Take for instance Toradora. If there's anyone in the show that uses these cultural reference, it is Minori, and lately the other characters have shown to bring them up in situations I had expect something completely different. Take for instance the latest episode that I've been working on, episode 10, where Minori suddenly explains how she's using a "Manjuu Kowai" method. I was convinced beyond that that couldn't for the love of me be what she was saying, until I started reading NicoNico comments for the episode. Google to the rescue, and I find out this is a Rakugo, a comedy script told by one person sitting dead serious in a seiza, and that it is rather funny as well. I end up reading the whole thing, and it struck me as one of the best trolls in comedy history, and probably one of the oldest too. There's a good translation of it here. But how common are these Rakugo for the Japanese?

I have already experienced that the author of Toradora is very well versed in Japanese culture and loves to stick in her favorite parts of stories as a retelling in Toradora. I can't catch all of them, but when I do, I probably have had to read up on it beforehand. In episode 6, Ami is getting trolled good by Taiga, and is made to do imitations. I had no idea who half of these people were, and I only learned of their names again from reading it somewhere, and then I had to make sense out of what the hell they might be doing. I watched some YouTube clips with Uganda in it, I read about Matsumoto Seichou and Akechi Mitsuhide and figured who they were. After having done all of this in this particular episode, I knew way more about Japanese history, and I knew more about some of their known authors. Again in episode 3, I had no idea what kinrou kaiki file was. Figuring out this took a while and I ended up reading about other old shows too, expecting them to show up later.

Cultural stuff aside, I now know how swimsuits work, and I learned how to make beans spun in fried eggs and other bean-heavy recipies. I know what isoflavone and docosahexaenoic acid is. I'm also getting good at making english rhymes and puns out of their Japanese originals, if somewhat having to call upon the power of scone-munching faggots. Excuse me while I read some more Rakugo, this shit is hilarious.

Starchild's just updated their release pages with information on the coming new opening and ending themes for Toradora. According to the information posted by Starchild here, there's going to be a limited edition copy of the opening theme. There's no covers yet or anything, just some data:

New opening theme named "silky heart" - sung by Horie Yui (Minorin).
Release date: 2009/01/28.
Limited edition comes with a DVD containing the PV movie for the song.
Limited edition will cost 1890 yen, regular edition will cost 1200 yen.
Contains a total of three songs, with karaoke versions of all three - total tracks is six.

New ending theme named "orange" (orenji) - sung by Horie Yui (Minorin), Kugimiya Rie (Taiga) and Kitamura Eri (Ami).
Release date: 2009/01/28, will cost 1200 yen.
Contains a total of two songs, with karaoke version of both - total tracks is four.
The cover is going be drawn by the character designer, Tanaka Masayoshi.

A commenter reminded me of the fact that the Toradora opening single includes the opening song for the radio drama of Toradora. I don't remember ever seeing anyone translating radio dramas, and yet there are so many of them that run alongside anime or manga, which let Japanese fans get more insight, or more funnies, or whatnot that comes with the package of the dramas. Is there even a western scene for them? Why is it hard to subtitle/translate them?

Doing them as blank videos or videos with pictures on YouTube, with closed captions or subtitles, I guess would work. But that would be rather dumb too, as YouTube is shit quality. So is there a solution for it? Do we have a container of some kind that can hold music + translated text, that you can view on say, an iPod? I know my iPhone has karaoke possibilities in a very fancy format, and I've added it to some songs for the fun of it. It really works too, matches with the music and highlights what's being said just like in anime, as an overlay on top of the album cover. Is this format a standard that can be used to release to the masses?

I honestly wouldn't mind doing this for say, Toradora, but doing this would require some figuring of how to release them and how to make it possible to listen to these like a radio drama CD or whatnot would be listened to; on a music player of your choice, not like a video you sit watching like it was anime. I'd really like to hear from anyone who's tried to explore this area, as getting a radio drama translation scene up would be really coal.

EDIT: Okay, people are missing my point. I'm asking whether anyone knows of a unified, soft-sub type of format for distributing audio + text that can be used to do radio dramas. Having a format like this would ease up the process of releasing translated radio dramas, and removed the need for a video player to follow. Sure, you'd still have audio + text you read, but that'd give people the chance to either read the text OR the audio - even though the text alone would probably miss some of the point cause of the soundeffects in the dramas.

If this kind of format does exist, why isn't anyone using it? If it actually does not exist, are anyone trying to make one? This is the things I'd like to find out, while kinda polling the interest in the radio dramas so one could figure whether it is worth my time too.

People have been asking me, who are these "Nanako" and "Haruta" etc that I talk about when I blog? I am of course talking about the many side-characters with no real stories on them yet, that are getting love in the novels we've yet to see. I thought I'd introduce them to you with the slight knowledge I have of them.

First off is everyone's favorite mother and MILF; Takasu Yasuko. You hear her name fairly often, but people tend to forget about her, since all she seems there for is showing off her ass or her bosom. Ryuuji's mom and Inko-chan's best friend, Taiga has an affinity for her too, for obvious reasons. Hasn't had any real role yet apart from explaining why Ryuuji is like he is, just by being herself.

Koigakubo Yuri. I have so much trouble writing her name every time, and I think people have the same problem in the show with pronouncing her name, thus she is nicknamed Yuri-chan by all the students. She's the homeroom teacher for the class everyone in the show is attending. Very frightened of Taiga, and likes to let Haruta do all the reading in class. Not too important YET.

Haruta Kouji, the class dumbass and slacker. Note how he has a hoodie on him below his uniform. He's also eating in class, which gets him trouble from Yuri-chan. In the show, he's the comedy character in the male slapstick pair of the show, together with...

Noto Hisamitsu. He's in the lower left corner here. If anyone has a better pic/time for him, do tell. Class self-claimed pimp, who isn't really making it through. Has no significance yet, apart from being in the male slapstick pair, all to describe our main characters with how they react to the main cast.

Kihara Maya, the first of the female slapstick pair of the show. Likes to stick around and talk with Kitamura a.k.a. Maruo, and is a fan of him like every other girl at the school. Also buddies with Minorin, like everyone else. Together with the next person, she's the side-commentary on what happens in the show, with no real significance. Her partner in crime is...

Kashii Nanako. The show's elegant, princess-quality kind of girl, which acts innocent (and probably is) and sweet at all times. Together with Maya, she makes commentary and stalks Kitamura, possibly to Taiga's frustration and murderous rages. No real significance just yet.

Kanou Sumire is the student council president. What you don't know yet is that she won the election by a 100% majority because of her powerful, yakuza-tastic personality that spurs everyone on like an inspiring leader should. She's probably the most fun person to translate, since I can find all kinds of middle-level bad mouth ways to refer to people in. During episode four, everyone thought she was Ami. I had a blast with this, since I totally agree on how similar they are drawn in the anime. Her hair is black in the novels. What the hell, J.C.Staff? She's going to be important real soon.

Black Muscle. I shit you not, his name is credited as 黒マッスル. I don't really remember much of him from the novels, but I know that there's shit going on with him in the next episode. The cast's gym teacher and very enthustiatic powerhouse. Loves ranting about sweat. Also, take a closer look at the pic. When you see it you will shit bricks.

DO NOT WANT

Five episodes of toradora, four patched releases and a totalt of five patches released. I'm stunned by this, as the patches all were because of different things, every time. And then the episode five patch combined the things we had to patch for episode 2-4 in one go. At least we included a bonus in the episode five patch, finally some karaoke to go with the OP and ED.

So why does this happen? I have no idea. It feels like the show is haunted, that it somehow always has some part of if getting messed up somewhere. Is it sloppy QC? Is it sloppy TLing? It could be sloppy editing, or even the final release muxer messing up. Always something that gets overlooked, or someone forgetting something. I might just have to write out some kind of checklist for every release now just to make sure we don't have to release a patch. With every episode.

P.S. I'm not with coal guys, I'm way coaler than that.

[09:47:28] <Daiz> looks like you guys forgot to mux the dialog font in this time.
[09:47:47] <~Alexandra> Actually Daiz we forgot the correct style after ilifin made me put in music notes for ep 3.
[09:47:56] <@taigafin> music notes were kawaii
[09:48:12] <~Alexandra> ... ilifin if you had never made me put in fucking music notes, the font would be fine for ep 4.
[09:48:16] <Daiz> where be patch

Edit (19:37 20081024): Yeah, OK: Here's a NEWER patch. (use the original unpatched file *or* remux the script from this patch into your already patched file.)

03:51 Taiga, being the embarassed little things she is, goes out with a "OHHA~" here. History time; OHHA~ was the catchphrase of the show おはスタ (OHASUTA or Morning Star if you will), as you can see here on YouTube. Later, Shingo Katori from the boyband group SMAP was allowed to use it and tried to make it his catchphrase aswell. The reason for this being old is.. well, it IS old, and so outdated.

04:51 Maruo: See episode 2 notes. Taiga's doing a funny on them calling him Maruo, which is like "ball-y", cause of his round head. The japanese for rolling something up is "marumeru", which has the "maru" of "maruo". She's being funny, see? Ha.

07:16 No, I'm not TLing this. Shut up, Haruta. Yuri-chan, stop being mean to the viewers by making Haruta speak.

08:21 Excitement festival. YES, she's saying wakiwaki carnival, and even NicoNico agrees it is weird.

08:50 Rub a dub dub... koda tells me this is from Simpsons. I lolled and this was originally "itadakimasu"x2, a honorable table prayer before chugging edible things down your throat. Rubber ducky psyduck koda.

09:02 Minorin is eating her tori karaage, which is fried chicken, and going TORII KARAA. This is a sort of tie-in to the next TL note, so read on...

09:43 Minorin likes brown bento boxes, because the "brown" she's referring to is food that has been fried like say, tempura, fried chicken and so on. She's so happy about the color she salutes the food earlier by announcing its color, BIRD COLOR, as a pun on "tori karaage" by removing the "ge" in "karaa", which reads as カラー, which - you guessed it - means color.

11:30 48 housework styles? That's some crazy shit there, Ryuuji. I'm not sure whether this is even worth a note, but he's naming it after a billion different "buster" types of attacks. Like DIVINE BUSTER from Nanoha of Nanoha fame.

13:03 Do you see it? Next to SUDOH-BUCKS is.. Furukawa Bread! This is the famous CLANNAD pastry of doom from Nagisa's mom, making a cameo in Toradora.

13:32 Sure is lots of carnivals today, Taiga.

14:47 Onigiri is rice balls that are so common in anime that I should not need to note on it. Check out Wikipedia for more info on this lovely dish which is simply and yet somehow so tasty.

17:03 Minorin appears! TL notes follow! Ryuuji is here using a slang phrase, "seishinteki burakura". This is a rather fun word since it means "mental browser crash". His mind crashed, so his mind is blown.

17:07 This is either a Lucky Star reference or a direct reference to the pastry chain Cake Viking. Konata uses the same phrase in some anime episode and I can't be arsed to find out where. Have fun looking.

17:24 Minorin has tons of pictures and poses with them as if she was from Yu-Gi-Oh, but isn't saying Yu-Gi-Oh, rather just "card play". Episode one had Yu-Gi-Oh shit too, I hope this stops appearing...

21:52 Inko-chan joke, finally. Can't have an episode without. This time the "ko" is removed from its name again, making up an "injanai". It's not really a pun or anything, it's just somehow very lol since the bird speaks normally out of nowhere.

I didn't notice any other changes yet, and I'm delighted by Eri Kitamuras voice as Ami. Episode 4 is the best so far, I lol'd pretty hard quite a few times. AND Inko-chan spoke normally, wut.

ilifin during full Pre-Parade

Both singles released on the same day means I have to update both OP and ED for the coming episode. And of course enjoy the music too, I had hoped. The Pre-parade full song wasn't all that, I like the anime cut better. Vanilla Salt I never liked in the first place either. BUT! On the OP single there's this song Karakuri that is freaking awesome and has been on repeat for a while here now.

Overall impression is that Horie can sing on her own, but her songs bore me. The combination of Kitamura, Kugimiya and Horie work out as long as they're vocoded. How weird's that?

OP had to be only slightly changed because of some mishearing of... 3 syllables I think? inb4 they change verses on the OP so we have to modify even more.

Back to the ED tho, this was more of a pain. Not too much changed here either, and there's dumb japanese going on which had one of the other TLs ripping at his hair. But of all these things... there's one line.

We've had "vanilla salt de, vanilla". Turns out this is so wrong, the pamphlet reveals "vanilla salt de, BURNING LOVE". If you were to say BURNING LOVE japanese pronunciation style, it'd be ba-nin rabu. Horie says this exceptionally fast, making the difference between ba-nira and ba-nin rabu next to nothing.

EDIT: I forgot to mention how much I raged about this. This song is making less and less sense now:

ilifin during Vanilla Salt, you can't put a smile on this face