Let me introduce myself. Of course it is not my real name, but I go by the name 'Shir'.
I'm pretty sure that most people know me from my fansub work or from Henshin Justice Unlimited or Rangercrew.
When I was a child I enjoyed watching tokusatsu on French television. I woke up every Wednesday to watch my favourite shows. I can't believe there was a time I could wake up early just to watch television. The shows I was most found of were Liveman, Jetman and Spielvan. Who would have thought that those shows would change my life so drastically? It's really silly when I think about it.
One day Jetman got cancelled and replaced by MMPR. I still remember how shocked I was. In those days - yes, I feel old when writing this - there was no internet connection. If a show was cancelled on TV it just was impossible to access it. The years went by and I still couldn't forget about those Japanese shows I loved to watch as a child, I was really obsessed by it. I really wanted to see how that show called Jetman ended, and I would have killed to watch Liveman again. This was my reason to study Japanese.
Now, things have changed. I have become a translator, I have a computer and a internet connection. One of the things that hasn't changed is my love for those tokusatsu series I watched as a child.
It has been a windy road, but I found people with similar interests and we decided to start a fansub group. We decided to call it 'Grown Ups In Spandex'. We were looking for a silly name -and one that might stand out. We started off slowly but we are getting there. To be honest I never thought we could pull it off, I thought the group will die out within a few months, but we are still there.
I really enjoy working with these people on the shows I loved as a child and discovering new ones.
In this blog I would like to write about my opinions of certain shows or episodes and talk about some problems I encountered while translating some of them.
I'm Portuguese, and I can totally relate with your case. We had a few sentai shows around here, which were translated and subtitled based on the french versions, but with the actual original japanese voices instead. I remember watching both Turboranger and Jetman as a kid. Then the whole thing went down the drain, and they started airing Power Rangers instead (although I believe we actually got to see the ending of Jetman).
ReplyDeleteI remember thinking how soft and kid friendly MMPR seemed in comparison with the sentai shows, and even though I eventually grew to enjoy MMPR, I never forgot about the awesomeness of the original japanese shows, and the memories stuck with me until this day.
Now thanks to groups such as GUIS, I'm able to enjoy these great shows again. Keep up the good work, and good luck for the future!
Thanks a lot for all your hard work. Just like you, I'm french and I'm old and I used to watch Bioman, Spilvan and Liveman when I was a child. A few years ago, I discovered the Kamen Rider subs and I started get into Tokusatsu again. This year, I started watching Super Sentai shows and it's a real blast(I've watched Liveman and I'm currently watching Jetman). Thanks again for all your fansubs which bring back a bunch of good memories!
ReplyDeleteI might be old but I'm not french. I'm from Belgium.
DeleteBut we do share the same memories of Dorothee.