Update on the unannounced secret project and what happens after Sara

Let me refer you to this post, where we announced what we were planning to do.

As we mentioned earlier, we were going to pick two of these series to do for our next set of projects.  We have already picked Sara and have made substantial progress.

The secret project is going to be the second series that we picked from this list.  However, let us cross off two series off that list.

We will not be doing the Denshin Mamotte Shugogetten OVA for the second series.  It somehow slipped our minds that Miyuki already did that series somehow, which is quite embarrassing for us.

Secondly, we will not be doing A Dog of Flanders for the second series.  I know that a lot of people will be disappointed at this.  The reasoning is that doing A Little Princess Sara is very emotionally draining on our staff members and myself.  We cannot possibly do two series that close together that require us to be emotionally involved.  We already have the DVDs ready to go, however; we can probably jump on that after we get a couple more uplifting series under our belts.

Therefore, the two remaining series left are Pastel Yumi and Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure.  We're going mahou shoujo for the secret project.  We already have the first five episodes translated, but unfortunately unexpected setbacks have hindered our progress through this series, which is why we have not released any episodes yet.  We apologize for keeping everyone in suspense.

As for what we do after A Little Princess Sara, what I can tell you is that it will be another WMT series that aired before 2000.  We've already selected the series, and I've already got the DVDs imported.

A Little Princess Sara Episode 32 released!

"Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?" Carrisford groaned in petulant misery. "I believe I should have stood my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as well as my own. Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he owned. He trusted me—he LOVED me. And he died thinking I had ruined him—I—Tom Carrisford, who played cricket at Eton with him. What a villain he must have thought me!"

"Don't reproach yourself so bitterly."

"I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail—I reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined him and his child." 

- A Little Princess, chapter 12

In this episode, Carrisford tells Carmichael how the diamond mines that he invested in with Ralph Crewe resulted in his current state today.  In addition, he says he has to find Ralph's "Little Missus", but unfortunately, he does not remember her name...

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 28v2 released!

It apparently seems episode 28 is an anathema to us.

We have released a v2 of episode 28 of A Little Princess Sara to address some glaring translation issues that slipped through our checks.

On hiatus until 1/30/11

We will be on hiatus for a short time due to some real life issues.  We will resume our regular release schedule on January 30th, 2011.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

Les Miserables Episode 36 released!

And he pointed out to Eponine, across the tops of the trees, a light which was wandering about in the mansard roof of the pavilion. It was Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry.

Eponine made a final effort.

"Well," said she, "they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there isn't a sou."

"Go to the devil!" cried Thenardier. "When we've turned the house upside down and put the cellar at the top and the attic below, we'll tell you what there is inside, and whether it's francs or sous or half-farthings."

And he pushed her aside with the intention of entering.

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 8, Chapter 4

 

In this episode, we set up for the next set of episodes.  The cholera epidemic in Paris has gotten worse, the police are arresting anyone that looks suspicious, the Patron-Minette are trying to make a quick franc, and Eponine is fighting her inner demons after seeing Marius and Cosette together.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 31 released!

Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life.  He slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound.

- A Little Princess, chapter 11

In this episode, Sara and Becky meet Ram Dass and the monkey Surya in person.  However, it does involve quite a bit of chasing, taunting, tricks, and going up the chimney.  This made for quite an adventure for everyone involved.

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

Les Miserables Episode 35 released!

The marvels of escape cannot always be accounted for. The man who makes his escape, we repeat, is inspired; there is something of the star and of the lightning in the mysterious gleam of flight; the effort towards deliverance is no less surprising than the flight towards the sublime, and one says of the escaped thief: "How did he contrive to scale that wall?" in the same way that one says of Corneille: "Where did he find the means of dying?"

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 6, Chapter 3

In this episode, the Patron-Minette escape from La Force prison.  This is all happening while public sentiment towards the government sours considerably.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 30 released!

It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he was shattered in health and unhappy in mind. 

- A Little Princess, chapter 10

In this episode, we see what Becky is up to during her "summer vacation", and we also see Mr. Carrisford move into the house next door to Miss Minchin's seminary.  He obviously is not well as he needs to be wheeled around.

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

Les Miserables Episode 34 released!

Twenty years ago, there was still to be seen in the southwest corner of the Place de la Bastille, near the basin of the canal, excavated in the ancient ditch of the fortress-prison, a singular monument, which has already been effaced from the memories of Parisians, and which deserved to leave some trace, for it was the idea of a "member of the Institute, the General-in-chief of the army of Egypt."

We say monument, although it was only a rough model. But this model itself, a marvelous sketch, the grandiose skeleton of an idea of Napoleon's, which successive gusts of wind have carried away and thrown, on each occasion, still further from us, had become historical and had acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly painted green by some dauber, and now painted black by heaven, the wind, and time. In this deserted and unprotected corner of the place, the broad brow of the colossus, his trunk, his tusks, his tower, his enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under the starry heavens, a surprising and terrible form. It was a sort of symbol of popular force. It was sombre, mysterious, and immense. It was some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside the invisible spectre of the Bastille. 

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 6, Chapter 2

In this episode Gavroche meets two children on the street and helps them out.  Little does he know that the two children are more important to him than he realizes.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 29 released!

Becky goes home to her hometown of Ashfield.  Her family looks quite happy even though they are poor.

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

Les Miserables Episode 33 released!

All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep, seraphic love. The abyss of Eden had yawned once more.

All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment. She scarcely thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled skein in her brain, she could not manage to conjecture anything, she hoped through a tremor, what? vague things. She dared make herself no promises, and she did not wish to refuse herself anything. Flashes of pallor passed over her countenance, and shivers ran through her frame. It seemed to her, at intervals, that she was entering the land of chimaeras; she said to herself: "Is this reality?" Then she felt of the dear paper within her bosom under her gown, she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles against her flesh; and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he would have shuddered in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, which overflowed from beneath her eyelids.—"Oh yes!" she thought, "it is certainly he! This comes from him, and is for me!"

And she told herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestial chance, had given him back to her. 

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 5, Chapter 5 

In this episode, Marius and Cosette finally meet again.... and they finally know each other by name.

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

Issues with episode 28's h.264 torrent

We apologize for not having episode 28's h.264 torrent seeded properly.  The computer that was seeding it got shutdown before the torrent was fully seeded.  I have got the computer turned back on and the h.264 version should complete for everyone who was on the torrent.

A Little Princess Sara Episode 28 released!

She has wished very much that someone would take the empty house next door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open some day and a head and shoulders rising out of the square aperture.

- A Little Princess, chapter 10

In this episode, the students leave for summer vacation, leaving Sara and Becky alone in the seminary.
 

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

Les Miserables Episode 32 released!

He tried again to unhook the chain of the well, and could not.

At that moment, he heard a voice saying:—

"Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you?"

At the same time, a noise as of a wild animal passing became audible in the hedge, and he beheld emerging from the shrubbery a sort of tall, slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at him. She had less the air of a human being than of a form which had just blossomed forth from the twilight.

Before Father Mabeuf, who was easily terrified, and who was, as we have said, quick to take alarm, was able to reply by a single syllable, this being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the watering-pot, and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds distributing life around her. The sound of the watering-pot on the leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that the rhododendron was happy now.

The first bucketful emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third. She watered the whole garden.

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 2, Chapter 3

For our second release for the Martin Luther King holiday, we present to you Les Miserables: Shoujo Cosette episode 32.

 

In this episode, Eponine and Marius have to deal with some rather difficult dilemmas with their emotions and their sense of duty.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 27 released!

Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice, intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his eyes fell upon Sara trying to politely to seem absorbed in her little book of phrases.

- A Little Princess, chapter 2

For our first release on the Martin Luther King holiday, we present to you episode 27 of A Little Princess Sara.

As you can see, academic dishonesty was prevalent back then.  However, Lavinia reacts to it in a way only she could do.

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

Les Miserables Episode 31 released!

However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had arranged his existence there in the following fashion:—

Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big sleeping-room with the painted pier-glasses, the boudoir with the gilded fillets, the justice's drawing-room furnished with tapestries and vast arm-chairs; she had the garden. Jean Valjean had a canopied bed of antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul at Mother Gaucher's, put into Cosette's chamber, and, in order to redeem the severity of these magnificent old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-a-brac all the gay and graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an etagere, a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt dressing-case, a toilet service in Japanese porcelain. Long damask curtains with a red foundation and three colors, like those on the bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the curtains were of tapestry. All winter long, Cosette's little house was heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's lodge which was situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a mattress on a folding-bed, a white wood table, two straw chairs, an earthenware water-jug, a few old volumes on a shelf, his beloved valise in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with Cosette, and he had a loaf of black bread on the table for his own use.

- Les Miserables, Volume 4, Book 3, Chapter 2

This episode is the aftermath of the extortion plot.  We gain some insight into Jean Valjean's mental state and how Marius attempts to reconcile his promise to his father and the behavior of Thenardier.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 26 released!

When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward.  There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger.

- A Little Princess, chapter 10

 

In this episode, Sara teaches the little children French, using various things around the room as teaching aids. However, Miss Minchin and Lavinia always seem to find a way to make this go bad, but Master Dufarge is somehow able to know exactly what to do about it...

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 25 released!

"If I do not remind myself of the things I have learned, perhaps I may forget them," she said to herself.

- A Little Princess, chapter 8
 

 

In this episode, Miss Minchin has no choice but to have Sara become the class representative for a day in order to impress the Lady Mayoress.  Sara had every right to tell Miss Minchin that she would not do it, but like a princess, she does do it, and she does it in one of the most spectacular scenes in the entire series.

The poem that Sara recites is "L'Étranger", a poem by Charles Baudelaire.  The full poem and a translation (which we used, slightly modified) can be found here.

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

Les Miserables Episode 30 released!

"Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of idiots! You want to waste time, do you? Draw lots, do you? By a wet finger, by a short straw! With written names! Thrown into a hat!—"

"Would you like my hat?" cried a voice on the threshold.

All wheeled round. It was Javert.

He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them with a smile. 

- Les Miserables, Volume 3, Book 8, Chapter 20

 

This episode is the conclusion of Thenardier's plan.  Unfortunately for him and the Patron-Minette, Javert is on the scene.

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

A Little Princess Sara Episode 24 released!

Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile.

- A Little Princess, chapter 10

This episode is episode 11.  We can almost say it is episode 11, but twisted for Lavinia's birthday...

However, Lavinia sets her most sinister trap for Sara... and this is a trap that Sara is unable to wriggle out on her own...

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

Policy on beginning series in progress by other fansubbers

Licca Fansubs will not begin a series that is in progress by other fansubbers unless if the series has been officially dropped by the fansubber, or if the fansubber is no longer in operation.

One of rules that we follow here at Licca Fansubs is that we treat all other fansubbing groups with respect, courtesy, and professionalism.  By extension, this means if the other group is actively working on a project, then it is officially off-limits to us.  This is a matter of courtesy and respect to the other groups.

This means in terms of World Masterpiece Theater series, the following series are officially off-limits to us:

• Heidi, Girl of the Alps
• Anne of the Green Gables
• The Story of Perrine
• 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother
• Katri, Girl of the Meadows
• Trapp Family Story
• Tico of the Seven Seas
• Romeo's Blue Skies
• Nobody's Girl Remi
• Porphy's Long Journey
• Konnichiwa Anne: Before Green Gables

Please support the other groups working on these series.

A Little Princess Sara Episode 23 released!

"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving."

- A Little Princess, chapter 13

 

In this episode, Sara chances upon a coin on the ground.  The thing is... does she spend it on herself, or does she find a way to do a greater good with it?

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

This episode marks the halfway point of this series.  It has been a long and hard journey to get this far, and it is far from over.  Here is what we can expect from the next 10 episodes:

1.  Lavinia continues to try to knock over all the people (and things) that have supported Sara.  Obviously, what has happened to her in episode 20 does not faze her one bit.

2.  Monsieur Dufarge shows up again, and finds a way to help Sara until something happens.

3.  If you read the book, you'll remember that there is a character named Carrisford.  He will appear around episode 30 or so.

Here is to another good set of episodes!

A Little Princess Sara Episode 22 released!

She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let her feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn anything at once, and not being able to learn anything at all. As she looked at her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned thoughts came to her.

"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people. If Miss Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she is now, she'd still be a detestable thing, and everybody would hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked. Look at Robespierre-"

- A Little Princess, chapter 15

In this episode, we see Sara's imagination in its glory and how it envelopes Lottie, Ermengarde, and Becky.  However...

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

This group is not a speed-subbing group

It's been a while since I've done a fansubbing post, and now seems to be a good time, considering I've got an encode going on right now.

One of the things I want to dispel is that Licca Fansubs is not a speed-subbing group.  We only look like one.  Let me explain why I assert this.

The first thing to consider is that all the series we have worked on so far have already been aired (a lot of them many years ago).  We do not work on a series until we have obtained all the raws, or we are capable of easily obtaining all the raws.  Modern speed-subbers are at the mercy of the broadcasting schedule back in Japan and how fast they can get a transport stream transferred.  We already have the raws; the speed-subbers have to wait X amount of time to download the TS.

The second thing to consider is that this group works on a small number of projects.  Many speed-subbers stagger their staff so they can work on lots of projects.

The third thing to consider is our workflow.  Since we already have the raws, our workflow actually is split into two:

1. The encoding workflow.  As part of my encoding process, I always make a lossless master with an appropriate amount of filtering/preprocessing needed.  This usually takes several hours.  I usually will do this while the episode in question is translated.  Once the episode is ready for its final encode, I can then use the lossless master and the script and quickly have an encoded version ready for distribution.
2. The "everything else" workflow.  Translation/timing/other needed tasks are done here.

For A Little Princess Sara, we usually will require about a total of 10 hours before the episode is released, and that is with both workflows synchronized.  Translation and timing take up most of our time (approximately 6 hours).  The editing and typesetting/styling takes about 2 hours.  I always do a pre-encode check, which takes about an hour.  Then, I encode using the lossless master, which takes about an hour (since I often will need to tweak the filters after doing the pre-encode check).

Several people have compared this group to the Technogirls. For those who you not know who they are, they are a VHS subbing group that was prominent in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  Their specialty was in shoujo anime, and they were the first group (to my knowledge) that has been able to fully sub a WMT series.  If you look at their site, they have an explanation of how long they take to do their work.  If you account for the fact that their equipment and the method of subbing was different than the digisubbing methods of today, you'll find that they actually were an extremely efficient group.

A Little Princess Sara Episode 21 released!

"Whatever comes," she said. "cannot alter one thing.  If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside."

- A Little Princess, chapter 11

In this episode, Sara has to trudge through the London streets twice.  The second time, she has to do it in a thunderstorm.

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