Digital Shokunin

A CatNinDen Teyandee translation project and fan blog.

[digitalshokunin]

Leopards and Dragons and Pigs, Oh My

Twitter user chinpui02 recently posted some production drawings he received from an acquaintance who was an animator on Teyandee. Among them are some very intriguing early designs for several characters that never made it into the show. Among them are leopard, hawk, dragon, chicken, monkey and pig ninjas, a tanuki samurai named “Tanukizawa Kinnosuke,” an elderly armadillo who appears to be a Mito Komon parody, complete with a Tokugawa crest hidden within his retractable shell, and an okappiki cat with a jitte-tipped tail and lantern jetpack named “Nyarobee.”

https://twitter.com/chinpui02/status/1144092071935926272 https://twitter.com/chinpui02/status/1144162595806441474 https://twitter.com/chinpui02/status/1144162820566573057

These were all likely drawn by Hiroshi Ogawa, who is credited with preliminary Animaloid design. This was the first time I had ever seen any drawings from this early in the show’s development, and given the small amount of officially-published production materials in the fanbook and such, glimpses into the early phases of Teyandee’s development seem quite rare. So head on over to chinpui02′s Twitter and give him some likes and retweets! He deserves it!

[digitalshokunin]

ES Gokin Lineup at Wonder Festival 2019

Once again Action Toys’ ES Gokin lineup was on display at Wonder Festival this weekend. This time with one large new development: We finally have Sukashii in color! We also get to see one of his finished facial expressions, a wonderfully smug look that perfectly fits his character.

Yattarou, Nyagoking, Pururun and Sukashii were all on display with a release date of July 2019, meaning Yattarou and Nyagoking will seemingly be getting rereleases, welcome news for anyone who missed out previously.

Thanks to Dengeki Hobby for the photos.

[digitalshokunin]

Sorry, i heard there are two chapter of Comic Bom Bom has translated. But i only found chapter 2 on EE forum. I can't found chapter 1...

Chapter 1 was first released long ago along with an early fansubbing attempt of the first episode of the show, so it may no longer be available. I put it on Imgur here for anyone who’s interested: https://imgur.com/a/imZAUGA

[digitalshokunin]

Samurai Pizza Cats Official Fan Book: January 2019

Although it was first announced in 2016 and the scheduled release date has been delayed several times, Matt Moylan of Udon Entertainment confirms that their translation of this book is still scheduled for release, currently with an ETA of January of next year. He also confirms that Tatsunoko themselves have been helping out with some of the translation work.

[maridiayachtclub]

so these two giant evil robots that show up in the latter half of episode 6 of Samurai Pizza Cats are clearly a reference to something (in appearance, specifically) that I can only assume is very particular to Japan, like something like some ye olden Japanese equivalent to Abbot and Costello or whatever, and I wish I knew what it was because theirs is obviously an intentional likeness and i like finding out about the particulars of these things, but ‘who are those two big evil robots in episode 6 ‘singing samurai sensai-tion’  of samurai pizza cats supposed to resemble’ is kind of a weirdly specific thing to google. i mean i tried and it didn’t work and it’s not like the internet has a lot of notes on the minor cultural references in this old show

[digitalshokunin]

These two are based on the “Osome Brothers,” Somenosuke and Sometarou Ebiichi. They were known for their juggling and balancing acts, particularly the balancing of objects atop spinning umbrellas, just as the robots demonstrate in this episode. Also, in a manner somewhat comparable to Penn & Teller, the duo had something of a reputation for one member (Somenosuke) doing all the cool tricks while the other (Sometarou) mostly just commented. Hence the “That guy’s destroying the city! And that guy’s just standing around talking!” joke in the episode’s original Japanese script.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6dZFheWeUw

[digitalshokunin]

Ah... Sorry..I don't know why but 1 years ago i can't come in Edoropolis Emporiump. I thought the forum was not exist anymore but today i try to view webcatche and i see the forum still have new post. I try to come in but still useless. I love Edoropolis Emporiump so i wanna know what happening.

Yes, unfortunately Edoropolis Emporium seems to have been having technical problems for a while. With a database error rendering the forums essentially inaccessible, I’m not even sure how I would go about notifying one of the administrators about the problems. Activity had been very low there in recent times, but I still would hate to see it go down, especially with all of the knowledge that fans like Tigriss, Violet and Daisensei contributed there over the years.

[digitalshokunin]

When's that Polly Esther figure gonna be re-released and where can I pre-order it?

No word on release date yet. I’ll be sure to post about preorders once they open.

[digitalshokunin]

ES Gokin Pururun at Wonder Festival

After having been displayed unpainted at previous events, Pururun’s complete, painted ES Gokin figure prototype was finally shown at Fewture’s booth during this weekend’s Wonder Festival. All of her face parts were also on display, and it would appear that like Yattarou you will be able to mix and match the different eyes and mouths. She even includes one of her trademark heart shuriken. Sukashii was also on display, but still in an unpainted form. Looking forward to their releases, and I hope lots of other fans art as well!

[digitalshokunin]

Samurai Pizza Sliders

Arby’s official Twitter account, which has somewhat recently begun a campaign of ads featuring references to various pop culture media (including anime), usually in the form of papercraft props fashioned from food containers, recently posted this tweet. Their new Pizza Slider appears flanked by papercraft renditions of Speedy’s helmet and Magical Ginzu Swords, along with the appropriate theme song lyric: “Who do you call when you want some pepperoni?”

Even with the knowledge that Arby’s was engaging in this style of marketing, I certainly was not expecting them to reference Samurai Pizza Cats of all things! It’s a pleasant surprise, and the papercraft is very well-done, even down to the detail of the different hilts on the two swords.

[hey-rogby]

 one of my favourite things from samurai pizza cats is that they are fucking nosy

[digitalshokunin]

While I agree that how nosy the cats are is funny, I figured I’d take this opportunity to say that the line in the first pic there is another one that the Discotek translations sort of miss the point of. It should be something more like “Man, it’s been a while since we had a jidaigeki-ish plot!” Or if you wanted to avoid jargon, maybe something like “Man, it’s been a while since we’ve had a samurai drama sort of plot!” It’s supposed to be a genre-aware, lampshading kind of quip.

[digitalshokunin]

Samurai Pizza Cars?

From takfzy on Twitter. Apparently part of Aygo Motive’s “Lumicar” line. Several other Tatsunoko properties are also represented.

[digitalshokunin]

Hi. Recently found the site while looking at some stuff about KNT/SPC. I'm a fan of old school anime and I've always wanted to watch all of KNT's original japanese version subbed. I was disappointed when I heard the discotek release was really inaccurate/missing subtitles in some parts so I was happy when I found your site. Not only are your translations fantastic but I enjoy your blog as well. Are you still actively subbing it? Do you accept any donations to help the project?

Hi, thanks for the kind words! At the moment the project is on hold due to Discotek having seemingly started to improve their subtitles on an least some of the episodes available on Crunchyroll. I have wanted to get in touch with them to try and find out whether they intend on fixing the whole series, but I haven’t had any luck getting through yet, and work has been keeping me busy lately. I’ll continue to try to contact them and see what exactly they have in store, and as soon as I find out I’ll post about it here.

Since this is all just fan work, I wouldn’t feel right accepting donations (especially at this moment when I’m unsure of whether Discotek is continuing to work on fixing up their own subtitles or not), but I appreciate your support. You could maybe try to help spread word about the blog and its associated topics though, that would be great.

In the meantime, I’ll keep posting any interesting KNT/SPC material I come across. Maybe we’ll see colored prototypes of the Sukashii and Pururun ES Gokins at Wonder Festival this weekend.

[digitalshokunin]

More TV Magazine Art

Thanks to sousai_h on Twitter, we now have scans of a third Tenko artwork spread from TV Magazine at the time of the show’s run. Two others were previously posted by monzo12782.

[digitalshokunin]

ES Gokin Nyagoking Released

After several delays, it seems that the ES Gokin Nyagoking is now finally shipping. If you hadn’t preordered but think you might want one, now would be the time to order before supplies run out.

[digitalshokunin]

I know you haven't posted anything in a while, but will you still post production trivia about the anime since you're waiting on whether or not Discotek's going to fix the rest of the subs?

I do hope to post more miscellaneous stuff here, but it’s going to be pretty slow for various reasons. My job’s still keeping me busy, and I think I’ve posted most of the immediate and interesting trivia I can think of offhand. Maybe eventually I’ll go back through Tenko’s blog and collect the various tidbits he’s posted there over the years, there’s some interesting stuff there. I do also need to try and get in contact with Discotek again, it’s been a while since I last tried, but I still haven’t gotten a response.

At any rate I don’t plan on disappearing completely, so keep checking in every now and then.

[digitalshokunin]

Udon to Translate Official Fan Book

Udon Entertainment announced at San Diego Comic Con that they will be translating and rereleasing the Teyandee Official Fan Book that was released in Japan back in 2012, shortly after the DVD release. The initial Japanese printing is already going up in price and becoming harder to find, so this should be wonderful news for any fans of the show. I have a copy of the original release, and it’s full of interviews with many people who worked on various aspects of the show. I’m greatly looking forward to this release, and I hope lots of other fans are as well.

[digitalshokunin]

Is this project still in progress?

It’s been suspended for the time being, due to the possibility of Discotek improving their subtitles. I have yet to confirm exactly what they have planned but at least 6 of the episodes on Crunchyroll have had their subtitles greatly improved from the DVD release.