Dragon Quest DVDs and FanSubs

[Xious]

A few of you may thing this belongs in the Anime thread, but as it is directly related to the 'Dragon Quest' (DQ) Famicom titles, most especially DQ-III, I'm plotzing it here to get some air-tine for those of us who rarely read any other board than Famicom / Disk System.

The Legend
'Dragon Quest' is engrained in the heart and soul of just about every Famicom player in the world. It's fitting then, that it should have its own series, and in fact, it did, but few outside Nippon have ever heard of it, and only thirteen of forty-three episodes were regionalized in North America under the title 'Dragon Warrior'. The series is based upon the canon of DQ-III, and features art and animation by the legendry Akira Toriyama.

Some of you may know of the two 'Dragon Quest' serials that aired on FujiTV back in the late-80s to mid-90s. To date, none of these has been released outside Nippon, or in any non-Japanese language. The first series, which I think is superior, 'Dragon Quest: Yuusha Abel no Densetsu' is now, after 22-years of being off-the-air, available on DVD, albeit without subtitles.

Each episode, until close to the very end, is titles by Level, so it's safe to assume that Abel and his friends are progressing like the player would throughout the story, and it is laced with numerous in-game references to keep you entertained, complete with music directly from the games. 

FanSubs to the Rescue
For those of you who aren't aware, a FanSub is a 'Fan subtitled' video that has been painstakingly translated by the unpaid efforts of an individual or a specific team of people who are dedicated to converting media from another region to another language.

Thankfully, there is a FanSub team who are (luckily active), adding English Subtitles to the series. The Anbu Group is working hard on translating the entire run, and the first seven episodes are now available via both BitTorrent and IRC; some are now also available as direct downloads. This doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the DVD-set, either if you understand spoken Japanese or if you want to own it for any reason. Of course, you can also contact the publisher of the set to request an English version (subbed or dubbed) with the hopes that with enough annoying fan-mail, they'll release a set for the North-American region.

The Legend Continues
Much less known here is that the 43-episodes of 'Dragon Quest: Yuusha Abel no Densetsu' have a follow-up sequel! This story, 'Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken' is, to the best of my knowledge, not based on any DQ canon, but is interesting nonetheless. As yet, it isn't available on DVD or any commercially purchasable media, however Frenchies-FanSubs, another FanSub group is releasing it with English subtitles. They also attempted to FanSub the original DQ series, but aborted their attempt, so it's thankful that Anbu took it up as well. All of the VHS-recorded episodes are grouped together on the Frenchies-Subs Torrents Page, so you can harvest them from there. From what I gather, 'Dai no Daibouken' did receive a South-American airtime years ago, fully dubbed in Spanish, for those of you in that region.

The End?
These are two truly remarkable series, with the former being superior in terms of game canonicity and a more adult-oriented story, and it's truly a remarkable time, as we can now start to enjoy these series as the original authors and artists intended, without the butchered (censored and cut), incomplete American version. I hope that some day we will all be able to buy at least a subtitled version of both serials as a DVD boxed asset, but for now, it's good to have these FanSub groups working on these precious memories.

[UglyJoe]

I'd rather wait until they finish subbing it.  I've started watching too many 80's anime fansubs just to see them abandoned midway.  Certainly an appreciated effort, though.

A few of you may thing this belongs in the Amine thread

I wasn't aware we had a thread discussing organic compounds and functional groups that contain a basic nitrogen atom with a lone pair.

[Xious]

Nice catch there. 

I know the feeling, but I've been hoping for a subtitled release for ages, so I'll take what I can get...

[P]

Dragon Quest series is definitely on of my favorite game series of all time! I really want to see this, I've only watched the first episode of Abel before. Baramos looks nothing like he looks in the game though.
Yuusha Abel Densetsu is taking place after DQ III (but before DQ I) and was supervised by Yuji Horii. Dai no Daibouken is the anime adaption of a manga with the same name I think.

[L___E___T]

Aha!   Gotta pick this up to show everyone here   We have a merchandising department of course, I'm surprised they're not already looped in.

[manuel]

My wife loves the DQ anime. She says we should rent it some time. I think that's what I'll do!

[Xious]

After watching a few episodes of 'Dai no Daibouken', I can say with reasonable authority that 'Yuusha Abel no Densetsu' is the superior story. The former is most definitely more, hmm, adult-y in style, story and content, whereas I get the feeling that 'Dai no Daibouken' was aimed at a far younger audience.

An epic about a warrior out to defeat a demon may not be very original, but it runs rings around a child taking care of an island of now reformed monsters. I'm hoping the story will eventually lead out to adventure abroad, but it seems more episodic and less serial than 'Yuusha Abel no Densetsu' in any case. Now if only I had a faster and more stable connection to slurp these down... I haven't been able to complete a torrent file for days. 

[P]

I would expect a superior story if Yuuji Horii had a hand in it. Dragon Quest was never about originality or anything like that. It's all about finding companions going on a journey to defeat some Demonking that has awakened and on the way helping every village they encounter with their problems like in any orthodox RPG. All with the earthy humor of Yuuji Horii and Akira Toriyama and the beautiful musical pieces of Koichi Sugiyama.

The aesthetics in works like this should be looked for in how well this is done keeping in line with orthodox RPGs, rather than how innovative it is I think.


Edit: I noticed that it is not only the 25th anniversary for FDS and Zelda but also for Dragon Quest! SquareEnix is releasing a Mario Allstar-like compilation for Wii with the games in the first DQ trilogy for famicom and their remakes for Super Famicom. I guess it's just emulation like the one for Mario Allstar last year though.

[Xious]

Aye, it was a week ago. Unfortunately, my Internet connection has been a combination of spotty and non-existent, so i wasn't able to post anything interesting on the subject. I'm hoping for a new release each of Abel and Dai soon from the fansub teams.