Piyo-Piyo Productions presents: The Curious Polar Bear 3/9/18 https://www.otakubell.com/ https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=4898 Source: Laserdisc Everything PPP-Raw releases is from laserdisc source. Somebody keeps uploading data to anidb saying its from DVD source when the DVD conversion clearly states, in plain English, that its from a laserdisc, and submitting corrections to anidb is a pain-in-the-ass because unless you do it JUST so the folks who run that place will reject your correction, so its better to give them the right info from the outset, thank you. Project notes: A short and amusing OVA about an albino brown bear (totally not a polar bear, see below) and his woodland friends as they encounter various human artifacts in the woods and interract with them. There’s a really surprising twist towards the end! There’s also a preview for the Appleseed OVA after the credts, making this the second anime LD I’ve ever seen with a preview for something else. So here’s a linguistic thing: “Shirokuma” is Japanese for “polar bear.” It literally means “white bear.” Okay, fair enough, polar bears are white, and no other bear is. If you wanted to say “white bear” as a seperate thing from a polar bear, I think you could say “shiroi kuma,” but I really just know enough Japanese to get myself into trouble, so don’t take that as gospel. Sony, who put this disc out, were, for some reason, desperate to sell it. Why do I say this? Almost all Japanese laserdiscs have an “obi strip,” which is a piece of paper wrapped around the jacket with some general info about the disc on the front, and ads for other discs on the back. Every Sony laserdisc I own that has an obi has two ads in common: This, and The Snowman (featuring David Bowie). And I do mean EVERY Sony disc has these two ads: Gall Force, Dancougar, Vampire Hunter D, much huger titles that are not necessarily themselves cross-advertised! You know what they NEVER advertised on an obi, not even once? To-Y, one of the greatest works of anime known to man, those stupid shits. I’ll take a flamethrower to that fucking Snowman. The Curious Polar Bear is good and all, but it did NOT deserve to be prioritized over To-Y. Yes, I’m mad at the giant megacorp from thirty years ago. I’m in a bit of a mood today. Unfiltered high bitrate DVD conversion included for archival purposes, since Sony, despite all that advertising, doesn’t give a shit about this one anymore.