Hello everyone. I'm Fuko_Ibuki. We are happy to announce to you our new project with Wasurenai - "Hanaukyo Maid Tai", a 15 episode ecchi TV series about a ditzy guy getting himself a harem full of teenage maids that would do anything that he wants. But there's one problem. Our protagonist is allergic to girls. Well, that about sums up the entire plot. As for the release, the Blu-Ray discs were remastered in 1080i, and we found it pointless to do the 1080 version, so we settled down to do the 720 one. There will be no XviD ones or 8bit encodes of it. There are two audio tracks - the remastered 5.1 (set on default) and the old 2.0 one. The 5.1 was in DTS HDMA and the 2.0 in LPCM, so the release would be really big if we would left it out the way it was, so we decided to do AAC on both tracks. We'll try to release you more episodes with all our might. This is the 2001 original series that got BD releases this year. This one should go by pretty quickly. Brought to you by us and Wasurenai.
Hanaukyo Maid Tai - 01 720p 10bit x264
Hanaukyo Maid Tai - 01 720p 10bit x264 DDL
Hanaukyo Maid Tai - 01 480p xvid
Hanaukyo Maid Tai - 01 480p xvid DDL
Edit: Hold on...we might go ahead with xvids if needed... btw please welcome efaa. He's our newest Distro provider. He has a bot named XDCC|efaa that has the same releases that wasu|kite has. Please use and enjoy and thank him.
Edit 2: Xvids added.
Wow, suprise...
ReplyDeleteI like this anime, and now in Blu Ray...
Arigatou gozaimasu.... ^_^
This 15 episode series was already fansubbed, and I hardly think that a blurryray re-release would make a difference. If you release AVIs of this, I will check them out and perhaps you can change my mind. Though make the audio for them the 5.1 (it can be downmixed into MP3 properly if you just let the software do it).
ReplyDeleteBTW: Hanaukyou maid tai is just another way of saying "Hanaukyo Maids" plural. Please do not use "team" for the "tai" kanji in the title. While it can be intended to mean that, it's better just to use the translated title "The Hanaukyou Maids" and get it over with, since the "tai" kanji used is also intended to indicate a plural.
Now if someone would just translate the manga. Studio Ironcat did only 3, and even then the guy working on the last 2 was a fan translator who got "KONOWE"'s name wrong. I hope you guys get all the names right - I have books 4 to 11 in Japanese via a penpal. Konowe's name uses a rarely seen kana character. Just type it into JWP to check it.
And releasing this as 10bit ... Why this even exists when the source is 8-bit anyway...
Very few anime / manga titles get me riled up enough to express an opinion about it. This is one of those rarities.
Ok.
DeleteThe source was 1080i, but some scenes look clearly upscaled while other look remastered. And what's wrong with 10bit? We release it the way we like.
As for the title. The Japanese title is "Hanaukyo Maid Tai" while the english one (also in the original title) is "Maid in Hanaukyo". You can always rename the file name if you don't like it.
And as for the head security maid's name. I have the access to the official Hanaukyo Maid Tai artbook, and yeah, in katakana there her name is written "Konowe", BUT in the background there's "Konoe" written in romaji.
>This 15 episode series was already fansubbed
DeleteYes, some error-ridden fansubs on bitrate starved xvid-avi encodes were released a long time ago.
>I hardly think that a blurryray re-release would make a difference.
There's a huge difference in video quality. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
>If you release AVIs of this, I will check them out and perhaps you can change my mind.
Agree with you here. A 480p xvid-avi release of this BD would look leagues better than the current sub-par DVD fansub releases.
>Though make the audio for them the 5.1 (it can be downmixed into MP3 properly if you just let the software do it).
That seems a bit silly. The xvid-avi releases are for compatibility with older machines and hardware players, which would be unable to properly playback 5.1 audio.
>BTW: Hanaukyou maid tai is just another way of saying "Hanaukyo Maids" plural. Please do not use "team" for the "tai" kanji in the title. While it can be intended to mean that, it's better just to use the translated title "The Hanaukyou Maids" and get it over with, since the "tai" kanji used is also intended to indicate a plural.
The official English name for the series is "Hanaukyo Maid Team".
>And releasing this as 10bit ... Why this even exists when the source is 8-bit anyway...
Because it saves a bit more disk space and handles banding better than standard 8bit.
For the archaic "we" and "wi" characters, the "w" sound is typically dropped in modern Japanese anyway, so romanizing her name as "Konoe" is correct.
DeleteHow come they only made a 15-chapter anime out of a 14-volume manga?
ReplyDeleteThat question can only be answered by the anime director, studio and creator of the series.
DeleteAre these original translations, or based on the pre-existing subs?
ReplyDeleteAre these original translations, or based on the existing versions? I can give people the hookup on 8-bit SD h264 DVD-rip remuxes, if there's interest.
>Yes, some error-ridden fansubs on bitrate starved xvid-avi DVD encodes were released a long time ago.
Cheh, you crazy kids and your new-fangled XviD. When I watched this, it was on super-bitrate-starved DivX3 TV-rips released even longer ago. Of course, I watched it in 2008, so getting the TV version was semi-deliberate on my part...
based on amine-works subs but being overhauled and worked on...alot from the looks of it lol Get in the staff rooms already dammit! lol
DeleteAn awesome series, too bad it was dropped just when the story was goin to get better, there was a re-make to go with the manga and tie lose ends. Thank you, I will be waiting for the batch of this one later on, I grabbed the old version, but with this it becomes LQ. I also wait for the group to get around to finishing Lovely Complex, only 8 episodes to go so this group and Kira finish it.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone has any doubt concerning the visual quality of this BRD release, versus the old Anime-Works DVD release on BakaBT, here is a quick comparison of six frames, including from the opening and ending:
ReplyDeletehttp://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/49953
There, no more doubt. Just get it :3
Note there is significantly more horizontal content, but proportionally less new vertical content, with the same 4:3 display aspect ratio (unless there is some problem with my player, or some error from KS-W :p), so everything is much thinner. The DVD version did feel stretched horizontally, beyond the drawing style, but I now feel faces are sometimes a little too thin (plus it means *all* the boobs are smaller too...). It may be just because I switched a lot between the two versions though...
It is however easy to adjust the display aspect ratio to your taste, with any decent video player... (just google it if you don't know how).
If you want the DVD proportions, use something like 1.485 (it's not quite 1.5, I checked the pixels using boob distance...).
Personally, I think I'll use something like 1.37, so faces don't feel too thin... Hard to find the intended value, though, once you start messing with it :/ I couldn't find something large and seemingly intended to be square or of know specific proportions while seeking though the first two episodes... Maybe when we get to the computer room?
I haven't checked the subtitles for now.
For people who haven't seen this anime, it's a very sweet and fun old-school episodic ecchi anime. It's not perfect, but it's really nice.
It's much better than its 2004 "La Verite" remake (well, the first half is somewhat ok, but then they get to some uselessly heavy story with a very generic development... no idea if this is in the manga, but it was very annoying...).
I would definitely take larger files for such a nice series, to keep it in my reserve.
But thank you very much for this version, I look forward to seeing it in full :)
I tried ReinForce 720p raw, with 459MB for episode 1 (FLAC audio, but no 5.1 track), and the quality is pretty much the same, maybe even a bit worse in some places (and they have intermediary ghost frames not apparently present in KiteSeekers-Wasurenai version).
DeleteSilentDimka on Nyaa, however, uploaded a 1080p raw version (without intermediary ghost frames, apparently), with 642MB for episode 1 (ALAC lossless audio for the stereo track, AC3 for the 5.1 track), and I can clearly see tighter lines and less artifacts, although I suppose it's insignificant enough for most people. No idea if this could be achieved with 720p. And maybe it's just a scaling quality problem with my video player, for the 720p version...