KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
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mbanu
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KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by mbanu »

A lot of fan memories mention them in passing; How many shows were subtitled by KIKU? Were any of them ever digitized? I know Dave has posted some screenshots before, so I'm hoping at least a few episodes are out there... I'd hate for such a significant part of fan history to succumb to tape rot. (^_^)

Still need to pick up Kikaida 01 for the bonus interview with Joanne Ninomiya on bringing anime to KIKU; I wonder if she realizes what a big role she played in creating American anime fandom...
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by runesaint »

I personally know that GE999, Hokuto no Ken, and Captain Harlock were. I also know that I no longer have the copies of those that I once did. I sometimes have...well, not exactly regret, but... something about the old tapes I used to have. I can still remember the commercials that showed up at the end of certain Saint Seiya episodes.. the "fields of wheat" commercial, the "kids and sorobon" commercial.. I mean, I have nowhere near the storage that I once did; in fact I am looking to lessen the volume of my belongings further ... and yet I just think about how things were.
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by davemerrill »

I know KIKU broadcast a LOT of Japanese television, but I don't know exactly which shows, and while I know a lot of Japanese TV shows were broadcast on UHF television in Hawaii and the mainland, I don't know if they were all done by KIKU or if the subtitles were done by other stations. The shows that I do know were subtitled were Raideen, Getter Robo, Captain Harlock, Cyborg 009, Gattaiger The Combo-Car, UFO Dai-apollon, Candy Candy, Galaxy Express, Battle Fever J, Kikaider (of course), and other live-action series.

Most of the episodes I have are barely watchable - the screencaps in my Let's Anime piece came from those tapes. Better-quality episodes would be great to see, if just for the ads & sponsors.
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by Drew_Sutton »

I first remember hearing about KIKU subs researching about Dragonball fansubs, as I guess KIKU aired some episodes of the first series and Dragonball Z, but those were back in the VHS days and like Dave mentioned, whatever tape copies I saw were pretty grainy and rough - not what I would expect from a UHF station in the 80s or 90s. I also remember hearing of a station broadcasting Yoroiden Samurai Troopers in Hawaii in 1989 (shortly after the series finished in Japan) in Japanese; it was either implied or believed that it was on KIKU and I don't recall the subtitle status of it. I just remember thinking how lucky they were to get untouched/subtitled anime on OTA television! I don't think anything KIKU aired was ever simultaneous broadcast as in Japan.

As far as digitized subs, I remember downloading a couple episodes of a show called Onsen e Ikou!, which was a drama series they aired that someone had recorded and uploaded. I think though, by that time, KIKU's line ups had changed and they were broadcasting subtitled Asian programming much more selectively and doing more locally produced programming while getting a raw downloaded from Japan and getting someone to subtitle it was probably about as time/resource intensive as getting already subtitled programming from KIKU (or other Hawaiian stations with Japanese language programming).
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by _D_ »

Some shows I know that were subbed:

DB/DBZ - all of DB and up to episode 104 (I believe) of DBZ were subbed. The rest were not
Dr. Slump - subbed
GeGeGe no Kitaro 1985 series - all of it was subbed
Chibi Mariko - not subbed

Live Tokusatsu series like many of the Kamen Rider series were all subbed. Chambara series like Kozure Ohkami (Lone Wolf and Cub) were all subbed. Horror anthology series Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari were subbed. Also, lots of other series. Oddly enough some stuff like comedy series were not subbed. Don't know why not.
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by _D_ »

I have subbed tapes of various series like Kamen Rider V3 and Kidaider from Hawaiian TV. But those are also out on DVD from this outfit:

https://generationkikaida.com/

I have to review my tapes though as Oceanic Pay TV broadcast a lot of stuff in Hawaii in the 80s and 90s. Would love to find out what as it was all subbed apparently...
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by _D_ »

Just noticed (via posted YouTube videos) that the TV version of Zatoichi was also subbed. It's a good series and very much in keeping with the spirit of the films. It also stars Shintaro Katsu who played Ichi in the films...
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by chimpoozle »

Years ago I downloaded copies of Battle Fever J someone put online that were ripped from KIKU-TV tapes. I probably still have them, or the files may still be out there online somewhere. What's interesting about these broadcasts is that a handful of the early episodes are the original version with Ushio Kenji as the villain Commander Hedder. He was later replaced with another actor and completely removed from the series, meaning they re-filmed his scenes with the new guy and spliced them in to previous episodes for the re-broadcasts. That's the version you get if you buy the show on DVD in Japan. I don't know anywhere else to see footage of the original actor besides those old KIKU broadcasts.
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by Drew_Sutton »

I wonder what was the difference (or reason) for the re-cast in Battle Fighter J? Wiki isn't clear as there appear to be two actors simulaneously for the first few episodes, then the other actor for the remainder of the show? I wonder if it as simple as JN Productions (who did the subbed version for KIKU) got the wrong tapes after broadcast, or was their broadcast close enough to the original broadcast or before the re-cuts?

I'd really like to do a lot more in depth research on KIKU.
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chimpoozle
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Re: KIKU's "Hawaii subs"

Post by chimpoozle »

I just looked up the answer to what happened on the Japanese wikipedia page.

The original actor, Kenji Ushio, resigned after he was arrested on suspicion of drug possession. Masashi Ishibashi, who was supposed to only have a guest appearance in episode 4, was rushed in to replace him. He had previously played the villain in JAKQ Dengekitai.

Because Ushio was arrested so early on in the series (the first week of March; The show premiered in early February) local stations in some regions hadn't begun broadcasting the series yet. To avoid offending them, they decided to cut Ushio out of the episodes that had already aired in other regions wherever possible, and replace him with Ishibashi. The article says he was replaced on the master copies for storage, and the remaining early film footage with Ushio has degraded and gotten lost over time.

When I watched the series years ago I remember noting that he mostly hung around at the enemy base and it would be very easy to re-film his scenes and swap them out without affecting the rest of the episode. It seems, though, there were also some slight cuts to scenes where he was present with other actors in the shots.

Anyway, based on this, it sounds like KIKU-TV was airing Battle Fever J simultaneously, or very soon after, the Japanese broadcast, since Kenji Ushio was replaced within a month of the premiere.

This is really contributing to some thoughts that have been on my mind recently on the relationship between Japan and piracy-as-media-preservation. As is the case with so many other examples out of Japan, these original cuts only survive to be seen by the public because of Western piracy. But that's another topic for another time and another thread.
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