Looking forward

Perhaps one of the strange parts of liking TV in a foreign language is how it's possible to impatiently look forward to watching a series that was shown years ago. Recently, two subbing groups have announced that they'll be providing subtitles for two series that I always wanted to watched.

The first series is one that I've mentioned before. Furuhata Ninzaburo was a detective series that ran for three series in 1994, 1996 and 1999 (with three specials in 2006). It was written by Mitani Kouki, my favourite Japanese writer, and is about a detective who solves cunningly devised murders. I was very happy to learn that someone had decided to sub the first series after all these years.

The second was even more of a surprise. Fujiko F. Fujio no Parallel Space was a six-part series of unrelated short stories broadcast in 2008. I've had these sitting on a disc for a while now and didn't expect to watch them again until my Japanese had improved. Luckily, this subbing group (who previously did Eri Fukatsu's Black Comedy) have decided to pick it up.

Stylistically, each episode is different, giving it a similar feel to Camouflage or Ueno Juri no Itsutsu no Kaban, and I'm interested to see what the stories are actually about. Episode one, starring Nagasawa Masami, is definitely one to watch since the framing and acting is taken exactly from the original comic strip. It's very interesting to see how positions and scene changes that seem so natural in comics don't work at all in live action.