Final task: Podcast episode about Ginga Nagareboshi Gin (1986) and the Finnish fandom

For MCP class's final task, I made a podcast episode about Ginga Nagareboshi Gin. You can listen the podcast from the video above!

In this blog post I'll talk about how I did the podcast in the first place and go through some facts and details more in depth which couldn't fit into the final cut.

Getting ready for the project

Like I said in the podcast, I grew up with the Gin anime and been knowing about the Finnish fan group's activeness. However, I wanted to take a deeper look into it in hopes to find and learn new things - and I did.

For the project I did researching a lot on the fanclub's site, Gingapedia and other fan made sites. Also I had to do some memory digging of my own, including watching all the 21 episodes of the uncut version of Gin again after over 10 years (lemme just say I cried many times watching it). Was it necessary, tho? Maybe not, but it did freshen my memory about the anime itself and made me rethink my childhood choices and why I liked it in the first place (which is still kinda big question mark to me).

I also gave the Hopeanuoli!musikaali a watch again, and checking out Yoshihiro Takahashi's interviews while he was visiting in Finland. You can watch the second, "better" version if this specific musical here btw, though there's no English translation available.

I still own the very same VHS tapes we watched when we were kids, but since I don't own a VCR, I had to watch the original, uncut version from the DVD collection.
This of course reminded me how raw the uncut version actually was.

After some of that digging and researching, I got to make the actual podcast and start writing the script for it. Yippiee!

Making the podcast

So, I've never done a podcast before. I haven't even listened to that many podcasts either (tho I like to listen to interesting ones), but I guess I wanted to challenge myself a little bit. And it was bit of a challenge to be honest.

Of course I need a microphone to make a podcast. I tried to record on my webcam's mic at first, but trying to fix the audio in post-editing didn't really save the bad quality. Gladly I found out that my phone's mic is better for this occasion, so I recorded the audio with it and the quality was now okay. Not perfect, but good enough.

Since I didn't get anyone to speak and talk with me, I went just with a script. I actually tried to record a chill impro talking, but found out my track of thought was lost many times so I decided to stick to the script and I think that was the right decision. It took me a few tries to get my speaking sound somewhat natural and not too hasty (I'm not too self-aware of my own voice but pronunciation was bit of a problem at times (impro fandubbing your favorite series in your early teens really had some good impacts, trust me)), but after a few recordings I was happy with the results.

The end results I edited with Adobe Audition and Adobe Premiere. I hadn't used Audition ever before (I heard about it first time this year on one of the classes), but since we have the licences, why not to to make use of it and learn how to edit your audio with it. Looked up some tutorials on YouTube, and ta-dah - learned how to do the most basics of editing, like taking out the unnecessary noises and how to use the spot healing brush tool. This video for example helped me a lot to get started.

For convenience, I put the final edited track on Premiere, added two songs from the Gin anime's OST to add a little extra element to the podcast's beginning and ending, drew a still image of myself and exported it into a video. Yay!

Fandom in Finland

Ginga has been a huge thing since forever in Finland. It was first released in 1989 and was later rereleased in 1994, 1996 and lastly in 1998. In 2003, the original version with the Japanese audio was finally released in a DVD in Finland and Sweden. So, Ginga's been around pretty much for 30 years now!

The anime is mostly known for it's very bad Finnish dub and is referred to and meme'd even today, though people do still actually like the series.

This is a good demonstration how bad the Finnish dub actually is (even if you don't know Finnish you may laugh to the fact how the names are pronounced and how much "emotion" the voice actors put in their work).

(CONTENT WARNING: Blood and a flying bear head) Here's probably the most known Finnish Ginga meme/fandub.

The fandom hasn't only just meme'd around, though. There's an active fanclub, there's fansites and Gingapedia, there's been petitions for the DVD release and official manga translations, there was two musicals, there's merch and a Ginga convention made possible... There's been a lot activity in Finland and it's not really stopping, at least not as long as the author of Ginga series keeps on continuing the Ginga franchise.

As I said in the podcast, the Finnish fandom has definitely taken Gin (and the Ginga series overall) "as their own", so to say: it seems that it's proud that they're one of the few ones out there who're interested to get the manga official translations in the first place and are having conventions related to it. Of course they're not acting as gatekeepers to the series, but just by going through the fansites and such, you can sense that Gin is really dear and precious series to them. And that passion has made many of the things I listed and more, possible.

Hopeanuoli!musikaali / Gin!Musical

The first musical, Hopeanuoli!musikaali, was first performed in Tracon VI in 2011. Yoshihiro was the quest of honor in this specific convention because that year Ginga manga was finally published in Finland with a Finnish translation and was the most sold manga in Finland. However, Yoshihiro saw only the last minutes of the said musical. He was touched by this musical and the hard work people had put in it, and asked for a recording to be sent to him later on. A year later he came back to Finland to be a guest in Animecon 2012 though, and finally saw the whole musical himself from the beginning to the end (this is why I stated in the podcast that he saw the musical basically twice, though now afterwards I think I could've stated the facts more clearly). In 2016, a Weed musical was also produced and performed but Yoshihiro didn't come to see it. Unfortunately there wasn't any recordings of the actual performance.

Here's Yoshihiro Takahasi in the first performance of the musical in 2011, presumably taking a video of the show.

I couldn't find any information about any former Finnish cosplay musicals or plays, so I think I can say for certain that this musical was first of its kind in the Finnish conventions. Of course there's always been dance shows and cosplay competitions with performances in these conventions for pretty much 20 years now (I've been to cons since 2004 and I think there's been these shows even before that), but not anything big as this. But because it was first of its kind, it was rather experimental and very low budget - despite that though, it was a hit.

The second performance of Hopeanuoli!musikaali in Animecon, 2012

And from that point on, there's been coming up more musicals and plays with the same idea. In 2016 there came Pokémon musical, Valitsen sinut! ("I choose you!") which also became a huge hit and was performed eight times in different theaters and conventions (you can watch the entire musical here, there's English subtitles available). The crew had some of the same actors and other members from the Gin!musical, and had an actual crowdfunding for the project along all the volunteer work. Later in 2019 there also was a Digimon play, Valitut Lapset ("Chosen Children/DigiDestined") and was also a volunteer/crowdfunded play to be performed in various theaters and conventions. Unfortunately there's so far no video available of the whole show, but you can check out their YouTube channel if interested (I wanted to mention this because my big brother is one of the actors and my sister was helping with one of the costumes ehehe). Right now there's an Undertale musical in the production, which will hopefully come out next year or so!

So, I think you could say that Gin anime inspired the cosplay community to make a musical, which inspired other cosplayers and such make more musicals and plays about their favorite games and series... Right? Which is super amazing if you ask me.

Andy Valkama
Yoshihiro's thanks to Finnish Fandom

After his first visit and interviews in Finland, Yoshihiro dedicated a one-shot spinoff manga story, Namonaki Inu No Uta (could be translated to Poem of a Nameless Dog) for the Finnish Ginga fandom. It was also a thank you for being the guest of honor in Tracon VI.

In one of his interviews he had also asked if he could ever have a Finnish dog in the series, and later in 2012, one Finnish dog did appear in Ginga Densetsu Weed: Orion called Andy Valkama. The character was named after Antti Valkama, who's the managing editor at the Finnish manga publishing company Sangatsu Manga (and Punainen Jättiläinen).

Yoshihiro did notice the Finnish fandom's passion for his works and by that, the fandom got their "own" character. Not every fandom can say that they're basically the reason a character was put in the series, huh?

In conclusion

First of all; people who do talking for their job shouldn't be taken for granted. It's hard. Talking is hard.

Second, even for unknown reasons, Gin touched many kid's hearts and that love and nostalgia is still thriving the Finnish fandom today.

But most of all, there doesn't need to be millions of people to make things happen and "getting noticed" - only if the fandom itself and the people are active, fun things may happen. It's not the main goal of a fandom to get noticed by the original makers and artists, but when such fun things happen, it brings great joy.

For this project, I also learned to make a GIF from a DVD, because I needed to have this specific
moment from the anime on a GIF. It's a really important GIF and I needed it for my presentation.
Feel free to use it anyway you want, y'all Hopeanuoli/Ginga fans!