Ninja Scroll

Ninja Scroll turned 20 years old this month, so thought it’d be nice to indulge and celebrate in its existence a little.  It’s a bit of an anime classic in certain areas of fandom, particularly long-term fans, and I like to think that anyone who’s so far missed out on it can still find much to enjoy.

Jubei is a wandering swordsman dragged unwillingly into an adventure of conspiracies, ninjas and the obligatory old enemies.  It doesn’t display the strongest plot you’ll ever see in a film, but is good enough to excuse a near-constant stream of fantasy sword fights while sustaining an interest in the strained relationship between Jubei and fellow ninja Kagerou.  The animators flex their muscles for the battle scenes and apply interesting palette choices to help give each fight its own unique atmosphere.  Night times, blazing sunny days and sunset scenes are effectively portrayed to help maintain this interesting variety, and the rapid pace is drummed into you with an effective soundtrack.  It’s good stuff.

Be warned that it is hyper violent and boobs abound (spoilers: Kagerou gets a particularly raw deal out of the film), so this is strictly for more mature fans who like their blood spurts to hit the ceiling and don’t freak out when they see a bit of skin.  Overall Ninja Scroll is just extremely well made and doesn’t waste time on deep thought or needless sentimentality.  The recent Blu-Ray release is well worth your time.

So why is there no sequel?  Ninja Scroll is very well regarded amongst western fans, but is something that is curiously disproportionate compared to its more moderate regard in Japan.  There was a semi-related TV series which came out in 2003, which is a serviceable addition, but no true successor has appeared as yet.  Director Kawajiri is up for it though and even produced a teaser trailer in hopes of gaining studio/financial support, but so far this is as far as the franchise goes.

Don’t touch Ninja Resurrection by the way, it’s as unrelated as it is awful. ;-)

That Manga Intro...

Before anime, there was Manga!  And it was blowing your mind into the 21^st century…

In a time when no one knew what the hell anime was in the UK, or perhaps more cynically when marketers assumed ‘anime’ would be more difficult to remember or pronounce, Manga Video was a video label formed by Island World Communications in an attempt to capitalise on Akira’s success in the early 1990s.  As they were treading into untested territory, they had to establish a clear statement as to what the company was about.  As a result, virtually every release by Manga Video on VHS was headed by a minute-long intro to get viewers into the mood for whatever title they’d bought.

For better or worse this clip became a defining moment for a certain generation of fans.  The tabloid-grabbing tentacle porn and obscene violence were what anime was all about back then, and the stereotype was only knocked on the head when Pokemon arrived on the scene and gave everyone epileptic fits.

This is all old news and people have been through it enough times already, but I thought it’d be fun to break the clip down anyway for those less familiar or the nostalgia-heads.  The clip is made from 6 different titles, which also formed the initial batch of Manga’s releases in the UK.  They were:

Akira

Dominion Tank Police (OVAs 1-4)

Project A-KO

Odin

Venus Wars

Fist of the North Star (1986 movie)

It’s quite a strong line up of titles, most of which are still well regarded 20 years later (sorry Odin…).  The famous ‘What’s happening’ line at the end of the clip is from the old Streamline dub of Akira, and the music was from the intro of a track called ‘The Heart Beneath’ by Celtic Frost.

…that’s pretty much all I wanted to talk about it.  It’s an iconic thing from a certain age, and conjures up images of a time when anime was a bit more crazy, swear-filled and unpredictable.  Of course things have moved on, but this was given decade to burn itself into fandom’s collective brain, so it seems cruel not to give it a bit of recognition today.

Anime: The VHS Years – UK Edition Part 2

Continuing on from Part 1 of this summary of anime companies who released titles on VHS in the UK, here is the rest of the list which includes labels who either came into the game a bit later, or released very few titles.  As before if I've missed anything please feel free to leave a comment.

Pioneer – A Japanese anime company that started releasing its own titles in western territories, and did quite a good job of it too.  They sported dubs that were considered the best of their time (they often dubbed the songs too) and their modern style fared well compared the creakier looking titles other companies were putting.  Pioneer were onto a very good thing for a while, but ran out of good material over time and eventually had the plug pulled on them.

Recommended titles: Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, Armitage III.

ADV Films – The UK arm of the US company that was then booming like no anime company had boomed before.  ADV stood out for supplying a constant stream of anime during a time when Manga had gone into silent running mode.  They also advanced the market to make releasing TV series an acceptable business practice.  They had a very successful run to the point that it had the power to commission a dub for Street Fighter V exclusive to the UK and was also able to license the odd title completely independent from its American parent.  It survived well into the DVD era, and deservedly so.

Recommended titles: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Martian Successor Nadesico, Dragon Half.

MVM – Functioning initially  as a home delivery service for general sci-fi goods, MVM saw a good thing going and stepped up from distributor to specialised anime licensor.  Starting out with AnimEigo titles (as Anime Projects had been dead for a while by this point), MVM built itself its own little corner of the market, and still does today.  Yay!

Recommended titles: Kimagure Orange Road, You’re Under Arrest, Urusei Yatsura OVAs.

East2West – Big things were promised form these guys, with mixed results.   They did somehow manage to organise a campaign from fans sufficient enough that the BBFC overturned its ruling to ban Kekko Kamen, but otherwise it was a brief affair with few released titles to their name.

Recommended titles: Kekko Kamen, 8 Man After, Babel II. (not so much a recommendations list - this is everything they released!).

Bandai – Just entered the UK market moments before the VHS market breathed its last.  Quickly became known as Beez soon after.  Gundam Wing anyone?

Anime UK –Anime UK started out as a fanzine that graduated into a glossy magazine over the years.  They dubbed one 3-episode tape of K.O. Century Beast Warriors, before moving on and essentially forming anime journalism in this country as we known it.

Crusader – An attempt to release anime suitable for younger audiences in a world where ‘Manga videos’ meant blood, guts and f-bombs.  Catgirl Nuku Nuku was the one release, and they even dubbed the song.

Animania – To be perfectly honest I have no idea what happened with these guys.  One release, then gone.  Theirs was the ADV-dubbed version of Guy: Awakening of the Devil (a.k.a. Double Target) over here, minus whatever the censors cut out of it.

And that's it!  As far as I'm aware, only two of the 12 companies I've mentioned are still 100% active (Manga and MVM).  Everyone else either collapsed or were rebranded into new things.  Quite a scary thought in all honesty, although the current DVD/Blu-Ray/digital market today is more of the same.  One day we'll look back and reminisce on it all, most likely in a blog much like this one I'm sure.

Anime: The VHS Years – UK Edition Part 1

Yes I’m talking about those old fashioned magnetic tapes that anime was released on before DVD became the standard.  No menus or dual language options here, but a totally linear experience at the end of which you then had to rewind the tape again.

This might seem crude to those used to anime on discs or online, but this is how anime arrived in the UK, and how it remained for many years before technology forced it to move on (UK companies were quite slow to get on the bandwagon).

I thought it’d be fun to have a quick rundown of all the specialist anime companies that released material during the VHS era, not only for older fans to reminisce, but to give more recent ones an idea of what the anime landscape was like back then.   I’ll also throw in a few recommended titles per company, but only ones that they put out on VHS (eg. for ADV I wouldn’t list Excel Saga, as it was only released on DVD).  There’s quite a few to get through, so decided the split this into two parts.  This is only a vague listing as I remember it, so if there are any major omissions feel free to add info to the comments section. ^_^

Manga – It’s probably best to start out with the most obvious one.  Originally known as Island World Video who released Akira, Manga Video quickly expanded their library once they realised they’d struck gold.  Dubbing their own material, they opened up a previously extremely niche market with titles regularly hitting the video charts.  (Does that happen these days?)  They also took the reigns from Dark Horse to continue publishing Manga Mania throughout the 1990s along with a few graphic novels.  Manga did earn a shaky reputation from this period due to the swear-filled dubs and focus on action titles, and while that’s not totally undeserved it’s also a little unfair.  For every Angel Cop or Mad Bull there was still a Wings of Honneamise or Castle of Cagliostro, and of course there wasn’t exactly a number of slice-of-life TV shows for it to choose from, but instead had to pick from the science fiction-heavy OVA market.  Basically Manga found their audience and stuck to it, but these days they’re a lot more open with both their fans and their choice of output.  

Recommended titles: Akira, Macross Plus, Perfect Blue.

Kiseki – One of the longer lasting labels of the VHS days.   Kiseki tried to capitalize on Manga’s success of the first two Urotsukidojis films by licencing the 3^rd and 4^th chapters, and form their own label from there.  Alongside their hentai titles they released a steady mixture of more regular anime, and were willing to be more specialist in releasing titles in both dubbed and subtitled formats (although if you wanted the choice of both you’d have to buy it twice).  They survived as long as the early days of DVD (kinda) before being enveloped by Revelation films and disappearing into obscurity.

Recommended titles: Gunbuster, Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Sol Bianca.

Anime Projects – An anime company from the earliest days of anime in the UK.  Anime Project was the UK affiliate of US distributor AnimEigo and released hardcore titles for hardcore fans at hardcore prices.  If you could afford to buy Riding Bean subbed for £19.99 when all the other anime was going for £12.99, you would’ve felt like a boss.  Many of their release also contained liner notes explaining various cultural references.  They lasted a few years before throwing in the towel but if there was any label back then that developed a proper otaku crowd, this was it.

Recommended Titles: Bubblegum Crisis, Oh My Goddess, Urusei Yatsura.

Western Connection – Quite a low-rent company that did its own thing for about 50 releases and then disappeared off the face of the Earth.  They favoured using stickers for their age certificates as opposed to printing them onto their covers, oftentimes ignoring the BBFC-approved rating and marking titles up as 18 regardless.  Also the subtitles for any songs weren’t literally translated, but more paraphrased to fit the syllables so that you could sing along in English.  They picked up a bunch of obscure titles that never received a released in the US, making many of their translated titles unique to the UK, let alone available on DVD anywhere.

Recommended titles: The Sensualist, Ushio and Tora, Slow Step.

Look out for part 2, I'm not even halfway through the list!