1980s anime original broadcasts with subtitled commercials!

Most of you probably know me primarily from my work in subtitling old Japanese television, but that’s just a subset of the video collecting hobby I’ve been pursuing since 1982. My video collecting interests include a pretty wide variety of different genres. One of my pet projects for years has been collecting original broadcasts of various shows from the US, the UK and Japan complete with original commercials.

Since I enjoy fan subtitling, and I enjoy collecting original broadcasts, I suppose it was only a matter of time before these interests came together and produced this project. It’s been going a little slower than I’d hoped (as is the case with most of my projects) but I’ve got three episodes complete, and more are on the way.

A huge thanks to the old-school video collectors who have provided the source material. These three episodes came from Laurine’s VHS collection, and I’m working on subtitling some episodes from VHS & Betamax tapes provided by Dougo13 for the next round. Stay tuned…

Get the episodes from Nyaa or Mega.

 

Dirty Pair (1985) episode 01

The first TV appearance of Kei & Yuri, the 3WA troubleshooters that go by the code-name Lovely Angels; sadly their style of problem-solving tends to inflict massive collateral damage, which has earned them the less flattering nickname Dirty Pair.

This episode first aired in Japan on July 13, 1985, but I can’t confirm exactly when this VHS tape was recorded, since the broadcast dates for Dirty Pair varied widely by region.

A big thanks goes out to MegaBeast Empire Fansubs for all of their help with the commercials in this one.

 

 

Giant Gorg (1984) episode 13

Lady Lynx manages to outwit GAIL security and infiltrates their base on Austral Island, coming face to face with her ex-lover and former partner in crime, Rod Balboa. While I can’t actually think of any Gorg episodes that I don’t like, this is a particularly good one even by the show’s usual high standards.

This VHS tape was recorded off Japanese television on June 28, 1984.

 

 

Southern Cross (1984) episode 07

This is a really key early episode of this series, and probably my personal favorite. Squad 15 manages to penetrate the enemy ship, and goes on a reconnaissance mission with the hope of retrieving a bioroid for analysis. Things don’t go quite as planned, at least for our heroes…

This VHS tape was recorded off Japanese television on May 27, 1984.

Obsessive Nanto music nerdiness: there’s this piece of BGM at 15:05 (right after the middle commercial break) that I’ve long thought sounded like a rip-off of a track from the 1981 French movie Diva, which in turn sounds “inspired by” the haunting 1980 Peter Gabriel song Intruder. Listen to the tracks and see what you think.