PP: custommasked aa, dehalo, denoise, deband, regrain
Audio and subs are modified Crunchyroll
Source-Encode Comparison

My face when I noticed there was a YCS this weekend (this revelation would delay the release of this episode by 12 hours).

Should I watch this adaptation, or should I watch the 1979 one instead?
This new adaptation makes no attempt at replacing the previous anime adaptation. Whereas Takahata’s interpretation was very faithful to the source material, this adaptation cuts a lot of content in order to streamline the narrative and up the pace, and will likely cover much more content (the first episode covers five episodes worth of content in the 1979 adaptation). The previous adaptation has a much more restrained storyboard and presentation and focuses on preserving the brilliance of the source’s writing; this new adaptation has a much flashier storyboard and colours, and far more expressive character animation. Takahata’s take on the work placed much more importance on letting each scene linger, resulting in storytelling that is more affecting, subtle, yet grave, and its designs are stripped of the common shoujo flair of the time. This adaptation has a much lighter tone, is rewritten to be more humorous and fun, but foregoes much of the detail in the source which make up its brilliance in favour of a more lighthearted and immediate way of storytelling.

They are fundamentally different approaches. Fans of the previous adaptation may find some of these changes disagreeable (I know I do), but they are purposeful. And I think that is for the best. There already exists a meticulous and faithful adaptation of the source material, directed by one of the all-time greats, so trying to do the same thing again would be pointless. Either way, both approaches are great. I highly recommend you watch both.

Encode, QC, “Edit”: Moelancholy
Styling, Timing, Typesetting: Nyarthur
Song Translation: jymmy

Please report any issues with this release in my Public QC server.