, 2008 -
11 comments
The Japanese Trailer to Kokoro Scan. Japanese game trailers always seem pretty interesting and fun. And, well, most often more-or-less nonsensical. This is for the new game
Kokoro Scan, which, um, looks like it might be a dating sim of some sort? Maybe? The animation and segues are pretty interesting, and, though it's 6 minutes -- awfully long for a trailer, particularly one sans any gameplay (I think) -- it's interesting/off-the-wall enough to be engaging. What do cartoon nipples, pixellated white things and bananas have in common?
(via)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me
on Aug 3, 2007 -
13 comments
"Spare me my life!" In the innocuous early '90's, Fuji TV
came up with
Zuiikin English, a television program which combined quirky language lessons with bradykinetic exercise. Was Zuiikin English ahead of its time? Or is it merely enjoyable bunk? (More
here and
here.)
posted by ed
on Jun 22, 2006 -
16 comments
Yatta! This started out as a skit on a Japanese comedy show and eventually grew into its own fig leafed music video. Does anyone know of any other musical gems like this? Warnings: 7.71 MB Windows Media file & scantily clad men
posted by Alison
on Nov 18, 2001 -
9 comments
