Orphan is chuffed to preset the first English-subtitled version of the 1990 movie Tistou Midori no Oyayubi (Tistou of the Green Thumbs). Based on a classic French children’s novel by Maurice Druon, it tells the story of a young boy, Tistou, who is not very good at book learning. His father sets him to work with the family gardener.

There, Tistou discovers that he has “green thumbs,” which cause flowers to sprout any place he touches:

With this miraculous talent, Tistou transform his world for the better. But it’s too good to last, of course.

The movie is utterly beautiful, with watercolor-like backdrops and pastel coloring.

Preserving all this detail took a lot of bits, and the encode, from a Domesday Duplicator rip of a Japanese laserdisc, is quite large. It’s also divided into two parts, because the first and second sides of the laserdisc had slightly different framing. See this blog entry for more details.

Tistou Midori no Oyayubi is a wonderful film, airy and charming; the translator called it “kino” (look it up in the Urban Dictionary).

This release, and all Orphan releases, are available for direct download from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.