#gokaido

[szkin-art]

Gokaido's Volcano design is a nightmarish support unit that uses a variety of thermal weapons to suppress armor and deny infantry. Using weaponry from USSR nations, it provides a cheap supplement to any force - with the caveat that fielding it inevitably proves controversial.

Another mech design commission for the Metallurgent TTRPG.

[odessasilver]

How I pick my story locations

Story locations are always a tricky part of story idea forming, especially when you are based in the real world. Japan is a country with many different sceneries from warm beaches to mountains to snow. Many of my stories are located up and down the country but how do I choose where each one will be? Are there places I won’t go at all?

There are two ways I approach a story idea, one is that something in particular inspires me, and I build around it, and the location is a part of that. The other is I find an idea and location can almost be anywhere, so I’m free to mentally wander up and down the country until it feels right. However, I know that none of my stories will be located in the far south islands of Japan, such as Okinawa. I know there is a different dialect this far south, even with different words such as haisai for hello instead of konnichiwa. These words ground characters into their surroundings, and I don’t know enough about them, or the difference in Okinawan culture to do it justice.

The same goes for Hokkaido, which is where the indigenous Ainu people of Japan live. During the 1800s (the end of the timeframe I am writing in) there were many atrocities against these people, including forced assimilation with Japanese people and cultural genocide. This sort of topic would require a lot of research and knowledge I might not be able to find, and feels out of the scope of what I can do. It would be lovely to write about the Ainu people sometime in the future, however, if I’m able to learn enough.

So, when choosing a location, I stay within the bulk of Japan, from Aomori prefecture in the north, to Kagoshima prefecture in the south.

With many of my stories, I have a vague idea of the scenery around. Such as with The Cry of the Raijuu, I placed it in a village in the forest. I knew the city wasn’t too far away and that it was a moderately warm climate. So I looked on Japan’s map and searched for a similar area, and realised that Hirotoshi’s village was somewhere in Nara prefecture.

For One, Two, Three I realised that the town was quite prosperous and I looked into towns which bloomed along the five routes (gokaido), that linked cities together. Many used it to travel, and rested at towns along the way, and many towns grew from the wealth.

The same went for any stories where farming was mentioned, I researched into which prefectures did the most farming, even down to what they farmed, and tried to get it as accurate as possible.

When it came to writing Tanuki Troubles, I could have located it anywhere, as tanuki are known throughout the whole country, however I picked Nigata prefecture as it is where the most tanuki lore is from. I initially wanted to locate them on Sado Island (which is off the coast of Nigata prefecture) where a tanuki shrine can be found, but I found it limiting for my characters exploration. Sado Island is known for the tanuki lore of Danzaburou, a very mischievous tanuki who controlled hundreds of tanuki which ganged up to play with humans. However, Danzaburou was also kind and lent out money to those in need interest-free. With such a huge character already known on the island, I felt like I couldn’t not have him in the story, but he also didn’t fit in mine. So the easiest thing to do was relocate to mainland Nigata instead.

Of all my locations, the one which has surprised me the most is that Broken Waves is set in Kanagawa prefecture. I was looking at all the things I mentioned in my first draft, the sea, the fields, the mountain, and matched it up to farming prefectures. And then I realised Kanagawa fit perfectly. Which would make the mountain in my story Mount Fuji. As soon as I realised this, I loved it so much, as my favourite piece of artwork is Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, and laughed at the possibility in my alternate world that Susnaoo’s wave could have inspired it.

Three of my stories had a more concrete location which I had to build on; Beneath Tsukuyomi, Survival, and Lonely Waters. The former came about while I wrote a short piece about where Hotaka was before the events, and researched into the prefectures where the Takeda clan inhabited. After that, it was easier to figure out where the location was.

For Survival, I was inspired by the Akita and Gifu festival and chose the latter area to locate the story, as it wasn’t too far from where Beneath Tsukuyomi was. For this story, the location didn’t matter as much as trying to keep the festival accurate, as different prefectures have different festivals.

Most recently I wrote Lonely Waters which includes kappa. They are water yokai known for loving rivers and lakes, so for this story I started with the location as my research. I chose Lake Inawashiro which is the fourth largest lake in Japan, and easily home to many kappa without detection, and then built the town around the information I found.

Of the two types, I prefer to find the story then work out where in Japan it is located as I find it fun. I like to compare the feel of my story in my head with ones I have written and what I know, and slowly home in on the rough area where you’d find my characters, living their lives. One day I’ll have a map of all the locations and you can see how well I’ve done.

[magpiejay1234]

Today's reveal is Master of Ham, an EARTH Beast Fusion that supports Flip monsters.

This card has a bit of a lore in it:

**This card is the Fusion retrain of Bubonic Vermin, known in Japanese as Death Hamster. Correct localization would have been Des Hamster.

***So it is technically a part of Hayato's theme, even though he never used the card.

**This card's stats are the half of Master of Oz, including its Level, 5, which is the half of 9 (Master of Oz's Level), rounded up.

**This card has Jim's outfit, alongside a sword that is reminiscent of Legendary Sword, likely as an allusion to Houzan Gokaido (Warrior SD guy Manjoume dueled against).

***This is likely because Hayato, and Jim both have an Australia theming.

****This card supports Flip monsters, since Hayato's monsters are mostly Flip monsters, and most of the early-GX/late-DM Rock monsters were also Flip monsters.

**This card is similar to Animadorned Archosaur, which was a Johan/Kenzan combo. It is also similar to Mokey Mokey Adrift, introduced in Power of the Elements, the previous GX main set.

***This card also alludes to the fact that Master of Oz, in the animé, was a combination of Des Kangaroo, given by Sho, and Giant Koala.

*****

This card's slot is 40, which means there will be one more Fusion, but Synchros begin with the new White Aura Synchro.

(Also Japanese wiki corrected I:P Masquerena support's slot, thank God.)

So there likely won't be any future animé legacy Synchros, and Visas Synchros seem unlikely.

Tomorrow should be a Spell, and Sunday should be a Trap.

Edit: I forgot Master of Oz was the Fusion with Giant Koala, not Des Koala. It has been corrected.

Edit 2: Full list of "Des" Beast monsters are:

**Bubonic Vermin (Japanese name: Des Hamster)

**Des Koala

**Des Kangaroo

**Des Wombat

**Creepy Coney (Japanese name: Des Usagi)

**Desmanian Devil

Creepy Coney is also a Flip monster, so it benefits from this card.

[evasionsrebelles]

Nakasendo

Le Nakasendo est une ancienne route reliant Kyoto à Edo (aujourd'hui Tokyo) qui a commencé à prendre forme vers le 7ème siècle. #japon #voyage #tourisme #culture #evasion #kyoto #tokyo #nakasendo

Le Nakasendo est une ancienne route reliant Kyoto à Edo (aujourd'hui Tokyo) qui a commencé à prendre forme vers le 7ème siècle. Dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle, le shogunat Tokugawa, le gouvernement central de l'époque, en fit l'un des Gokaido (ou cinq grands axes routiers) qui étaient sous son contrôle direct et qui rayonnaient d'Edo, le centre du gouvernement jusqu'au reste du pays. Le…

[kaiowut99]

brb laughing at this professionally done 4Kids edit

[yuriiakai]

Discovering Japan - Gokaido, la strada per Edo

Tutte le strade portano a Roma si dice qui da noi, ricordando l'efficienza e la vastità dello sviluppo stradale in epoca romana; di certo il Giappone antico non reggerebbe il confronto, eppure anche nel passato del Sol Levante troviamo strade importanti. Cinque, per la precisione.

Se siete appassionati di escursioni o volete avventurarvi per itinerari meno battuti rispetto alle mete giapponesi più famose, prendete carta e penna e segnatevi questi nomi, non ve ne pentirete!

Pronti? Partiamo!

Disclaimer: le immagine sono tutte prese da internet e dei rispettivi proprietari.

Discovering Japan - Gokaido, la strada per Edo

Innanzitutto un po’ di storia: Edo era l'antico nome dell'odierna Tokyo e significava “estuario”, o anche “ingresso della baia”; dapprima piccolo villaggio e poi centro militare, divenne la più grande città del Giappone sotto lo shogunato di Tokugawa Ieyasu. Questo periodo storico prende il nome di “periodo Tokugawa” o “periodo Edo” (1603 - 1868).

Anche se si dovette aspettare il 1867 affinché Edo divenisse la capitale ufficiale con il nuovo nome di Tokyo (“capitale orientale”), rappresentava comunque il cuore del Paese e la potenza militare. Una volta assunto il controllo del Giappone, Tokugawa iniziò la costruzione del Gokaido (五街道, “le cinque strade”), un sistema viario che gli permetteva di tenere sotto controllo tutto il territorio grazie alle numerose stazioni di posta. Il punto di partenza delle strade era Nihonbashi, oggi quartiere commerciale di Tokyo.

Vediamo assieme queste famigerate strade una per una!

1) Tokaido (��海道, “via del mar orientale”), 488 km.

La più famosa e trafficata dell'epoca, la Tokaido si estendeva lungo la costa e arrivava fino a Kyoto. I viaggiatori andavano a piedi o si facevano trasportare in una portantina chiamata “kago” (non ridete) e le donne non potevano viaggiare da sole. Come accennato prima, c'erano delle stazioni di posta su tutta la rete e la Tokaido ne contava cinquantatré: qui i viaggiatori potevano mangiare, comprare provviste e riposarsi durante il viaggio. Vi erano poi anche le stazioni di controllo, dove si doveva esibire il permesso di viaggio per poter proseguire. L'opera più famosa che riguarda questa strada è la raccolta di illustrazioni del maestro di ukiyo-e Hiroshige, “le cinquantatré stazioni della Tokaido”.

Oggigiorno rimane la strada più trafficata del Giappone e da il nome alla linea shinkansen che va da Tokyo a Shin-Osaka.

2) Nakasendo (中山道, “la via in mezzo alle montagne”), 534 km.

Meno battuta rispetto alla prima e con ben sessantanove stazioni, condivideva con essa il punto di arrivo (Kyoto), passando però per le montagne. La Tokaido era più veloce, ma si dovevano attraversare diversi fiumi ed era più pericolosa, perciò si preferiva la Nakasendo per far viaggiare donne e bambini.

Ad oggi è uno degli itinerari più amati dagli escursionisti, grazie alla bellezza della natura circostante e dei villaggi tradizionali che si attraversano; la zona più bella è quella della valle di Kiso, famosa anche per il cibo. Qui si possono poi visitare alcune antiche stazioni di posta come Magome e Tsumago.

3) Koshu Kaido (甲州街道, “la via del Koshu”), 225 km.

Koshu era il vecchio nome dell'odierna prefettura di Yamanashi; questa via era stata voluta da Tokugawa come eventuale via di fuga in caso di un attacco nemico. Avete presente Shinjuku, la città che non dorme mai? Ebbene, i kanji che ne compongono il nome significano “nuova locanda”: era infatti la prima stazione di posta che si poteva incontrare lungo la Koshu Kaido dopo aver lasciato Nihonbashi. Qui vivevano le guardie di Tokugawa che avevano il compito di aiutarlo nella fuga in caso di pericolo. Dopo le sue quarantaquattro stazioni, la Koshu Kaido si congiungeva con la Nakasendo nella prefettura di Nagano. Oggi corrisponde alla strada nazionale numero 20.

4) Oshu Kaido (奥州街道, “la via dell'Oshu”), 183 km.

Anche Oshu era l'antico nome di una prefettura, precisamente quella di Fukushima. Unica tra le vie della Gokaido a portare verso Nord, la Oshu Kaido era attraversata principalmente da magistrati e daimyo del Tohoku che si spostavano per il sankin kotai, o “presenza alternata”: per ordine dello shogun,  i signori feudali dovevano costruire una casa nella capitale e abitarci un anno, per poi tornare nelle proprie terre per un altro anno mentre i loro famigliari rimanevano a Edo. Un modo molto efficace per controllare i proprio sudditi! Con lo sviluppo della parte a Nord del Giappone e l'apertura al commercio con la Russia, la via divenne più trafficata e divenne quella che oggi corrisponde alla strada nazionale numero 4. Vi sorgevano ventisette stazioni.

5) Nikko Kaido (日光街道, “la via di Nikko”), 146 km.

Con le sue ventuno stazioni, di cui diciassette in comune con la Oshu Kaido, la Nikko Kaido era la più corta tra le cinque strade; fu voluta da Tokugawa per arrivare più facilmente al Santuario, ancora oggi uno dei più belli e famosi in tutto il Giappone. La Nikko Kaido è percorribile ancora oggi, magari partendo dalla città di Utsunomiya, prefettura di Tochigi.

E con questo per oggi è tutto, miei cari lettori! Vi chiedo scusa per la lunga attesa (dovuta ad impegni di lavoro e problemi di salute), vi prometto di organizzarmi meglio per scrivere più spesso.

Alla prossima!

[daddyzarc]

Dub: No time, no place, no names, not even an event—you just wander around until you find two weirdos in some dark alleyway doing fucks knows what

[gaikokujin-blog]

“Sur la route du Tokaido” au musée Guimet

Cette exposition est consacrée au Tokaido : “la route de la mer de l’est”, qui est l’une des 5 (Gokaido) grandes voies de circulation au Japon à l’époque d’Edo. Ce que nous percevons aujourd’hui comme un itinéraire pittoresque (une route avec vue qui longe la mer entre Kyoto et Edo / Tokyo) est en fait un itinéraire à la fois stratégique et politique à l’époque d’Edo ; une route obligée pour les militaires et les daimyos qui doivent résider une année sur deux à Edo en y laissant leur famille. On parcourt ainsi régulièrement la route, qui fait 500 KM, à pied, à cheval, ou en palanquin, entre Edo, capitale du shogunat et Kyoto, restée capitale de l’empereur. En franchissant 53 stations : chaque étape mesurait donc une dizaine de km.

L’exposition présente d’une part un très bel album du Tokaido (avec les estampes de divers artistes) ayant appartenu à Victor Segalen (acquisition récente), et d’autre part un jeu complet des “53 stations du Tokaido / Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi” par Utagawa Hiroshige, issu de la collection de Jerzy Lescowicz. Les 53 stations font en fait 55 estampes : les 53 lieux + le départ & l’arrivée.

En voici quelques images, avec les limites des reflets et du faible éclairage...

En premier l’album de Victor Segalen ; ensuite les 53 stations.

Noter la vision littéralement “photographique” de certaines estampes : le choix d’un détail au premier plan qui donne un fort effet de perspective.

Pour en savoir plus : 

L’exposition à Guimet

Le Tokaido

Les 53 stations d’Hiroshige

Le début de l’album de Segalen. La vision “photographique” de l’estampe

Le détail des Geta

brochette et moustache

vision photographique

les geta à l’extérieur du palanquin.

Tsuki no matsu : le pin de la lune. Associé à la pleine lune, c’est un symbole de bon augure. IL est représenté par Hiroshige dans ses 100 vues d’Edo.

vision photographique

Le départ : Nihonbashi (le pont) dont le nom figure dans le cartouche. C’est l’aube, la rue appartient aux marchands et aux chiens, on prête à peine attention au daimyo qui va franchir le pont avec sa suite...

Mishima : asagiri, la brume matinale.

Totsuka : l’embranchement de motomachi (motomachi betsudo) ; hommes et chevaux ont des sandales de paille

De droite à gauche : Tokaido, les 53 stations / le lieu : Yoshiwara : la scène dans le cartouche rouge : Hidari Fuji : le Fuji vu sur la gauche. Puis la signature de Hiroshige.

Kameyama (le château de la tortue) / yukibare (éclaircie après la neige)

Hakone : Kosuizu, vue du lac. Les personnages escaladent la montagne sur la droite.

Goyu : tabibito tome-onna , les femmes qui arrêtent les voyageurs.

Shono : l’averse.

L’arrivée : Keishi (la capitale), Sanjo o hashi, le pont de la 3è avenue.

[with-eyes-unclouded]

中山道

Nakasendo Highway、

Nagano Prefecture

The Nakasendo Highway was one of the Gokaido (the five main roads leading to and from Tokyo during the Edo Period of Japanese history - the Tōkaidō, Nakasendo, Nikko Kaido, Oshu Kaido and Koshu Kaido)

The Tōkaidō, along the Pacific Coast, was the busiest route as it was the most direct and was mainly flat. Unlike the coastal Tōkaidō, the Nakasendo traveled inland, hence its name, which can be translated as "中 = central; 山 = mountain; 道 = route" (as opposed to the Tōkaidō, which roughly meant "eastern sea route"). Because it was such a well-developed road, many famous persons, including the haiku master Matsuo Bashō, traveled the road. Many people preferred traveling along the Nakasendo because it did not require travelers to ford any rivers and thus was considered less dangerous - many daimyo sent their wives and families on this longer, but safer inland highway.

The Nakasendo was originally constructed on the Chinese model in the Nara Period in the 8th century. By the beginning of the Edo period in the early 17th century, the Nakasendo stretched 534km from Sanjo Bridge in Kyoto to Nihonbashi in Edo (present-day Tokyo).

Our day hike was from Magome to Tsumago. We took a train from Matsumoto to Nagiso Station, then a bus from Nagiso Station to Magome, then walked/hiked over Magome Pass to Tsumago (about 2-3 hours), and then took the train back to Matsumoto for the night . The trail was gorgeous!

[theabcsofjustice]

Aww, that’s so sweet! I knew you secretly liked them deep down. :)

But yeah, it’s pretty arrogant of Gokaido to think that he’s top dog just for being the best in middle school and that no one could ever be better than him. Manjoume had to learn the hard way how wrong that viewpoint is to hold.

[kaiowut99]

GX 54 (WIP): Reaching for the Star

So, it’s been a bit since the last time I posted about this poster, but we’re making some great headway here! First off, I’d like to give @paradoxi-kay a huge shout-out and round of applause for their time and effort in blanking the original poster’s “Star Duel” text and recreating the background so that I could go ahead and add in my translation (I blanked the name bubbles beforehand, and repainted things to Gokaido’s left and Manjoume’s right to “unblur” those parts--more on this in a bit).  It’s been a bit, but always a pleasure, Kay! 🙏🏽🔥🙏🏽

So, I used TrebuchetMS for the names’ font, and since the “Star Duel” text there originally seems like the font they use for the episode title cards, I applied the font I use for the translated ones, tweaked to match the look here more.  I’m actually really digging how it came out! I was torn between “A Star-Finding Duel” and “A Star-Finder Duel,” but ultimately settled on the former since I’d already called it that in 53′s preview for 54.

Now, comes the fun part--and the reason why I wanted to “unblur” the name bubbles and the sides of the poster (Kay also “unblurred” the star): recreating the panning shot.  See, in Chronos’s flashback where this shows up, not only is it a shot panning from the bottom to the top of the poster, but there’s also that huge Gaussian Blur (or is it radial, hmm) surrounding the frame.  The pan itself shouldn’t be hard, but I’m hoping it won’t be too hard to redo the frame blur in Vegas, while also kind of reducing the blur as Gokaido and Manjoume come into view, since they’re already blurred and I don’t want to make them even more blurred, lol.  Fingers crossed!

Of course, after that, I have more fun lined up: this poster shows up three other times in Chronos’s flashback from different angles: two while it’s lying on his desk, and a third as he’s holding it and pulling it into the frame as he gestures in front of it.  I’m thinking for the first two, I can just lie this down and redo the frame blur on top of it, while for this third angle, I think I’ll have to make use of the Corner Pin in After Effects (actually, I’ll probably need the Corner Pin for the first two, too), and then recreate the frame blur... [sorry, thinking out loud lol]

But the good news is that while I gave Kay time to edit the poster, I finished finalizing the subs for 54 proper! (I also worked on 2-3 card fixes before that involving Gokaido’s Ben Kei.) So, plan is once I get these edits done, I’ll put everything together and quality-check the whole thing.  Meanwhile, I’ll put out a few photosets here/there to start teasing the final product, so stay tuned~

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episode 54 Subbed (Finalized)

Thunder VS Mr. Elite! Mecha Ojama King Takes Off

Manjoume duels Gokaido, an elite new student who claimed the highest grades of his class at the Academia’s middle school.  The new student calls Manjoume a “slacker,” noting how he once sat at the top of the middle school but has since fallen, now using Ojama Monsters in the Red dorm.  Manjoume uses his XYZ combo for a cool preemptive strike, but finds himself counterattacked by his Warrior-Type deck and his Gilford the Legend.  However, an unperturbed Manjoume, in a show of what he’s learned the past year, uses his Mecha Ojama King...

Two episodes into Season 2, and we have a duel with Manjoume essentially looking at his early-Season 1 self in the mirror! It’s a pretty neat episode, given that--even if there are strong ad vibes for the Warrior Structure Deck that had been about to be released back in 2006, lol.  Though it was neat seeing Ben Kei and the Equip Magic combo in use with Gokaido (that scene as he brings out Gilford is a favorite since it uses “The Rival’s Onslaught” really well), as was Manjoume’s interesting Ojama combo evolution with the Mecha... mechanic, which sadly has yet to be released.  Maybe Duel Links’ll throw us a Mecha Ojama King bone at some point...

So, I’d actually finished editing the script for this episode maybe two weeks ago, but part of the delay in releasing it is that I also wanted to translate the Gokaido/Manjoume poster in Chronos’s flashback--and on that note, I really can’t thank @paradoxi-kay (formerly thepalebride) enough for their time and effort over a few days in wiping the text so that I could slap my translation onto it. 🙏🏽  I’ll elaborate a bit more on that below the cut, as I go into the edits.  There were also two card fixes I applied, Ben Kei related, and I also translated the “Currently Under Construction” sign Manjoume stands in front of at the end.  More details below. (EDIT, 2021: One new fix applied that I missed before, listed in bold under the cut below!)

Enjoy, folks! To make up for a little lost time, I think I’ll actually jump onto 55 next and get that out of the way before I go handle 5D’s Dub-Uncut #27 a little more (I’m also trying to see what can be done on that front with the two unreleased OST pieces that I’d like to keep, but we’ll see); keep an eye out~

Fixes/Edits!

So, these first five will be related to the aforementioned poster in Chronos’s flashback.  Edits 1-3 and 5 were done once the poster as stitched from the video in edit 4 was translated.  I’ve included a link to a quick clip showing off these edits in the Episode Post linked above.

As Chronos is playing his “fortune-telling of love” with Ed while he tells us how the Gokaido/Manjoume duel came about, the Gokaido/Manjoume poster is sitting on Samejima’s his desk.  After the full poster was translated, I first used the CC Power Pin effect in AfterEffects to “pin” the translated poster on top of the original one and applying its perspective; once that was saved, I threw it into Sony Vegas, where I first duplicated the layer with the re-postered clip, applied a Radial Blur to the bottom layer while applying a feathered mask on the top one to just keep the middle of the frame (this had the effect of keeping the unblurred center above the blurred edges).  I then added a layer and threw in the original video, masking most of the frame so that the blur from the original video overrode the excess blur from my effect.  Lastly, in a new layer, I copied the original video and masked out the right side of the desk chair, mirrored it, and moved it in place on the left side--this was to put it on top of the extra blur coming from the translated poster to make it less out of place.

As Chronos quickly gets over Ed’s “rejecting” him (lol), he runs over to his desk, but the video frame is the exact same as in edit 1.  So, once I completed that one, all I really had to do was mask in much of the frame as Chronos runs over, adding additional masks for his jacket and arms/hands hitting the table.

Chronos next holds up the poster to show Napoleon; to insert my translated poster, I Power-Pinned it to the original one for the frames where he’s lifting it, until it stops moving.  At that point, the shot zooms out for a good few frames before it sits still the rest of the shot, so once I exported the English poster in place, I went into Sony Vegas and repeated edit 1 process-wise: I had two layers with this new clip--one getting the Radial Blur to blur the poster as it’s lifted from the flashback border, and the other getting a center mask to keep the center of the frame unblurred.  Closing this one out, I also added additional masks from the original video to put Chronos’s thumb back over the top of the poster, and to restore the original clip’s flashback border blur.

This one was relatively easy considering the rest here, lol.  Immediately after this, the screen pans along the poster so we get a big close-up.  First, I roughly stitched together the panning shot and blanked the names while smoothing out the roughness around where the frames were stitched from different points in the pan (since the poster was moving, so was the text’s radial blur along the edges).  Then, @paradoxi-kay worked to blank the rest of the text by recreating the poster’s dynamic background in Photoshop, after which I went and slapped some text on there; here’s the finished result which I manipulated for the other shots.  Once this was done, I first redid the panning shot in Vegas and saved that, and then reimported it and did the two-layer trick from before: one with the Radial Blur, one with a center mask to keep the center unblurred.

After Napoleon is in shock at his plan’s odds of success (for a guy who lacks “impossible” in his dictionary, he sure is skeptical...), Chronos pulls the poster back a bit as he wags his finger at him.  This one was a doozy... So, first, AfterEffects/Power-Pinning the poster was key, and I Power-Pinned it for the frames the poster moves.  Once done, I went into Sony Vegas, where I first threw in the frames I’d edited and saved, then reimported that and did the two-layer blur/mask trick.  After that, I added a new layer with the original video, from which I masked most of the frame, but also Chronos’s finger as it wags in front of the poster and his thumb on the poster. *breathes out*

New in 2021, after Chronos pins his hopes on Manjoume, as Gokaido draws for his turn, we see an error where his Disk apparently partially vanishes for two movement frames--it seems the animation staff forgot to put the background layer behind his Disk there or something, lol.  I fixed this by actually filling in the rest of his Disk in Photoshop for those two frames, first by filling in the Disk itself and then painting on the rest of the Monster Zone at the edge of the frame, and then just added them to the video in Vegas.

After Gokaido summons Armed Samurai -- Ben Kei, he activates the effect of his Divine Sword -- Phoenix Blade in his Cemetery--but he doesn’t have the Ben Kei he just summoned on his Disk! This was simple to fix; as it’s a zoom-out shot, I used a frame where his fourth Monster Zone was more visible and slapped on a Ben Kei proxy in AfterEffects, after which I went into Vegas, put Velocity on that frame to zero and expanded it for the duration of the zoom starting when the card would first be visible as I re-zoomed the frame, eventually applying a mask on the card.  I also put the card in a few quick frames as he moves his Disk, in one using two layers to maintain the shading on that Zone.

As Manjoume’s seemingly foolish Ojamachine Yellow attack gets Gokaido cocky, the Ben Kei on his Disk is... in Defense Mode? I just used AfterEffects to slap on my proxy for the frames in which he moves his Disk.

After Shou warns Judai about Napoleon’s plan to dismantle Red, the two are startled by construction sounds! Manjoume stands outside watching his men get to work on his own stylish room, in front of an “Under Construction” sign that I translated for the hardsub (as “Currently Under Construction” to fill in the space well).  I stitched the panning shot there together, then applied the translation, and then redid the panning shot in Vegas.  Sure is nice they skimped out on the animation budget by leaving his men motionless...

Judai ponders if they’re really coming for Red, and we have a zoom-out shot of the Red dorm to end the episode.  For the hardsub, I also translated the “Currently Under Construction” sign by using the first frame of the shot, applying the translation, and then redoing the zoom in Vegas.  I then created an empty black-color event and custom faded it out to black.

Have I mentioned how much I love this show? 😬😅💙

[kaiowut99]

GX 54 WIP - A Star-Finding Duel!

So, much as I’ve stocked up on my Photoshop skills to this point, I’m having a bit of trouble trying to blank out this poster; content-aware doesn’t seem to be doing the job, at least through the low-skilled way I’m attempting to use it haha.  I’d selected much of the Star Duel text area, but it’d still somehow throw in Manjoume and Gokaido... Also, the dub’s edit of this poster had their replacement blanking too blurred for some reason lol.

Would someone be willing to assist in getting this blanked? I’d really just need the whole Star Duel text area blanked along with the exclamation point on the right and kanji on the left caught up in the blur; if you’re able to replicate the background well, that’d be great.  But if you’re able to blank out Manjoume’s and Gokaido’s names and fully color in their name boxes to redo them over where I stitched the frames together, that’d be much appreciated too! (I was thinking mirroring the non-blurred part of the boxes and moving them into place along the edge...) 

I can handle the text translation after that’s taken care of.  The best thing to do would be to edit it such that any of the blur’s not there wherever the text is (the blur on Manjoume and Gokaido can stay); when the thing’s done and I’m redoing the pan along the poster, I should be able to add the blur back in in Sony Vegas.  Thanks in advance!

Once this poster’s finished, I think I can probably try to slap it into the other shots it comes up in during Chronos’s flashback via perspective Vanishing Point or other manipulation, but we’ll see when I get there, lol.

[kaiowut99]

The Gang Freaks Out Over a Cell Phone

Judai and the others are now in their second year when a quiet freshman comes to duel Judai.  While the freshman’s deck wasn’t all too powerful, it was also an improvised 40-card deck hastily made beforehand out of eight packs in the store.  But even then, Archangel Zerato gets Judai’s LP down to 1200.  Mid-duel, he speaks with a mysterious man on his cell phone, feeling a lack of interest in this duel due to his prediction.  Shou and the others realize this is the well-known Star Duelist Ed Phoenix...

And after a bit too long, here’s finalized!53! It’s fun to finally be getting back into Season 2, since, later plot pacing issues and... questionable moments aside, there’s quite a bit to like about it.  One such thing being the dynamic between Ed and Saiou that we’re introduced to here (one of my favorites), as the concept of fate/destiny starts to become an ever-present theme.  Also, hearing Takehito Koyasu again for a while will be great now that I’ve actually seen JJBA and heard him as DIO. 😂 The animation/artstyle in this episode is also a nice touch-up from what we’ve been used to, and there were some great shots of Judai and Ed there.

So, part of the delay in getting this going since finishing 52 was getting my usual bells and whistles worked on for the translated hardsub; you’ll notice that the OP is fully translated, and not just with the credits--I wanted to do a thing I originally wanted to do way back when my first go-around but lacked the skills for and translate the character names that slide in! If you check out my “subbing-rambling” tag, you can see some of the work-in-progress posts I made showing it off as I worked on it.  As part of this, I also prepared textless versions of the OP’s V2 shots of Chronos and Ed, as well as made Shou in his Red jacket textless for use here; I’ll be sharing these new textless openings as I go through the season over on NAC. (It’s really a shame that we never got those versions officially released...) The ED credits were pretty much copy/paste from Season 1, with a change in karaoke coloring, since thankfully that stays the same, and I’ll also be translating the “Best Card” shots at the end of each episode (which for some reason I noticed Crunchyroll doesn’t include, despite them being on the DVDs?), though on a static screen with the card spinning into view since that moving background’s hard to get blank, lol.

But once those were all done, there were some 53-specific edits and fixes to work on! For the hardsub, I translated the article we see about Ed so that we can read what was visible in Japanese (ie, Ed making waves in August just before Season 2 at an event Kaiba Corp. sponsored!), while I also made a few card fixes.  Breakdown below the cut, as usual.

(UPDATE [7/9/20]: I reuploaded the episode because I realized I didn’t account for the different cards Shou has in his deck shot in the Opening in 53-56 vs 57-104; Gyroid, Cyclone, and Trap Hole in the former become Submarineroid, Vehicroid Connection Zone, and No Entry in the latter (all used in 56), which is what was used in the textless video I was working with while working on translating his name there.  That’s been corrected, and will be accounted for as I share the textless OPs on NAC.  I’m nothing if not consistency-minded. 💁🏽‍♂️)

Enjoy, folks! With 53 finalized, I’ll be giving my 5D’s Dub-Uncut Ep. 26 a quick lookover to see if I have to tweak anything before I work on making the Dark Signer arc episodes’ dubs more bearable, and then I’ll start working on 54.  It’s been a bit since Manjoume last dueled, and him dueling his mini-me in Gokaido should be fun, haha.

Fixes/Edits!

For the hardsub, as Chronos pulls out his issue of Monthly Duel!, I translated 月編 on it to “October” in Photoshop and spliced it in; this was an edit I’d already done for 52′s hardsub since it shows up in the preview for 53.

For the hardsub, the page Chronos has Napoleon stare at has been translated! The original text was vertical but I thought it’d make more sense to translate it horizontally for us; as such, I moved the text on the right about the “Exclusive” on the “Young Duelist Prodigy” to be above Ed’s photo, which I moved a bit more to the right to compensate.  I also added a little “journalistic” fluff to the translation I’d whipped up to make it fit well both on and off-screen, since I wasn’t going to be filling the whole thing with just “On August 7th, KaibaCorp sponsored a Dueling World League” lol.  But definitely made sure to keep the spirit and keep visible those little tidbits like the KaibaCorp nod and the date telling us when Ed started making waves that were visible in the Japanese text.  I did that editing in Photoshop for both this shot and the later shot with Shou’s copy of the magazine, but I warped the text in this one a little to match the slight page warp that Ed’s photo had going.  After that, I redid the zoom in Sony Vegas.  The text is also slightly blurred here since it was like that for the Japanese text.

Later in the episode, after the commercial break, we come back to a pan/zoom-out from Sanctuary in the Sky to Judai’s field, where we see Clay Guardman has his card facing the wrong way compared to where we see it in every other shot after.  I made a proxy for it, though it was a bit tough since we never get a good look at its card (thankfully, the card artwork was put up on the YGO site).  Though the dubified card confirmed for the Wikia that he has zero ATK and, like with Neo Bubbleman, shared the same Level as Clayman.  So, as I made a proxy, I recreated the Japanese effect text mirroring what Neo Bubbleman’s was and mentioning the burn effect as close to the game terms as possible--getting this in the end! Once I did that, I took a frame and placed it in in AfterEffects, masking in Clay Guardman’s feet over it, then took it into Sony Vegas, where I redid the zoom-out as it came into view.

Later on, after Judai explains Tempester’s effect, his face-down card goes away to activate it, but in that shot, Tempester’s not on Judai’s Disk! I made a new Tempester proxy (since here Tempester’s officially using the OCG art/text at the time), then slapped it on in AfterEffects (taking a cue from the dub about where to place it on his Disk).  Thankfully, since Judai stood still here, that’s all it took, lol.

After the duel, Shou realizes who Ed was all along! He rummages through his bag and pulls out his copy of Monthly Duel! and opens it up; like with Chronos’s, for the hardsub, I took it into Photoshop and recreated the color scheme to blot out 月編 and put “October” over it for the nine frames it moves in, then I just put each frame into the video in Sony Vegas.

As with earlier, for the hardsub, the article Shou shows everyone about Ed is translated, only with no text warp and slightly different rotation, so a little more of the text is visible on the left and bottom.  Recreated the less-rotation/more-zoom zoom-in on Ed’s photo in Sony Vegas.

As Judai thinks that Ed could use some more deck-building skills, Shou’s still holding up the magazine; “October” is there to translate 10月編 again, but because the “Monthly” in that shot of the magazine is inconsistent with its other appearances in the episode (we’ve seen it in black with white bordering, but here it’s just white text, along with the black 10月編  also being in white), I redid that as well in Photoshop so it matched.  I’ll be including just the “Monthly” fix in the Japanese DVDRip I’ll release on NAC.

[theabcsofjustice]

I love how Manjoume just doesn’t give a crap about any of the insults that Gokaido is hurling at him. He’s completely confident in his own abilities and trusts his deck to come through for him. It’s nice to see him dueling against a reflection of what he used to be to remind us of how far he’s come.

[theabcsofjustice]

Rofl, wow he drew almost nothing but magic and trap cards, just like Ed last episode. XD At least he can make use of them by discarding them though.

Gokaido seems really surprised by Ojamagic, so he’s probably heard of the Ojamas before. He just wasn’t expecting Manjoume to be using them.