Yume kara Samenai

And here's Orphan last release for 2020: Yume kara Samenai (Can't Stop Dreaming). An OVA from 1987, it practically screams "young adult title." It's aimed squarely at the teenage demographic, and its portrayal of first love in high school might appeal to boys or to girls; or it might appeal to neither. And it's very serious, not to say solemn, in its approach to Teenage Romance and Problems™.

Fujii Takaki is a typical high school boy (for this sort of story) - athletic, good-looking, and friendly. He ends up sitting next to a mysterious beauty, Kawahara Sunao, who helped him when his bicycle broke down. Takaki is more or less instantly smitten, but his best friend, Kawamura, warns him off. Sunao, it seems, has a bad reputation; supposedly, she appeared in an adult video. Takaki doesn't believe it, but his affections are scrambled by his childhood friend, Amasa Koyuki, who rather fancies Takaki for herself. Takaki's fumbling overtures eventually cause Sunao to challenge him: will he accept her as she is? To test him, she takes him to where she works:

Takaki must decide whether his love is stronger than societal prejudice. You can guess how it turns out.

It's hard to know what to make of this show. The plot is very thin. There are lots of meaningful closeups of the leads and slo-mo shots of the heroine tossing her hair. The running time is padded out with a music video montage of high school life. The "adult video" seems to consist of Sunao posing in a slip and pretending she's a cat. According to the promo at the end of OVA, the story is by Shirakura Yumi, a mangaka whose works include Aganai no Seija, Gretel no Kioku, and the Sailor Fuku series; none of them are available in English. The script is by Kawanishi Ran of "the new wave of young adult literature", who has no other anime credits. Equal prominence is given to the "ultimate uniform design" by the "school uniform critic" Mori Nuboyuki. Just what, exactly, is this show trying to sell?

Anyway, a couple of translation notes:

• "She looks like Reiko from Shoujotai." Shoujotai was an idol group of the time.
• "Meanwhile, I'm going on YuuNyan's Search for an Idol!" YuuNyan is short for Yuuyake Nyannyan, a variety program that ran on Fuji TV from 1985-87.
• "Kawahara Sunao's rendition of The Mirror of Janus." The Mirror of Janus was a manga/drama series about a girl with an alternate personality.
  

The cast is small, just Takaki, Sunao, and Takaki's two friends:

• Sasaki Nozomu (Takaki) played Tetsuo in Akira, Yuusuke in Yuu Yuu Hakusho, Shinohara in Be-Boy Kidnapping Idol, Chihaya in Earthian, Ebata in Genji Part 1, Ushio in the original Ushio to Tora, and Mello in Death Note. He played Ling Fei-long in Dragon Fist, Dekiru in Izumo, Taiga in Nagasarete Airantou, and Hal in Next Senki Ehrgeiz, all Orphan releases.
• Sano Ryouko (Sunao) is primarily a singer. She starred in Like the Clouds, Like the Wind, in which she also sang the main theme song.
• Ohashi Mayuki (Amase) starred as Youko in Scoopers, an Orphan release, but has few other credits.
• Yamazaki Tetsuya (Kawamura) appeared in TO-Y, Night on the Galactic Railway, and Lunn Flies into the Wind, an Orphan release.

The director, Inoue Osamu, was primarily a storyboard artist and episode director. His other directing credits were Hidari no O'Clock!! and Sailor Senshi Venus Five (which is hentai).

Iri had wanted to do this show for quite a while. When a decent raw became available, he translated and did the initial timing. Yogicat fine-timed. I edited and typeset. The image is jittery, so almost every sign had to be motion-tracked. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded a DdD rip that was started by Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions but left incomplete. ("Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...") The audio has the usual DdD problems with an analog track. If you don't like it, the audio track from Erik's non-DdD release, available on nyaa, syncs up more or less exactly.

So here is Yume kara Samenai. It doesn't resolve Takaki's and Sunao's story, and there's no way to know what happens next. So download this from the usual torrent site, or get it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net, and make up your own continuation. Something happens next; you get to imagine what it is.