Kaito Reinya Episode 07 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk



Episode 07. Quite funny.














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Kaito Reinya Episode 06 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk


Episode 06 of Kaito Reinya arrives, and it's quite good.

Sorry for the slight delay with this week's release. C'est la vie...

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Hello! Project on Mezamashi TV Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk



The idol hobby is an act of observation. We look in on these girls lives. We witness their successes and failures, their ups and their downs, their careers and their lives. But what are the observers like? Who is watching the watchers…?

It is a rare occurrence to observe the wota—to observe the fans who observe our idols. And thanks to Mezamashi TV (Think Good Morning America), and announcer Karube Shin-ichi, you will get that chance. If you’ve never been to a H!P show, yourself, this is a quick little look into this micro-world that surrounds the world we all know so well.

ICU always picks videos that we believe are interesting, unique, important, or useful—Despite this video’s short size, a few of our members deemed to be so.

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Q & A with Aichan on the radio

By: Zabel

I'm gonna give ya a full translation of Aichan's appearance on the radio show Nack5 Fanky Friday from two days ago. I say full translation although I've shortened/paraphrased parts. The conversation was recorded over the phone and consisted of the host asking yes/no questions where Aichan was to answer yes or no in English. (often accompanied with a cute giggle)

Kobayashi: Is it hard being Morning Musume's leader.
Takahashi: Yes.
K: What kind of things do you have to do?
T: Organize the others, tell them important things. There's not that much to do, but I'm poor at speaking. I trip up when I speak so I have trouble getting across.

K: Since everyone's blood type (personality) is different, is it hard to organize them?
T: No.
K: Are their blood types (personalities) different?
T: They are, but it's not so hard.

K: Your new single is your 42nd. Can you name the titles of all 42?
T: Yes.
K: Do you sing songs from before you joined?
T: We do.
K: Which out of the previous 41 singles is your favorite.
T: I like Do it Now.
K: How about the early era?
T: I like Memory Seishun no Hikari.
K: Each member has her favorites, huh?
T: Yeah, some girls like the bright songs. I like the kind of dark emotional ones.

K: Does producer Tsunku give instruction in fine particulars?
T: Yes.
K: So he does?
T: Like on rhythm, or about speaking in concerts.
K: What does he say to you?
T: In the beginning he instructed me on rhythm a lot. I tended to go too fast. More recently it was about being a leader, and he taught me tsukkomi.
K: Would you say you are more boke than tsukkomi?
T: Neither I guess. Maybe boke.

K: So you like Takaraduka?
T: Yes.
K: Would you want to play the male or female role?
T: If my height wasn't a factor, the male role. Otherwise it would have to be the female role.

K: Are you bad at shopping by yourself?
T: No.
K: Are you the type who buys lots of stuff?
T: Yes.
K: Does shopping relieve stress for you?
T: It does.
K: What is something big you have bought recently?
T: Detergent. I like to buy a lot of it at once.

K: When you were a kid did you participate in Nodo Jiman?
T: Yes.
K: What were you good at singing?
T: Well I was in chorus so I did a lot of singing, and before that I went to karaoke a lot. I sang Nakamori Akina.
K: So you were good at singing.
T: I dunno about that, but I like singing.

K: Would you like to live leisurely in Fukui?
T: Yes.
K: When you are busy you don't get much sleep. Is that so?
T: I get sleep. But the trains in Tokyo come so fast. It's convenient, but in my home town a train comes only once every hour. Sometimes it's nice to live in a place like that where the pace is slow.
K: After you marry or retire, would you want to live in Fukui?
T: Yeah somewhere where it's laid back.

K: Do you often sing Morning Musume songs at karaoke?
T: Yes.
K: Are you best at singing the songs you like best?
T: Yeah, I sing the songs I like, and when I go out with my friends they ask me to sing (MM songs).
K: So your friends are going, "It's the real thing!"
T: Yeah. (laugh)

K: Should an idol need to update a blog every day?
T: No.
K: Do you blog?
T: I don't have one.
K: Do the others?
T: Morning Musume doesn't blog.
K: Because of company policy?
T: Probably. But I'd like to. For a time I did some blogging for a play, and I'd never had that experience before. It was fun.

K: Was it your mom who applied for your audition to Morning Musume?
T: No.
K: Did other members' moms apply for them?
T: I haven't really heard so. I think they applied themselves.

K: Do you pay attention to the charts when you release a single?
T: Yes.

K: Do you like umeshu better than beer?
T: Yes.

K: Because you're the leader, do you quarrel with the staff, etc on behalf of the others?
T: Yes.
K: Have you done so recently?
T: Well, recently, since there's a lot of members and we're girls, it was something along the lines of, "Be careful how you speak to them." If there's something bothering us, I'll tell them this is how we feel.
K: You must feel like you're the leader at such times.
T: Yeah, like if I don't say it, nothing will change.

K: As the leader do you know a lot of members' secrets?
T: No.
K: You don't know?
T: I don't know. I don't really ask them. Well, when giving advice a little, but I don't really know their secrets.
K: Are your own secrets known?
T: No.

K: Do you sing enka?
T: No. I haven't sung enka, but I'd like to try.
K: Do your parents sing enka?
T: My dad likes to sing Shima Uta. But that's not enka.
(cool dad! Shima Uta is a good tune)

K: Marriage is something you don't need to think about for now?
T: Yes.
K: The company probably tells you how you need to be mindful of the fans and things like that, huh?
T: Yeah, being a Morning Musume.
K: When would it be okay to get married?
T: After I graduate, probably any age would be okay.
K: But do you want to be in love? Are you now?
T: No.
K: Is there someone you'd like to be with?
T: Well I'd like to be, and the songs I sing have to do with love, but I'm not thinking of that now.

K: Do you check on other female idol groups?
T: Yes.
K: There's quite a lot of them even in your own company. Are you friends with them, and do you check on them?
T: Well I'm the eldest in Hello! Project and the leader of the whole body, so well, you know, they're my juniors so I notice them.
K: The eldest, huh?
T: 23.
K: When I was a 1st year student in college, a female 4th year student thought of herself as an old lady and I thought that was silly. But do you feel that way?
T: Well yes, I'm the eldest even in Morning Musume, so I get that treatment. It was that way from age 20. So I don't really feel I'm young.
K: In that case, when you graduate you'll become very young again.
T: Is that so? (laugh)

K: Do you go to graduated Morning Musume members for advice?
T: Yes.
K: Is there one of them you're particularly close to?
T: I see Yoshizawa now and then and she gives me advice.

K: Is producer Tsunku a genius?
T: Yes.
K: What impresses you about him?
T: He has all these groups, not just Morning Musume, and makes so many songs. The melody is different each time. It thought it was amazing how he got the idea for Kimagure Princess by looking at his daughter's butt.
K: He has kept making so many songs.
T: He's really great. And not just singles, but songs for albums too. More songs than you can count.
K: Do you feel like you want to become like him?
T: I can't be like him. I can't beat him.

K: Are you ignorant about politics and economics?
T: Yes.
K: But are you interested in it?
T: I'm interested, but I joined Morning Musume in junior high school not knowing those things. It would have been nice to have studied them more.
K: But for instance, do you care about like how the highway will become free of charge if they win the election, or like receiving financial aid for giving birth, and things like that?
T: Well I was impressed when the highway toll went to 1000 yen. (laugh)

K: If you have a daughter in the future, would you want her to enter a Morning Musume audition?
T: Yes.
K: You wouldn't want her to stay away?
T: Well, it's tough and stressful, but I know the good things about being Morning Musume. I'd kind of like to see that.

K: Have you ever received an expensive present from a fan?
T: Yes.

K: Is Morning Musume a dream job?
T: Yes.

K: But do you have quarrels with the other members?
T: Yes.

K: Are you the weakest at quarreling?
T: No, I guess.

K: The day after tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Will you give lots of chocolates?
T: Yes.


That's the interview. Did you learn anything new about our Lovely Commander? ^^

Possibly today I should be putting a sub of the recent On-ryu guest appearance (Ai, Risa, Linlin) on the Hello! Online tracker, so keep an eye out for that.

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Dai 10 Dan - Cutie Land 2 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk


An ICU-Subs & Hello!Fansubs Inter-group Collaboration Project.



I love poetry, and a glass of scotch, and, of course, I love Hello! Project fansubs. I’m sure you’re exactly like me (Except for the poetry and the scotch), so I bet when you see a new H!F release you’re excited, right? Sure you are. And, I bet you’re excited when you see a new ICU release, right? You betcha. So, what happens when you see that H!F and ICU did a project together…?

You very well might be freaking out now. Don’t worry, no one will blame you. This is kind of a big deal.

It’s always very interesting and insightful to see how another group works and compare it to how you choose to do projects. You might think that two groups (who do things differently) working together would lead to conflicts over project decisions, but this certainly was not the case. This project was about as smooth a bit of sailing as one could ask for. Both groups had a lot of fun working on this together, and that easily makes a project like this worth all the hard work and makes the fruits of that work twice as rewarding.
===================================================


And now a few words about the release itself…

What we have here is a very special release. A fan club event release. A celebration of everyone’s favorite holday, Christmas, with everyone’s favorite hyphenated idol grou, C-ute. Now, you might be asking, “He-Hulk, why do a Christmas release now? Christmas is over.”
Well, my friend, I think the best way to explain it is to quote the immortal words of everyone’s favorite Van Halen lead vocalist, Gary Cherone:

“Christmas always goes too fast
It's up to us make it last
And all I want for Christmas is C-ute”

Ok, I might be slightly paraphrasing the classic Extreme Christmas song, “Christmas Time Again,” but the point is still made. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas, of course. And what is your favorite thing ever? Cute idols, of course. So, if you could enjoy both of those things all year long, wouldn’t you be a fool not to do so? Yes. Yes you would be. And, not that we need another reason, but all C-ute fans of course remember that Maimi, Mai and Saki all were born in Febuary, so, if you think about it, February, in a manner of speaking, is actually Christmas for C-ute fans.

The “Cutie Land” is Cute’s yearly FC event. It’s always a little bit of everything, and this year is no different. Part 1 is a 40 minute stage play. This performance is actually a sequel to C-ute’s very first stage play. 2007’s” Keru no wa C-ute.” Therefore, all the characters from that play are carried over to this play, and the storyline picks up where the previous play left off. It’s a FanClub exclusive treat for all of C-ute’s biggest fans. And, if you haven’t actually seen the first play, don’t worry; ICU and H!F have watched it and have your back. We’ve gone through this release and put in a few Editor’s Notes where needed to explain some of the background details of the first play, and, of course, made sure to notify you before hand if a note is going to be a really big spoiler to the events in the first play, just in case you ever want to watch it yourself. truthfully though, take note that the first play is three years old and has never been translated into English, so most of you probably won’t ever watch it, and therefore virtually no one should be worried about spoilers, anyway.

Next up in this release is the infamous counting of the fan vote for which C-ute skit would carry over into the future. The vote was between “Cutie Girls” “MC Chisa MC Kappa, and DJ MaiMai,” and a few other classic C-ute skits. I won’t spoil the results for you, but real fans actually did vote in this, and it means a lot to the girls to know which of their bits the fans like best, so it’s fun to watch, no doubt.

Finally, the video is rounded out with a C-ute mini live where all the girls dress up in the most awesome Santa Claus suits around. It’s a treat just to watch them perform for their biggest fans, and they give their all since events like these means a lot to them.

When you add everything together you have a jam packed 90 minutes of idol bliss. You can’t beat C-ute (don’t try!), and you definitely can’t beat C-ute doing a show for their Fan Club, since they are the queens of such events. And, when you combine it with Christmas, Santa suits, and C-ute’s biggest fans, you have a release that is definitely worthy of two fansub groups coming together to bring it all to you.

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Kaito Reinya Episode 05 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk

Episode 05 of the seminal series.

Sorry about the slight delay in releasing it. The video was ready last night (thanks to all the awesome ICU members who work on it so quickly and efficiently each week), but I got crushed by the east coast snow storm and lost power all day so I couldn’t upload it until today.

This might be my favorite episode yet, so enjoy!


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Kaito Reinya Episode 04 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk



The secrets of Reinya's box are revealed (less awesome than it sounds), as we march ever closer to the realization of the Reinya's ultimate goal to break up marriages and become the ultimate thief.

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Kaito Reinya Episode 03 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk

Episode 03 of everyone's favorite anime.

Learn the true origin of Reinya's lethal cat-burglar skills, the name of her favorite soap opera, and more in this weeks outrageous episode!


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May the new year be a Lovely one

By: Zabel

Another great year to be an Aichan fan is under way! What's in store for Lovely? I have no idea, but I'm counting on her getting the lead role in some new play or TV series, as well as presiding over the addition of new musume some time before the year is up. *After* the stock is replenished through another audition, I won't be shocked if she gets the graduation notice. Before another audition, I will be. Koharu's graduation announcement last year was mildly surprising, but Lovely's would have been far more so. I knew she was pretty much safe up through the end of 2009, and possibly through 2010 as well. She's that critical to the group :)

Aichan recently got a supporting role in Mano Eri's new series, Hanbun Esper, looking sharp in OL duds.

Meanwhile Ichigo ichie continues, which is awesome. I wonder if Aichan herself expected to still be doing it this long? She must be feeling more confident about speaking by her lonesome because she hasn't had a guest on in awhile. She often mentions how she likes playing Final Fantasy XIII, a game us North Americans don't get until March. (But that's okay 'cause I am thoroughly addicted to Demon's Souls at present)



On a TV program promoting FFXIII which she appeared on a month or so ago (ファイナルファンタジーＸＩＩＩの世界に迫る), when the topic of previous installments in the series came up, Aichan said that she had played FFX three times including once in English! I guess she must like Final Fantasy. (or just Tidus)

Unrelated to any of that, Aichan was on a let's-learn-about-global-warming type of show a short while back (学べるニューズ). Don't ask me why she was there, but hey, she is lovely when learning about global warming too, can anyone deny? Actually she hardly spoke at all and the little footage there was of her didn't justify the watch unless you happen to be interested in the topic and are crazy fluent in Japanese, but there was this one cute yet embarrassing moment at the beginning...



Host: Why is it that increases in carbon dioxide make the earth warmer?
Aichan: Humans put it out.
Host: Humans put it out, yes. But why does that make the earth warmer?
Aichan: When we put it out, the temperature increases.
Everyone: That's what the question is.
Aichan: Sorry!

On another unrelated note, I gotta say it didn't take long for Gakisan's short cut to grow on me. 30 seconds maybe.

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Kaito Reinya Episode 02 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk


Episode two of the seminal series.

I really hope the police catch Reinya. Then they could wrap up the series and save us from having to translate the rest of these...

Seriously though, this episode is easily twice as funny as the last one. So, if you liked episode one, you'll love episode two.

I know I really enjoyed it. Plus, I mean, it's Reina, right? Reina!!

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Kaito Reinya Episode 01 Subtitled Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk



Look! Up in the sky! It’s a cat! It’s a hot air balloon (powered by a girl furiously pumping bicycle pedals)! It’s Kaito Reinya!

Kaito Reinya is the story of a girl who, by day, works as a convenience store clerk in a shop next to the town police station, and, by night, works as a cat burgler victimizing the same hapless police she serves food to during the day.

Oh, and it’s also a gigantic Tanaka Reina and Hello! Project reference (right down to H!P songs being in the sound track) and a 4 minute advertisement for ramen. But you already knew all that, didn’t you?

The show stars Tanaka Reina (obviously) and Noto Arisa.

It’s already getting panned by anime snobs, but, I mean, as idol fans we don't care for those people, anyway, right? So who cares what they think.
Truth be told, this is adorable, irreverent, and rather funny, especially for anyone who likes Reina, since she plays herself here, or rather what Tanaka Reina would be like if she were the ultimate ramen thief. This gets a confident thumbs-up from me. It’s cute to see one of our girls immortalized in cartoon form, and all H!P fans should give this a watch. If this is popular, who knows, maybe someday we’ll get a Sudou Maasa cartoon that’s an ad for Gold’s Gym and she keeps stealing weight benches!

ICU-Subs will be doing all 12 episodes. We hope to have each week’s episode done within a day, or so, of it airing on Japanese TV.

Enjoy!

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Tsugunaga Momoko - Momo OK Dual Subtitles/Dual Audio Release

By: The Incredible He-Hulk


An ICU-Subs & Hyakupa Inter-group Collaboration Project.


A new year brings about new possibilities. After all, new possibilities and opportunities are what the tradition of New Year’s Resolutions are all about. But if I had been told that the year 2010 held the possibility of a double-sized collaborative project between two H!P sub groups, I’m not sure I would have believed it. And yet, here we are.

This release was a rather interesting experience. Working with people who do the same type of sofk as you, but does it differently than you is always an experience worth having. It gives you an idea of what you do well, and what you could possibly do better. And, it teaches you that compromises oftentimes are just as satisfying as going your own way.

For this project we broke the tasks up along audio track lines. The fine fellows at Hyakupa handled the translation of the main audio track and we at ICU-Subs handled the commentary track translation.
I’m sure that 99% of you could care less about this next observation (you’re all probably screaming “Momo!!!” at the top of your lungs, right now), but this division of labor led to some rather interesting insights in to just how another sub group complete a project and what choices they make when working on their craft. Watching one audio track’s translation and then the other immediately afterwards shows me that all the H!P sub groups are different and you’ll get a slightly different experience from each of them. Not necessarily better or worse; just different. Each group’s work is distinct. It’s rather fascinating, to be honest.

And now a few words about the release itself…

If you’re going to double the groups, you need to double the fun, right? Well, Momoko is so lively, spunky, over the top, and borderline crazy, that she’s like two idols in one. And, if you’re going to double the groups, you need to double the content, right? Well, you’re not just getting an hour of Momo being Momo; you’re getting a second hour of Momo talking a mile a minute about what Momo being Momo is all about.
It’s a super-sized serving of idol craziness from H!P’s craziest idol.

No doubt about it, Momoko is a great idol (with a utterly unique skill set), whose talents work best when employed as a second fiddle. Momoko is an idol who makes other great idols even greater and pulls lesser idols along with her into relevance. She is the vital cog in Berryz Koubou because her massive personality encourages the other Berryz personalities to shine. By being over the top, ridiculous, silly and envelope pushing, she forces the other girls to raise their games and play along. Berryz just wouldn't work right without Momo.

In Momoko's second solo DVD, Momo Ok, we get Momo at her most manic, and her most self-centered.
We learn, without a doubt, that she is a jealous little idol. Momo is convinced she should be mentioned in the same breath as the all-time idol greats. Now, this is obviously partially a gag on her part, but any serious Momo fan can recount the impressive number of times Momoko has challenged other idols, compared herself directly to other idols, and talked smack about other idols. And she spends a large part of the video doing just that. No spoilers, but one idol is squarely in Momo's cross hairs for the duration of the main audio track. It's a totally awesome ride, baby.

And then there's the commentary track. Usually, for a solo DVD commentary, your star idol will always, always be accompanied by a wing-idol. This serves two very vital purposes: First, encouraging the main idol to talk by having someone to bounce conversation off of so as to prevent dead silence for portions of the commentary, and secondly, it's to give the main idol someone to talk about her DVD with so she just isn't rambling about herself, by herself, the entire time like a psycho.
Shockingly, H!P, for whatever reason, decided to just not bother with a wing-idol for Momoko this time, and the result of that decision is an utterly stupefying, mind-bending, rambling trip through the mind of Momoko that will leave you a twisted shell of your former self by the end of it. I'm not kidding. Make sure you drink a lot of fluids because you will swear you must be high on peyote.

Combined these two hours with Momoko are perhaps the most astoundingly bizarre that you will ever spend watching idols and the experience definitely earns my highest recommendation. It’s like idol crack, Jack.

And finally, in order to accommodate everyone on the freaking planet, we’ve decided to release this in four different formats. 404p XviD, 404p H264, 720p XviD and 720p H264. This is probably the only time you will see something like this, but we both do our own releases differently and we wanted every H!P fan to be happy. So, pick your poison.

Remember, because of the dual-audio/dual-subtitle track nature of this release, it is in a MKV shell. In order to manipulate this video and view it in it’s optimum state, I recommend having either the K-Lite codec pack, or the CCCP codec pack installed on your system and using Media Player Classic which comes built in to each codec pack.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm
http://cccp-project.net/
These releases also work perfectly well with the VLC media player, although I do not personally recommend watching this using VLC unless you have no other alternative.

These files have been tested on a variety of machines with a variety of different codec installations. They work without issue. So, if you are having any problems viewing this release, it’s probably you and your system that are the problem, not Momo. XD

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