Idea & Request: Kiki's Delivery Service Streamline/Carl Macek English dub

Hello. Has anyone considered preserving the older non-Disney dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Kiki’s Delivery Service”? The dub I am asking about was done by Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures in the early 1990’s and predates Disney’s version by several years. I have been trying to look for a copy of this particular dub in its entirety for years, but am not able to find anyone who has it.

The only home video release this dub has received was part of the rare out-of-print Japanese LD box-set of Ghilbi films that goes by the name of “Ghibli ga Ippai”.

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/video/ghibli/ippai.html#ld_box

A few years ago I remember someone on these boards listing their collection and this LD-boxset was among one of the items. That led me to ask if someone out there who has a copy of this rare dub wouldn’t mind extracting the audio for preservation and making it available for people to hear. I would be willing to accept it in any format, even from a VHS copy. It would be appreciated!

I'm probably going to get in heaps of (technical) trouble for this, but I also have the box set.  I actually completely forgot that it came with several of the Streamline dubs as the second audio track.  Be warned that the Streamline track is in mono.

The only way I have to capture the audio is to run it to my DVD-recorder.  I'll have to double-check, but I think I'm running optical out to the recorder (if that makes any difference).

Probably not the best solution, but there you have it.  Oh, my LD player is a CLD-R7G.  A thing of beauty.

Molly said:

xD

IIRC, the old Porco Rosso dub is on R2?

Certainly Laputa and Totoro are.  Do any others have alternate dubs (excluding Nausicaa)?

Yes, Porco's old dub is on the R2.

For some reason, Kiki's older dub was the only one of these pre-Disney dubs that didn't make it to the Japanese DVDs.

skyjedi2005 said:

The Laputa dub is on region 2, same as totoro. 

The old kiki dub was a jal airlines one not done by streamline though released through them in the US in theaters i think. Same with Laputa.  Totoro definitively is a streamline dub, or the fox dub.

Yes the track is in mono on the laserdisc in the right channel i believe while the japan is on the left, really not the best idea.  The DVD releases are at least free of the noise and crosstalk.  It would have been great if they were on seperate audio channels instead of spilt on a single one where the stereo track would traditionally go.

The older Kiki dub has been attributed to Carl Macek, who once partially ran Streamline Pictures. It has never been made clear if his company was actually involved, though.

I have read accounts that it did play in the US at one or two film festivals in the early 1990s. This was years before Disney acquired the rights.

Thank you for bringing to light the audio issue on the LD. I sure hope it wouldn't pose too much difficulty.

As an update, I've been searching for this audio all over the internet and have had no luck. Most of the time this dub's been mentioned on anime fan sites, people have been asking for copies of it. Anyone have the rare LD that's able to cap the audio? Thanks.

animebuff said:

As an update, I've been searching for this audio all over the internet and have had no luck. Most of the time this dub's been mentioned on anime fan sites, people have been asking for copies of it. Anyone have the rare LD that's able to cap the audio? Thanks.

I have also traipsed all over looking.  It seems sad it has never been capped properly for preservation's sake.  Especially for those of us who really dislike some of the casting in the Disney dub (to the point I hate playing it for my kids, but feel guilty watching it in Japanese while they are asleep).

The closest I have come are small snippet sample clips on some dub-information site, iirc.

I wish I could offer to help this project out more personally, but unfortunately I have no LD player (let alone a good one), no way to cap LDs, and I don't own the Ghibli ga Ippai LD set.  I can only offer to help sync the dub to R1/R2J/R2UK videos (these are the DVDs I own), and BD whenever it releases, since I have experience here..

skyjedi2005 said:

There is also the possibility that the unnamed individual on that other site is waiting for the BD of KIKI.  Which is now on pre-orders for region A japan if not a North American release.

Keeping me eyes open on that site to see if something happens.

Remember the track is mono in one of the split stereo channels in analog.  It is not full bitrate pcm or even lower bitrate ac3 or even in stereo.

Now that i think of it since the redone KIKI's script is remarkably similar to the earlier effort minus the 80's references and the much funnier Jiji by Phil Hartman.  The Japanese Company was happy with that DUB originally it is entirely possible that the older dub either is sonically limited being dual mono, or that the actual source master was lost or they just wanted a more modern one.

The American Release on Laserdisc was on offer in AC3 sound for the Newer dub. 

I suspect the audio quality of this dub was never very good to begin with. The other English dub Streamline did of a Miyazaki film, My Neighbor Totoro, was also mono and sounded like it was mixed on poor equipment because of the background music being muffled compared to the voices.

fleggett said:

I'm probably going to get in heaps of (technical) trouble for this, but I also have the box set.  I actually completely forgot that it came with several of the Streamline dubs as the second audio track.  Be warned that the Streamline track is in mono.

The only way I have to capture the audio is to run it to my DVD-recorder.  I'll have to double-check, but I think I'm running optical out to the recorder (if that makes any difference).

Probably not the best solution, but there you have it.  Oh, my LD player is a CLD-R7G.  A thing of beauty.

Even a capture via a DVD recorder would do in my opinion.

The audio quality probably isn't that good anyhow. And then

at least we'd have something. I obviously would prefer something

better, but I'd already be glad if there was a lower quality capture out.

I have to agree with that sentiment. A DVD Recorder capture would be quite acceptable. Certainly not a premium capture, but not terrible at all either.

The user who posted that info hasn't been on this board since 2010. I was briefly in contact with him/her, but for some unknown reason dropped off the face of the earth.

skyjedi2005 said:

I have the Laserdisc but no one has volunteered to cap the audio.

I was willing to send it to someone at one point.   Has to be someone i can trust that will actually return the laserdisc when they are done.

Someone on Bakabt.me forums was supposed to cap the audio and mux it with a pal video source but that never happened.

If you still need someone to cap the audio for the JAL dub for Kiki's Delivery Service I could do it for you, I have the stuff needed to do the job and I'd be more than happy to return the Laserdisc with a copy of the capped audio to you once finished.

PM me if your interested.

I had both Laputa "The Flying Island" and Kiki's Delivery Service w/ the Streamline audio tracks on VHS since the 80's. The video was not the greatest but the audio was not that bad. About a year ago I transferred them to DVD and ripped the audio from Kiki with the intent of dubbing it over a fresh video source. The MP3 file is 112MB. If you can set something up to host the file, I'll gladly upload for everyone to enjoy. Unfortunately the Laputa disc has been damaged and I'm going to have to make a new transfer before I can rip the audio.

<p>why not set up a free account with www.box.net? unlike free accounts with most other file lockers/cloud storage, the files won't be deleted unless you do it (or unless it gets taken down for other reasons). <br />another option would be dropbox, but that requires installing software, and other stuff, so may not be the best all around option.<br />I upload things to many file lockers, but the only sites that won't delete files after some short period is one of these 2 options, atleast what I have used (all free accounts). <br /></p>

as for Laputa.... iirc the old dub is still around to some degree. I think it's the R2J DVD that has the old Streamline dub on it. There may (?) also be a UK disc with it, but perhaps I am mixing that up with smth else that has a few releases in the UK (like Cagliostro).

strathacker said:

I had both Laputa "The Flying Island" and Kiki's Delivery Service w/ the Streamline audio tracks on VHS since the 80's. The video was not the greatest but the audio was not that bad. About a year ago I transferred them to DVD and ripped the audio from Kiki with the intent of dubbing it over a fresh video source. The MP3 file is 112MB. If you can set something up to host the file, I'll gladly upload for everyone to enjoy. Unfortunately the Laputa disc has been damaged and I'm going to have to make a new transfer before I can rip the audio.

Sure. I'll send you a PM!

OK, I hope this works. If it doesn't, I'll have to try again. The link is for the Kiki's Delivery Service audio only. As previously described it's from a 20 year old VHS tape. Glad to share it with everyone.

http://rapidshare.com/files/641822243/KiKi's%20Delivery%20Service%20-%20Streamline%20Audio.mp3