(2nd Birthday Celebration) Tonde Buurin Episode 1 released! (Joint with Stardust Fansubs)

As the last thing on our birthday celebration, we would like to proudly announce our new project, Tonde Buurin.  This will be a joint with Stardust Fansubs (http://stardustfansubs.wordpress.com).

In this episode, we introduce Karin, the girl who finds a pig on the street.  This pig is no ordinary pig; he ends up bestowing her with the ability to transform into Buurin, a super pig.  Unfortunately, she was not exactly happy with this ability.

I will have a post with my expectations for this series tomorrow.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) Little Women II - Jo's Boys Episode 26 released!

Mrs. Bhaer was right; peace was only a temporary lull, a storm was brewing, and two days after Bess left, a moral earthquake shook Plumfield to its centre.

Tommy's hens were at the bottom of the trouble, for if they had not persisted in laying so many eggs, he could not have sold them and made such sums. Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes. Tommy certainly could not, for he spent his income so recklessly, that Mr. Bhaer was obliged to insist on a savings-bank, and presented him with a private one an imposing tin edifice, with the name over the door, and a tall chimney, down which the pennies were to go, there to rattle temptingly till leave was given to open a sort of trap-door in the floor.

- Little Men, Chapter 14

This episode of Little Women II is the beginning of a three episode arc that corresponds with chapter 14 of the novel, namely the mystery of who stole Tommy Bangs' money.  For those of you who have read the novel, you already know who took the money, and the anime adaptation does a really good job of portraying him during this incident.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) Licca the Movie - Licca-chan to Yamaneko Hoshi no Tabi released!

We originally had this movie slated for the birthday celebration last year, but we were unable to get it fully translated in time.  Out of all the Licca-chan movies/OVAs, this is probably the strangest out of all of them, and I don't really think I can do this movie justice with a few words.

To put it simply, Licca and her father go up for a vacation in the mountains, but what happens there is something very magical involving lynxes and the stars in the sky.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) My Annette Episode 14 released!

Annette's birthday took place in March, and Dani planned about it for weeks, for nothing pleased Dani so much as giving presents. Some must have said that his presents were not worth a great deal, but Dani thought they were beautiful.

- Treasures of the Snow, Chapter 5

The pictures here say more than a thousand words about what happened with this episode of My Annette.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) The Glass Rabbit released!

The Glass Rabbit is one of a variety of anime movies that dealt with World War II.  A lot of them use the bombing of Hiroshima as a focal point.  This movie is different in regard with that in that the focus is the firebombing of Tokyo by the U.S. Army Air Corps using incendiary bombs.  In many ways, the death toll and destruction caused by incendiary bombs is just as bad as having the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

War is something we hope we will never experience firsthand.

I would like to thank the folks who have given me background information about this bombing.  Their information was invaluable in the translation.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure Episode 14 released!

In this episode, Rina attempts to get Kaito to remember his past, and she does that by taking him to a cave.  In the meantime, we meet one of Mikeru's new minions, a butterfly-like creature named Lanhua.  To combat her, Aqua Regina gives the Mermaid Princesses a new song.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow Episode 2 released!

In this episode, Lucy-May and Kate go to gather firewood and water.  While gathering water, they see a koala, and some folks they did not want to really run into when holding a koala.

You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.

I will have a post tomorrow about our expectations for this series.

(2nd Birthday Celebration) Happy Birthday - Inochi Kagayaku Toki released!

For the first release of Licca Fansubs' 2nd Birthday Celebration, we felt it was appropriate to release a movie about birthdays.

Happy Birthday - Inochi Kagayaku Toki is a movie that uses birthdays as a framework for its main themes: disabilities and bullying.  As everyone knows, bullying is still a problem today, although with schools beginning to use more things like audio and video surveillance, they are more likely to catch incidences of bullying happening.  Bullying also does not just stop at school; the home and the workplace are also places where bullying can be rampant.

With several notable cases in the past few years (such as the suicide of Tyler Clementi), it should be patently obvious why bullying is not acceptable in any shape and form.  What people may think "as good fun and a joke" is often not acceptable, and depending on where it happens and the result of such activities, often will come with consequences that may potentially ruin someone's life forever.

In addition, the treatment of folks with disabilities is a very interesting topic in itself, and depending on the disability, often will tie into the bullying angle (which is very reprehensible in my opinion).  There is a reason why there are laws such as the Americans With Disabilities Act exist.  Just because someone has a disability does not mean that the person is a less of a person.  Personally, I have not had very many personal experiences with working with people with disabilities, but the few experiences I've had were very enlightening and enriching on the whole.

I would like to thank all the people who I've talked to about their experiences with being the victims of bullying.  Without their experiences, this translation would not have been as good as it could have been.