## **Agent Aika - Season 01** --- [AniDB](https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=280) | [ANN](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=102) | [MAL](https://myanimelist.net/anime/366/)  --- **Video:** 576p AVC x264-Hi10P / R2JDVD-Remastered / *mottoj* **Audio #1:** ENG 2.0 AC-3 192kbps / R1USDVD / *Rasetsu* **Audio #2:** JPN 2.0 AC-3 448kbps / R2JDVD **Audio #3:** JPN Commentary 2.0 AC-3 224kbps / R2JDVD (Ep.01-02 only) **Subtitle #1:** Signs & Songs / *Rasetsu* **Subtitle #2:** Full English / *Rasetsu* (*Tsundere* base) [Mediainfo](https://pastebin.com/raw/NAmJ7HSV) | [Screenshots](https://imgur.com/a/hMYwCgt) | [Release Thread](https://nanda.to/topic/4998-rasetsu-agent-aika-s01-1997/) --- **PROJECT NOTES FROM ~~LONG-WINDED NARCISSIST~~ RASETSU** >This was supposed to be a simple project that I picked up as a dual-audio request from Solaufein after I made some stupid comment about something I had already thrown together for this, but never distributed (or looked closely at, or really actually properly did at the time). It has become a running joke when I say that ("simple") almost every time, and it never works out for me; not simple once, not ever, so much sadness, maybe the problem is me? Video and audio tracks from mottoj (see his original notes below), heavily modified subtitles from Tsundere (some of his notes also below); various fixes, English audio sync'd, and project arranged & meticulously labeled by me. > >The audio sync is generally decent enough for a cottony relic of the analog era (and sometimes *not* so good, for both language tracks), but not as precise as I might have preferred. The primary sync discrepancy is mercifully just a global amount at the start of the episodes (different for each, of course), of the sort easily handled without any need for re-encoding. However, the audio tracks were also mastered to run at a slightly different speed, with an average actual difference of about 10ms per episode (i.e., the secondary discrepancy grows to that amount by the end of the episode, not as a result of different gaps at specific points within the episode as is more common). But as this is lossy audio from the source material, any proper fix for this particular aspect (i.e., speed/pitch adjustment) cannot be made without further degrading the audio data and is thus ruled out. But as I said, the actual difference is within the range of what most people (though not necessarily your humble narrator) would count as a rounding error, it's probably no big deal. > >Original timing on the subs from Tsundere generally good (lead-ins and start times seemed quite good, lead-outs maybe a bit long, short gaps between some consecutive dialog lines and keyframe-snapping somewhat inconsistent). Timing adjustments made as follows: >+ *Of the first variety, a global fix to account for time discrepancies between video encodes on several episodes (this varied; for example sometimes -8 frames, sometimes +17, sometimes only one frame or none);* >+ *Secondly, short gaps (>250ms) between consecutive dialog lines, evaluated and adjusted on an individual basis;* >+ *Lastly, a number of individual dialog lines retimed and/or snapped to keyframes to resolve issues that were either missed in the original or introduced because of other discrepancies between encode timings.* > >The blended frames on Tsundere's video meant there were a ton of this last type when snapping to keyframes on mottoj's encode, primarily from Ep03 to the end; most of these are easily corrected with Shiftcut and then verified individually (other lines near scene changes that weren't necessarily on keyframes also evaluated individually). Dialog also edited from R1DVD scripts for linebreaks, word choice, sentence structure, and corrected character names (Bandra->Bandora, Hargen->Hagen, Neina->Nena, and a couple of the named Delmos whose names escape me right now). All typesetting (what little there was, mostly on the Special) and episode titles reworked or redone entirely. Signs & Songs track created from the final revised scripts. > >All song lyrics retimed where necessary and styled by me (except OP/ED ver.1-A, Tsundere styling maintained with some modification), with lyrics lightly edited from original R1DVD English lines. Romaji for all songs added by me, either edited from existing sources on the internet (R1DVD scripts had nothing in this department) or my own transcriptions where these were lacking. The English lyrics for the ED on Ep.03-04 were totally wrong, as a different part of the song is used for these particular episodes. English translation of the first two verses done by me using romaji taken from MoonlightSummoner anime lyrics blog as a reference, at the time I couldn't find any existing Englishing for these verses of the song. I later found one on a special music video for the complete song when I was about 99% done with this thing, but it reeked of almost entirely unedited machine TL and didn't flow lyrically at all, so it would have been near-useless anyway. As an aside—six and a half different songs for a 7.5-episode series seems a little excessive, does it not? Oh well... >*Full song credits where due: AnimeSongLyrics.com (romaji for OP1, OP2, ED3), MoonlightSummoner (romaji for OP2, OP3, ED1-A, ED1-B), Ani-Fans.com (kanji and hiragana used for additional reference in my TL of ED1-B), English lyrics for ED2 from MoonlightSummoner and modified by me where it didn't seem to be accurate.* > >The special ("4.5") is included here to combine mottoj video with good subs, though that one wasn't dubbed. The first minute of subs on that episode were added and timed by me from R1DVD SRT, this part of the special was missing entirely from Tsundere encode. Considerable retiming of this mini-episode both to account for discrepancies between the encodes and to put a slightly better handle on the clusterfuckery of the chaos sequence at the end. For all other related extras (NCOP/ED, Live Action, Picture Dramas, etc etc), I recommend mottoj's superb release of S01. > >I may do S02 later this year (Kampfer takes priority at this time), and S03 was recently done well by Quetzal. **ORIGINAL (CONDENSED) VIDEO NOTES FROM MOTTOJ** >Let’s start. Novative and excellent cel animation made with a lot of effort, great mecha designs, sweet opening themes, funny characters, full of action, nice seiyuu work and lots of ecchi. Studio Fantasia was really having fun while making this OVA. I’m sure you’ll like it too, instead of calling it a simple “pantsu” anime ? Video is 768×576 resolution encoded by x264 in 10bit profile with CRF=15.5. PP this time is scene wise deflicker, light dehalo, upconvert, very light denoise/degrain and deband. Audio track is original Japanese stereo AC3 tracks in 48kHz 448kbps. Episode 01,02 have commentary track with stereo AC3 in 48kHz 224kbps. English stereo AC3 tracks in 48kHz 192kbps. (Exclude EP04.5) Chapters included. >R2J Remastered DVDs are pretty good, but not perfect. It have a few unflagged interlace sections, scenes from old source, lots of scenes with heavy light flickering, which were reduced with manual threshold to maintain quality. All footage was examined. We have almost 100% progressive frame restoration with no jittering issues. **ORIGINAL (CONDENSED) SUBTITLE NOTES FROM TSUNDERE** >Plot: Panties, boobs and cameltoes. Alright, let’s get this one started. >The release is being sourced from the Bandai Remaster Box which is a great improvement over other releases, with freshly revised R1 subs from the srt scripts. >Episode 04.5 was tedious to work on due to all these fucking signs. The srt subs were a mess too and thus I couldn’t figure out all the overlapping stuff during the Preview scene, but I tried my best to adjust the lines to the speakers. The episode itself is a merge of three specials that were included with the second DVD.