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Hey, folks, welome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.

I'm your host, Mike White.

On this episode, I am talking with Lyle Zanka.

He's the director of assets and Technology over at G Kids, along with cultural critic Dan Chindell.

All about Angel's Egg.

It is a nineteen eighty five anime film from director Memoro Oshi, and it is touring the country currently in a new restoration opening at a lot of theaters wide, and it will be coming to four K blu Ray pretty soon as well, so keep an eye out for that.

Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you enjoy this interview.

Lyle.

I want to start with you if I could then tell me a little bit more about you and your role at G Kids.

Over G Kids I'm basically and charge of all of our technical and what we call post production, basically handling the internal lab services as we.

Like to call them.

For all of our distribution.

There is something we do in house which I think is a little bit unique to us, but I basically oversee that, which can range from simply taking things we get from Japan, localizing them and distribute them to doing brand new four K uprises and things like that.

We do quite a lot over here.

I mean it sounds like with this Angel Sag brand it was a little bit of both, right, They restored it in Japan and then do you localize to hear.

Yeah, so the restoration was done entirely in Japan with the trektors overseeing it, but here our main role in that whole process was to localize it, which includes a brand new, never before done the English dub of the film, which you know, despite its seventy something lines of dialogue, was something we felt was really important for us to do to get as many eyes on this film as possible, and as part of that dub, we also replicated what they did in Japan as this will be in Adobe Cinema.

We did like Adobe Atmos mix of that doves as well.

There's parody there between Japan and the US.

Do you know from your Japanese counterparts how the print looked when they started the restoration of this.

I don't have a ton of insight into exactly what that looked like.

We're in the process right now of actually going through some quite a lot of interview footage that they had recorded between either music director or a mono himself having some discussions about what that process looked like.

One of our localization managers here was actually explained to me she speaks Japanese as I don't, but she was watching that through before we've had it subtitled.

I was doing a little bit of explaining about what that process looked like, and it sounded very interesting.

But from what she said, it sounded like they almost had to go back and take everything apart and remake some things.

I think, especially with the music, I think there was a lot of work involved in having to recreate that to modern quality standards.

But having seen the print and done the Dolby Vision QC of those DCPs and everything, it looks absolutely incredible.

When was the first time you actually saw Angel sag and what did you think.

In its entirety.

The first time I saw it was when we acquired it as g Kids.

I've been aware of its existence for quite a long time.

I think it's had a long infamous history as something very famous on things like Tumblr that people just loved the aesthetic of I would post online without ever having really seen it, considering it didn't really have a release outside of the United States, but as a big fan of a Mono and his artwork as one of my favorite artists ever since I joined Kids a little over five years ago, I was like, we have to acquire this film.

I felt very lucky that they chose to do a four K restoration of this and that we were able to acquire it and give it the real attention it deserves and get it in front of as many people as possible, and especially in doing this Dolby Cinema released to me was really exciting.

And then, yeah, same question for you.

So I first saw Angel's Egg in college, and the way I saw it was the same way but I saw most anime at that time, which is fat I went to one of many pirate sites that existed where you could easily stream films like that.

I could not tell you how I first heard of it, especially back in those days.

I say as if it was a bat long ago.

But it is remarkable, like how in a relatively short amount of time, like the mainstreaming of anime has made it much more accessible and like much more broadly recognized, and like to me, Bad Landscape is like almost completely changed from when I was younger.

It was much more niche and everyone learned about different titles, different shows, different movies, certain ways.

I might have learned about angel ZGG for first sign from like reading about it on TV tropes and thinking that sounds interesting, and that's how it was passed along for most of the forty years that's been since it came out, because it didn't get, as we know, a proper release in the States, but because there's always been a very dedicated audience for anime in the States, there's always been a robust bootleg market.

So it started out with like bootlegs, and then with the Internet as that became more sophisticated, you could see it by a stream or via torrents.

And I guess that another thing that has changed is that in more recent years, like people lost for recipes for how to Torent properly.

But yeah, now we've it's finally available to see an allegitimate manner, and I still haven't been able to catch it on big screen.

There was a few years ago much Valiehood screening at Japan Society here in New York, which a'mno is actually present for which I would have been incredible, but I was out of town when it happened.

So I'm really thrilled that this is happening and that so many more people can now not just discover Angel's Egg, but also see it in a non bootleg form in crisp sound and video.

What's kind of your relationship with this film?

It's interesting I was changed over time.

When I saw it, I was like nineteen or twenty, so a lot of the symbolism just went over my head and I just had the wow, Dan, that's crazy reaction to it, which I think is a big part of its reputation too.

It's one of the more notorious Wow this movie is so weird and so inscrutable, what does it mean?

It has that kind of reputation and that's definitely how I reacted to it when I was much younger, But then as I've come back to it over years.

It I couldn't say for sure, but oh, I have the explanation for Angel Egg.

What means absolutely you know, it's obvious, no, but it does certain thinkings resonate for me, especially that when I saw it in college, I was going to a Christian college.

I was raised Christian, I was Christian at the time, and then since then I now agnostic.

And so going back to Angel's Egg with that amount of religious symbolism in it, I am changing my own perspective on faith.

Has been really interesting.

It's definitely led to and resonating with me more.

Hopefully you'll be in a little bit of luck because I was at that Japan Society screening that Amano was at and it was recorded, and we are hoping to actually put that together into a nice Blu Ray bonus feature, so hopefully you'll get to experience that one day.

That's awesome.

What is the next steps with this?

Now that the restoration is done, Now that the dub has been done, the upmost is complete.

Where are you going from there with this?

Lyle?

Once our theatrical run, we have some special'll be screenings in advance, and then our wider release I think the week after, and then from there, I think the next step will be its streaming debut on HBO Max, which I think is really exciting, which is part of a larger deal that we've done with them to release like lots of different movies.

And then after that, as soon as we can get it to market, we'll have a couple different skews of Blu rays coming out for people to purchase, and I think once I've got that in my hands, I'll feel like the cycle is complete in that, like my desire to acquire this film and get it in front of people, having a physical product I think will be really exciting.

Is there a normal process for you when it comes to some of these releases that you're doing, or is it always a little bit different and you just have to roll with punches.

Every film is different every release.

We try to give it the attention it deserves, release it in a way that makes sense for what it is.

But I think one of the things we always think is extremely important is giving films a really good deserve theatrical release.

There's very few instances where we acquire a film and it goes direct to streaming or anything.

Like that, so I think at its core that's something that Ji Kids has always believed in.

It is giving films a proper theatrical release and physical releases as well, but usually given our relationship with Japan, it's usually theatrical comes first so we can release it as close to when they are as possible, and then the process of creating a Blu ray can take quite a while, so we'll try to get that out as soon as we can.

We can take some time now.

Daniel mentioned his reading out of the film, and I want to get back into that definitely.

But what's your take on it?

When you see this is what's your worst shock test when it comes to Angels Egg.

Yeah, I think what I first saw it, I agree with what Daniel was saying, is that you see it and you're just like wow.

That was something I really don't know what to make of that There's so much symbolism and imagery going on.

But having watched it half a dozen times or more in the last six months, just during the process of getting this ready for release, I think my views on it have did quite a lot.

But I do think it's one of those films where you can take almost anything you want from it.

Like Daniel was saying, I think a lot of people take the interpretation of the loss of faith based I think partially on some things that Oshe himself has maybe said in the past, but I think also just the dichotomy between the two main characters, how different they are and how differently they see the world, I think is a really you can almost apply that to a lot of different things in life and see it that way.

But when I look at the film, I do see it.

It's like this back and forth between the two main characters, where the one has a lot of hope for the future and the one is very skeptical and cynical and would rather know the truth than just blindly hope that things will get better or this egg will hatch to something beautiful.

He'd rather just learn the truth now.

And I think that's really interesting, and I think you can take away what's beautiful about the film is that you can really just take from it something unique.

Almost every time I see it, I find something new that I can apply it to.

It is a very dialectical film, pulling equally from like Beckett and Tarkovsky, with these just two characters, And yeah, I think that the evolving perception and evolving reaction to it fits into that dialogue film itself, especially if it's good, will resonate in different ways, and then its continued exhibition and dispersion creates new dialogue over time.

And with a film as rich in symbolism and as open ter interpretation as this, that means that there's a lot different avenues for conversation.

What leads to a lot of its history and its long term but small scale fame amongst the specific communities.

Is just like how hard it was to get the fact that even in Japan when this film was released, it was really straight to home video.

I know, oh she has talked about in the past it prevented him from getting any work because it was so poorly received.

So seeing it come back around forty years later and having all this interest around it, having so many people discussing it wanting to see it, it permitted at New York Film Festival, and I think the audience reaction to that was really positive.

People had a lot of great things to say, were really intrigued by it.

So to see that basic one eighty of this direct to home video Japanese release of a film it involved two of the like profound creators in Oshi and Mono, just like collaborating on something like this to see it like come full circle and get a proper theatrical release in Japan, get a proper theatrical release here in the US, it'll get true home video Blu ray release, It'll go on streaming like it's really getting I feel like it's moment that it really deserved.

But so many people only knew about it because they either heard about it and had to torrent it, or they saw random gifts on Tumblr that just people really liked the aesthetic of it, but really did know the full story of the film.

I'm really happy to see where it's come.

How much of the dubbing process were you a part of?

Our localization manager really oversees that, and we do work with a studio call NAIV who did the dub.

They do a lot of our dubs in terms of my involvement, and that was really just making sure they had the assets they needed, making sure they do the specs, making sure they were making the Dolby atmost versions so we could have parody, but really creatively because of my own interest in the film and my own passion for it.

I was having the person managing our dubs need the casting selects and options and things.

I gave a little bit of feedback and read through the dub script and gave some feedback just because I felt passionate about it.

But it's not my traditional role.

I just wanted to involve myself as much as I could.

Dan when you saw this, did you see it?

Subtitle dubbed?

Part of the restition of bootlegging anime is the restridition of fan subs.

I think that someone could do a really interesting study in translation through comparing different versions of fan subs over the years, especially with also official subs, because anime fans, I don't know if you might have noticed, but they're very opinionated on many subjects, and especially on copper translation.

That was actually one of the earliest ways that I was introduced to translation philosophy without even thinking about or being conscious of.

It was the different ways that different fan translators with subtitle things.

You get the ones that are more literal, the ones that are trying to be more poetic, the ones that think, oh out of the translate this part because it's well known, like how honorifics work or whatever.

And yeah, every stream of an anime on the English language website would have of course come with the fan translated subs, and often they would insurge themselves into the credit sequences, just so you know who to properly pay tribute to for helping making that accessible to you.

As what a freelance culture writer in Brooklyn, what do you working out.

Of these days?

I write about a lot of things, not just film able it is mostly what I cover, but also I've written about art, theater, television, video games.

I recently was part of a really wonderful retrospective of Hideo Kojima's video games for the website Reverse Shots, covering the deaf stranding games for them.

Continuing the theme of like Japanese films, I'm writing about the upcoming not it's been out in Japan, but like it's coming out here and stay soon Kokuho, which is notable because it has become the second highest grossing live action Japanese film at the Japanese box office and has actually led to a resurgence in the interest in kabuki in Japan.

So it's very interesting stuff going on.

And Lole, I know that, you know, the road of Angels Zega is not over by any means.

But I don't imagine you are a one project at a time type of person.

What else are you working out of these days?

We're working on definitely a lot of different things.

I think most notably, we have a couple of films coming out very shortly great segue, but Cocoho is another film that we're actually really seeing as Jikids delves into a little bit more of the live action space.

So Cocoho is, you know, as Daniel was saying, like a really popular film in Japan, so we're trying to give it as much attention here in the States as we possibly can.

It's a really beautiful film, so that's really exciting.

And we've got another film believe just came out in theaters but called Little Omily or The Character of Rain, which is another really beautiful film.

It's actually like a French Japanese co production.

Really another beautiful film.

But yeah, I mean, we've got probably twenty plus movies in the works at any given time, so Angels is definitely far from the only thing we're working on.

I look forward to hearing what the next one is because it's always a tree talking with you guys.

I love what kids is up to.

So thank you so much for your time today.

Gentlemen, this is fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Yep, thanks again for having me on