Anime Village VHS Releases

[Kame-Sen'nin]

Hello everyone!

This is something I've been curious about for awhile: just how many different series were released under Bandai's Anime Village label? I know that I've run across several, but I'd love to put together a complete list. I couldn't seem to find one anywhere online that listed these (although if I'm mistaken, feel free to correct me), so I was hoping that with the help of the members of the Aging Otaku Lounge, we could put together a complete list of Anime Village releases! Here's the list I have so far:

-AWOL
-CLAMP School Detectives
-Cowboy Bebop
-Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy
-Eatman '98
-Ehrgeiz
-Haunted Junction
-Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy
-Mobile Suit Gundam 0080/0083 (box set with both releases together)
-Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 (English Dubbed)
-Outlaw Star
-Saber Marionette J
-The Vision of Escaflowne

If anybody knows of any other Anime Village releases, just list them here and I will add them to the list!

List updated 09/06/15

[SteveH]

Hello everyone!

This is something I've been curious about for awhile: just how many different series were released under Bandai's Anime Village label? I know that I've run across several, but I'd love to put together a complete list. I couldn't seem to find one anywhere online that listed these (although if I'm mistaken, feel free to correct me), so I was hoping that with the help of the members of the Aging Otaku Lounge, we could put together a complete list of Anime Village releases! Here's the list I have so far:

-Cowboy Bebop
-Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy
-Mobile Suit Gundam 0080/0083 (box set with both releases together)
-Outlaw Star
-The Vision of Escaflowne

If anybody knows of any other Anime Village releases, just list them here and I will add them to the list!

I'm not sure if Bebop or Outlaw Star were part of the Anime Village 'direct to consumer' releases. They were two episodes per tape, and there was both dubbed and subbed versions. They may have been 'Bandai Visual via Anime Village' but were clearly aimed at the mass retail marketplace. The true Anime Village web releases had 3-4 episodes per tape and were sub only, except in the case of the Gundam Movie,the first one which had that epic horrible dub. Do I recall that right? Mike Toole would remember.

It helps to recall the entire Anime Village thing was subterfuge. One wasn't meant to know it was Bandai/Emotion trying to cut out the middleman and make big money direct from the fans, Anime Village was meant to be seen as 'just another American company look what we did, we licensed Gundam!' sort of thing. Eventually, about the time of Gundam Wing on Cartoon Network the disguise was over.

Direct ordering over the web didn't make them nearly the kind of money they wanted, even tho the profit margin on those tapes was sky-high.

I guess I would say that Bebop and OS were 'second wave' Anime Village, as they changed from web sales to mass retail. The big change was with Gundam Wing, cardboard slipsleeves and all that.

Not much help, huh?

[yusaku]

Anime Village has an old youtube channel with some videos. The uploads are six years old.

http://www.youtube.com/user/animevillage/videos

[llj]

Generally, all the Anime Village releases were distinquished by their white clamshell cases. I don't believe Bebop and Outlaw Star were part of this line either.

CLAMP School Detectives and Saber Marionette J were part of this line by the way.

Here's an Anime Village ad from an old issue of Animerica

[SteveH]

Now, that's fascinating, that ad. See, I did the whole 'Anime Village' thing when they started up but never bought anything, not having a credit card and all that.

But I don't recall a single Bandai logo on the site. 'Licensed from Bandai Visual', yes. Not that Bandai OWNED Anime Village.

Later, of course, the mask came off.

[davemerrill]

I have the Anime Village clamshell release of the Gundam movies, and a beautiful package it is, with great Yas art on the box. Later I picked up the dub release of the films, and I will freely admit I haven't yet worked up the guts to watch 'em.

[SteveH]

I have the Anime Village clamshell release of the Gundam movies, and a beautiful package it is, with great Yas art on the box. Later I picked up the dub release of the films, and I will freely admit I haven't yet worked up the guts to watch 'em.

I *think*, and I'm really struggling with trivia here, those VHS tapes, along with the Japanese LDs, are the last versions of the films before they 'remastered' the audio, including re-recording the dialog and replacing sound effects.

I was convinced back in the day that the remastering (including the TV series) was due to the changes in royalty/residual payments to Seiyuu that was triggered when a big bunch of them visited a con (either AX or more likely SDCC) and saw all those tapes they weren't seeing a penny on...nobody disproved me, just said the usual "Aw, he's not in the Industry, he can't possibly know anything" stuff.

Hang on to those tapes, man! I still want to get the couple of subbed Outlaw Star tapes I'm missing, because those kind of gaps drive my OCD into hyperspace.

[usamimi]

Generally, all the Anime Village releases were distinguished by their white clamshell cases. I don't believe Bebop and Outlaw Star were part of this line either.

I can't say about Outlaw Star, but their Cowboy Bebop release did have nice clamshell cases (thought they were black)--I actually have the first 3 for sale in the sales section of the forum.

If I recall, both AnimeVillage releases "Ehrgeiz" and "AWOL" also had nice black, clamshell cases. Other than the other titles mentioned, I think those might be the only ones that got the clamshell treatment...once they dropped the AnimeVillage label and went to plain ol' Bandai, I think they went to regular cardboard sleeves for releases. (I used to have Haunted Junction on VHS which was early Bandai, but they weren't clamshell.)

[llj]

For Cowboy Bebop, the dub VHS releases had the cardboard sleeves while the sub VHS releases had the black clamshell case. I still don't think it was an Anime Village release though.

It was my understanding that the "real" Anime Village releases were the white clamshells and ONLY the white clamshells. They weren't sold in stores unless they were specifically pre-ordered by them, and the print run was fairly low. I don't think the line really lasted that long, as Bandai Entertainment USA started up pretty soon afterwards and began re-releasing this stuff in the sleeves.

[usamimi]

For Cowboy Bebop, the dub VHS releases had the cardboard sleeves while the sub VHS releases had the black clamshell case. I still don't think it was an Anime Village release though.

They were. My VHS tapes say AnimeVillage on the spines and the backs. You can see the logo on the spines in the photos I took of em.