I saw both LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (which would certainly have gotten an “X” rating if submitted to the MPAA) and WICKED CITY, which had graphic sex and rape-by-demon scenes, in theaters in 1993.Īnother common element of early anime releases in the U.S. Some of these were shown in theaters as well. These productions clearly weren’t meant for children and the distributors had to learn to emphasize this in their packaging or risk tirades from angry parents whose kids had rented “Japanese cartoons.” What was also pretty obvious then, and quite frequently commented on, was the sheer prevalence of sex, nudity, violence, and graphic gore in many anime releases. Granted, of course, that some of these titles also had generous shots of the women disrobing, taking showers, donning sexy attire or, as in “Iczer-One,” piloting their combat vehicles in the nude(!), somewhat undercutting the feminist message with what came to be known as “fan service.” Other titles in this subgenre included “Gunbuster,” “Dangaio,” “Bubblegum Crisis,” “Gall Force,” “Sol Bianca,” and “Silent Mobius.” In one extraordinary battle scene in “Iczer-One,” all the combatants were women. Women in cockpits or form-fitting battle suits were common images in anime releases of the time. What strikes me as pretty obvious now, although I don’t recall how much comment it generated at the time, was the sheer number of female protagonists, often in groups, who dominated these productions. seemed to come out of the sprawling sci-fi fan community. A lot of early enthusiasm for anime in the U.S. Most of the early anime video releases were science fiction action thrillers, many showing the influence, as did AKIRA, of Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER (1982). (When anime came to dual-language track DVD in the 2000s, I upgraded many of these titles.)Įventually, I began writing freelance anime reviews for different publications and wound up getting review copies of many titles, especially from U.S. I invariably preferred the subtitled version, but sometimes, much to my regret, I bought the cheaper dubbed version if that’s what I found first. I paid considerably less because I bought it used: Look at the price, listed at the bottom, for one subtitled volume (about an hour long) of “Project A-ko”:Īnd look at the price sticker on this one. The prices for these releases were generally pretty high, so most fans (including me) had to look for them at video rental outlets like Blockbuster and local mom-and-pop video stores. Some of the companies released their titles only in subtitled versions, some only English-dubbed, while others released them simultaneously in both dubbed and subbed versions, with the subbed versions going for higher prices. I eventually acquired most of these tapes, but usually in used editions long after they first came out. I remember seeing ads for them on the back covers of fan magazines devoted to Japanese sci-fi films and TV shows. was GUNBUSTER and the second was DANGAIO, both from U.S. Manga Corps (a division of Central Park Media), which followed Streamline’s example and also put some of its films into theaters.Īccording to Wikipedia, the first subtitled anime release on home video in the U.S. Renditions (which dissolved a few years later), A.D. Streamline Pictures had the highest profile because it supplemented its home video releases with limited theatrical exhibition, including a handful of New York theaters, where I saw some of their films. I slowly began building my collection.Īt the time, there were, as I recall, five anime distributors active in the United States. I also looked for magazines on the subject and began reading those. After purchasing some titles from this dealer, I began scrutinizing shelves at local video stores, looking for legit anime releases, either English-dubbed or subtitled, as well as the local comics shows held once a month at midtown hotels to visit the Japanimation Video table, as well as other dealers. He was offering hundreds of Japanese animated films and TV shows on VHS tape, mostly in Japanese with no translation, having been transferred from Japanese laserdiscs to VHS, and I was hooked. I didn’t latch on to “anime” as a home video phenomenon until 1992, when I discovered a dealer’s table labeled Japanimation Video at a Star Trek Convention in midtown Manhattan. in 1990 led to a trickle of Japanese animated features being shown at film festivals and repertory theaters. I had been following Japanese animation off and on from 1964, when I first saw “Astro Boy” and “Gigantor” on TV as a child, to the early 1980s when I saw the anime features PHOENIX 2772 and GALAXY EXPRESS 999 on the big screen, but it didn’t really take a permanent hold on my consciousness until the release of AKIRA in theaters in the U.S.
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