I'm a pretty big fan of Anime; and have been so since I saw the
Space Crusier Yamato compilation anime film locally here in L.A. California on KTLA 5 back in 1978. (It was then I learned that other shows I had liked when I was younger like Speed Racer, Gigantor, Astro Boy, Amazing Three, etc. were also imported from Japan). From then on, whenever I went to a Sci Fi convention, my compatriots always knew where I could be found - the Anime video room. I got pretty hardcore into Anime fandom back in 1986 when I purchased my first illegal copy of
Project A-Ko from a shady vendor for $40.00 (at this time if you wanted Anime video tapes of Laser Discs; you had to order them DIRECTLY from Japan and watch the Yen/U.S. Dollar exchange rate - and the video tapes ran $120.00 U.S. for TWO episodes of a series, a film or an OAV). I soon found out about, and help run a couple of Anime clubs (they'd meet once a month to show anime - this was back in the day before fandubs or fansubs when all you had was a printed synopsis done by someone who knew some Japanese).
In 1989 I met a friend and video editor; and we decided to try our hand at actually dubbing something and seeing the result - not legitimately of course as we couldn't afford it; but we just anted to see what we could come up with. We called the group
Sherbert Productions and started taking the result of our work, the parody
Dirty Pair: The Arrest of Mr. Macek (done using the Dirty Pair 1987 OVA series Prison warden episode) and got a pretty good response so we started doing more english dubbed parodies over the 1990ies including:
Urusei Yatsura: Attack Sherbert (Using the 'Attack! Sherbet' OVA)
Dirty Pair II: The Dirty Pair Does Disneyland (1987 OVA series Halloween episode)
Iczer C: The Untold Story (Parts 1 & 2) (Heavily re-editd the Iczer 3 OVA series and took some scenes from
Project A-KO Grey/Blue Side)
Ranma a 1/2: Summer Vacation (Using
Nihao my Concubine/Bring Back The Brides)
Ninja Team Gatchaman: 7-Zark-7 Must Die
and
Ninja Team Gatchaman: Bring Me The Head of Sandy Frank (Basically we edited and re-arranged the 1994 Gatchaman OVA releases to do these, along with some old footage from Battle of the Planets).
If you were active in Anime fandom and conventions in CA, Texas, Georgia, or Denver, you may have seen or heard of some of these; and maybe hated us because we actually had the gall to re-dub in english; or because we never distributed copies due to fear of prosecution (I just didn't want the possibility of having to spend money on a lawyer, even if the chance was slim).
I guess I'm waxing nostalgic because I thought the 'Sherbert' days were over. We started a project in 2000 that we never finished called
Mighty Morphin' Iczer Rangers (using the
Iczerion OVA series - no, you probably never heard of that series, as it bombed big in Japan) because of real life issues that poped up. However, last year, my editor friend showed up, asked if I and others of the old group were interested in trying to finish what we had started with it; and everyone agreed - so if all goes well, we should have it done sometime in 2009; and are hoping to find an Anime convention that might give us a chance to show it nce it's done. We'll see.
My editor friend has actually gotten a bit bolder, and he put the Ranma ½ parody up on Veoh at:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1344062e4RJqDF7
(To the Mods - I'm not selling or trying to advertise anything - I just saw this thread and decided to espouse a bit on my Anime involvement - but if the above link is deemed inappropriate; please remove it)
I used to have a Sherbert website; and am working on resurrecting it as well.
But, yeah, I was and still am an Anime fan.
