However, to start things off for the second half of this list, we have another reason why a portion could go "missing" for English release: It was originally released via video game!
Debuting back in 2001 in the pages of Monthly Shonen Jump, Dragon Drive by Ken-ichi Sakura told the story of kids who are into the titular VR game where they fight alongside mystical dragons... only for the game to actually have a connection to an actual fantasy world, Rikyu, where said dragons come from. The manga itself wound up being split into two halves, with the first starring Reiji Oozora as he & some friends (& enemies) find themselves in Rikyu, while the second starred Takumi, the little brother of Makino (one of Reiji's supporting cast), & sees the Earth ruined when the dragons of Rikyu come to the players' world. Though the manga itself would run until 2006 across 14 volumes (split roughly evenly across both storylines), it was seemingly meant to be a media mix from the start, as the companies Bandai, Chan's, & Org were credited as "In Collaboration With" below Sakura, so it's no surprise that there were video games & even a collectible card game based on Dragon Drive, as well a TV anime adaptation by Madhouse that ran between 2002 & 2003 for 38 episodes. While Viz would eventually release the manga in English from 2007 to 2009, though it never received a digital re-release (so it's not in the SJ Vault today), Bandai Entertainment was actually first to bring the series over via the anime, releasing all 38 episodes across 10 dual-audio DVDs in 2004 & 2005, followed by two boxsets in 2006. I actually included the Dragon Drive anime in the 2016 license rescue list, as some of the DVD singles & boxsets have since gotten rather expensive, especially the second boxset.
However, back then I had no idea that Bandai Entertainment's releases were technically "missing" something... an entire episode, in fact! That being said, though, it's not like Bandai Entertainment willingly skipped over it, and in fact the people there may not have even known of this episode's existence, since (to my knowledge) it was only ever released once, and as part of a video game release. As I mentioned before, Dragon Drive had some video game adaptations, three to be in fact, but we'll be focusing on the final, GameCube game, Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot, a 3D aerial combat/rail shooter developed by Treasure! Released on August 8, 2003, D-Masters Shot came out roughly five months after the TV anime had finished airing in Japan, so it was decided that the game would actually include two GameCube mini-discs. The first was the "Game Disc", which contained the game itself, but the second was the "Anime Disc", which contained an episode-length OVA, Shinku no Himitsu/The Secret of Evolution, which was effectively Episode 39 of the TV anime & acted as an epilogue to the show! Now, to be fair, it's not like the TV anime had an unfulfilling finale or anything like that, but when I realized only a few years ago that this (mostly forgotten, despite the developer) GameCube-exclusive video game contained a bonus epilogue episode for Dragon Drive, one of those early anime I watched when I first started getting into the medium in the mid-00s, my mind was absolutely blown away.
In fact, the very existence of Shinku no Himitsu itself is essentially unknown online, as while the existence of the Anime Disc itself is known via images & scans, I can't find any place talking about what's actually on the disc. Wikipedia Japan doesn't mention it (only stating that the game is based on the anime), the game's small English Wikipedia page doesn't even mention the Anime Disc, and sites I do find that mention the Anime Disc erroneously state that it's "just an episode of the anime", some even stating that it's Episode 1 (which is titled "The Sleeping Dragon"), despite the literal back cover of D-Masters Shot saying that "A New Production is Included on the Anime Disc!!" & that it tells a story not told in the TV anime. Regardless, I fully understand why Bandai Entertainment didn't include Shinku no Himitsu in its old DVD releases, as it's entirely likely that it has its own licensing situation behind it, due to it being released as part of a video game, and in the grand scheme of things it's not exactly essential watching to enjoy the Dragon Drive anime. Still, the simple fact that it does exist, combined with the old DVD releases now being rather inaccessible from a financial standpoint (& taking up too much shelf space, if you go for the singles), just makes me wish that Dragon Drive would get license rescued, as now there's actual reason for a re-release, since a company could actually look into seeing if Shinku no Himitsu could get included this time around & offer something never included (or even known about, outside of Japan) before. If you're curious, the Dragon Drive anime doesn't seem to be available via streaming at all in Japan, either.
While Mobile Suit Gundam will forever be Yoshiyuki Tomino's major legacy, it's arguably not what he himself would likely considered "his baby" today. No, that hypothetical label would likely go to Byston Well, a multimedia franchise created by Tomino back in the 80s that (amazingly enough) is also one of the earliest examples of (the now-popular) isekai in anime & manga. It all started with 1983's Aura Battler Dunbine, a TV anime which saw motocross biker Show Zama get teleported to the world of Byston Well & get involved in a massive war where people fight in giant mechs called Aura Battlers, alongside other "Holy Warriors" from Earth who were transported to Byston Well; Dunbine is notorious for featuring one of Tomino's trademark "Kill 'Em All" endings. After that series ended in 1984 after 49 episodes, Tomino continued to make Byston Well stories, mainly via the serialized novels Wings of Rean (1983 to 1986, six volumes), Fau Fau Restory (1986, two volumes), Record of Aura Battler War (1986 to 1992, 11 volumes), & A Tale of Byston Well: Garzey's Wing (1995 to 1997, 5 volumes). Yes, some of those titles might sound familiar to long-time anime fans, as both Garzey's Wing & Wings of Rean were later both adapted into OVAs in 1996 & 2005, respectively. While none of the novels have ever seen official English release (though there is a slow fan translation being made for Garzey's Wing), we did receive the various anime takes on Byston Well, with ADV releasing Dunbine back in the 00s on dual-audio DVD (even bringing on board the late Carl Macek to direct the English dub), followed by Sentai later license rescuing it for Blu-Ray (& streaming via Hidive, where it's still currently available), while CPM actually drew first blood on fans by initially releasing the Garzey's Wing OVA on VHS & DVD back in 1999, & Wings of Rean had the "pleasure" of being one of Bandai Visual USA's overpriced DVD releases in 2007 (that still can't 100% get sold out to this day, even after being discounted to hell).
However, there remains one piece of Byston Well anime that has never been licensed for English release, and it's the only OVA that's NOT based on a Tomino novel. Released throughout 1988, New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine (which is the official Japanese title, 100% in English) is a three-episode OVA that acts as a far sequel to the original Aura Battler Dunbine anime, taking place 700 years after the fatalistic ending & features the literal reincarnations of various characters from that series, like main character Shion Zaba being the reincarnation of Show Zama. However, New Dunbine is notably different in feel & execution from the original TV anime, focusing more on the fantastical aspects of the world of Byston Well, rather than the large scale war story that Tomino was known for; notably, Tomino did not write or direct this OVA, though he was credited as "Supervisor". Specifically, it focused on Shion fighting for the Kingdom of Baranbaran against "The Black Knight" Laburne Zaramand, who wishes to take over Byston Well using the "Treasure of Baranbaran", i.e. the Aura Battler Sirbine, which Shion winds up piloting. Due to its relative obscurity I can't really tell how this is generally been received by fans (both general anime fans, & fans of Dunbine TV), but at the same time I don't ever recall this being outright hated by anyone. While New Dunbine is currently available via streaming in Japan, alongside Dunbine TV & the Wings of Rean OVA, it's always been a definite outlier in terms of representation in other media, as it's often only used for optional units in the Super Robot Wars series, as despite appearing in 10 entries only three of them (Compact 3, T, & DD) actually include the characters & story; and, yes, it always sees the Dunbine TV cast meeting their future reincarnations. If you're wondering about the Garzey's Wing OVA, it isn't a mech anime (so no SRW representation there), wasn't produced by Sunrise, & Yoshiyuki Tomino himself wasn't a fan of how it turned out (despite writing, storyboarding, & directing it himself!), so it currently seems to be stuck in licensing hell, even in Japan. It was also co-produced by BMG Japan/BMG Victor, which is now owned by Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), so it's also entirely possible that it's now with Aniplex... maybe; as I said in Part 1, licensing can sometimes be a mess.
Still, considering the infamous notoriety that the Byston Well franchise tends to have (it's arguably Tomino at his most unfiltered, and the guy can be a bit of a weird one, at times), it's honestly astonishing that there's only one piece of it that doesn't have an official English release, at least from an anime perspective (because no one will ever try to bring over another Tomino novel). It's cool that Sentai did eventually give Aura Battler Dunbine a second chance (& even took fan response to heart when it initially was getting streamed, due to ADV originally botching some of the bizarre names & terminology back in the day), and you'd think that maybe, just maybe, Sentai would have eventually just also licensed & released New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine at some point, if only for completion's sake. That being said, though, it looks as though New Dunbine has never been given the HD remaster treatment that Dunbine TV eventually got, and it may not have even gotten better than VHS & LD over in Japan, so who knows what the current status of that OVA is. I mean, we're not in any rush anyway, since I'm sure no one will ever license rescue Garzey's Wing or Wings of Rean, either.
The now-defunct AnimeNation was an anime-focused store operating out of Clearwater, Florida that was founded back in 1995, and eventually expanded out into becoming an online store, a la the now defunct Right Stuf; yes, it is immensely awkward to type that out. The company also considered licensing anime to release itself in 1999, even looking at the 1997 Berserk anime & Cyber Team in Akihabara specifically, but wouldn't actually get into the licensing business until 2002 when it launched AN Entertainment & licensed 1999's Omishi Magical Theater: Risky Safety for DVD release; AN even acknowledged using a fansub group's script for the subtitles. Unfortunately, AN Entertainment would only ever license two more titles, 2000's Miami Guns & 2001's Haré+Guu, before closing up the licensing division by the end of 2007, while the AnimeNation store itself would stick around until 2014; today, AnimeNation is just the name of the blog & forum, which are kept around via Patreon support. Of the anime that AN Entertainment licensed, the only one that caught any real notoriety would be Haré+Guu, which adapted from the manga Jungle wa Itsumo Haré nochi Guu/The Jungle was Always Sunny, Then Came Guu by Renjuro Kindachi, which ran in Monthly Shonen Gangan from 1997 to 2002 for 10 volumes, which was followed by a sequel, simply titled HaréGuu, which ran from 2003 to 2009 for another 10 volumes. It told the various misadventures of Haré, a young boy who lives in a jungle village with his mother, Weda. Then came Guu, a mysterious little girl who may or may not be some sort of god-like being who simply likes living with Haré, even if it sometimes makes Haré's life pure insanity. The TV anime ran for 26 episodes, which AN Entertainment released across seven dual-audio DVDs (it was also the first non-FUNimation anime to air on the Funimation Channel), & AN Entertainment's final releases in 2007 were two dual-audio DVDs for Haré+Guu Deluxe, a 2002 OVA continuation that ran for six episodes.
However, AN Entertainment wound up not releasing all of the Haré+Guu anime, as there was one more OVA continuation. Released from late 2003 to mid-2004, Haré+Guu Final was an additional seven episodes (split into 14 half-length stories, similar to Deluxe), and while the anime as a whole didn't really adapt the entire original manga, this OVA was exactly what it said on the tin & was the end of the anime adaptation; Haré+Guu Final even won the Kobe Animation Award for Best OVA in 2004. Now, to be fair, AN Entertainment fully had intentions to eventually release Haré+Guu Final, even admitting at Otakon two years in a row that it had an option to license it, but it's easy to see that the decision was made to simply close up shop for AN Entertainment by 2007, and while Deluxe already had been worked on & dubbed, it was likely more cost effective to just stop there, take the loss on releasing Deluxe, & and never release Final. I recall reading complaints back in the day about one of Deluxe's DVDs having very poor video encoding, which would likely track with the idea that AN Entertainment had essentially given up by that point. In the end, AN Entertainment was a perfect example of how actually getting into the licensing & releasing business of anime isn't impossible, but if your intention is to be a "successful business" then you have to license titles that catch people's interest. Otherwise, you'll just be considered a "fan-run" entity, at best, by almost everyone else & will only be taken seriously by weirdos like me (see: Anime Midstream & maybe Ascendent Animation). While AN did seem to eventually catch that break with Haré+Guu, the company's reputation was already more or less determined by fans by that point, as most didn't really care for Risky Safety or Miami Guns; the former was generally considered "okay", while the latter was generally disliked.
As for the Haré+Guu anime, though, the TV series is still available via streaming over in Japan, while all three anime productions actually got an HD remastered Blu-Ray release in 2021; the "Haré Box" contains the entire TV series, while the "Guu Box" contains both Deluxe & Final. In that regard, and as I've already said back in the seventh license rescue list in 2016, the Haré+Guu anime would make for an ideal license rescue, as AN Entertainment never re-released the TV series as a smaller boxset, Final could finally be given the official English release it never got back in the 00s (though I highly doubt it'd be dubbed at this point), & the entire thing would be remastered in HD, to boot! Of everything featured in this part of the list we're going over, I'd say that Haré+Guu is honestly the most likely to happen, and by that I mean "I could actually see it happening one day"; across both parts overall it'd be #2, just behind Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger.
This next one could be taken as maybe being three titles, instead of two, but I stuck with a very stringent "if it had any type of official English release, then it doesn't count" rule for this list, so two it is. I already went over the origins of the late Yuki Hijiri's career in manga when I covered Locke the Superman last year, but the Cliff Note's version is "Hijiri joined a doujin circle while in high school, made a short that was so popular that the circle became legendary, and then parlayed that success into a professional manga career, all the while continuing to tell stories with the character he introduced in that original short, 'Locke the Superman', until his passing in 2022". Naturally, there would eventually be Locke the Superman anime, and while there was a fan short made by Takeshi Hirota (yeah, the same guy who'd eventually direct the Hunter x Hunter: G.I. Final OVA from last time!) in 1979, the first official anime adaptation was a 1984 movie, retroactively subtitled Millennium of the Witch. That movie would see a few releases in English, most recently via Sentai Filmworks on sub-only Blu-Ray in 2020, despite there being an old dub that Discotek had previously included in its 2012 DVD release; Discotek's DVD also included Hirota's fan pilot as an extra. After that came a three-episode OVA, subtitled Lord Leon, that came out in 1989 in Japan, with Takeshi Hirota writing the script, marking his first official association with Locke. In 1994 an English dub was produced by the Japanese producers, which was then licensed by Central Park Media in 1996/1997 & released only on dubbed VHS under the title Space Warriors. Unlike the movie, the Lord Leon OVA has never been license rescued, and it found itself a spot on the fifth license rescue list I made back in 2014, alongside Zenki (as covered last time).
However, there were two other Locke the Superman OVAs produced, neither of which have ever seen official English release, and while neither of them existed by the time the movie first saw English release in 1987, one of them definitely did exist by the time CPM released Space Warriors on VHS. First up is Shin Sekai Sentai/New World Command, a two-episode OVA (though it's the equivalent of four standard episodes, due to being double-length) from 1991 that actually adapted Yuki Hijiri's very first Locke story after turning pro in 1971 and also saw Takeshi Hirota both write & direct, bringing him full circle from his original fan-produced short. While the movie & Lord Leon are generally considered the best Locke anime of the four, & I came to the same overall conclusion in my own piece, I still found New World Command to be a very interesting watch, one that's all about a slow build & features some truly unique directorial choices from Hirota, including actually being accurate to real life by not including any sound effects whenever a shot happens in the vacuum of space. The other OVA is 2000's Mirror Ring, an hour-long one-off adapting a story that Hijiri actually always intended to be made into anime from the start, but saw many delays before finally coming out. Unfortunately, it's the weakest of the Locke anime, though it still manages to work in some ways, despite itself, & actually acts as a sort of finale to the (sometimes loosely) connected overall plot that all four Locke anime wound up having.
Over in Japan the movie, Lord Leon, & New World Command all saw digitally remastered DVD releases in 2000 by Pioneer, to go alongside Mirror Ring's original release, while the movie also saw an HD remastered Blu-Ray release over there in 2018; currently, only the movie is available via streaming in Japan. That mainly comes down to licensing, as while Nippon Animation has rights to all of the first three Locke anime, Shochiku only has rights to the movie, while Lord Leon & New World Command are with Bandai Visual, via its Emotion label. Meanwhile, Mirror Ring was produced by Biblos, which published the original manga story, and that company went bankrupt in 2006, though Animate Group did acquire Biblos' catalog around that same time, so the Mirror Ring OVA is likely with that company now; however, the Mirror Ring OVA has never been re-released, even in Japan. If anything, it's that kind of multi-company conundrum that has prevented anything beyond the Locke the Superman movie from seeing official English release, whether that's again for Lord Leon or for the first time for New World Command & Mirror Ring. That's not to say that it's impossible but it'd require a company to want to actively hunt after them, and who knows if there's any interest in doing that today.
Just as with New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine, we have yet another example of a decently large, but still not exactly "major", franchise (though this one is at least looked at more fondly, overall) in which nearly all of its anime adaptations have actually seen official English release at one point or another... except one. While not originally by intention, I've actually covered most of the anime adaptations of Saiyuki, Kazuya Minekura's manga reinterpretation of Wu Cheng'en's iconic novel Journey to the West as a road trip adventure starring a bunch of pretty boys, each of which having their own unfortunate baggage behind them; for those curious, Minekura altered the kanji so that it translates roughly to Journey to the Extreme. Simply put, there's a good amount of Minekura's Saiyuki, both in its original manga form (three main series & two prequel spin-offs) & especially the various anime adaptations. In regards to what we've received in English so far, there are five TV anime (2000's Gensou Maden Saiyuki, 2003's Saiyuki Reload, 2004's Saiyuki Reload Gunlock, 2017's Saiyuki Reload Blast, & 2022's Saiyuki Reload -ZeroIn-), two OVAs (2007's Saiyuki Reload: Burial & 2011's Saiyuki Gaiden), & even a movie (2001's Saiyuki: Requiem), and over the past six years all of them have either been released for the first time (Blast, ZeroIn, & Burial) or re-released (almost everything else), minus the movie. In fact, after announcing & releasing Saiyuki Reload: Burial on Blu-Ray in 2022, Discotek Media even admitted that they had pretty much run out of Saiyuki anime there is for them to even license!
(To be fair, the Gensou Maden anime is with Enoki Films, and while the Requiem movie isn't with Enoki it being connected to that first series might be why it hasn't been license rescued yet. Either that, or Discotek simply forgot that it existed.)
However, that doesn't mean that there technically still isn't a Saiyuki anime out there that hasn't been given an official English release!! Predating all the others, in 1999 there was a two-episode OVA released on VHS based on Saiyuki that told an original story where the Sanzo Party has to deal with a mad bomber named Ensui, who has rigged Hakuryu (the dragon that literally turns into the jeep that the guys travel in) with a bomb that only he can disarm. If you look online you'll often find this OVA titled "Saiyuki Premium", but that's technically not correct, as the OVA itself is just simply titled Saiyuki. However, when re-released on DVD in 2000 it received both a standard release (in jewel cases, as was still common enough at the time) as well as a "Premium" release with some bonus goodies, and when people with little to no knowledge of Japanese looked online at images of the packaging they read "Saiyuki Premium", and the nomenclature simply stuck; to be fair, it does help differentiate this OVA from all other Saiyuki anime, in conversation. This OVA was actually the very first Saiyuki anime I ever covered on the blog, way back in 2012, and I remember enjoying it well enough, though it could have been better. At the very least, Akira Ishida would go on to reprise his performance as Hakkai for all future Saiyuki anime, so this OVA lets you see Ishida's very first time in the role; amazingly enough, none of the other OVA cast ever voiced roles in any future Saiyuki anime.
So maybe you're thinking, "OK, why is Discotek saying that there's no more Saiyuki anime to license? There's this OVA!", and there's a simple reason for that: Enix. You see, the first manga run for Saiyuki was originally published in Enix's G-Fantasy magazine, but when various editors & mangaka jumped ship in 2001 to form Issaisha (now Ichijinsha) Kazuya Minekura was one of those who left Enix. Some Saiyuki anime were made during that association with Enix, but while that would just require a copyright update for potential re-release (as seen on Sentai's SD-BD for Gensou Maden)... the 1999 Saiyuki OVA was produced & released by Enix itself. Yep, this is one of those examples where the publisher itself produced an anime, a la the various OVAs & pilots Shueisha made in the 80s, 90s, & 00s, so while Minekura & Ichijinsha own the rights to the Saiyuki IP, Square-Enix still owns the rights to the 1999 OVA, so there's a licensing issue there; I don't know how the relationship is between Square-Enix & Ichijinsha today, but I imagine they're still rivals. Enix also produced Gensou Maden Saiyuki: Kibou no Zaika, a 2002 DVD which is technically an interactive OVA where you make choices to advance through the plot, but that's a whole other can of worms (as it might technically be considered more of a "game" than "anime"), so I won't count it here. I admittedly did try to avoid including anime that are effectively impossible to license for this list, but considering how we've managed to get literally every other Saiyuki anime officially in English, I think it was worth bringing up the Saiyuki "Premium" OVA.
I want to end this list with a major name, so this here is the other part of the "(+2)" in the title, but where Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger in Part 1 was a case of something that I felt will eventually happen but knew that it was too obvious to ignore, this bonus entry is a true deep cut. For all its good & bad, the long defunct Central Park Media was, at the very least, an English anime company that wasn't afraid to occasionally go against the grain & license something purely on what people would today call "aesthetic". A perfect example of that would be CPM licensing & releasing the OVA Nekojiru-sou, better known abroad as Cat Soup. Inspired by the manga of the late Chiyomi "Nekojiru" Hashiguchi, though not a direct adaptation of any one work, Cat Soup is notable for being the first time a young animator named Masaaki Yuasa was able to go all out & showcase what he was capable of; while Tatsuo Sato was the director, he fully admitted to giving Yuasa free rein to do whatever he wanted. The end result is a ~30-minute visual showpiece starring Nyatto & Nyako, the recurring cat characters seen in Nekojiru's manga. While I did review Cat Soup back in 2012, it really is something that you have to watch for yourself to properly understand. That being said, though, Cat Soup was still more of a Yuasa original, with some elements of the various manga stories, than an adaptation of Nekojiru's actual style.
However, for those curious, there actually IS a Nekojiru anime out there that's true to those original manga stories! Airing back in mid-1999 as part of the variety show Bakushou Mondai Boss Chara Ou, Nekojiru Gekijou - Jirujiru Original is a series of 27 anime shorts, usually ranging no more than a couple of minutes, that directly adapted from Nekojiru Senbei, Dango, & Donburi. Compared to the Cat Soup OVA's generally surrealistic visual style, Nekojiru Gekijou is much more straightforward & simple, but when I reviewed it back in 2018 I felt that this wound up emphasizing the often extremely dark humor seen in these shorts. The Nyatto & Nyako seen in the OVA were kind of just along for the ride, but in these shorts we truly see just how violent, dark, & oblivious these two cat kids truly are, and though there are moments where they truly do mean well they are just as likely to do horrible things as any one else, like when they literally maim their mole friend's mother & start eating her entrails, simply because she fed them mole food; sometimes, the humor was in just how extreme all of it was. The end result is a show that, despite its very limited animation (or, perhaps, even due in part to it), is definitely worth a watch, especially if you saw Cat Soup & were curious if there was more to it than just that OVA.
Unfortunately, in this day & age, I highly doubt that we'll ever see the return of Nekojiru's works in English, either via a license rescue for Cat Soup or the (extremely unlikely) first-time license of Nekojiru Gekijou - Jirujiru Original. Simply put, both are extremely short (each only totals around 30 minutes), and while it would be theoretically possible to license both & release them together as an hour-long "Cat Soup Collection", since both have more or less the same exact copyright owners, I still don't really see that happening. That being said, though, the Cat Soup OVA is currently streaming over in Japan (no such luck for Nekojiru Gekijou, though), so I wouldn't call it impossible.
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| It's never had a physical release, so title screen it is! |
Finally, we end with something that I can say definitely exists, especially since I reviewed it back in 2012, but today it seems as though its existence is otherwise impossible to prove, almost as if it was a ghost or something. Looking back 20 years ago (yes, it's been that long for me) I can actually remember why exactly I decided to really get into anime: Because it was announced that FUNimation had licensed the anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, and I was silly & kind of dumb & thought "Oh no! I better start watching the fansubs!"; we were all stupid in different ways growing up. Anyway, the FMA anime ended on October 2, 2004 with a finale that indicated an original continuation that was completely different from what the original manga was doing, and that would come to fruition on July 23, 2005 with Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, which brought a proper end to that interpretation of events. As mentioned, FUNimation would license FMA TV in mid-2004 & release it throughout 2005 & 2006 across 13 dual-audio DVDs, as well as getting it to air on TV via adult swim, and even managed to license & release the movie so that it's own dual-audio DVD came out alongside the final DVD single for the TV series in September of 2006, which is neat. Not just that, but FUNimation would then later license & release the Premium Collection in 2009, which contained four short OVAs (totaling around 30 minutes). Eventually, FUNimation would also license & release the more manga-accurate anime reboot, 2009's Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, including the OVAs & standalone movie, 2011's The Sacred Star of Milos. Both anime would go on to become best sellers for the company, though since both shows were produced by Aniplex they've since become unfortunately tough to get a hold of officially in English, especially the 2003 series. Yes, you can stream Brotherhood & (confusingly enough) Conqueror of Shamballa over at Crunchyroll, but all FMA anime has long been out of print, physically; thanks, Aniplex of America *sarcasm*!
However, despite all of that, FUNimation still managed to miss one Fullmetal Alchemist anime production! In between the final episode & the movie Animax would air a PPV special on March 19, 2005, which fans have since come to call "Fullmetal Alchemist: Reflections"; officially there doesn't seem to be an actual subtitle for it, since one is never used in the special itself. In short, this was a 55-minute recap of the events of the 2003 TV anime's most important plot points, meant to remind viewers of what happened in preparation for Conqueror of Shamballa later that year. However, instead of doing so in a straight chronological order, this was split up into five parts, with each part focusing on a specific aspect of the story (Ed & Al's origin story, the entire story of Scar, Mustang & Hughes' friendship, the Homunculi, & finally recapping the final story arc), meaning that this was specifically a recap intended to be watched by fans, not newcomers. What's most interesting about Reflections, though, is that while there was no new animation to be found, there was brand new voice work exclusive to this PPV special, including small bits that went over details not fully covered in the TV series! Specifically, the part with Mustang & Hughes is done in the form of a final phone conversation the two would have, which reveals that Mustang had more or less told Hughes everything he found out about Führer King Bradley, & the part about the Homunculi is done via a brand new talk between Envy & Greed, with Envy outright explaining who Greed originally was & why he became a homunculus, things that were only ever hinted at in the TV series. Yeah, it's not a lot, but it helps make Reflections something to actually check out for fans of the 2003 anime, as it not only reminds them of iconic moments (both good & sad), but it also gives them some extra little tidbits of information that the TV series didn't go over in any detail.
As for why FUNimation never licensed & released Fullmetal Alchemist: Reflections, I can only imagine it's because this PPV special seemingly only ever aired that one time on Animax & was essentially never seen again. While you can find some listings confirming its existence online, namely via databases like MAL & the like (though not ANN, interestingly enough), anything more comprehensive like Wikipedia or even official websites for Fullmetal Alchemist don't acknowledge its existence at all, and it obviously has never been released physically or made available via streaming in Japan. It's a truly bizarre kind of place that Fullmetal Alchemist: Reflections resides in, as while it's by no means "lost media" (it was fansubbed way back in the day, which is how I watched & reviewed it) the very fact that it was even made is seemingly impossible to prove, at least officially. It's entirely possible that FUNimation simply never knew of its existence, and even if they did it's entirely possible that the Japanese companies might have effectively said "What are you talking about? It doesn't exist, so how can you license it?". Regardless, considering the status that either Fullmetal Alchemist anime currently has (i.e. "Stuck in Aniplex Jail"), there's no doubt that Reflections will likely never see an official English release.
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And with that we bring a close to what can be considered a off-shoot of the traditional license rescue list, as while none of the titles covered across these two parts have ever been licensed for English release before (& I honestly try to not just make "Wouldn't it be cool if these were licensed?" lists), they at least all have some strong connection to something that had been licensed in the past. As I kept saying throughout, while the act of licensing anime itself is seemingly actually pretty easy there will always be those exceptions to the rule, and sometimes to be as "complete" as possible it will require some extra work to be done. While most of the titles covered in these two parts are, at the very least, plausible to maybe see licensed one day, they would still require some sort of intentional & planned out work to be made in order to make sure they do in fact happen... and in an industry where there are only so many companies left standing, and even fewer that truly care about older anime, those intentions will obviously be put towards other works, more often than not.
Dragon Drive: D-Masters Shot © Ken-Ichi Sakura/Shueisha・TV Tokyo・NAS・BV © Bandai 2003
New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine © Sotsu・Sunrise
Haré+Guu Final © Renjuro Kindaichi/Square Enix・Haré nochi Guu Final Production Committee 2003
Locke the Superman: Shin Sekai Sentai © 1991 Yuki Hijiri/Emotion/N.A.
Locke the Superman: Mirror Ring © 2000 Yuki Hijiri/Biblos
Saiyuki (1999) © Kazuya Minekura/Enix 1999
Nekojiru Gekijou - Jirujiru Original © Nekojiru・Yamato Do Co., Ltd.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Reflections © Hiromu Arakawa/Square-Enix・MBS・Aniplex・BONES・dentsu
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