Berryz Koubou Fan no Tsudoi 2008 Subtitle Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk



The Berryz Koubou Fan no Tsudoi is the millionaire’s club of Berryz events. Only for loyal fan club members, it’s half-theater, half-farce, half-performance piece, half-fan interactive.

The premise is simple: The event is a stage play in which Berryz Koubou’s super-hero alter-ego’s, The Berryz Kamen (think Power Rangers minus the power), hold a meeting to discuss their TV show’s (Yes, they have a TV show) sagging ratings compared to C-utie Ranger (Yes, that’s also a fake TV show), their generally horrible performance as heroes, and how they can possibly turn it all around. But, in a deliciously avant-garde twist, the Berryz frequently break character, talk to the audience, make snide comments about each other’s acting, and generally screw around a bunch, much to the delight of the fans in attendance. Basically, the 4th wall doesn’t just get broken, it gets obliterated. They even somehow find the time to sneak in a few musical numbers, and then end things with a shocking, hair-raising…not the least bit surprising if you’re a Berryz fan… cliff-hanger of a surprise ending. Truthfully, if you know your Berryz, you’ll realize that it just couldn’t have possibly ended any other way, and since the 2009 Fan no Tsudoi is a direct sequel to this event, you’ll get plenty more madness soon enough…

And now, for the 3 people who care, some methodology...
When, taking on a release like this you often have to go with what works, even if you don't really want to. Case in point: I don't like having each girl's subtitled text color-coded based on her merchandise color. Generally it's an annoyance, and everyone's subtitle being the same color is preferable. But, with the Tsudoi there was simply just way too much off-screen dialogue and too much of the girl's talking over one another to do anything else but color-code the girl's dialogue. So, in order to have a bit of fun with it, we decided to color-code it based, not on their merchandise colors, but on their Berryz Kamen colors. Thus, you'll see Maasa's dialogue as red & yellow, and Risako's as blue & green, etc. Overall, I think it worked rather well, and it adds a bit of flair to the proceedings.

Another consideration was the tongue-twister segment as there simply never appeared to be a great way to subtitle it. The nature of a tongue-twister is that it only really makes sense in the actual language it is being spoken in and so translation into English sort of diminishes how it sounds and it's difficulty. Eventually, we decided to translate it into Romaji while it was on screen, so people could get a look at the actual phonetic nature of the tongue-twister first, then we literally translated it into English when Maasa demoed the tongue-twister for the girls. After that, each girl attempted the twister themselves, and we decided to simply leave it untranslated on subsequent girls' attempts, as you already knew what they were saying and the point of the segment is how badly they stumble over the words, something that constantly repeating the same translation over and over didn't accentuate and simply obscured. Overall, I think we handled this difficult section rather well.

Anyway, click here to grab it.

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Idol Chatter

By: The Incredible He-Hulk

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
- Robert Walton in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein.

A journal is a record of ones personal thoughts; ones own, sometimes brutish, many times biased, opinions. Quite often, a blog is little more than that, despite the fact that it is for all to see, that it has been given over to the world for consumption. But, much like a gift is wrapped before it’s given to others, should one not burnish ones own opinions before presenting them to the world? Too often, it seems, a blog is created just for the owner and the owner alone, which makes on question the point of publishing it in the first place.

This is the question that occupies me when I view most H!P idol blogs. They are so often a disparate jumble of posts. All over the map ideas that aren’t really about much of anything:

“This just in: Ai’s so pretty.”

“Breaking news: Look at my new t-shirt and glow sticks I bought!”

“…PICSPAM!!!”

As far as Ai goes, truer words have never been uttered, but posts like these are really just so much doggerel.

These musings are the fires in which Idol Chatter was born. Idol Chatter is a blog that attempts to codify idol chat. To provide a standard for discussion that helps make “idolitry” even more fun and compelling by making H!P more interesting to talk about.

Truthfully, that’s a lot of pressure to put on just one man, and if it were up to me alone this site would quickly fall into desuetude. Luckily, one is never alone on this earth, or in his enjoyment of idols, and I’m getting more than a little help from my friends.

Because of all this help, Idol Chatter will become a swiftly flowing stream of idol information. Not only will get you get compelling discussion from a wide range of people, but you’ll get compelling information, too, and not simply information on new H!P releases, or appearance, dates and other things you can get anywhere. You’ll get translations of articles, interviews and radio shows that help you get closer look at your favorite idols. You’ll get an inside look at concerts, appearances and events from the very people who attend them to help you get closer to the actual idol culture. And, you’ll get analysis of H!P releases, what these releases say about H!P’s intentions for their idols and what the releases say about H!P’s past and the future.

So, it is with these assurances that I offer to you this blog. An amalgamation of so many; a walking, talking Frankenstein of idol opinion.

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