Friday, March 11, 2011

Expectations for Pollyanna

The rest of the DVDs are stashed away....

After doing A Little Princess Sara and going through the rather brutal (yet wonderful) story, we felt like we needed to do something quite a bit happier to counteract that.  Because of this, we chose Pollyanna, the epitome of optimism and happiness.

For those of you who have read the two novels (the anime series covers both of them), you would understand the true nature of what Pollyanna really signifies.  Unfortunately, in today's society, due to a drastic misinterpretation of the character itself, the word "Pollyanna" has taken a rather negative connotation that is warped and not to the spirit of the novel.  As part of our efforts to sub Pollyanna, we wish to try to convey the true meaning of what it means to be a Pollyanna and how her attitude can make everyone's life a lot more happier.

Again, we will try to maintain, as much as possible, a release once every other day, although circumstances may make this difficult over the next month or so.

We have added the VP8/WebM format as one of our release formats.  As the encoder, I am aware of the fact that VP8 is technically inferior to h.264 and I am very well aware of the reasons why.  The reasoning why we chose to add it to our release formats is not because of the patent encumbrance of h.264, nor it is because of the open source nature of the code.  Instead, I personally feel that VP8 deserves a chance to shine. 

In my opinion, "technical superiority" is only part of the equation on how good a codec is.  The other part of the question is "is the quality of the video good enough that Mr. John Q. Public would be able to enjoy it?"  We can go into all sorts of technical discussions on whether VP8, h.264, or XviD is better, but the final judge is the viewer who will watch the video.

We hope that everyone will enjoy Pollyanna and find something to be glad about in everything.  We also thank everyone for your continued support.

13 comments:

  1. I sure didn't expect Pollyanna to be the secret WMT project, but that's okay. I'm happy you chose it anyway. I did read an abridged version of the novel once, but for some reason it didn't strike a chord with me. Maybe the anime will change my expectations a bit. Thanks very much! Good luck! Many thanks and best wishes for the future!

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  2. There are abridged versions of the novel? I did not know about that!

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  3. Heard about what happened in Japan, hope everything is well for you and your family and friends...

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  4. I do have some friends of my parents who are in Japan right now; I have not heard anything from them, but they weren't in the areas where the tsunami hit.

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  5. I'm glad you chose this as your next project Doll Licca,I've always wanted to see the anime version of Pollyanna subbed ^^ thanks.

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  6. I was a bit surprised but after watching the first episode it seems to be a nice series. It also fits into the list of things I want to watch.

    I also was a bit confused because you (Doll Licca) often talked about magical girl animes so I thought it would also be an anime of this genre. But it doen't bother me really much.

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  7. @Doll Licca: Yes, there are abridged versions of the novel. I didn't buy one (rather, I checked it out at a library) though. But who knows? Maybe the anime will cheer me up a bit. Thanks very much for picking up the project! I still have anime to finish up so I'm gonna watch it later.

    Also, I wouldn't mind if you guys also picked up Little Women the anime (maybe the sequel too). Sure it got licensed long ago, but I think it's been dropped now. Anime News Network doesn't even classify it as licensed (usually licensed titles are typed in bold-face words). Plus it hasn't been around for a long time (though torrents of the anime can be found on TokyoTosho or something). I read the novel on my Nintendo DS (YES, there IS such thing as a DS game where you can read classic books such as Little Women, Secret Garden, Little Lord Fauntleroy, etc.! It's great) and I really like Beth. She's adorable.

    Of course, you guys just started on this and that's perfectly fine with me. Best wishes for future releases! Good luck! Many thanks to all!

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  8. @Julia: Actually Little Women (as well as Swiss Family Robinson) is still airing in the US in the channel "Smile of a Child TV".

    @Anonymous: Well it did say secret WMT series... ;)

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  9. I don't have that channel so I wouldn't know. Hehehe.

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  10. You can watch it online here: http://www.smileofachildtv.org/index.htm

    Little Women airs every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10 pm EST and Saturdays at 9:30 pm

    Last Friday's episode was about Jo successfully finding a house with reasonable rent and space for the family with Anthony's help. The six of them (Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, their mom, and Hannah) have been living with Aunt March for quite some time after their original home was destroyed due to the civil war. I believe this is episode 12 or 13 according to Anidb.

    The other WMT, Swiss Family Robinson, airs Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 pm.

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  11. http://forums.bakabt.com/index.php?topic=27110.0

    It's a project by some people there to record these episodes so if someone else wants to help I'm sure they will be absolutely delighted.

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  12. We have seen Cosette and Pollyanna, keeping in the vein of shows about girls with interesting names, how about Lotte? I am referring to Watashi to Watashi: Futari no Lotte. The anime is based off of the book Das Doppelte Lottchen "The Double Lottie" a 1949 novel by Erich Kästner, known to English speaking audiences as "Lottie and Lisa" or most commonly by the movie based off of it "The Parent Trap". Since Haley Mills made Pollyanna such a huge hit, I think we should go for her other major film as well. :o)

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  13. If you release that many versions, you might as well add at least one softsubbed ;)

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