November 18, 2025 • 20 mins
Mike talks with cultural critic Dan Schindel and Lyle Zanca of GKids to discuss Mamoru Oshii’s 1985 anime film, Angel’s Egg (AKA Tenshi no Tamago), a gorgeous lyrical film about spiritualism and redemption. The film has been recently restored and given a 4K scan that will be screened across the U.S. starting November 19, 2025.
Check local listings and be on the lookout for the upcoming Blu-Ray release.
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Check local listings and be on the lookout for the upcoming Blu-Ray release.
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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Adam Spiegelan, the host of my second favorite
movie podcast called Proudly Resent at Proudly Resents dot com.
And you are listening to my favorite the number one,
the Rejection Booth. Mike puts so much work into it.
If you listen to my show, I put no work
into it. Enjoy the rest of the show, you lucky
son of a gun.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Come on, come you tato.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
You read so here?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Hey, folks, welome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am
talking with Lyle Zanka. He's the director of assets and
Technology over at G Kids, along with cultural critic Dan Chindell.
All about Angel's Egg. It is a nineteen eighty five
anime film from director Memoro Oshi, and it is touring
(01:36):
the country currently in a new restoration opening at a
lot of theaters wide, and it will be coming to
four K blu Ray pretty soon as well, so keep
an eye out for that. Thank you so much for listening,
and I hope you enjoy this interview.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Lyle.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I want to start with you if I could then
tell me a little bit more about you and your
role at G Kids.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Over G Kids I'm basically and charge of all of
our technical and what we call post production, basically handling
the internal lab services as we.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Like to call them.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
For all of our distribution. There is something we do
in house which I think is a little bit unique
to us, but I basically oversee that, which can range
from simply taking things we get from Japan, localizing them
and distribute them to doing brand new four K uprises
and things like that. We do quite a lot over here.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I mean it sounds like with this Angel Sag brand
it was a little bit of both, right, They restored
it in Japan and then do you localize to hear.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, so the restoration was done entirely in Japan with
the trektors overseeing it, but here our main role in
that whole process was to localize it, which includes a
brand new, never before done the English dub of the film,
which you know, despite its seventy something lines of dialogue,
was something we felt was really important for us to
(03:01):
do to get as many eyes on this film as possible,
and as part of that dub, we also replicated what
they did in Japan as this will be in Adobe Cinema.
We did like Adobe Atmos mix of that doves as well.
There's parody there between Japan and the US.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Do you know from your Japanese counterparts how the print
looked when they started the restoration of this.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I don't have a ton of insight into exactly what
that looked like. We're in the process right now of
actually going through some quite a lot of interview footage
that they had recorded between either music director or a
mono himself having some discussions about what that process looked like.
One of our localization managers here was actually explained to
me she speaks Japanese as I don't, but she was
(03:46):
watching that through before we've had it subtitled. I was
doing a little bit of explaining about what that process
looked like, and it sounded very interesting. But from what
she said, it sounded like they almost had to go
back and take everything apart and remake some things. I think,
especially with the music, I think there was a lot
of work involved in having to recreate that to modern
quality standards. But having seen the print and done the
(04:09):
Dolby Vision QC of those DCPs and everything, it looks
absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
When was the first time you actually saw Angel sag
and what did you think.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
In its entirety. The first time I saw it was
when we acquired it as g Kids. I've been aware
of its existence for quite a long time. I think
it's had a long infamous history as something very famous
on things like Tumblr that people just loved the aesthetic
of I would post online without ever having really seen it,
(04:40):
considering it didn't really have a release outside of the
United States, but as a big fan of a Mono
and his artwork as one of my favorite artists ever
since I joined Kids a little over five years ago,
I was like, we have to acquire this film. I
felt very lucky that they chose to do a four
K restoration of this and that we were able to
acquire it and give it the real attention it deserves
and get it in front of as many people as possible,
(05:02):
and especially in doing this Dolby Cinema released to me
was really exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And then, yeah, same question for you.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So I first saw Angel's Egg in college, and the
way I saw it was the same way but I
saw most anime at that time, which is fat I
went to one of many pirate sites that existed where
you could easily stream films like that. I could not
tell you how I first heard of it, especially back
(05:31):
in those days. I say as if it was a
bat long ago. But it is remarkable, like how in
a relatively short amount of time, like the mainstreaming of
anime has made it much more accessible and like much
more broadly recognized, and like to me, Bad Landscape is
like almost completely changed from when I was younger. It
(05:51):
was much more niche and everyone learned about different titles,
different shows, different movies, certain ways. I might have learned
about angel ZGG for first sign from like reading about
it on TV tropes and thinking that sounds interesting, and
that's how it was passed along for most of the
forty years that's been since it came out, because it
(06:13):
didn't get, as we know, a proper release in the States,
but because there's always been a very dedicated audience for
anime in the States, there's always been a robust bootleg market.
So it started out with like bootlegs, and then with
the Internet as that became more sophisticated, you could see
it by a stream or via torrents. And I guess
(06:37):
that another thing that has changed is that in more
recent years, like people lost for recipes for how to
Torent properly. But yeah, now we've it's finally available to
see an allegitimate manner, and I still haven't been able
to catch it on big screen. There was a few
years ago much Valiehood screening at Japan Society here in
(06:57):
New York, which a'mno is actually present for which I
would have been incredible, but I was out of town
when it happened. So I'm really thrilled that this is
happening and that so many more people can now not
just discover Angel's Egg, but also see it in a
non bootleg form in crisp sound and video.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
What's kind of your relationship with this film?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It's interesting I was changed over time. When I saw it,
I was like nineteen or twenty, so a lot of
the symbolism just went over my head and I just
had the wow, Dan, that's crazy reaction to it, which
I think is a big part of its reputation too.
It's one of the more notorious Wow this movie is
so weird and so inscrutable, what does it mean? It
(07:42):
has that kind of reputation and that's definitely how I
reacted to it when I was much younger, But then
as I've come back to it over years. It I
couldn't say for sure, but oh, I have the explanation
for Angel Egg. What means absolutely you know, it's obvious, no,
but it does certain thinkings resonate for me, especially that
(08:03):
when I saw it in college, I was going to
a Christian college. I was raised Christian, I was Christian
at the time, and then since then I now agnostic.
And so going back to Angel's Egg with that amount
of religious symbolism in it, I am changing my own
perspective on faith. Has been really interesting. It's definitely led
to and resonating with me more.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Hopefully you'll be in a little bit of luck because
I was at that Japan Society screening that Amano was
at and it was recorded, and we are hoping to
actually put that together into a nice Blu Ray bonus feature,
so hopefully you'll get to experience that one day.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's awesome. What is the next steps with this? Now
that the restoration is done, Now that the dub has
been done, the upmost is complete. Where are you going
from there with this? Lyle?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Once our theatrical run, we have some special'll be screenings
in advance, and then our wider release I think the
week after, and then from there, I think the next
step will be its streaming debut on HBO Max, which
I think is really exciting, which is part of a
larger deal that we've done with them to release like
lots of different movies. And then after that, as soon
(09:13):
as we can get it to market, we'll have a
couple different skews of Blu rays coming out for people
to purchase, and I think once I've got that in
my hands, I'll feel like the cycle is complete in that,
like my desire to acquire this film and get it
in front of people, having a physical product I think
will be really exciting.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Is there a normal process for you when it comes
to some of these releases that you're doing, or is
it always a little bit different and you just have
to roll with punches.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Every film is different every release. We try to give
it the attention it deserves, release it in a way
that makes sense for what it is. But I think
one of the things we always think is extremely important
is giving films a really good deserve theatrical release. There's
very few instances where we acquire a film and it
goes direct to streaming or anything. Like that, so I
(10:03):
think at its core that's something that Ji Kids has
always believed in. It is giving films a proper theatrical
release and physical releases as well, but usually given our
relationship with Japan, it's usually theatrical comes first so we
can release it as close to when they are as possible,
and then the process of creating a Blu ray can
take quite a while, so we'll try to get that
(10:23):
out as soon as we can.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
We can take some time now. Daniel mentioned his reading
out of the film, and I want to get back
into that definitely. But what's your take on it? When
you see this is what's your worst shock test when
it comes to Angels Egg.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, I think what I first saw it, I agree
with what Daniel was saying, is that you see it
and you're just like wow. That was something I really
don't know what to make of that There's so much
symbolism and imagery going on. But having watched it half
a dozen times or more in the last six months,
just during the process of getting this ready for release,
(10:58):
I think my views on it have did quite a lot.
But I do think it's one of those films where
you can take almost anything you want from it. Like
Daniel was saying, I think a lot of people take
the interpretation of the loss of faith based I think
partially on some things that Oshe himself has maybe said
in the past, but I think also just the dichotomy
(11:19):
between the two main characters, how different they are and
how differently they see the world, I think is a
really you can almost apply that to a lot of
different things in life and see it that way. But
when I look at the film, I do see it.
It's like this back and forth between the two main characters,
where the one has a lot of hope for the
(11:40):
future and the one is very skeptical and cynical and
would rather know the truth than just blindly hope that
things will get better or this egg will hatch to
something beautiful. He'd rather just learn the truth now. And
I think that's really interesting, and I think you can
take away what's beautiful about the film is that you
can really just take from it something unique. Almost every
(12:03):
time I see it, I find something new that I
can apply it to.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
It is a very dialectical film, pulling equally from like
Beckett and Tarkovsky, with these just two characters, And yeah,
I think that the evolving perception and evolving reaction to
it fits into that dialogue film itself, especially if it's good,
will resonate in different ways, and then its continued exhibition
(12:31):
and dispersion creates new dialogue over time. And with a
film as rich in symbolism and as open ter interpretation
as this, that means that there's a lot different avenues
for conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
What leads to a lot of its history and its
long term but small scale fame amongst the specific communities.
Is just like how hard it was to get the
fact that even in Japan when this film was released,
it was really straight to home video. I know, oh
she has talked about in the past it prevented him
from getting any work because it was so poorly received.
(13:04):
So seeing it come back around forty years later and
having all this interest around it, having so many people
discussing it wanting to see it, it permitted at New
York Film Festival, and I think the audience reaction to
that was really positive. People had a lot of great
things to say, were really intrigued by it. So to
see that basic one eighty of this direct to home
(13:25):
video Japanese release of a film it involved two of
the like profound creators in Oshi and Mono, just like
collaborating on something like this to see it like come
full circle and get a proper theatrical release in Japan,
get a proper theatrical release here in the US, it'll
get true home video Blu ray release, It'll go on
streaming like it's really getting I feel like it's moment
(13:47):
that it really deserved. But so many people only knew
about it because they either heard about it and had
to torrent it, or they saw random gifts on Tumblr
that just people really liked the aesthetic of it, but
really did know the full story of the film. I'm
really happy to see where it's come.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
How much of the dubbing process were you a part of?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Our localization manager really oversees that, and we do work
with a studio call NAIV who did the dub. They
do a lot of our dubs in terms of my involvement,
and that was really just making sure they had the
assets they needed, making sure they do the specs, making
sure they were making the Dolby atmost versions so we
could have parody, but really creatively because of my own
(14:30):
interest in the film and my own passion for it.
I was having the person managing our dubs need the
casting selects and options and things. I gave a little
bit of feedback and read through the dub script and
gave some feedback just because I felt passionate about it.
But it's not my traditional role. I just wanted to
involve myself as much as I could.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Dan when you saw this, did you see it? Subtitle dubbed?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Part of the restition of bootlegging anime is the restridition
of fan subs. I think that someone could do a
really interesting study in translation through comparing different versions of
fan subs over the years, especially with also official subs,
because anime fans, I don't know if you might have noticed,
but they're very opinionated on many subjects, and especially on
(15:17):
copper translation. That was actually one of the earliest ways
that I was introduced to translation philosophy without even thinking
about or being conscious of. It was the different ways
that different fan translators with subtitle things. You get the
ones that are more literal, the ones that are trying
to be more poetic, the ones that think, oh out
of the translate this part because it's well known, like
(15:38):
how honorifics work or whatever. And yeah, every stream of
an anime on the English language website would have of
course come with the fan translated subs, and often they
would insurge themselves into the credit sequences, just so you
know who to properly pay tribute to for helping making
that accessible to you.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
As what a freelance culture writer in Brooklyn, what do
you working out.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Of these days? I write about a lot of things,
not just film able it is mostly what I cover,
but also I've written about art, theater, television, video games.
I recently was part of a really wonderful retrospective of
Hideo Kojima's video games for the website Reverse Shots, covering
the deaf stranding games for them. Continuing the theme of like
(16:25):
Japanese films, I'm writing about the upcoming not it's been
out in Japan, but like it's coming out here and
stay soon Kokuho, which is notable because it has become
the second highest grossing live action Japanese film at the
Japanese box office and has actually led to a resurgence
in the interest in kabuki in Japan. So it's very
(16:47):
interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And Lole, I know that, you know, the road of
Angels Zega is not over by any means. But I
don't imagine you are a one project at a time
type of person. What else are you working out of
these days?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We're working on definitely a lot of different things. I
think most notably, we have a couple of films coming
out very shortly great segue, but Cocoho is another film
that we're actually really seeing as Jikids delves into a
little bit more of the live action space. So Cocoho is,
you know, as Daniel was saying, like a really popular
(17:20):
film in Japan, so we're trying to give it as
much attention here in the States as we possibly can.
It's a really beautiful film, so that's really exciting. And
we've got another film believe just came out in theaters
but called Little Omily or The Character of Rain, which
is another really beautiful film. It's actually like a French
(17:41):
Japanese co production. Really another beautiful film. But yeah, I mean,
we've got probably twenty plus movies in the works at
any given time, so Angels is definitely far from the
only thing we're working on.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I look forward to hearing what the next one is
because it's always a tree talking with you guys. I
love what kids is up to. So thank you so
much for your time today. Gentlemen, this is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Yep, thanks again for having me on
This is Adam Spiegelan, the host of my second favorite
movie podcast called Proudly Resent at Proudly Resents dot com.
And you are listening to my favorite the number one,
the Rejection Booth. Mike puts so much work into it.
If you listen to my show, I put no work
into it. Enjoy the rest of the show, you lucky
son of a gun.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Come on, come you tato.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
You read so here?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Hey, folks, welome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am
talking with Lyle Zanka. He's the director of assets and
Technology over at G Kids, along with cultural critic Dan Chindell.
All about Angel's Egg. It is a nineteen eighty five
anime film from director Memoro Oshi, and it is touring
(01:36):
the country currently in a new restoration opening at a
lot of theaters wide, and it will be coming to
four K blu Ray pretty soon as well, so keep
an eye out for that. Thank you so much for listening,
and I hope you enjoy this interview.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Lyle.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I want to start with you if I could then
tell me a little bit more about you and your
role at G Kids.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Over G Kids I'm basically and charge of all of
our technical and what we call post production, basically handling
the internal lab services as we.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Like to call them.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
For all of our distribution. There is something we do
in house which I think is a little bit unique
to us, but I basically oversee that, which can range
from simply taking things we get from Japan, localizing them
and distribute them to doing brand new four K uprises
and things like that. We do quite a lot over here.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I mean it sounds like with this Angel Sag brand
it was a little bit of both, right, They restored
it in Japan and then do you localize to hear.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, so the restoration was done entirely in Japan with
the trektors overseeing it, but here our main role in
that whole process was to localize it, which includes a
brand new, never before done the English dub of the film,
which you know, despite its seventy something lines of dialogue,
was something we felt was really important for us to
(03:01):
do to get as many eyes on this film as possible,
and as part of that dub, we also replicated what
they did in Japan as this will be in Adobe Cinema.
We did like Adobe Atmos mix of that doves as well.
There's parody there between Japan and the US.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Do you know from your Japanese counterparts how the print
looked when they started the restoration of this.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I don't have a ton of insight into exactly what
that looked like. We're in the process right now of
actually going through some quite a lot of interview footage
that they had recorded between either music director or a
mono himself having some discussions about what that process looked like.
One of our localization managers here was actually explained to
me she speaks Japanese as I don't, but she was
(03:46):
watching that through before we've had it subtitled. I was
doing a little bit of explaining about what that process
looked like, and it sounded very interesting. But from what
she said, it sounded like they almost had to go
back and take everything apart and remake some things. I think,
especially with the music, I think there was a lot
of work involved in having to recreate that to modern
quality standards. But having seen the print and done the
(04:09):
Dolby Vision QC of those DCPs and everything, it looks
absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
When was the first time you actually saw Angel sag
and what did you think.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
In its entirety. The first time I saw it was
when we acquired it as g Kids. I've been aware
of its existence for quite a long time. I think
it's had a long infamous history as something very famous
on things like Tumblr that people just loved the aesthetic
of I would post online without ever having really seen it,
(04:40):
considering it didn't really have a release outside of the
United States, but as a big fan of a Mono
and his artwork as one of my favorite artists ever
since I joined Kids a little over five years ago,
I was like, we have to acquire this film. I
felt very lucky that they chose to do a four
K restoration of this and that we were able to
acquire it and give it the real attention it deserves
and get it in front of as many people as possible,
(05:02):
and especially in doing this Dolby Cinema released to me
was really exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And then, yeah, same question for you.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
So I first saw Angel's Egg in college, and the
way I saw it was the same way but I
saw most anime at that time, which is fat I
went to one of many pirate sites that existed where
you could easily stream films like that. I could not
tell you how I first heard of it, especially back
(05:31):
in those days. I say as if it was a
bat long ago. But it is remarkable, like how in
a relatively short amount of time, like the mainstreaming of
anime has made it much more accessible and like much
more broadly recognized, and like to me, Bad Landscape is
like almost completely changed from when I was younger. It
(05:51):
was much more niche and everyone learned about different titles,
different shows, different movies, certain ways. I might have learned
about angel ZGG for first sign from like reading about
it on TV tropes and thinking that sounds interesting, and
that's how it was passed along for most of the
forty years that's been since it came out, because it
(06:13):
didn't get, as we know, a proper release in the States,
but because there's always been a very dedicated audience for
anime in the States, there's always been a robust bootleg market.
So it started out with like bootlegs, and then with
the Internet as that became more sophisticated, you could see
it by a stream or via torrents. And I guess
(06:37):
that another thing that has changed is that in more
recent years, like people lost for recipes for how to
Torent properly. But yeah, now we've it's finally available to
see an allegitimate manner, and I still haven't been able
to catch it on big screen. There was a few
years ago much Valiehood screening at Japan Society here in
(06:57):
New York, which a'mno is actually present for which I
would have been incredible, but I was out of town
when it happened. So I'm really thrilled that this is
happening and that so many more people can now not
just discover Angel's Egg, but also see it in a
non bootleg form in crisp sound and video.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
What's kind of your relationship with this film?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It's interesting I was changed over time. When I saw it,
I was like nineteen or twenty, so a lot of
the symbolism just went over my head and I just
had the wow, Dan, that's crazy reaction to it, which
I think is a big part of its reputation too.
It's one of the more notorious Wow this movie is
so weird and so inscrutable, what does it mean? It
(07:42):
has that kind of reputation and that's definitely how I
reacted to it when I was much younger, But then
as I've come back to it over years. It I
couldn't say for sure, but oh, I have the explanation
for Angel Egg. What means absolutely you know, it's obvious, no,
but it does certain thinkings resonate for me, especially that
(08:03):
when I saw it in college, I was going to
a Christian college. I was raised Christian, I was Christian
at the time, and then since then I now agnostic.
And so going back to Angel's Egg with that amount
of religious symbolism in it, I am changing my own
perspective on faith. Has been really interesting. It's definitely led
to and resonating with me more.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Hopefully you'll be in a little bit of luck because
I was at that Japan Society screening that Amano was
at and it was recorded, and we are hoping to
actually put that together into a nice Blu Ray bonus feature,
so hopefully you'll get to experience that one day.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's awesome. What is the next steps with this? Now
that the restoration is done, Now that the dub has
been done, the upmost is complete. Where are you going
from there with this? Lyle?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Once our theatrical run, we have some special'll be screenings
in advance, and then our wider release I think the
week after, and then from there, I think the next
step will be its streaming debut on HBO Max, which
I think is really exciting, which is part of a
larger deal that we've done with them to release like
lots of different movies. And then after that, as soon
(09:13):
as we can get it to market, we'll have a
couple different skews of Blu rays coming out for people
to purchase, and I think once I've got that in
my hands, I'll feel like the cycle is complete in that,
like my desire to acquire this film and get it
in front of people, having a physical product I think
will be really exciting.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Is there a normal process for you when it comes
to some of these releases that you're doing, or is
it always a little bit different and you just have
to roll with punches.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Every film is different every release. We try to give
it the attention it deserves, release it in a way
that makes sense for what it is. But I think
one of the things we always think is extremely important
is giving films a really good deserve theatrical release. There's
very few instances where we acquire a film and it
goes direct to streaming or anything. Like that, so I
(10:03):
think at its core that's something that Ji Kids has
always believed in. It is giving films a proper theatrical
release and physical releases as well, but usually given our
relationship with Japan, it's usually theatrical comes first so we
can release it as close to when they are as possible,
and then the process of creating a Blu ray can
take quite a while, so we'll try to get that
(10:23):
out as soon as we can.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
We can take some time now. Daniel mentioned his reading
out of the film, and I want to get back
into that definitely. But what's your take on it? When
you see this is what's your worst shock test when
it comes to Angels Egg.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, I think what I first saw it, I agree
with what Daniel was saying, is that you see it
and you're just like wow. That was something I really
don't know what to make of that There's so much
symbolism and imagery going on. But having watched it half
a dozen times or more in the last six months,
just during the process of getting this ready for release,
(10:58):
I think my views on it have did quite a lot.
But I do think it's one of those films where
you can take almost anything you want from it. Like
Daniel was saying, I think a lot of people take
the interpretation of the loss of faith based I think
partially on some things that Oshe himself has maybe said
in the past, but I think also just the dichotomy
(11:19):
between the two main characters, how different they are and
how differently they see the world, I think is a
really you can almost apply that to a lot of
different things in life and see it that way. But
when I look at the film, I do see it.
It's like this back and forth between the two main characters,
where the one has a lot of hope for the
(11:40):
future and the one is very skeptical and cynical and
would rather know the truth than just blindly hope that
things will get better or this egg will hatch to
something beautiful. He'd rather just learn the truth now. And
I think that's really interesting, and I think you can
take away what's beautiful about the film is that you
can really just take from it something unique. Almost every
(12:03):
time I see it, I find something new that I
can apply it to.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
It is a very dialectical film, pulling equally from like
Beckett and Tarkovsky, with these just two characters, And yeah,
I think that the evolving perception and evolving reaction to
it fits into that dialogue film itself, especially if it's good,
will resonate in different ways, and then its continued exhibition
(12:31):
and dispersion creates new dialogue over time. And with a
film as rich in symbolism and as open ter interpretation
as this, that means that there's a lot different avenues
for conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
What leads to a lot of its history and its
long term but small scale fame amongst the specific communities.
Is just like how hard it was to get the
fact that even in Japan when this film was released,
it was really straight to home video. I know, oh
she has talked about in the past it prevented him
from getting any work because it was so poorly received.
(13:04):
So seeing it come back around forty years later and
having all this interest around it, having so many people
discussing it wanting to see it, it permitted at New
York Film Festival, and I think the audience reaction to
that was really positive. People had a lot of great
things to say, were really intrigued by it. So to
see that basic one eighty of this direct to home
(13:25):
video Japanese release of a film it involved two of
the like profound creators in Oshi and Mono, just like
collaborating on something like this to see it like come
full circle and get a proper theatrical release in Japan,
get a proper theatrical release here in the US, it'll
get true home video Blu ray release, It'll go on
streaming like it's really getting I feel like it's moment
(13:47):
that it really deserved. But so many people only knew
about it because they either heard about it and had
to torrent it, or they saw random gifts on Tumblr
that just people really liked the aesthetic of it, but
really did know the full story of the film. I'm
really happy to see where it's come.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
How much of the dubbing process were you a part of?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Our localization manager really oversees that, and we do work
with a studio call NAIV who did the dub. They
do a lot of our dubs in terms of my involvement,
and that was really just making sure they had the
assets they needed, making sure they do the specs, making
sure they were making the Dolby atmost versions so we
could have parody, but really creatively because of my own
(14:30):
interest in the film and my own passion for it.
I was having the person managing our dubs need the
casting selects and options and things. I gave a little
bit of feedback and read through the dub script and
gave some feedback just because I felt passionate about it.
But it's not my traditional role. I just wanted to
involve myself as much as I could.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Dan when you saw this, did you see it? Subtitle dubbed?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Part of the restition of bootlegging anime is the restridition
of fan subs. I think that someone could do a
really interesting study in translation through comparing different versions of
fan subs over the years, especially with also official subs,
because anime fans, I don't know if you might have noticed,
but they're very opinionated on many subjects, and especially on
(15:17):
copper translation. That was actually one of the earliest ways
that I was introduced to translation philosophy without even thinking
about or being conscious of. It was the different ways
that different fan translators with subtitle things. You get the
ones that are more literal, the ones that are trying
to be more poetic, the ones that think, oh out
of the translate this part because it's well known, like
(15:38):
how honorifics work or whatever. And yeah, every stream of
an anime on the English language website would have of
course come with the fan translated subs, and often they
would insurge themselves into the credit sequences, just so you
know who to properly pay tribute to for helping making
that accessible to you.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
As what a freelance culture writer in Brooklyn, what do
you working out.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Of these days? I write about a lot of things,
not just film able it is mostly what I cover,
but also I've written about art, theater, television, video games.
I recently was part of a really wonderful retrospective of
Hideo Kojima's video games for the website Reverse Shots, covering
the deaf stranding games for them. Continuing the theme of like
(16:25):
Japanese films, I'm writing about the upcoming not it's been
out in Japan, but like it's coming out here and
stay soon Kokuho, which is notable because it has become
the second highest grossing live action Japanese film at the
Japanese box office and has actually led to a resurgence
in the interest in kabuki in Japan. So it's very
(16:47):
interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And Lole, I know that, you know, the road of
Angels Zega is not over by any means. But I
don't imagine you are a one project at a time
type of person. What else are you working out of
these days?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We're working on definitely a lot of different things. I
think most notably, we have a couple of films coming
out very shortly great segue, but Cocoho is another film
that we're actually really seeing as Jikids delves into a
little bit more of the live action space. So Cocoho is,
you know, as Daniel was saying, like a really popular
(17:20):
film in Japan, so we're trying to give it as
much attention here in the States as we possibly can.
It's a really beautiful film, so that's really exciting. And
we've got another film believe just came out in theaters
but called Little Omily or The Character of Rain, which
is another really beautiful film. It's actually like a French
(17:41):
Japanese co production. Really another beautiful film. But yeah, I mean,
we've got probably twenty plus movies in the works at
any given time, so Angels is definitely far from the
only thing we're working on.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I look forward to hearing what the next one is
because it's always a tree talking with you guys. I
love what kids is up to. So thank you so
much for your time today. Gentlemen, this is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Yep, thanks again for having me on
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