Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Woah, are you saying Tezuka made an X-rated cartoon about Cleopatra?

Part of me is really surprised, part of me fails to be surprised by anything Tezuka did because he basically explored every possible genre.

Still, can't quite believe it...

Edit: poked around a bit, noted 'perceived outside of japan as a sex film'.

Make what you will of it (NOT WORK FRIENDLY):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qz6EBChGsI4

I've only seen the first half of Cleopatra, but it was much more playful than sexy, though still with sex. The really sensual one is "Belladonna" which doesn't have Tezuka's name on it but was made by Mushi-pro while he was running it and has a lot of his signatures in it. It's amazing:

I asked one of the sellers of this 3 dvd set to rate for me on a scale of 1 to 10 the quality of the subtitles. He said he would give them a rating of 5.

Really - nobody on this group has purchased this set?

David

I would purchase for Belladonna if I thought the subtitles were reasonable. My edition has no subtitles, but it is a beautiful film.

A while back I spent a few hours trying to find this set for sale, but I just couldn't find someone to ship it internationally. I'm tempted again now, even if the subtitles are gibberish, so if you wait a week or two I'll probably be able to give you a definite answer. Hopefully the video quality isn't too bad either, but who knows

My guess (looking at the online discussion of Belladonna) is that the subtitles are auto-translated from the Chinese, but are understandable for the most part with a bit of common sense. I wouldn't expect poetry though.

On a side note someone has also gone and cleaned up the subtitles (for Belladonna at least) and released them online, so you can always use that as a reference.

Great - will love to hear your report.
David

The set arrived yesterday, although I haven't had a chance to check out all of it. I've watched most of 1001 nights now, and while the subtitles are horrendous in their spelling and grammar, I've found it pretty easy to work out what (almost) every conversation is supposed to mean.

The video looks pretty good to my eyes and seems to be the correct aspect ratio, although unfortunately it's not anamorphically enhanced. It also started stuttering on my PS2 at one point, although the disk itself seems fine so it may just be my player - I'll have to do some further testing to find out.

So all in all it's a bit of a mixed bag. Hopefully later this week I'll have time to post examples of the translations etc to give people a better idea. My personal opinion is that I'm glad I have the set, as it makes following the action a lot easier - even if I'm still unable to judge the quality of the original script.