Anime on CD?

[Fireminer]

Playing Magic Knights Rayearth on the Sega Saturn makes me want to ask this: Has any anime ever been released on CD officially? When I came of age, all the anime were pirated on DVD. I wonder what kind of compression you would need to put anime on a standard CD?

[davemerrill]

I have a few anime titles - Slow Step, Plawres Sanshiro - released on VCD format that I picked up in various Chinese-community stores in the Toronto area. I have absolutely no idea if these were legal releases or not. I can remember seeing informercials for a Spanish-language VCD package - the player and 100 VCDs of comedies, rodeo bloopers, and wrestling movies - aimed at the Hispanic market back in Georgia.

If VCD was ever used as a commercial video release format by United States companies for any sort of home video release, I'm unaware of it.

[runesaint]

I also at one point had Nausicaa and Laputa on VCD, but it was also Chinese/Japanese/subtitled so... probably not legal?

[Fireminer]

I have a few anime titles - Slow Step, Plawres Sanshiro - released on VCD format that I picked up in various Chinese-community stores in the Toronto area. I have absolutely no idea if these were legal releases or not. I can remember seeing informercials for a Spanish-language VCD package - the player and 100 VCDs of comedies, rodeo bloopers, and wrestling movies - aimed at the Hispanic market back in Georgia.

If VCD was ever used as a commercial video release format by United States companies for any sort of home video release, I'm unaware of it.

Say, Dave, is there any database about the anime that were licensed and released in America in the 1970s-1990s in which specific format? I feel like at the time it was something not many fans cared enough to collect the information.

[davemerrill]

I have a few anime titles - Slow Step, Plawres Sanshiro - released on VCD format that I picked up in various Chinese-community stores in the Toronto area. I have absolutely no idea if these were legal releases or not. I can remember seeing informercials for a Spanish-language VCD package - the player and 100 VCDs of comedies, rodeo bloopers, and wrestling movies - aimed at the Hispanic market back in Georgia.

If VCD was ever used as a commercial video release format by United States companies for any sort of home video release, I'm unaware of it.

Say, Dave, is there any database about the anime that were licensed and released in America in the 1970s-1990s in which specific format? I feel like at the time it was something not many fans cared enough to collect the information.

There are probably home video industry statistics that would include anime titles, but I don't know of any anime-specific database. Which would be pretty amazing to see, actually. I know a lot of Japanese anime was released aimed at the children's video market in the early 1980s - the FHE releases of Candy Candy, Captain Harlock, Captain Future, Angel, Fables Of The Green Forest, Little Lulu, and the Jim Terry Force Five series were all what, 1982? 1983? The Harmony Gold Macross VHS was 1984. Columbia released Unico around that time, and the New World dub of Galaxy Express was around then as well. Once the home video market took off in the mid 1980s, companies were releasing whatever they could find, so a lot of anime found its way onto American VHS - dubs of UFO Diapollon, Voltes V, Daimos (Starbirds), Gakeen (Magnos), the MIC series Honey Honey & Little Women from Sony were all home video releases.

[usamimi]

I vaguely remember ads in Animerica for certain anime titles on CD-Rom, but I can't for the life of me remember the titles or who published them. I might have to see if I can look that up. I think one of them was a single episode of Bubblegum Crisis on a CD-Rom? And possibly some hentai titles.

[mbanu]

I have a few anime titles - Slow Step, Plawres Sanshiro - released on VCD format that I picked up in various Chinese-community stores in the Toronto area. I have absolutely no idea if these were legal releases or not. I can remember seeing informercials for a Spanish-language VCD package - the player and 100 VCDs of comedies, rodeo bloopers, and wrestling movies - aimed at the Hispanic market back in Georgia.

If VCD was ever used as a commercial video release format by United States companies for any sort of home video release, I'm unaware of it.

Say, Dave, is there any database about the anime that were licensed and released in America in the 1970s-1990s in which specific format? I feel like at the time it was something not many fans cared enough to collect the information.

Not Dave, but one place to start might be the Anime News Network's VHS release encyclopedia: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycl ... format=vhs

[Fireminer]

There are probably home video industry statistics that would include anime titles, but I don't know of any anime-specific database. Which would be pretty amazing to see, actually. I know a lot of Japanese anime was released aimed at the children's video market in the early 1980s - the FHE releases of Candy Candy, Captain Harlock, Captain Future, Angel, Fables Of The Green Forest, Little Lulu, and the Jim Terry Force Five series were all what, 1982? 1983? The Harmony Gold Macross VHS was 1984. Columbia released Unico around that time, and the New World dub of Galaxy Express was around then as well. Once the home video market took off in the mid 1980s, companies were releasing whatever they could find, so a lot of anime found its way onto American VHS - dubs of UFO Diapollon, Voltes V, Daimos (Starbirds), Gakeen (Magnos), the MIC series Honey Honey & Little Women from Sony were all home video releases.

Speaking of children anime and Little Women, which show of the World Masterpiece Theater was licensed in America and when? It wasn't Heidi, was it?

Not Dave, but one place to start might be the Anime News Network's VHS release encyclopedia: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycl ... format=vhs

That list is actually was why I make this thread. All the result in the "CD" category are soundtrack releases, which made me wonder if anime has ever been released legally on CD.

And while we are in this topic, which cancelled VHS/DVD/Blu-ray release that you want to brink back the most?

[davemerrill]

There are probably home video industry statistics that would include anime titles, but I don't know of any anime-specific database. Which would be pretty amazing to see, actually. I know a lot of Japanese anime was released aimed at the children's video market in the early 1980s - the FHE releases of Candy Candy, Captain Harlock, Captain Future, Angel, Fables Of The Green Forest, Little Lulu, and the Jim Terry Force Five series were all what, 1982? 1983? The Harmony Gold Macross VHS was 1984. Columbia released Unico around that time, and the New World dub of Galaxy Express was around then as well. Once the home video market took off in the mid 1980s, companies were releasing whatever they could find, so a lot of anime found its way onto American VHS - dubs of UFO Diapollon, Voltes V, Daimos (Starbirds), Gakeen (Magnos), the MIC series Honey Honey & Little Women from Sony were all home video releases.

Speaking of children anime and Little Women, which show of the World Masterpiece Theater was licensed in America and when? It wasn't Heidi, was it?

Fables Of The Green Forest (Rocky Chuck) got a VHS release and was shown on TV in Canada. The Heidi compilation film got a VHS release. Anne Of Green Gables got an English dub but never aired in the US. A few Tom Sawyer episodes were released on VHS by Just For Kids. There have been several Little Women anime series, and the World Masterpiece version was dubbed by Saban, ran on HBO, and at least one episode got a VHS release. Nippon Animation's Jungle Book was dubbed and released on VHS in America, but apparently that isn't officially a "World Masterpiece" show.

[polarisu]

I would honestly be interested in seeing if there were any officially licensed VCDs released in the US.

In the 90s, Japanese label "XCENTURY" released a number of Kitty Film titles on VCD. Maison Ikkoku for example, was re-released in 1996. For a relatively short period of time, Japanese prints of popular American movies were also released on VCD. You can see a front and back of an Ikkoku volume:

F: https://i.imgur.com/KGATM4t.png / B: https://i.imgur.com/aqeUmEC.png