News Archives

[2007-03-27]: Because we are unable to get any response from the A-Kon organizers regarding the confusion over the rate increase, we are simply going to work under the assumption that the per-person rate, after the discount, is still $30; if this turns out to be wrong, we will cover the price difference for anyone who has pre-registered through us. We apologize for the confusion.

If we do hear back from the A-Kon organizers, we will post an update here. From what we gather, it seems that others are also having trouble contacting the organizers, so they might simply be getting overwhelmed with large amounts of email or something....

We highly recommend pre-registering as soon as possible, since the ticket price might increase at any time now.

[2007-03-16]: Again, the A-Kon rate increase date has come and gone, with no clear information from the A-Kon organizers regarding whether the price has in fact increased this time or not. We sincerely apologize for the confusion. As soon as it becomes clear whether the prices are supposed to have increased, we will update the information here accordingly.

[2007-03-12]: We have received word from the A-Kon organizers concerning the current pre-registration prices. The current price ($30, after the group rate discount) will remain in effect until March 15th (rather than the previously given March 1st), at which point the prices will increase. The group-discount rate will increase to $34 on the 15th.

[2007-03-05]: The A-Kon pre-registration price was, according to earlier information from the A-Kon organizers, scheduled to increase on March 1st; however, the official A-Kon site still has the old price. We are still awaiting word from the organizers as to the status of the price. Our group rate pre-registration page still has the old (February) pricing information. If/when we hear from the A-Kon organizers, we will update the page and post more information here.

[2007-02-12]: We are preparing to begin our annual Project: A-Kon group pre-registration for A-Kon 2007. Currently, our Conventions page has the information for last year; however, the Q&A section should still be approximately correct. (Just ignore the part about the pre-registration drive being over for this year — it is referring to last year’s A-Kon.)

We expect to have things up and running by the end of this week. Also, if you are planning to go to A-Kon and haven’t reserved a hotel room, you should do so now! The hotel always fills up very early. See the official A-Kon site for information on the hotel (including how to get the extremely good convention rate on your room).

[2006-11-26]: We are dealing with local holidays and other business at the moment, but we have several things planned for the next 6 - 12 weeks. We are working on getting Lilith (our Bittorrent tracker) up and running again on a new host, since our previous host is no longer able to provide a place for us at this time. We are also planning other improvements, and we hope to resume serious work on Hameln (and other subtitling projects) around the start of 2007.

We will post additional news items as things progress.

[2006-07-10]: Lilith’s hosting server has gone down again temporarily. We are looking into the matter; we apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to get the system up and running again soon.

[2006-06-14]: Distribution is open again. We hope that everyone had a great time at A-Kon this year!

[2006-05-25]: Distribution is temporarily closed while we prepare for (and attend) A-Kon. Distribution will re-open on June 14th. We will still be checking and replying to email (albeit at a reduced frequency), but any requests for tapes or CDs will be held until we re-open next month.

[2006-05-04]: If you ordered an A-Kon ticket through us and have not yet picked it up, we will have them at this Friday’s meeting of the UT Anime Club. This is their last regular meeting before A-Kon; tickets not picked up this Friday will be mailed out instead. If you are able to come pick them up in person, please do so; otherwise, expect to receive your tickets in the mail sometime in the next week or so.

[2006-04-06]: We have a new mail server in place. As far as we can tell, we have now received all mail that was sent (and queued) during the downtime. If you sent us an email during the outage period (roughly the past week) and have not heard back from us, please re-send your message, as the original may have failed to have been delivered. We wish to apologize again for the inconvenience.

[2006-04-02]: The system serving as our mail server has suffered an equipment failure and is offline. (This is an entirely different system and network from that hosting Lilith; we are just having bad luck with hardware right now....) We are working to correct the problem; for now, we are temporarily closing distribution, since we can't get any email that you send to us. (All requests that had been received prior to today (April 2nd) have been completed.)

If you sent us an email sometime today, we might not have gotten it; if you tried to contact us and do not hear back from us, that is why. We apologize for the considerable inconvenience, and are working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

[2006-03-30]: After some considerable difficulties, Lilith is again up and running, and seeders are in place to help restart the torrents. We apologize for the extended downtime.

[2006-03-20]: Lilith’s hosting server has gone down again temporarily; however, we have been assured that the system will be back up again soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[2006-03-08]: We will be updating the anime conventions page this coming week with information on the annual Instrumentality Project group rate registration for Project: A-Kon. Check back next week for details on registering for the convention under our discounted group rate.

Also, note that A-Kon is only about three months away, and the hotel always sells out ahead of time; you would be wise to reserve your hotel room(s) now, if you haven’t already! See the official A-Kon hotel information page for details on reserving a room at the convention rate.

[2005-12-31]: Lilith is temporarily down, but should be back up within the next few days. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[2005-09-04]: Lilith’s IP will be changing at around 2:15 AM this morning (Central US time). We anticipate a smooth transition, but please be patient in the event of trouble. If you experience any problems that persist for more than a few hours, please let us know. Thank you!

[2005-09-01]: We will be moving Lilith to a new IP (with greatly improved bandwidth) sometime soon. We will post an update here when the change takes place, but we wanted to give everyone some advance warning since the changeover may cause Lilith’s tracker to be temporarily unreachable for a short while. If you have trouble connecting, please try again soon.

[2005-06-30]: We plan to resume work on the remastering of The Violinist of Hameln TV series in early July. We wish to apologize for the overly long delay, and we hope that everyone will look forward to the new episodes!

[2005-05-11]: Distribution is temporarily closed while we prepare for (and attend) A-Kon. Distribution will re-open on June 9th. We will still be checking and replying to email (albeit at a reduced frequency), but any requests for tapes or CDs will be held until we re-open next month.

[2005-05-09]: The A-Kon tickets have arrived; we will be distributing these (either in person or via mail, depending on your location) later this week. (If you have not received your tickets by the end of next week, please let us know.)

We hope that everyone has a great time at A-Kon this year!

[2005-04-23]: This year's A-Kon pre-registration discount program has ended. Tickets should arrive within a few weeks, and will be delivered either in person or by mail, depending on your location. We look forward to seeing you all at A-Kon this year!

If you missed out on our group registration, you can still register directly through the A-Kon organizers (although without the group-rate pricing). The current (non-discount) registration rate is $40; at-the-door tickets will cost $50.

[2005-04-16]: If you haven’t yet registered for A-Kon and you still want to take advantage of the Instrumentality Project group-rate discount, you are almost out of time — the last day that we will be accepting pre-orders is April 22nd. (After this deadline, you will have to register directly with the A-Kon organizers, without the group-rate discount.)

[2005-04-14]: We will be sending off the second batch of the A-Kon pre-registrations this afternoon in order to get them postmarked before the price increase that will take effect tomorrow. Any orders received by 1:00 PM today (CST) will be included; afterwards, the rate will increase by $3.

[2005-02-28]: We will be sending off the first batch of the A-Kon pre-registrations this afternoon in order to get them postmarked before the price increase that will take effect tomorrow. Any orders received by 1:00 PM today (CST) will be included; afterwards, the rate will increase by $5.

If you won’t be able to pre-register in time, don’t worry — the Instrumentality group-rate pre-registration program will continue through sometime in late April.

[2005-02-04]: We have updated the anime conventions page with the latest information on the annual Instrumentality Project group rate registration for Project: A-Kon. If you are planning on attending A-Kon this year, be sure to take advantage of our $5 discount!

[2005-01-15]: Just an update on our progress (or lack thereof): Our principal translator is suffering from an ongoing ear infection that makes listening to dialogue (or anything else) for extended periods very uncomfortable; as soon as he has recovered, we will resume work on our subtitling projects. In the mean time, we will continue to work on our software projects and other tasks. Distribution services are unaffected by this situation, so you can still request tapes/CDs as usual.

Thank you for your patience during this unproductive interval; we hope to be back to work again soon.

[2005-01-12]: Distribution is open again for the new year.

[2004-12-22]: Distribution will be temporarily closed for approximately two weeks, beginning Thursday, December 23rd. We will still be checking and replying to email regularly during this time, and Lilith will still be operating normally, but all requests for tapes or CDs will be held until we re-open next month. Distribution should resume during the first or second week of January.

[2004-10-06]: One of our Council members will be running a panel on fansubbing at Linucon this Saturday (the 9th). If you are at the convention, feel free to stop by and say hello. We will also be giving out copies of some of our fansubs (on various media) at the end of the panel.

[2004-08-23]: The second volume of Violinist of Hameln (TV #5 - 8) is now available for tape distribution; DivX-encoded versions of the episodes should be available for download via Lilith within the next day or so. We hope to have the scripts available for download and online viewing sometime within the next week.

This is the second volume of our remastered version of this series; for more information on this project, please see our news archives (specifically, the entry for March 4th of this year).

[2004-08-09]: We have completed work on Rizelmine #19 - 24 (the final volume). Copies should be available for tape and DivX distribution by the end of the week.

[2004-07-20]: We have completed work on Rizelmine #13 - 18 (the first half of the second season). Copies should be available for tape distribution within the next day or so, and we expect to have DivX versions available for download by this weekend.

Our current plans are to finish the final volume of Rizelmine, and then turn our full attention back to completing the remastered version of The Violinist of Hameln.

Check back soon for more updates.

[2004-07-05]: The Boogiepop and Others live-action movie has been licensed by Right Stuf and has been removed from distribution. Be sure to buy the legitimate release when it comes out!

[2004-06-07]: We hope that everyone who attended A-Kon this year had a wonderful time. Tape distribution is open once again; we expect to have the backlog of requests sent out by the end of the week.

[2004-05-19]: Distribution is temporarily closed while we prepare for (and attend) A-Kon. Distribution will re-open on June 7th. We will still be checking and replying to email normally, but any requests for tapes will be held until we re-open next month.

[2004-05-11]: The second (final) batch of A-Kon tickets has arrived. If you placed your ticket pre-order after April 1st, then your tickets are here; they will be mailed out this week, so you should be receiving them soon.

[2004-05-05]: Our fansubs of the Boogiepop and Others movie and Rizelmine #1 - 12 (first season) will be shown at A-Kon next month. If you haven’t seen these before (or even if you have!), be sure to stop by and watch them!

Also, with our preparations for A-Kon moving into high gear soon, we will be temporarily suspending distribution starting in two weeks (May 19th); we will be resuming distribution on June 7th. (Distribution is still open right now; if you request tapes before the 19th, we should be able to get them sent out to you within our usual turnaround time. Requests received between the 19th and the 7th will be queued up and handled after we re-open in June.)

[2004-04-27]: We have made a number of changes to the web site. Old bookmarks should still work, but if you find any broken links or other problems, please email us so we can fix them.

[2004-04-24]: Petite Princess Yucie (Puchi Puri Yuushii) has been licensed by ADV and is no longer available for distribution.

[2004-04-18]: This year's Instrumentality Project A-Kon pre-registration discount program has ended. Tickets should arrive within a few weeks, and will be delivered either in person or by mail, depending on your location. We look forward to seeing you all at A-Kon this year!

[2004-04-15]: The first batch of A-Kon tickets has arrived. If you placed your ticket pre-order before April 1st, then your tickets are here. You can pick them up in person at the UT Anime Club meeting this Friday or next Friday; we will mail out any tickets that are not picked up by then. (If you know in advance that you will not be able to pick up your tickets in person, you can email us and we will go ahead and mail out your tickets now, so you don't have to wait.)

We are still taking pre-orders, but not for much longer; see the A-Kon group pre-order page for details.

[2004-04-04]: If you use BitTorrent to download anime episodes, a number of our fansubs are available in DivX-encoded via BitTorrent; see http://lilith.instrumentality.org/ for links. (We will of course continue to release tape-based fansubs even unto the Ending of the World.)

[2004-03-31]: The scripts for the Violinist of Hameln #1 - 4 are now available for download from the script database page. (They are also all viewable via the online script viewer.) The .ZIP archive includes the scripts in both English and Japanese, as well as the OP/ED theme lyrics, production and cast credits, and the extra notes that we included at the end of the first volume.

[2004-03-13]: The A-Kon organizers have delayed the next pre-registration ticket cost increase; you now have until 3:00 PM (CST) March 29th before the prices go up by $5. (The deadline was previously the 15th.) We are still collecting pre-registrations for our discount group pre-registration order; see our A-Kon information page for details.

[2004-03-08]: The long-awaited Boogiepop and Others movie script is now available for online viewing and download (in text and Eva XML formats).

[2004-03-07]: Our online script viewer is back online! You can now view our scripts online and (within the next few days) submit bug reports, comments, or other notes regarding one of our scripts. Currently, only the Angel’s Egg and Hameln episode 1 scripts are available for viewing; we are working to get all of our backlogged scripts online and available for download and viewing as soon as possible.

If you encounter any problems with the script viewing pages, please send us an email describing the problem so we can get it fixed as soon as possible.

[2004-03-04]: At long last, the first volume of our remastered edition of the Violinist of Hameln TV series is available. VHS and SVHS masters are available now, and DivX-encoded AVIs will be available within a day or two. We hope to have the scripts available for download within the next week or so.

This new version is remastered from DVD and includes a new translation. While it is based upon our original (1999) version, we now have available to us copies of the actual voice recording scripts used during the original animation production, so we have been able to double-check our translation at every step of the way, hopefully ensuring the best possible translation.

The scripts to be made available for download will include both our English and the original Japanese scripts (in Eva, plain-text, and SSA formats).

We have also expanded upon the lengthy end-notes on all of the musical references. (Those who found the originals to be, as one fan put it, “informative, but nonetheless the most tedious five minutes ever known to man” will perhaps be pleased to learn that the notes now have background music.) These notes are only present on the tape versions (not the AVIs, since they are not attached to an episode); a comprehensive informational section will be added to the web site later which will include all of these notes (and more...).

For many people, this was the first title of ours that they saw, and many people still associate us directly with our first release of Hameln. It was the first full-length TV series that we subtitled, and it is certainly an important series to us. Hopefully this new edition will prove to be as well-received as the original, and worth the wait.

We are hoping to complete the remaining volumes at a reasonable rate; be sure to check the project page periodically for progress information. Also, a number of people have expressed interest in receiving email notification as new volumes are released; if you would like to be added to this (private) list, just send us an email at fansubs@instrumentality.org and mention that you want to be added to the Hameln notification list.

[2004-02-12]: For those who are having trouble finding or downloading DivX-encoded copies of our episodes, we are now offering copies on CD-R; see the distribution page for details. (Of course, we are still offering VHS and SVHS copies, as always.)

[2004-02-01]: A new version (0.5) of the Eva script format XML DTD has been posted to the Eva project page. Also, we are hoping to have a script editor (though not yet the full Eva wave-based timing application) available for download sometime soon. The new revision of the Angel’s Egg script (2.0.1) uses the new DTD.

[2004-01-09]: Distribution is now open for the new year. We are catching up on our backlog of email, so if you mave sent us email or a tape request over the last couple of weeks, you can hopefully expect a reply within the next day or two.

[2003-12-16]: Just as a notice, we will only be checking our email intermittently over the next couple of weeks (so if you email us and don't hear from us for a while, please have patience).

[2003-12-08]: We will be suspending our distribution services for a few weeks, starting December 11th. Any tape requests received by Wednesday (the 10th) will be processed and sent out this week. We will be resuming normal operations in January. You can still submit requests during the interim, but please be aware that they will not be processed until January.

[2003-12-04]: We have been informed that a supporter of the Project has set up a BitTorrent for the Boogiepop and Others movie DivX files. (See the distribution page for details.)

[2003-11-16]: We have completed work on Brother, Dear Brother #36 - 39 (the final volume). It will be available for distribution starting tomorrow.

[2003-11-04]: Pre-registration for A-Kon 2004 is now open! Visit the A-Kon information page for information on our annual discount pre-registration program.

[2003-10-27]: The UT Anime Club will be showing our subtitled version of the Boogiepop and Others live-action movie at their Halloween showing this Friday evening (October 31st). See their web site for time and schedule details.

[2003-10-23]: It has been brought to our attention that someone has (with suspicious timing) begun producing and selling bootleg English-subtitled DVDs of the Boogiepop and Others movie. We have not viewed any of these ourselves (and are not of a mind to, since obtaining a copy would require sponsoring a pirate entity), so we do not know whether these are copies of (or are based off of) our version or not. At any rate, if you do see a DVD version claiming to have English subtitles (or any other language, for that matter — the legitimate Japanese release had no subtitles at all), it is a bootleg version and is not related to our Project (or the original Japanese commercial release) in any fashion (at least, not in any legitimate capacity).

[2003-08-31]: Distribution is now open. Also, see the distribution page for information on obtaining digital (DivX-encoded) copies of our titles.

[2003-08-26]: We have reorganized our web site. If you find any typographical errors, broken links, or other problem areas, please email us so we can fix it. Also, we will be adding some new areas to the site soon, so check back often for the latest updates. Finally, we will be re-opening our distribution services (only for titles that we have subtitled) later this week. Check back soon for more information.

[2003-08-24]: The Instrumentality Project has entered the Third Phase.

[2003-08-18]: We have completed work on the Boogiepop and Others live-action movie. This movie, based on the original Boogiepop novel by the same name, is a prequel to the Boogiepop Phantom anime series (which is licensed in the United States by Right Stuf International). If you have watched the anime series and you would like to know more about the background story, you will want to watch this movie. We will be providing distribution services of this title within the next week or two; check back soon for more updates.

[2003-08-11]: We have completed the first season of Rizelmine (#1 - 12). We do intend to subtitle the second (final) season, #13 - 24, but we have other projects that we plan to work on first. We will have Rizelmine available for distribution, in two volumes, within the next few weeks. (We need to create new masters for duplication first.)

[2003-06-13]: A new version (0.4) of the Eva script format XML DTD has been added to the Eva project page. The only changes from 0.3 are the addition of the annotation and flags elements in the event element and the addition of the revision element in the script-info element, so if anyone has been using the 0.3 DTD, the necessary changes are minimal.

[2003-05-12]: The A-Kon 2003 tickets have arrived. Those who have not arranged to pick them up in person should be receiving your tickets in the mail sometime this week. Our operations are going to be more or less shut down from now until the beginning of June due to our own A-Kon preparations. (Be sure to check back at the beginning of June for announcements on our Summer projects.) We hope that everyone has a great time at A-Kon!

[2003-04-25]: This year's Instrumentality Project A-Kon pre-registration discount program has ended. Tickets should arrive by mid-May, and will be delivered either in person or by mail, depending on your location. We look forward to seeing you all at A-Kon this year!

[2003-04-21]: This is the last week of the Instrumentality A-Kon discount program for this year. If you have been putting off registration, don't put it off any longer! See our A-Kon information page for more details. The Instrumentality pre-registration deadline is April 25th.

[2003-04-01]: The price for pre-registration for A-Kon 2003 (including the Instrumentality Project discount) is now $35. (Direct pre-registration at the A-Kon site is now $40, and at-the-door registration will be $45.) Our discount pre-registration for A-Kon 2003 will end April 25th.

[2003-02-24]: According to the A-Kon organizers, the primary A-Kon hotel (Hyatt D/FW) has sold out. An official overflow hotel has been arranged (including special convention rates). See the official A-Kon page (http://www.a-kon.com/) for details.

[2003-02-01]: The price for pre-registration for A-Kon 2003 (including the Instrumentality Project discount) is now $30. (Direct pre-registration at the A-Kon site is now $35.) We do not yet know whether/when the price may increase again; based on previous years, it will probably increase again one more time, probably in March. (We will update our A-Kon pre-registration page when we have received an official statement.) As always, we advise you to pre-order soon in order to get the best price.

[2002-12-05]: A new page has been created for the (still in development) Eva subtitling software. Currently the page has only a general overview of the software, but additional information, screen shots, etc. will be added over the next few weeks.

[2002-09-25]: For those who plan ahead (which we strongly recommend), the Hyatt DFW hotel is now accepting reservations for A-Kon 2003 at the convention discount rate. You will need to call the hotel directly in order to make a reservation: The hotel is reserved for A-Kon, so to the nation-wide operators at the 1-800 number, it looks like it is already full. Call the hotel directly at 972-453-1234 and mention "Project A-Kon" in order to get a room.

[2002-07-25]: Pre-registration for A-Kon 2003 is now open! Visit the A-Kon information page for information on our annual discount pre-registration program.

[2002-06-03]: A-Kon 2002 is over. We hope you all had a good time. Unfortunately, due to schedule changes and problems with one of their DVD players, they were only able to show the first twelve episodes of Argent Soma (and only the first four of them were from DVD), but hopefully those of you who were able to watch it enjoyed what they were able to show. (Hopefully, barring domestic licensing in the mean time, they will be able to show the remaining episodes at A-Kon 2003.) Now, with A-Kon behind us (and insufficient funds to journey to Anime Expo this year), we will be resuming our normal operations within the next week.