Rampo Jigoku (aka 'Rampo Noir') : Special Twitch Exercise In Telepathy.

Who needs subtitles for this DVD? All the Edogawa Ranpo stories that were adapted here are available in English translations from the bookstore of your choice.

Sigh. This was going to be bought by a certain independent distributor that was just shut down by a notorious pair of brothers. The company still exists in name but I think their acquisition days are over ...

I noticed this title on cdjapan last week and wasn't really surprised to see there were no subtitles.

If you browse cdjapan's up and coming films, there's hardly any that have english subs anymore. Custom made 10.30 - nope, Scrap heaven - nope, Linda x 3 - nope, Nana - nope, Yogisha muroi shinji - nope, Ranpo jigoku - nope, Kuchuu teien - nope... and it goes on and on.
You can count the R2J titles for the next three months, that include English subs, with one hand..

I guess all this just means that I need to start brushing up my Japanese again. I don't want to wait for US/Europe releases that may not arrive for years, may arrive butchered or may not arrive at all.

Fabool, I'm pretty sure that Scrap Heaven still has English subtitles. It says so on the films official website, and some other region 2 dvd online retail stores still have it listed as coming out with English subs.

And as far as Nana goes half of the movie has already been fansubbed, so it'll only be a while long before the whole thing is done, I would assume.

i personally think fansubs are an imperfect or non-ideal solution : unless people stand up and say 'we want DVDs with english subtitles' then the greater good looses out in the end, and we dont all want to watch DVDs on PCs for all eternity... the more time people spend putting energy into those things, the less they put into correcting the situation in actuality. seems to me though, that the viewers and the market in general in evolving much faster than the companies can (or are willing to) deal with - theyre loosing money, and theyre damaging the market too. more pro-actively, getting things organised to capitalise on things, trying to sync things up at least a lot more than they already are, and they will be surprised at how positive competition can actually be... instead they worry about grey imports and stifle peoples knowledge and appetite as a result.

"I guess all this just means that I need to start brushing up my Japanese again. I don't want to wait for US/Europe releases that may not arrive for years, may arrive butchered or may not arrive at all."

That's what I do. Learn languages, it's much better than waiting for companies (both those who ask to take off subs, and those who agree) to stop caring about quick money and care about customer satisfaction. F%%k em. I decide what to watch, not them.

i can see learning languages as a solution too, though personally its a little below the fansub solution in how positively it contributes towards the greater good of everyones access to as broad a range of cultural output as possible - now, if fansubbers distributed DVDrs instead of downloads or subtitle files, then that would shift things a little - and thats what i want to see, a more global perspective from companies, a little more display of experience and ambition to grow rather that constrain.

Be warned though - it takes a pretty long time to get your Japanese up to the level where you can really understand the nuances properly. And I don't want to take the effort to learn every single language of every singly country whose films I want to watch - its just not practical (my two years of learning dutch was a complete waste of time). I would reckon this will make it out somewhere down the line eventually. I think its production company may be asking a little too much for it at the moment however.

yes, its certain to appear somewhere 'down the line', but really in this market, with the internet discussion and retailing we can access, and with all the notice and planning that should go into capitalising on markets, companies barely muster the slightest bit of effort to justify or even recoup the licensing costs they could be paying out. personally, i believe that licensing agreements might as well be torn up more often than not, with such an awareness of the global perspective (particularly relative in an area such as 'world cinema') they should all include whatever they can at whatever relatively minimal cost and create their own market that extends beyond the borders - rather than sitting their with crossed fingers for someone to pay a bloated licensing fee then bury the film in a vault, release it with little or no publicity, in bad trasnfers, with poor subtitles, with cut versions, with little more to add or offer for peoples money. its not practical to learn many languages, and i suspect that a lot of subtitling is not accurate as it is. for me, over the past so many years, yes theres been more people coming into purchase world cinema stuff than perhaps there was previously - and its gotten to the point where, like the rebirth of a country post-war or post-revolution, theres a lot of chaos and desire for change, for rebuilding, for a better way of doing things that isnt being capitalized on. its an eternal discussion though, doesnt mean its less worthwhile - at all...