It’s been a while but here’s another episode of Harikenger. Next episode might or might not be faster, who knows.
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
Keeping things moving along in the name of traffic safety, here’s episode 16!
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.
So, as mentioned in the release post for episode 16 of Carranger, we’d like to discuss one translation choice we’ve made in greater detail, since it seems a fitting time to do so. This episode features the “Bowzock” spelling of the bad guys’ faction name that you usually see on websites. Basically, this spelling is a joke, but it’s a very meta joke that only works if you already know what the bad guys’ group name means.
There’s been a slight delay but here’s another Carranger episode!
A fun note about this episode. When Zonette is in the bookstore, the goofy romance manga magazine she’s reading is called Nakayoroshi. This is a parody of the famous shoujo magazine Nakayoshi, which has a long-standing reputation of running “first love” romance stories. This scene seems to imply that Red Racer is indeed Zonette’s first love, and she’s really not sure how to react to her feelings.
Nakayoshi’s target audience is girls ages 9-15, though, so its depictions of romance are pretty far from realistic. The scene also seems to imply that Zonette, perhaps like many generations of naive little Japanese girls, is absorbing some very bad advice from the manga she’s reading. This foreshadows the events that take place at the end of the episode.
As a final note: the manga branch of Toei’s Sailor Moon property originally ran in Nakayoshi. At the time Carranger was filmed, Sailor Moon probably would’ve been the best-known of the various Nakayoshi manga, just past its all-time peak in popularity. While this factoid isn’t relevant to this particular episode, it’s going to pay off in a big way about ten episodes from now.
And here’s the first ep for our new drama project for this season: Great Teacher Onizuka 2012. The original GTO is one of my favorite drama and it’s copycats have always been somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me so while it’s no Suzuki-sensei it’s still quite an enjoyable drama!
It took us a lot longer than planned to get here but we’re finally releasing v1s again! If you’re one of those people who’ve ignored the v2s till we reached new eps please read the release posts for ep 11,12 and 13 to see what’s changed since then. (11, 12)
As always, we’re still looking for translators and skilled editors for current and older drama projects. If you’re interested, leave a comment, or come on our IRC channel – on Rizon, it’s #harorangers.
