Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer

By: Steve Brandon
Review Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Release Date: Tuesday, September 08, 1998



The Review!
In anticipation of AnimEigo's impending (but delayed) release of the first five volumes of the Urusei Yatsura TV series, I thought that I'd look at Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, the second feature film, released in Japanese theatres in 1984, and the only Urusei Yatsura animated production distributed domestically by a company other than AnimEigo. Bear in mind that this was one of Central Park Media/U.S. Manga Corps earlier DVD releases, so that much of the specific criticisms that I have with this disk have been rectified since by C.P.M. in their more recent DVD releases.

I seem to remember that someone else on this site had seen the long out-of-print Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer LaserDisc a few days before writing his review of the DVD. I can do you one better: I have the LD, so I was able to play them both simultaneously for another one of my LD vs. DVD reviews. (The LD is very rare; it took me well over a year to track down a copy. Even though I probably wouldn't have bothered if I had known that a DVD version was coming out, my copy of this film on LD is not for sale!)

Let's start with the DVD color: wow! It's so bright and vivid! Compared to the DVD, the LD color looks blurry and muddy, almost like videotape. (You all remember videotapes, don't you?) This is conjecture but I think that the original "master" copy for the subtitled LD version may just have been a copy of the Japanese LD, since the price information for the Japanese LD shows up after the closing credits! However, there is a downside of them using the dub master for this disk: only the credits for the dub are listed. This is a common flaw found on most of the U.S. Manga Corps/Software Sculptors disks that I have seen. Unlike Utena, the credits for the Japanese voice actors and actresses for the major parts aren't even listed on the backside of the cover sheet (which you have to remove from the slipcase to read as they didn't use a clear case like Utena). I'm aware that for some obscure JASRAC (the Japanese union for the entertainment industry) related reason, the Japanese rights holders often request that the production credits be cut out of the program for American release, but I didn't think that this applied to voice actor credits. Worse still, compared to the LD version, the closing credits, "Love is a Boomerang", have been clipped by at least a minute. The original closing sequence featured a shot of Tomobiki High School slowly growing more and more distant as the "camera" zooms out for the entire length of the credits, which end with the sound of a school bell. The DVD version lingers on the high school for a few seconds but then goes to a black screen with the dub credits, an edited version of the song and no bell. I'm aware that it would have been difficult to splice the original credits together with their dub master, but it wouldn't have killed them to have added the original credits as an "extra", like the Japanese credits on the original Tenchi Muyo in Love DVD. And I get the idea that the people who wrote these credits didn't pay too much attention to the rest of the film. Ataru is spelt "Aturu"! The fact remains that the colors are a lot more vivid than on the subtitled LD, so I can't completely fault them for using the dub master. I'm not going to start a petition demanding an "uncut" version of this film, but the fact that they did clip off a bit at the end is still annoying.


This DVD is pan-and-scan. I would have appreciated it if U.S.M.C. had re-mastered this film into a widescreen version, but Central Park Media (U.S. Manga Corps/Software Sculptors) is NOT a subsidiary of a large Japanese corporation like Pioneer or AnimeVillage/Bandai. Each time that Pioneer wants to produce a new edition of Tenchi Muyo in Love, for example, they can just go to Japan where they have carte blanche (and for those of you in Rio Linda, that means "full access") to the MASTER master copy as well as the storyboards, trailers and everything else associated with the film as Pioneer is one big global company. On the other hand, Central Park Media is a small American company which has to make do with what they have on hand. Again, I can't fault them with releasing this as a pan-and-scan, as I really don't know if a widescreen version was available to them.

The sound, which was mono on the LD, has been split into stereo. Of course, unlike the LD, this disk also includes the English-dubbed soundtrack (which had previously been available only on a rightfully obscure VHS dubbed version of this film). As I mentioned in my review of Tenchi Forever, I used to be quite the "dubs suck" flamer. In Montreal, anime didn't even begin showing up on shelves of mainstream retail locations like H.M.V. until 1995. Before then, the only place that you could get anime locally was at a handful of comic book stores, and they charged a lot more than the suggested retail price, even taking into account the exchange rate (and most of them still charge too much; this is why I don't buy anime DVDs from comic book stores). And, needless to say, at least 90% of the anime available at retail outlets was dubbed. An obvious disadvantage of the VHS format is that to have an English dubbed soundtrack, by definition you have to remove the Japanese soundtrack. (The only exception that I could think of were Streamline's Robotech: Perfect Collection tapes, which included two episodes of Robotech, plus the two corresponding episodes of the original Japanese Macross TV series.) Once I had been exposed to English-subtitled anime, it was difficult to watch English-dubs, which, back in those days, sounded quite amateurish. Even today, if I said that I prefer dubs to subs then I would be lying (or it would be "just the introduction to the opposites"). But I really don't mind English dubbing today since the domestic anime companies have a lot more money to throw around on dubs than they had in the early years (resulting in dubs such as the Tenchi series and Kiki's Delivery Service which are delightful to listen to), since dubs introduce anime to a younger and/or more mainstream audience and, of course, since DVDs support multiple languages (which means you don't have to take away the Japanese to have the English). That being said, it's not like there wasn't a reason that I didn't like dubs way back when, and the Beautiful Dreamer dub is a good example of what was wrong with dubs circa 1992. This was one of U.S.M.C.'s first dubs and it shows. This dub is bad. It's not quite as bad as U.S.M.C's dub of the original Project A-ko, but that dub was so bad that it's funny in a campy sort of way. This dub is just one of those that make you hit the AUDIO button on your remote to switch to the Japanese the moment that you hear it. The actors are just reading their lines! It reminds me of the time in grade 11 (the last grade of high school in the province of Quebec) when 4 of us went to this guy's house to record War of the Worlds as a class project. We pretty much just read our lines without too much emotion. It's about the same level of acting quality as on this disk. If Anthony Salerno, the dubbing supervisor, had told me that he did this dub using high school English students and a $30 tape recorder, I'd believe him! And they can't even pronounce the names right! The "o" sound in "Mendou" is pronounced like the English word "toe", but the way that whomever it is that plays Onsen-Mark pronounces it makes it rhyme with "cow"! Did these actors graduate from the "Will T. Riker Institute of Bad Japanese" (the North American language school affiliated with the "Pixy Misa Institute of Bad English", which, as you no doubt recall, is where I assumed that Ayeka studied English based on her level of mastery of the English language as evidenced in Tenchi in Tokyo, episode 14)? While I have no problem with most anime dubs produced these days (just so long as a Japanese language version is also available), there are a handful of anime which I think just aren't conducive to dubbing, and Urusei Yatsura is one of those anime. AnimEigo also experimented with a dub of the first two episodes of the television series, which was a monumental flop. It's just too steeped in Japanese culture for the mainstream, dub-watching audience to appreciate, and much of the humor is based on bad, bad puns that just don't translate well to English.

You may have read that the translation on this disk is different from the LD version, which was subtitled by AnimEigo even though they lost the distribution rights to U.S.M.C. I played the DVD and LD versions of this film simultaneously, and, for the most part, the DVD subtitles are at least 95% word-for-word identical to the subtitled LD, down to the punctuation. The only major differences are that some of the explanatory text at the bottom of the screen (which AnimEigo made a different color from the main dialogue) is not present, and that some minor background dialogue (like in the dinner scenes) is not translated. As for the main dialogue, the ONLY change is that occasionally interjections (e.g. Ah!) and redundant words (e.g. 1:11:08, Mujaki: "Don't be ridiculous! Sure, I know magic, unlike you ordinary humans..." On the LD, it's "...I know a little magic...") have been eliminated. The reason for these changes is quite obvious: the DVD subtitle font is much larger than the font that AnimEigo used on the LD. U.S.M.C. probably wanted to keep the subtitles down to no more than two lines of text on the screen at any one time, as any more would block out significant portions of the picture. For all intents and purposes, this is the same translation as before. What is the cause for the confusion? My best guess is that Neil Nadelman is listed on the back of the DVD case as the translator. However, he isn't listed at all in the credits on the disk itself. I'm not sure what his name is doing on the back of the case, as Shin Kurokawa, Nishiyama Mariko and Tanaka Aki are also credited with the translation (under a separate "Translation" listing)! These are the same three who are also credited on the LD for the translation. Perhaps Mr. Nadelman was the one who adapted their translation for the DVD version? The vast differences between the LD and DVD translations, as mentioned elsewhere, can only be a product of people's imaginations (or one of Mujaki's dreams), unless U.S.M.C. produced another LD version of this film of which I'm unaware.

As for the film itself, this is actually one of my favorite films. Not just anime films, but films, period. I'd include a "spoiler warning" here, but the back of the DVD case pretty much gives away the main plot twist of the film. Let me put it this way: why do you think that this film is called "Beautiful Dreamer"? Duh! It starts off a bit like the movie Groundhog Day (which itself bore some similarities to certain episodes of the anime series Kimagure Orange Road, but Beautiful Dreamer pre-dates them both) with the class repeating the day before the class festival over and over. Unlike Groundhog Day, every character, starting with Onzen-Mark, the hapless English teacher, comes to realize that they are trapped in a loop, and once they do, everything in the town, with a few exceptions, starts to crumble to ruins. There are so many scenes that I love: Megane's brief, Communist-style rationing of the food from the always-stocked convenience store (or, as we say in Quebec, dépanneur), based on a literal interpretation of Ataru's mother's shopping list, as well as his lengthy, self-aggrandizing soliloquy about being the chosen ones to build a new Shangri-La from the ashes of the old world (excerpted from "The Prehistory of Tomobiki," by Megane, Volume 1: "Beyond the End of the World," Prologue, Chapter 3)! Watching Godzilla in the open-air ruins of a cinema (this film was a Kitty co-production with Toho, who also produce the Japanese Godzilla films). The classes Nazi-themed café (as tasteless as certain episodes of South Park) for the school festival, complete with costumes, a swastika-shaped light fixture, and an authentic Panther tank. Mendou's scientific analysis (using the range of said Panther tank) of the nature of the world that they find themselves in (which he didn't need to do, as the rest of the gang figured it out long before). Sakura citing the "Encyclopedia of Evil Spirits", the "indispensable (sic) reference of all 100,000 Japanese sorceresses".

Unlike most of Urusei Yatsura, this film focuses mostly on the Earthling characters, with the exception of Lum and Jariten (Ten-chan), though those of you with sharp eyes should be able to make out some of the other alien babes like Elle in the harem scene. The disk features selected scenes where you can "Meet the Cast", but, if you're completely unfamiliar with this series, I don't know how much help these scenes will be to you. However, should you want to know anything and everything about ANY character, there's always Mason Proulx's excellent Tomobiki-cho Website, which is absolutely the best and most comprehensive Website that I've ever seen dedicated to any one particular anime series. If you've never seen the show, but are seriously considering ordering AnimEigo's collection of the first 20 episodes of the TV series, you might consider watching this film, as it does give you some of the flavor of the TV series. (Director Mamoru Oshii made this film considerably more serious, thought provoking and artsy than the regular TV series. This movie draws heavily from his fascination with dreams. Seasoned UY veterans will know that Mujaki and Baku first appeared in TV episode 21, story 42 "Wake up to a Nightmare" (TV vol. 6), but I think that episode 78 "Miserable! A Loving and Roving Mother!" (TV vol. 20) is a lot closer in tone and theme to this film.) If possible, I'd recommend that you rent at least a few of the TV volumes before committing yourself to buying the DVD collection, as this is a "classic" (re: old) TV series with extremely limited animation, especially when compared to more modern TV series such as Vision of Escaflowne and Cowboy Be-Bop. It isn't for everyone's tastes, but which series is? This particular film has much better animation than the first few seasons of the TV series. The animation isn't nearly as detailed as the Macross: Do You Remember Love film, which was also released in 1984, but the character designs, by Yuji Moriyama of Project A-ko fame, are very appealing.

Mobile Police Patlabor fans may know that many of the voice actors on that series were recycled from Urusei Yatsura. The most obvious is that Ataru and Patlabor's Asuma Shinohara were both voiced by Toshio Furukawa, even though the characters themselves don't have too much in common. But other Patlabor characters are virtual doppelgangers of Urusei Yatsura characters. Labor pilot Isao Ohta and English teacher Onzen-Mark, both performed by Michihiro Ikemizu, are stocky guys with short fuses and similar haircuts. Mikiyasu Shinshi and Chibi, both played by Issei Futamata, are both timid and easily manipulated: Shinshi by his overbearing wife and Chibi by Megane, who is, himself, the biggest Urusei Yatsura/Patlabor doppelganger of them all. Shigeru Chiba does the voice of both Megane and Patlabor's Shige. Both characters are bespectacled ("Megane" literally means "eyeglasses") control freaks, and both have had, at one point, their own band of Stormtroopers: Shige in "The Seven Days of Fire" (2nd OVA Series a.k.a. "The New Files", volume 3 (on the U.S.M.C. tapes), episode 8), and Megane during the entire Urusei Yatsura series! Of course, three of the five members of "Headgear", the creative team responsible for Patlabor, worked on the Urusei Yatsura TV series: director Mamoru Oshii, writer Kazunori Ito and character designer Akemi Takada (though the designs in this particular Urusei Yatsura production were done by Yuji Moriyama, as I mentioned earlier).

Apart from the edited credits and the bad dubbing, this is an excellent disk from U.S.M.C. I know that C.P.M. disks in general have a poor reputation, but from the ones I've seen on my player they're about the same quality as the average Pioneer TV series disks (i.e. not bad, like Tenchi in Tokyo, but not exceptional, like Lain or the Tenchi OVA disks). It could just be that Crush Digital Video, who did this disk, does better disks than Image Entertainment, who did the bulk of the early C.P.M. DVDs. (Image did do the original Beautiful Dreamer LD.) I can only hope that AnimEigo's TV series DVDs will be at least as good, if not better, as this disk (and that Mr. Woodhead will keep the number of disks per set down to 5 or 6 at one time, as charging any more than $125-150 U.S. would be just too much for us Canadians with our wimpy currency to afford).

Review Equipment
Toshiba SD-2107 DVD player, 27-inch Sony Trinitron KV-27S40 television using the set's internal speakers, standard red/white/yellow A/V cables ("Heavy Duty" "Gold", from Radio Shack).