From Mega Anon
Here we are at last. It's been 6 months since we started this show, yet it feels like only yesterday. For that very first release, I posted a picture of the book that opens up before the opening of every episode. Now here I am, posting the final page from that book. The last chapter from the fantasy story that is Zyuranger.
Zyuranger was my very first Sentai and it's always held a special place in my heart. To be able to fansub it and share it with other people has been nothing short of amazing. Before we started this project, people didn't hold Zyuranger in very high regards. I'd see blog posts, and forum posts, and 4chan threads about how bad Zyuranger supposedly was. When we started off, it felt like we were the only 3 who really loved this show. Of course we weren't, and those opinions will never die, but since we've started this project I've seen a lot of praise for Zyuranger and that just makes me smile. It was a lot of fun releasing this every week. I loved reading people's responses to the show. Every Monday, I'd get a little bit anxious until Lynxara handed me the script, and not once did I grow tired of it. It never felt like a chore that I had to do. It was fun the whole way through, and a total labor of love from all of us.
Now, I'd to thank all the great people at GUIS for letting us do this show under their name, and being total bros. BunnyHat, thank you for the raws, they're beautiful. Of course, I have to mention Kou and Lynxara. Without them, Zyuranger would still be unsubbed. Lynxara thinks I give her more credit than she deserves, but she really held this project together and was a great person to bounce ideas off of. Lynx, you were always there to answer my questions no matter how stupid they were. You were also the one who first asked me to to work on this project, and for that you get my eternal thanks. Kou, you're an amazing translator, and one of the best I've ever seen. You have an amazing way with words and everything in your scripts felt just right. I'm extremely grateful that you decided to do Zyuranger, and I'm still amazed at how fast you could translate an episode. Someone on /m/ said that "I feel as if it was totally worth the wait", and I think that's totally because of your amazing translation. You two were a pure joy to work with. Here's to the future!
And, of course, I have to thank the people who watched this show. Every single one of you out there who decided to give this show a chance. If it was your first Sentai then, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and I hope you check out the other shows as well. If you're a long time fan, I hope you enjoyed it just as much. I've always thought that Zyuranger was a very special show, and I hope you all did too. If you're one of the people who watched this show, even for just a few episodes, and didn't like it, thank you. At least you gave it a shot, and that's all that matters. To the people who are about to watch it, you're in for a fun ride and I hope you enjoy where it takes you. For 49 release posts I've used this space to share my thoughts and opinions on the show. I think now it's time to let Kou and Lynxara share their thoughts as well.
Lynxara:
So I'd like to say that I got involved with the Zyuranger project because it was a favorite series of mine, but that's not the case. I first saw Zyuranger years ago, untranslated. When episodes circulated on VHS, it wasn't unusual for fans to put "key episodes" of a given show all on one tape. In the case of Zyuranger, there was a tape that did the rounds with a bunch of the major Dragonranger episodes on it.
Some shows are easy to enjoy even without translation. Zyuranger wasn't one of them. Watching the Burai saga out of context and with episodes skipped left me with a very "That's it?" impression of the show. I proceeded to spend years thinking it must be mediocre or bad. When I got involved in the subbing project, it was mainly because I saw an opportunity to help out my various friends and get the project finished in a more timely fashion.
Now that I've seen every episode of Zyuranger in well-translated form, I feel comfortable saying that my younger self was pretty stupid. Zyuranger is good Sentai. It's one of the few shows where sitting down and watching every episode, from the crazy filler to the weighty plot arcs, absolutely pays off. I'm glad this show was made and I'm even gladder that it's now available for people to see as it was meant to be seen.
Kou:
All I can say is that it's been my absolute pleasure for the last nine months to be able to work to give an English voice to the always heartfelt, clever, and occasionally mind-blowingly surreal scripts of Sugimura Noboru and his staff of writers. Much thanks to MegaAnon for taking on the release and heading off my more ill-advised translation decisions, to Lynxara for playing agent, advisor, and editor, and to the guys at GUIS for promoting and distributing the release.
While tonight marks the end of one journey, there is still a lot of toku to be translated and not a one of us plans to stop with this. I hope you'll keep an eye out here and in the other usual places, because 2012 is almost done and 2013 is gonna be one amazing year.
Trivia: See if you can spot the Jetman reference in this episode!