Seishun Shitemasu, a Bunch of Guys with a VCR

How can I get copies of Seishun Shitemasu Productions?

How can you get copies of Seishun Shitemasu Productions?

That's an excellent question. We're not sure what the answer is, but "sometime, somehow, soon" would be a start. Currently, all of our productions are remastered on DVD and are in a form we could actually distribute them to fans who would like copies. At the present time, we're going to do a little more fine-tuning, and we also plan to add directors tracks to our productions -- god we love Final Cut Pro. Watch this space for more information!

Seishun Shitemasu Influences

All the good ones. All the other ones.

Of everything, two influences have to stand well above the rest. The direct, and if I may be somewhat hyperbolic, life-changing factors.

Robotech: It's full of atrocious dubbing and horrible editing, pacing, and writing choices, and doomed to die slowly as the sequels were mismanaged. Yet at the time it was as good as any anime could ever be. Most of us would never have met without it.

PineSalad Productions: Imitation, meet flattery. Not the original parody dubbers, but the first we ever saw. And the work stands the test of time; all of us laugh out loud when watching "How Drugs Won the War" for the 923769th time. It led us directly to what you see here.


Major influences

Airplane!
Dynaman
MTV
Star Trek
Star Wars
Twin Peaks




More information coming soon!

Picture Archive

Notes by Peter

Welcome to the Pictures Archive Page, the page most likely to be removed soon as the other Seishun guys tell me to take these damn old pictures down. Enjoy them while they're up!


This is a picture of me dressed as Totoro. This was in 1990 so I was really bleeding edge. This picture appeared in an issue of Animage which I have.



This was our trip to Anime Con, held in 1991. It was a momentous time for all of us, a mythical Easy Rider type journey for our geeky generation.


A picture from Anime Expo, in 1992, the first show held under that name. Here I am my boy's high school uniform, which I'd just bought in Japan.


A full hotel room of fans from the early 90s.


Our beloved Seishun Shitemasu T-shirts and my jacket. I still have it.


Me in Japan, kanji sheets on the back. This was where I lived in 1991.


Max, Phill and Josh, visiting me at work at SDSU


Chris Lockwood at an early con

Voltron II: The Lost Episode

Presented in 1995 by Seishun Shitemasu - a Good Enough Production. Liner notes by Josh

Galactor is bringing the smack for his captives!

Voltron: The Lost Years is a prequel to Voltron: Hell Bent for Leather, building off the conceit that all five-member hero teams are comprised of the same characters: level-headed, somewhat boring leader, hotheaded second, fat guy, chick, and kid. Gatchaman's famous fashion sensibilities made this our "70s" production, bringing us to three decades of cheap throway gags. As usual, our penchant for anachronisms shined through with both music cues and totally inexplicable references to forgotten 90s pop songs.

Kurt, the original lead singer of Gasp, before Courtney had him killed, and Mark, our leader.

Much like Hell Bent for Leather, this was one of those favorite Battle of the Planets episodes, primarily for the ludicrous image of Zoltar (...Berg..Galactor..) grooving to the rock music with the big headphones somehow in place over the pointy ears of his headpiece. By the time we did this, the only easily-available Gatchaman was in the form of G-Force reruns on the early Cartoon Network. Thus the return of the SS bug in the corner. Also, at the time this was the only production using just one episode for source material (but would not remain so for long).

The script was written largely by committee, abetted by the horrible animation, fashions, and the inexplicable choice of base under a humor-friendly location like Lake Titicaca. My favorite parts include the "irony" joke late in the show regarding harm to the hostage musicians, and Dread Lord's hilarious ad-lib about the Holocaust. Post-production went quickly, and we premiered at AnimeAmerica that year. Haven't been to a bay area con since...

Princess discovers the hidden base! and: Lucas with the lid off? WTF, Doc!

Fox Force Five: Chasing Minmei

A Good Enough production, 1996.

Liner Notes by Josh


Yes, this show was the most popular topic of discussion on rec.arts.anime at the time. Sailor Moon, that is, not F3.

Fox Force Five: They stand for love! And Merchandising! The mega-successful Fox Force Five commands three of the most popular, ratings-grabbing television elements of the 90s: cheaply produced sentai shows, post-ironic dialogue-based humor, and lesbians, lesbians, lesbians. It's a throwback to the Seishun of the early 90s, when Ranma was just coming out of the closet and a battle royal involving aliens, nazis, and that scourge of fandom, filkers. Are there any filkers left now? If produced today, the villains would certainly be furries.



Minmei, Blunt, and Chronic.

The last production of the 1990s, and almost our last production, period. It was the start of a new summer, and having spent the previous five early summers working on these, we decided to go ahead with our tenth production. From the beginning it was meant to be something quick and/or dirty, a production that would truly earn the Good Enough name. The story elements are a perfect snapshot of all our preoccupations at the time, chiefly alt-rock, Kevin Smith movies, and furious contempt for the darling show of its day, Sailor Moon. For years most of us regarded Ranma as a mild embarrassment. Now that's the level we were shooting for. Ranma, not mild embarassment.

The production itself was somewhat fragmented. You'd think having a combat-heavy 23 minutes would write itself with throwaway lines, but this turned out to be far from the case. I seem to remember spending the better part of two weekends trying to get it cooked into a rough form that we cold start dubbing from, having false-started on the dubbing at least once.

None of us had ample time to work on the project -- we were all going our separate ways (just like in Robotech episode #75!) with jobs, girls, bands, etc, and once the script was done I had little involvement with most of the dubbing. No matter how I try I can't recall being at more than one session though I know it took at least three. The cast was notable in its time for featuring five actresses, none of whom needed to double up on their parts (a high-water mark we may never achieve again). With no one else wanting to do it (and with no other roles to my name), I took the bit part of Captain Kotex, and further talked myself into a corner by not writing his lengthy episode-closing monologue until the mic was on. It shows.


What a show, that Sailor Moon...


Ten years on, F3 figures highly in my top-3-least-favorite productions list, its slot depending on my mood. Time has not been kind to it, though like Ranma it seems to have a number of fans.

Anime Bites

Produced in 1994 by Seishun Shitemasu - Liner notes by Josh


Mmm.. early CG titles. The Shinjuku loft is a hipster spot in Seattle. Really.

In 1983, popular legend has it that Brandon Tartikoff, the then-president of NBC, scribbled a note to himself during a meeting: "MTV Cops." This would later become fully realized as "Miami Vice."

In 1993, remembering that anecdote, the small thought "90s anime" came to me. I wanted something in the Singles or Reality Bites vein, with grungy music and a lot of 20 somethings jamming around and not doing much of anything.


From Left to Right: Spoonman, Eddie, Sid, Jacques, and Karen.

As Con season approached in 1994, and again with not much else in the way of obvious ideas, we started to scour the earth for footage that would serve our purposes. Something that was well animated and preferably off laserdisc and still met the plot requirements. I scanned the Anime Resource Guide from AnimExpo 1992 (Hey, those things were useful after all!) and came across the To-y entry. I'd vaguely remembered watching it years before. Sometime in the 80s, proto-Seishun member Chris Lockwood, now living the high life in Tokyo and wisely distancing himself from us was big on To-y and he had loaned me his copy. Upon reading the synopsis anew in the ARG I knew we'd found the footage.

I must admit, To-y looks terrific, and still seems quite modern despite being nearly eighteen years old at this writing. Nicely stylized music interludes, slick animation. And perhaps best of all, it's an obscure title. And even today, the English rights remain unsold, and our version remains the definitive English version! Ha!


Rocking out to Lucy's Fur Coat, I think.

So we worked on it for most of June of 1994; we snipped out a few scenes here and there but by and large kept the original plot of To-y intact. Anime Bites was less a parody dub and more a humorous remake of the original, one that even fans of the original didn't hate much. Yes, we ratcheted up the sex and drug jokes. The "Kurt Cobain" joke, which felt like it had perhaps minutes of shelf life, continues to elicit nervous laughter, some ten years later.


Quick! Pretend you're Kurt Cobain...

Still, the most important element of Anime Bites was the music. Any 90s movie worth its salt requires a good soundtrack, and since we were unconstrained by budget we could use music from any source. Much of the soundtrack ended up coming from other soundtracks: The Crow or Singles. Both of these discs are full of great (and now, largely forgotten) tracks by the big names. In keeping with Bites' superficial similarities, virtually all the important scenes are scored from Singles. Rounding out the music were several tracks from local acts, as at the time San Diego was being widely trumpeted as the "next Seattle." I'd wanted to use some Nirvana for balance with the three Pearl Jam tracks, but, well, but neither track I'd planned on quite worked out (for the record, I was hoping to use Drain You, off Nevermind somewhere, and we slated Endless Nameless, the hidden track on the first pressing of that same CD for the "Hey, they're tight tonight" scene. The Deathtongue reference, brilliantly recorded by Max and Phill, works better?).


Courtney or Karen, who would you choose?

Of all the productions made during the second life of Seishun Shitemasu, I think Anime Bites came closest to our vision, and so remains a personal favorite for many of us.

UC:0069 - The Jion Years

Liner Notes by Josh


Zaku, Cadillac of the stars!

Another in our long-mileage series of concepts that we came up with while sitting around in a room asking one another 'So, what're we gonna do this year?'

This particular time, Adam dealt out one LD from his collection after another, and we'd vote on it. As it turns out, the actual list of titles was relatively small. Gundam 0083 was the Big Thing ™ at the time, and while Adam owns all the episodes (plus that ultra-rare bonus 7" LD, one we ended up using as surprise footage for RIV) I know I for one wasn't too enthused about making a comedy out of 0083*-- and probably most of the Gundam fans (an overly serious lot if there ever was) wouldn't enjoy it much, either.

Even so, Gundam was ripe for parody use. It's a sacred cow that no one had dared touch (nor have they, since). Thus any alternate use of the footage would have to be used with some respect, or at least use footage from a Gundam show that no one much liked.


Acting ensign Kou Uraki, Jion Liberation Movement.

Back then, there wasn't much outside of the main tv series to use. In point of fact, there were only three possibilities: The aforementioned 0083, 0080, and F-91. The question you're asking yourself now is, "So why 0080 and not F-91?" Well, we all hated F-91. To the point that no one I know has willingly endured it since its release. Discounting that, its isolation from the rest of the UC calendar is problematic; back then all other Gundam shows were firmly set in the One Year War period, and the shared continuity is a huge boon for jokewriting. 0080, on the other hand, fits nicely into the early Gundam universe, contains a relatively small amount of actual mobile suit combat and as a huge bonus, large degree of interpersonal scenes -- best of all, involving children!

I believe it was Phill who came up with the Wonder Years take on the subject, which opened up a whole slew of 60s cliché jokes and music ideas. I later added the idea that it be the story of a young Kou Uraki from Gundam 0083, and if you fudge your UC history a little bit it seems plausible he was of that age in UC0069 -- which, gosh darn it, happens to have a humorous context as a bonus.


Kou, peeping at Slyvia.

So we had our concept and one of our characters. Using some of my Gundam knowledge (mostly gleaned from Operation X's 0083 subtitles and the two issues of their U.C. Herald fanzine I stole from Adam) I populated UC0069 with established characters and set upon inserting a few background Gundam jokes into the throwaway lines.

Voice acting proved interesting. First, since I am the standard choice for narrator/voiceover work, we needed someone else with a high voice to play young Kou. Enter our first turn trying it as the Japanese do it, using a woman for a young boy's voice.

One thing that chagrins me to this day is that one of our voice actresses didn't let Neil Patrick Harris pick up on her. On the first day of dubbing, it seemed he was at the La Jolla playhouse, where she worked during that summer. She claims (I have no proof this ever happened, but it sure makes for a good story) she caught old Doogie Howser himself checking her out. If she'd only played him into her hands long enough to bring him by to dub a few lines, UC0069 would have one more place in the history books. But she didn't. For the record, I always think of him as being Amuro -- instead he was one of my less inspired performances.


Lucette, Amuro, and Kou.

[Peter would like to cut in here to mention that Josh and the actor who played Doogie Howser have the same birthday, June 15th. To make it more ironic, Chis Lockwood ALSO has the same birthday. Josh would like to mention: I do not think that word means what you think it means.]

List of explanations

Kou's mom's carrot fixation would, of course, later tie into his aversion of the orange roots in 0083.

"Zaku! Cadilliac of the stars!" -- a result of having seen Empire of the Sun a little too soon before making this.

The Nosehair/"X" dialogue from that park bench scene is partially the result of watching the "X" scene in "JFK" about four times back to back. While it probably doesn't show the influence beyond a superficial level, I still think of Don Sutherland and Kevin Costner when that scene begins.

The entire "Dungeons and Dragons Generation 2" ad was something I'd wanted to do for ages, at least as long as I was aware of Lodoss War. Glad it worked.

Aside from the Basque Ohm reference, the rest of the news anchor's report comes from a pastiche of Frank Miller comics -- most notably Give Me Liberty and The Dark Knight Returns.

The most obscure reference of UC0069 is the final scene between Bernie and Kou. "Nights in White Satin" plays on in the background, which is a tribute to the final episode of the Sonny Steelgrave arc from Stephen J. Cannell's great 80s show, Wiseguy. Despite some inherent 80s cheese in the early episodes ("Dave already killed one frisbee. We kill another, and we all gotta move t'Tibet for the win-tuh.") -- and some extremely thick homoerotic themes in that particular episode -- the finale between Sonny and Vinnie remains one of my favorite TV episodes of all time. If you buy the DVD though, forget it. They couldn't afford the rights to the song and put some placeholding synth music there instead.



Before my time, Kou. Like honor.

* Despite the implication, Bernie survives the Sydney Colony drop. After making 0069, the idea occured to me for a 0083-based sequel to 0069, a sort of 'Big Chill' deal where Kou would finally feel the disillusionment Bernie apparently does. If that ever is produced (fat chance), Bernie would become Lt. Burning of 0083 fame. Trivia: the letter Burning receives posthumously from his wife in episode #8 of 0083 was from his wife, Sylvia Burning, thus providing a retroactive name for Sylvia in 0069.

The last piece of music in the episode proper, "The Song Remains the Same," by Led Zeppelin, was a serendipitous bit of luck. We finished UC0069 in the PARC Oakland Hotel on the first day of AnimExpo '92. However, we were stuck with a somewhat reduced selection of CDs for music choices since we only had what Phill and I brought on our road trip up from San Diego. After NiWS, is my favorite piece in the whole show.

UC:0069 Shouldn't be a "Good Enough" production, but it was the first SS production developed entirely outside of Peter's influence, so I think we all somewhat consciously didn't want to infringe on the name. That would have to wait for Anime Bites.

Voltron: Hell Bent for Leather

Liner notes by Josh

Produced in 1992 by Seishun Shitemasu (a "Good Enough" production)


Voltron and Judas Priest -- what's not to love?

In 1991, USA network started airing a pre-Robotech favorite of mine -- Voltron. I immediately set upon taping episodes, waiting for that perfect one that could be dubbed. It was my creative baby from the beginning, and since nobody else had any good ideas, we threw it into production during the couple of weeks we had between Peter coming back from Japan and AnimExpo '92. I always had mymind set on "The fast red robeast" episode, but kept occasional other episodes on tape as well, just in case. Since USA didn't seem to be airing episodes in order,(I do not think they ever showed the episodes where Sven returned, or the series-ending arc where they finally decide to just go and "kill the fuckers.") it was a continuing saga of hoping for that elusive gift from the "Voltron fairy."


General Leonard played by Peter, and yet another voice for old reliable Debbie

Eventually, of course, the episode aired and we went ahead. My original concept was to do what Dynaman had done years before; goofy, irreverent giant robot stupidity. Max had wanted a heavy metal soundtrack (ask him about his dream dub of Iczer-1, sometime) and Peter insisted on mixing together more than one episode of Voltron. We settled on one I'd never seen before the USA airings; this is where the "General Leonard" subplot came from. It all spliced together fairly well: it's difficult for me to remember what either separate episode is like. Then again, this is Voltron I'm speaking of, hardly a show that rivals Evangelion for its plotting...


Max played Dread Lord , and I did great as Acroyear (Micronauts reference, anyone?)

A few more items...

If I was unable to obtain the Red Robeast episode, I was actually planning on using one with a robeast that looked suspiciously like a turtle as "Voltron vs Gamera," -- probably just as well for all of us that it didn't pan out.

Some of the dialogue is verbatim from the Voltron episode: Haggar's "My magic can easily change the color to red -- but I don't do windows," and Lothar's "I'm afraid he didn't make a very good landing…if he comes out of that, I don't think he'll be flying again for some time." We added the scream.


Let's fight the good fake fight

At least at one time, I felt I could do a not-shabby Worf voice ("Good tea. Nice house."), and I figured it'd make a good villain voice. The incessant Shakespeare quotations are a tribute to the highly cultured Klingons of the then-current Star Trek VI. For verisimilitude, Max sat in a corner grepping nice lines out of Signet's Three Great Shakespearean Tragedies. The only snag with this approach is Worf speaks very slowly and deliberately, and I had to drop some, nay, all, of the nuances of his mannerisms to sync with the mouth movements. Still, aside from an overly enunciated "and we'll (more like "wheel") not fail," I don't have many complaints with one of my larger voice roles…

Despite the cheery closing narration, we'd resurrect the Voltron Force characters later, in The Lost Episode…


Another "good enough" production is completed