used to be a member of CVACC - the Cuyahoga Valley Atari Computer Club.
I was also a subscriber to the long gone Cancomm BBS. I had a festering
interest in Japanese anime all during this time (somewhat fueled by the
dubbed Robotech / Macross / etc series and dubbed Starblazers / aka
Space Cruiser Yamato). So finding GIFs ('jiffs') of anime video captures
was something that certainly added more fuel to that festering.
Especially GIFs from Compuserve's Anime forum / roundtable / whatever
they called it posted on Cancomm. Bubblegum Crisis and Dirty Pair were 2
of the titles I wanted to know more about. This was years before
Internet access. Searching for information like this was very hard if
you weren't on one of the "online services" like CompuServe (is it still
around?) or GEnie.
At some point during one CVACC picnic, fellow member (and power user!)
Ron Mullens began telling us about some of the stuff he's seen, stuff we
could get a little of from him. (He still owes me a blank tape darnit).
We bought off him a fansub tape of Project A-ko, years before CPM would
license it. That was just the tip of things.
Over the course of a couple years from that point, I managed to get Ron
Mullens to produce tapes of Bubblegum Crisis raw without subs, and then
a mix of others like Dirty Pair TV, Ranma 1/2 off Japanese TV with
commercials, and a couple of movies. I think I got about 3 or 4 tapes
total.
Most of what I got I later went on to buy licensed releases. I have all
of Ranma 1/2 on subtitled VHS that Viz elected to release. Castle in the
Sky I can get from a Disney release. Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful
Dreamer I actually own as a CPM-released, Animeigo produced subtitled
movie. Friends and I would later go on to buy the other Project A-ko
videos. I still have yet to buy the original Bubblegum Crisis OVAs, but
believe me, I will, now that Animeigo says they are including the
Holiday in Bali video which is quite rare. (though I do have a raw tape
copy of - it would be nice to know what they are saying. Though it's
kind of self-serving to see them feasting in Bali because fans bought
the anime.)
I recently was finally able to locate fansub VHS tapes of Dirty Pair TV!
I'll just thank the kind person who sent them to me by first name only -
doumo arigatou gozaimasu, Chris! I think I've been after this series for
at least 20 years.
I've begun to wonder if there were more than one edition released and
how. I remember my raw episodes coming off LDs - they open with a title
screen and credits on a white background. This screen wipes off to the
right to show the promo for the upcoming episode. The middle of the show
has only 1 eyecatch.
The fansubs show 2 eyecatches in the middle. No opening white background
title screen. No introduction clip for episode 1, either. Later tapes
show 2 episodes run together, separated by a single eyecatch. So which
are from LD and which are off VHS tapes from Japan? Or were there 2
different LD releases? Did stuff just get moved around when the fansub
source was put together? I don't know.
After episode 10, there are no preview clips on the fansubs, at least as
far as I have gotten right now.
So while copying the fansubs to DVD, I managed to dig out my Ron Mullens
tapes and slip the clips I wanted off those into the DVD copy I made.
Another side benefit from this work was also recovering the Japanese TV
commercials that are among my Off-air Ranma 1/2 episodes. I was never
able to see these commercials until I ran them through my Maggie MWR10D6
recorder. I'd say only 2% of the video was not restored, but everything
else I was able to finally see nicely for the first time - ever.
I have tapes of Spanish-dubbed Cardcaptor Sakura as well as Ranma 1/2
from Mexico. I should see if the Maggie can help this video as well.
Even if my Maggie ends up not making decent DVDs at some point, the
video restoration capability will keep it useful.
Now to make good on my promise to find Bubblegum Crisis. I'd rather get
the VHS subs. ^_^
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