I'm Rhys, you may or may not know me from my main blog. I've kind of been going down this extensive rabbit hole for several years that started when I watched Godzilla for the first time wherein I'm attempting to track down and watch every single film Akihiko Hirata was in. In doing so, I've realized that there is little to no English-language information out there about a good chunk of these films. I also recently discovered, for the first time, that back in the Geocities days somebody was running an entire Akihiko Hirata fansite (Wayback Machine link here; it is wonderful and glorious), and when I found it I thought: Oh thank god, I'm not weird! I'm just the North American branch of the fan club.
So, thus vindicated by the presence (~20 years ago, but still) of other people as dedicated to Hirata and his filmography as I, I'm embarking on a project to bring more information about his more obscure movies (& television and stage productions) into the English-speaking parts of the internet. I'll be titling my posts with the original, Romaji, and English-translated (where applicable) names of each film, in the hopes that this blog will come up if anybody else in the Anglosphere like me is searching for these films.
For my part, I can read kana, but no kanji, and I understand a tiny bit of spoken Japanese, but I will be relying on machine translations often. If I post a machine translation, it will be supplemented by me cleaning up sentence order/pronouns/general legibility. I'm going to make an effort whenever I have to use machine translation; I don't just want to be one of those people who sticks something into Google and calls it a day. But there are inevitably going to be things I miss due to lack of knowledge. Apologies in advance.
I specifically want this blog to focus on little-known, usually non-subtitled works. While Godzilla has a place in my heart and always will, I probably won't be talking about Dr. Serizawa on here. And most likely, no one will even read this. I think I am just nostalgic for Geocities and the days when the internet felt like a real community instead of something automated and impersonal.
I encourage anybody who may be reading this to get in contact with me about the content of this blog. I'm always looking for new information. There'll be no regular update schedule; whenever I come across something that I think will make for a good post, I'll write it up and post it. I've generally always got DVDs and other goodies coming to me from overseas, so stay tuned for more big posts in the coming months.
I especially encourage you to get in contact with me if you have leads on or copies of any of the stuff tagged "things I haven't seen". And hey, if anybody out there wants to fansub anything I have tagged as "things I have seen" that isn't already subbed... holler at your boy. I'll also do posts on request... I guess? I can't imagine a situation in which anybody would want that, but if you come to me and you're like "tell me every single thing you know about Taiyo ni Hoero!", who am I to say no?
Lastly, here's, uh, my spreadsheet where I keep track of what I’ve seen.
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