Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XI: Vertical Hold Syndrome Part 2

So last time I brought up how anime on VHS came to an end in North America, but how did things work out in Japan? The short answer would be "Anime came out on VHS for a fair bit longer over there", but to explain why requires going into the long answer. To put it simply, Japan's relationship with VHS, & home video in general, was never the same as it was in America, namely because Japan has never been big on actually purchasing a tape for a personal collection. For a variety of reasons, with the fact that the average Japanese home is physically smaller than the average American home being a notable one, Japan's rental market became the way the wide majority of Japanese people experienced VHS. Because of this, VHS tapes were primarily only sold to rental stores, which means that they were more expensive in general (usually ranging from ¥7,000-9,000, depending on when it came out) and that has held strong to this very day, hence why Japanese DVDs & Blu-Ray releases tend to be much more expensive there than anywhere else, especially for anime; hardcore otaku, however, are willing to spend that extra money to physically own their favorite works.

Therefore, VHS still had a use in Japan for anime, since the rental market still gave it value. That being said, it didn't last all that much longer, as the last anime to see complete release on VHS (to my research, at least) was Black Jack 21 in 2006, and that was mainly because it continued the volume numbering that had started back with Black Jack TV in 2004. However, the last TV anime to still see release on VHS looks to have been Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, which saw its final tape (Volume 37) sometime in mid-2007, even though it didn't finish the series; still, this is well beyond when Hollywood stopped releasing on VHS. However, the absolute final anime to see release on VHS, in general, looks to be Studio Ghibli's Ponyo in either 2008/2009, and that's only because Ghibli is obviously the exception to a lot of stuff, as by this point VHS was effectively dead in Japan. So, with that bit of trivial anime history out of the way, let's take a look at another six anime that you can currently only get with an English translation on good old magnetic tape!

This is an advertisement, but the image
is the same as the VHS tape.

We've had the occasional small name English anime company across all of these license rescue lists, like Illumitoon, Western Connection, Synch Point, Super Techno Arts, & ArtsMagic. However, I don't think I've ever included a release from a defunct company quite like Star Anime Enterprises. Mike Toole wrote an excellent history (what little of it there is) back in 2016 over at ANN, but the short story is that SAE was just a single man, David Norell, who had previously worked at CPM and various anime cons, before simply (& incessantly) hassling as many Japanese anime licensors as possible. In the end, SAE managed to license two titles: 1994 OVA Homeroom Affairs from Tokuma Shoten (which SAE did fully release) & 1993 TV series Dragon League from FCI (which SAE did not fully release). If I had to pick between those two titles to include in a license rescue list, then believe me that I'll go with the latter anime. Part of that is because Dragon League only ever saw a single subbed VHS tape released, comprising of two episodes (i.e. "It still got more released than Shonan Bakusozoku did!"), but also because Dragon League is, by far, the way more interesting title. I mean, if one has to pick between a "softcore smut comedy" & a fantasy soccer series... I think most will go for the latter.

Yes, this is an anime where human teens compete alongside & against anthropomorphic animals in soccer matches taking place in a fantasy world, with main character Tokio's goal being to remove a curse from his father Amon, who has been turned into a tiny dragon. Of course, this was obviously aimed to be a family program (it originally aired at 17:30, or 5:30 pm), but considering how sports anime in general tend to operate, Dragon League remains a unique entry in the genre. Still, considering how it ran for 39 episodes in Japan from 1993 to 1994, there was likely no way it would have ever seen a complete release in North America at only two episodes per VHS tape in the year 1998, though the advertisement above does show that four tapes were already scheduled into April 1999. In fact, at the two-month pace it was planned at, the final tape for Dragon League would have come out in late 2001, not too long before subbed VHS releases would have stopped being a thing in North America! Also, while SAE was involved in the release, it looked to only be as a distributor, as FCI seemed to be company handling the actual release (the ad even says to go to their website for mail order), while an old ANN report on Otakon 1998 states Dragon League's release as specifically being the product of the late "Otaking" Steve Pearl & FCI, not even mentioning SAE's involvement at all. Also, $24.95 in 1998 money equates to just over $40 today, & for only two episodes, so no complaints about current anime prices.

Anyway, if you are curious about what little we did get of Dragon League, Mike Toole actually digitally captured SAE/FCI's sole VHS tape & uploaded it to Archive.org a couple of months ago, and I'm sure I'll cover it at some point for Demo Disc. However, a complete release on SD-BD or even DVD (which even Japan never got) would be cool to see happen, as unlikely as it is.

The "Go Nagai VHS-Exclusive Trilogy" comes to an end with this entry, but there's good reason why it's been separated from the two in Part 1, and I mean beyond "I didn't want half of an entire piece to be filled with Go Nagai stuff". Running for about 1.5 years in Weekly Shonen Sunday from mid-1974 to early 1976 for 7 volumes, Oira Sukeban/I'm a Female Delinquent was a manga in which Go Nagai poked fun at both the rise in sukeban culture at the time, as well as his own penchant for erotic comedy, by having lead character Banji Suke (Get it?) disguise himself as a girl & enroll in an all-girls school after becoming too infamously hated after all the chaos he tends to bring about as a boy; the "oira" in the title is the less-often-heard feminine form of the mascular self-referring "ore". Naturally, being a Go Nagai manga, Banji would often find himself in moments surrounded by women, resulting in naturally perverse stretches of comedy, which in turn is the main appeal. While not exactly a major name in Nagai's catalog, Oira Sukeban was still successful enough to warrant some adaptations, namely two different live-action movies in 1992 & 2006 (the latter of which saw English release from Discotek Media), as well an an OVA adaptation in 1992.

Now maybe you're thinking, "Were all of these Go Nagai OVAs around this time coming from the same exact place, or something?", and the answer to that would be "Yes, but not the way you might be thinking." In regards to the three titles covered in this year's list (Abashiri Family, Hanappe Bazooka, & Oira Sukeban), they were all created completely independently of each other, so it's just kind of wild coincidence that they all came out in Japan in 1992. However, Oira Sukeban is part of a line of OVA productions brought about by Nagai's Dynamic Planning & Nippon Columbia, which also resulted in adaptations of Shuten-Doji, Black Lion, Kekko Kamen, & Iron Virgin Jun, all of which did see DVD release in North America (the first three by ADV, & the last by Media Blasters). So it's more than likely that Oira Sukeban, now renamed (Go Nagai's) Delinquent in Drag for its subbed VHS release (there was no dub), was part of a larger licensing package deal between ADV & Nippon Columbia, hence why it was released in North America in 1998. In fact, the Nippon Columbia connection would likely be why ADV originally had plans for a "Go Nagai's Collector's Set" in mid-2003, which would have collected Shuten-Doji, Kekko Kamen, & Delinquent in Drag together in a three-DVD boxset, only for said boxset to be indefinitely postponed almost immediately after getting announced. In the end, Shuten-Doji & Kekko Kamen would both eventually see their own DVD releases, complete with brand new English dubs, while Delinquent in Drag would be left behind on VHS, unable to ever graduate from school; even in Japan, it remains a VHS-exclusive.

Today, though, you never know. While license rescuing short OVAs like these don't make much sense as individual releases, the idea of releasing a collection of them, especially if they all are licensed from the same company, does make it sound more reasonable. Who knows, maybe one day that "Go Nagai's Collector's Set" might actually come true, and this time around it could house Shuten-Doji, Kekko Kamen, Black Lion, Iron Virgin Jun, AND Delinquent in Drag!

Two years ago I finally featured an anime in a license rescue list that originally saw English release by way of L.A. Hero & Dark Image Entertainment, and now we're back with another. For those unfamiliar, these two companies were two different off-shoots of U.S. Renditions, one of the earliest companies to release anime in North America in their original, uncut Japanese form, with English subtitles. From what I can tell, L.A. Hero was founded by Ken Iyadomi, who would later found AnimeVillage.com (which would then later become Bandai Entertainment), a former U.S. Renditions employee who brought some of his old coworkers with him, while Dark Image was a new label made by Nippon Shuppan, which U.S. Renditions was the American anime publishing arm for. Originally, Dark Image was focused around "horror animation from Japan", though in reality that was just code for "anime meant for mature audiences only, due to things like violence & sexuality", as none of Dark Image's releases were actually horror anime; hell, by the time it released Outlanders, it dropped all mentions of "horror" from the back cover.

Also, did you know L.A. Hero & Ken Iyadomi were actually credited in the live-action movie The Guyver 2? Wild.

Anyway, for this list I decided to go with Raven Tengu Kabuto, the 1992 OVA based on the short manga series of the same name from the late 80s done by Buichi Terasawa, creator of Space Adventure Cobra. However, this OVA has absolutely nothing to do with the TV anime adaptation of the same manga that aired in Japan from 1990 to 1991 for 39 episodes, which never saw official English release, though both do tell adventures starring the titular Kabuto, a samurai during the Tensho period who fought against demons. What makes the Kabuto OVA interesting is that this was actually written, storyboarded, & directed by Terasawa himself, the first time he had done all three (he had only written or storyboarded in the past) something he wouldn't do again until Cobra the Animation: The Psychogun in 2008; Terasawa first worked at Tezuka Pro before doing manga, so he had animation experience. It's rare to see a mangaka handle an anime adaptation themselves, and while rescuing the Kabuto OVA on its own might not be appealing, it'd work well with a release of the TV series that came before it; they were both produced by NHK, while KSS Films co-produced the OVA. It looks like there was even an English dub produced for the 1993 VHS release, though info on it is light & a bit vague, as Manga UK released it in Europe in 1995, and according to the credits on the digital capture of the VHS tape Mike Toole added to Archive.org it's a completely different dub directed by George Roubicek as the one that's listed over at ANN, which mentions an Animaze-produced dub directed by the late Kevin Seymour (under his Quint Lancaster psueudonym). If anything, though, the prospect of there being two English dubs for the Raven Tengu Kabuto OVA makes it all the more appealing for a license rescue!

Sometimes, anime can just get really weird. And, sometimes, you look more into it & find out that it's NOT an anime-original concept. Not just that, but it was WAAAAYYYY bigger than you'd ever expect. Debuting back in 1988, Majuu Senshi/Demonic Beast Warrior Luna Varga is a light novel series written by Toru Akitsu that wound up running for 12 books up through 1993 (plus a side-story book in 1995), with Hiroshi Aro (Futaba-kun Change!) doing the artwork for the first nine books, while Aki Tsunaki (who'd eventually go on to direct the 2004 anime Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time) drew for the remainder. The novels followed the life of Luna de Rimsbell, princess of the kingdom named after her family, who managed to come across an ancient power after searching for a way to repel an enemy invasion. What Princess Luna found was a gigantic, dinosaur-like being known as a "Varga" that she has full control over! However, she has a bit of an "attachment" problem, as when the Varga is not summoned it winds up giving Luna a long, lizard-like tail... and when it is summoned, Luna is stuck to the Varga, butt-to-forehead!

In short, Luna has "Godzilla up her butt". As you can tell, this is meant to be an comedic action/fantasy series, though one that can still be serious when needed.

Luna Varga wound up being a successful light novel series, as it not only received a sequel series in the form of Majuu Senki/Record of Demonic Beast War Neo Varga, but it also got adapted into a tabletop RPG, received "garage kit" models, as well as a four-episode OVA directed by Shigenori Kageyama (Queen's Blade: Rebellion, Himawari!). While originally planned for release in 1990, the OVA wound up not coming out until 1991, with the anime telling a story in which Luna's sister Zena gets kidnapped, resulting in Luna & her posteriorific demon ally needing to save her. Interestingly enough, this OVA not only saw release on VHS & LD in Japan, but also Video CD, which is a true rarity for that country (at least as an official release). ADV would license the OVA in 1998 & release it across two subbed VHS tapes, there doesn't look to be an English dub, followed by the OVA entering obscurity worldwide, as it never received any sort of re-release since then, not even in Japan. Still, while the reception towards it in the years since does seem to be mixed, the concept it admittedly interesting & unique (if a bit ridiculous), it has a decent enough length at four episodes to still have some level of value in a standalone re-release, and it theoretically shouldn't be caught in licensing hell, since it was animated by AIC & produced by Kadokawa Shoten (which published the novels), both of which are still in operation to this day.

Sometimes, anime can just get really weird, and that's okay.

Throughout both of these parts we've seen titles that either had both subbed & dubbed VHS tapes, or at least just subbed tapes, so let's mix things up with a true rarity: An anime released only via dubbed VHS tape in North America, despite being an uncut release! Also, no, I did not already cover this OVA in the past, though it's honestly easy to get confused. Back in 2012, for the third license rescue list, I covered the Rumic World series of OVAs based on various one-shots created by Rumiko Takahashi, plus the One-Pound Gospel OVA (despite it not being a part of that series), and one of the entries in it was 1991's Mermaid Forest. This was based on the story of the same name taken from Takahashi's larger Mermaid Saga manga, a horror series about two people, Yuta & Mana, who had both become immortal after eating mermaid flesh, and the quest the two go on to remove their respective immortality & become human again. Central Park Media would license this OVA, along with the entirety of Rumic World before it, and release it in 1993 on both subbed & dubbed VHS tapes (with the dub done by Manga UK), followed by a sub-only LD release. This should not be confused with the other Mermaid Forest anime, a 13-episode TV series from 2003, based on the same manga, that Geneon Entertainment released in English in 2005/2006.

I bring all this up because there's yet ANOTHER anime adaptation of Takahashi's Mermaid Saga, which is the 1993 OVA Mermaid's Scar, based on another story found within the larger overall manga series. While there was talk online of neither this nor Mermaid Forest being a part of the larger Rumic World OVA label, the Japanese packaging DOES state that they are, though in both cases (especially for Mermaid Saga) the "Rumic World" logo is admittedly not quite as pronounced as before. This specific OVA was animated by Madhouse & directed by Morio Asaka (Chihayafuru, Nana), and is actually one of the first anime ever licensed & released by Viz Media, alongside Ranma ½. This would explain why Viz only ever released a dubbed VHS tape for Mermaid's Scar, and this was also apparently Viz's first ever dub, an early Ocean Studios production, with only Lalaina Lindbjerg (Mana) going on to have a notably lengthy & semi-prolific career in anime voice acting. Simply put, Viz was originally focused on marketing towards a more "maintstream" market when it came to anime early on, and wouldn't start making subtitled releases until a little later. While Ranma wound up being a major hit, I'd imagine that Mermaid's Scar didn't do anywhere near as well, so Viz likely decided that it wasn't worth putting out a subbed release later on, instead deciding to focus more on newer acquisitions

Sadly, all of these Rumiko Takahashi OVAs have never seen any new releases, not even in Japan, and I'd imagine a major factor in that is because they were all produced by Shogakukan directly, similar to what Shueisha was doing in the 90s with stuff like Bastard!!, Combustible Campus Guardress, Video Girl Ai, & the Zetsuai 1989 OVA trilogy, or Konami producing the Salamander OVA & Take the X-Train in the late 80s. Since then, all of these companies stopped producing anime themselves that they'd then release directly, at least for traditional commercial release, and seem to have no interest in licensing them out to other companies so that they can see new releases. That's why Video Girl Ai & Bastard!!'s respective OVAs getting re-released & even licensed for English release was seen as notable. Now, to be fair, Shogakukan's OVAs do share lead productions credits with other companies (like Studio Gallop, Victor Entertainment, & OB Planning, depending on the OVA), so they might be theoretically more likely to license, compared to Shueisha or Konami, who are listed all by themselves under "Production" and even "Copyright" for their OVAs, putting them in control of everything. Could this change one day? Anything's possible, and it'd be great for something like the Mermaid Scar's OVA to see a new release, if only so that it can be given the dual-audio treatment it never was given in the first place. In fact, with this now being confirmed, a giant Rumic World box set containing all entries (Fire Tripper, Laughing Target, Maris the Chojo, Mermaid Forest, & Mermaid's Scar) would be awesome to see happen, but who knows if Viz would ever be interested in going for it, and if Shogakukan would be interested in licensing it out to anyone else.

Finally, we end with something that I had never considered for inclusion in the license rescue lists because it was effectively impossible... but now things have changed. The story of how Harmony Gold created Robotech & how the licensing deal with Tatsunoko eventually lead to Big West's Macross franchise being nigh-impossible to release outside of Japan is a long & complicated one, but all of that is now over. On April 8, 2021, Harmony Gold & Big West announced that they had come to an agreement in which Harmony Gold, through its licensing deal with Tatsunoko, has licensing control of the original Super Dimension Fortress anime, while Big West has licensing control over effectively any other entry in the massive franchise, later specifically detailed as anything made after 1987; also, Big West now allows Harmony Gold to use SDF Macross-related characters in any & all new Robotech productions. As of this writing, Big West has already started this new era by making SDF Macross: Flash Back 2012, a 1987 OVA collection of music videos (plus some new animation) to act as a farewell to the OG series, available for streaming worldwide via its YouTube channel (for a limited time, at least). However, whle Harmony Gold's control over the OG TV series & Big West's control over everything else from Flash Back 2012-on is fully defined, that does leave one little production as a bit of a question mark: 1984's SDF Macross: Do You Remember Love?... and the two English dub releases it received in North America.

Acting as an alternate-telling of the original series, & later re-contextualized in Macross 7 as an in-univeser fictionalized adaptation of what "actually" happened, DYRL? is often considered one of the absolute best anime movies of all time, with co-directors Shoji Kawamori (in his directorial debut) & Noboru Ishiguro delivering one of the most exquisitely-animated stories of all time. However, with this being a big theatrical release in Japan, Big West & Tatsunoko needed another company on board for the production, in this case the box office giant Toho. Due to this new third-wheel, DYRL? has had an interesting history of international release. Carl Macek originally wanted to dub the movie to act as Robotech the Movie, but wasn't allowed to for "political reasons", so he went with Megazone 23 Part I instead, though interference from Cannon Films resulted in it being the infamous Frankenstein's Monster of a movie it saw release as. Meanwhile, Toho teamed with Hong Kong-based Omni Productions to make an English dub for the film, which Celebrity Home Entertainment managed to license & release on VHS in 1988 under its Just for Kids label, with the title (Macross in) Clash of the Bionoids. This version infamously removed about 30 minutes of the film for content reasons and has since become a bit of a collector's item, since neither Harmony Gold nor Big West obviously had no involvement with this release & likely just further muddied the waters that were already becoming dirty. However, sometime around 1995, Best Film & Video Corp. managed to get the license to DYRL? & gave Toho's dub a new release on VHS, this time with it being a seemingly 100% uncut version, now simply titled Macross.

This second release was possible due to Harmony Gold effectively being nearly dead throughout the 90s, which resulted in its control over the "Macross" name lapsing for the time being, which in turn also allowed U.S. Renditions to license & release the Macross II OVA in the early 90s, followed by Manga Entertainment acquiring that license for re-release & also licensing & releasing Macross Plus, both of which look to still be under license to Lionsgate (which bought Manga), as they're both still available in North America via streaming; UK-based Kiseki Films also released its own subbed & dubbed VHS tapes for DYRL? in that region during this time. Ever since then, however, DYRL? has been a bizarre outlier amongst all of this Macross hoopla between Harmony Gold & Big West, and even though the two companies have now finally kissed & made up, neither really has direct control over the future of this movie outside of Japan, which has long since seen an HD remaster & Blu-Ray release, though I'm not sure if Toho's dub is included with it. That being said, this new future for the entire Macross franchise looks to be a bright one, and Harmony Gold is both well aware of how much people would love to see a new release for DYRL? outside of Japan & that Toho will have to be contacted to make such a release even start to happen; I don't think Clash of the Bionoids is ever going be recreated, though. Therefore, I fully consider this entry to now be a case of "When" and not "If", and that's something I honestly thought I'd never be able to say.

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And with that we reach the end of 2021's license rescue list! I hope you found the VHS theme for this year to be an interesting one, and hopefully I can continue to find deserving picks to make a list next year. Until then, we'd best digitize those tapes & preserve them for the future, because they're only going to degrade with time.

Dragon League © Saeki Takashiro/Shueisha・Fuji TV・NAS

Delinquent in Drag © 1989 Go Nagai/Dynamic Planning/Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.

Raven Tengu Kabuto (OVA) © 1992 Buichi Terasawa/NEP/KSS

Luna Varga © 1991 Toru Akitsu/Kadokawa Shoten/NEXTART

Mermaid's Scar © Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan

Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? © 1984 Big West

Clash of the Bionoids © 1984 Toho International Co., Ltd.