I’m curious if people even care about projects like this though. Do you re-watch/archive drama when versions with better raws/subs like this come available? The difference in image quality of the DVDs compared to the shitty tv-rips we used before is huge and it also contains a few new scenes now and then. Let me know in the comments! But so far it’s been a lot of work for something apparently just we care about.

All our releases are also available from a XDCC bot in our irc channel: #harorangers @ irc.rizon.net.

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Some notes about this ep and Dapp after the jump.

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ep 22:

There’s a cockroach gag in this episode that might be confusing to folks who’ve never lived in Japan. Due to the climate, Japan is infested with cockroaches. In addition to infesting buildings, Japanese cockroaches also infest forested areas, and outdoor spaces like trash piles. Some species can also fly, and will do so if disturbed or threatened. Japanese cockroaches absolutely love heat and humidity, and are typically most active during summer. The problem can get so bad that there’s a Japanese website that exists purely to forecast cockroach activity on summer days.

We see a sequence in this episode, though, where Bykergang’s loyal cockroach Roachy is standing in front of a freezer door to beat the heat. This obviously surprises Zel-Modor who, like the audience, associates cockroaches with miserably hot weather. This is when Roachy reveals that he’s a domesticated, or tame, cockroach. The joke here is that Roachy is to a real Japanese cockroach as a lapdog is to a wolf. He lacks the hardiness of his wild relatives and has gotten used to the room temperature comforts of moden living.

Dapp:

So you may notice that Carranger’s wily mentor went from Dappu in the original translation to Dapp in the new one. Part of that was the translator wanting a romanization that could easily be worked into the character’s dialogue, like the other “speech tics” that the various Carranger monsters of the week have.

Well, you’ve also seen by this point that Dapp is kind of… wearing a hip-hop outfit. Back in the 90s, you would’ve thought he was dressed up like a rapper. While Dapp’s style seems to be a bit generic, his overall look seems inspired by Ice T’s look at the time. Dapp wears his Bulls jersey through the end of the show and still has it in Ohranger vs. Carranger, which was released after the end of Carranger (oddly enough).

So, it turns out Dapp’s name might just be a rap reference. Dap is another, older term for what people now call a “fist bump” or “respect knuckles.” It’s pretty old slang, and probably would’ve been in use at the time Carranger was filmed. The lyric “Gimme a dap, I’ll give you one back” occurs in the 1991 Ice T track “Ziplock.” Ice T was also pretty famous in the early 90s for wearing Chicago Bulls sports apparel, too.

So why would Carranger’s production team decide to base a character loosely on rap jargon? To be honest, I have no clue. I’d think the name was pure coincidence, if not for Dapp running around in the Bulls jersey for most of the series.  It should be noted that hip hop music got rather popular in Japan in the early 90s, right after rap began breaking through into the mainstream American pop scene. Ice T’s discography would’ve been available for Japanese consumers to purchase at the time, too. A lot of Carranger is very “of its time,” full of jokes that specifically reference 90s Japanese pop culture and social trends. Dapp’s

Just a couple of notes for this episode.

When Yoko mentions having fifteen minutes to get to the bank, bear in mind that the scene is happening fairly early in the afternoon (around 2:45 PM). That’s because Japanese banks close at 3 PM. It kind of sucks.

If you find the reference confusing: cantaloupe is a specific type of melon. While a lot of English-speaking countries just call them “melons,” Americans refer to various types of melons with more specific names, since so many different kinds are eaten in that country. We went with the specific name here, since the general term “melon” seemed like it could confuse our US viewers from the US (especially since it comes on the heels of Pink Racer refusing watermelon).

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Since the DDL sites out there nowadays kinda suck we won’t be offering a official DDL link for our releases anymore. However I have recently upgraded my seedbox to a VPS which allows me to run a XDCC bot in our irc channel. Our irc channel is: #HaroRangers @ irc.rizon.net.

Translations notes for this episode can be found after the jump.

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Tanabata is a Japanese festival that occurs during the summer months. Its exact date is the “seventh day of the seventh month of the lunisolar calendar,” which means that by the Gregorian calendar we Westerners use, it occurs on a different day every year, usually in August or July. Tanabata occurs when the stars Vega and Altair “meet” in the sky. In Japanese legend, these stars represent the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi, lovers tragically fated to meet only for one day each year. It’s based on the Chinese Qixi festival and was imported to Japan by Empress Kouken in 755.

You celebrate Tanabata by writing your wishes for the coming year, sometimes as poetry, on small slips of paper called tanzaku. You hang them from a bamboo “Wish Tree, which you can also decorate with other ornaments (as you see in the episode). At the end of Tanabata, you burn the Wish Tree or toss it into a river. Simply making the wish won’t grant you what you want. The idea of Tanabata is that you spend the next year doing what you can to make your wish come true.

This ties in with the details of the original legend of Orihime and Kengyuu. In the story, the two are married after Orihime’s father, Tentei (the Pole Star) took pity on them and moved them in the heavens, so they could cross the Milky Way and meet. Unfortunately, Orihime was so head-over-heels in love that she neglected her weaving, leaving her father with no clothes to wear. Displeased, Tentei placed the two stars back in their original positions, with the Milky Way dividing them. Just as Orihime must work hard at her wearving to have her day with Kengyuu, people should work hard throughout the year to have their Tanabata wishes.

Meanwhile, have a merry christmas and hopefully we’ll be back with another ep before next year’s.

Torrent | Script

SD Raw

Edit: Derp, I forgot to mux the font. I’ll put up a v2 shortly to fix this. Meanwhile if you care about the font for some reason and don’t want to re-download the ep: here it is.

Edit2: v2 is up.

Torrent | DDL

Torrent | DDL

As for other projects, Carranger will be back with another ep soonish and we might actually release GTO ep 2 as well in the near future.

Torrent | DDL

Torrent | DDL

Observant viewers will notice the signs in Signalman’s Kobaan base referring to the “Bowzock” – which as we’ve explained a little previously, we elected to translate differently. Since this is a good time to do so, we’ll explore this choice and our reasoning in a little more depth in another post, which will shortly follow this one. Here it is~ 

A few other things about this episode – The outfit JJ Jetton wears when he’s studying with Professor Richhiker is an old-fashioned (pre-war) Japanese schoolboy outfit. Its Western equivalent would be going to school in a mortarboard hat (now called graduation caps, since otherwise you never wear them).

Also, when Signalman is berating Professor Richhiker while he’s in jail, you may wonder why the Professor has what looks like a handkerchief tied over his head. This cartoony costuming is Japanese shorthand for ”this character is a thief,” basically. Its Western equivalent is having a character show up in a black-and-white striped prison suit, carrying a big sack of money over one shoulder.

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