The Old School Otaku Lounge

I think its more than fair to say that after being the company that FINALLY had the balls to release the first two Galaxy Express 999 films on DVD in North America for the very first time, along with re-releasing Project A-Ko, Demon City Shinjuku, Crying Freeman, and pretty much the entire classic Fist of the North Star anime franchise (and word from the grapevine has it that a Golgo 13 re-release isn't terribly far off in the future), Discotek has pretty much at this point positioned themselves as among the primary North American anime licensing companies that anyone with discerning taste should be seriously paying attention to; and should Bandai, Sentai Filmworks, and Right Stuf completely go under altogether, they'd basically default to the ONLY one worth bothering with at all period.

Not only are the quality if their releases superb with gorgeous transfers lifted directly from the latest Japanese remasters, but moreover their choices in titles to license are nothing short of orgasmic... far more than can be said for a certain other licensing giant that shall remain nameless. In terms of catalogue titles, Discotek is basically shaping itself as the closest thing we're likely to get to the this generation's incarnation of companies like Central Park Media, AnimEigo, U.S. Renditions, Streamline, Manga, etc. A company that deals almost solely in both cult as well as extremely important and influential titles that almost nobody else in today's market would ever even think about touching with with a thousand foot pole.

They're almost like a cross between Code Red/Blue Underground and Kino/Criterion, but for anime (though thus far with a much bigger emphasis on the former: Bandai's probably still at this point a bit more comparable to a Kino or Criterion). This basically means if you're not supporting their releases, your interest in anime likely begins and ends at whatever the newest, trendiest shonen or moe/harem title is this week. That they've also got a very nice assortment of exploitation and martial arts/wuxia live action films, along with even the occasional Tokusatsu flick, only sweetens the deal that much further.

Seriously, they fucking released Galaxy Express on DVD. If you haven't bought those puppies yet, what are you waiting for? Get on that shit, chop suey!

Wow. Galaxy Express? So that's why the torrents for the GE TV show disappeared a few years back! I'd heard that Galaxy Express had been licensed, but I figured that somebody was just going to sit on it and not do anything with it.

I knew that Hokuto no Ken (FOTNS) had been released on DVD, but I couldn't remember the name of the company responsible. Discotek. I will have to remember that name. IIRC, this is the company that will be releasing Lupin the 3rd Season 1.

As the anime industry has collapsed in North America, we retro anime lovers have been rather fortunate lately. I never thought the Dirty Pair TV series would get a domestic release, but we got it! The original Gundam TV series is getting a proper DVD release, Ghost Sweeper Mikami was recently released, and Voltron fans were lucky to get Go Lion and Dairugger XV released!

I think that as long as companies do not feel the need to release anime with English dubs and just focus on releasing shows subtitled, they can turn a profit easier and stay afloat. ---At least for these classic anime titles, since the kids who were in diapers when Sailor Moon was on TV are usually not the types who would be interested in classic shows. They're most likely very satisfied with the inane crap that is the majority of modern anime.

And appreciate Discotek we will.

Have you seen any screenshots floating around that show the image quality in their Galaxy Express releases?

I'm surprised that these guys can stay afloat though. I can't imagine these kinds of releases being terribly popular for the mainstream audience...

Keep in mind that they aren't paying a bunch of Canadian voice actors to mangle the Japanese names. If they don't provide an English dub, that is such a huge drastic reduction in costs. Heck, fansubbers do the work for free. Plus, those who are buying the videos don't care about English dubbing anyway. I think this is part of the reason why Geneon went under: they felt it necessary to dub every release, even the niche market ones that target the certain type of fan who would rather be watching with subtitles in the first place.

Brain Trash,
Haven't seen you on here in a while, but I was wondering if you could tell me about the two 999 DVDs that they've released. What are they? Movies? Compilations of the TV show episodes? It's such a long-running TV show, but I'd like to own it on DVD someday.

I just looked at their page and saw a poster for Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie! Well, I didn't care much for the movie, but I'd buy it from them in hopes that they'd release the TV show someday. Somebody really, REALLY need to release Cobra for R1. The movie will be released in August 2012. With English dubs, for some reason. IMHO, they need to ditch the dubs and maximize their profits. Media Blasters is already in the process of going under. I haven't had a chance to buy any of Discotek's stuff yet, but I don't want them to go under!

Discotek really needs to work on their online catalog. Not only is it not in alphabetical order, but the randomness of genres makes it even worse. Lupin the 3rd, Torture Chamber, Sexual Parasite, Fist of the North Star... so bizarre. They really need to categorize their catalog better.

greg wrote:Brain Trash,
Haven't seen you on here in a while, but I was wondering if you could tell me about the two 999 DVDs that they've released. What are they? Movies? Compilations of the TV show episodes? It's such a long-running TV show, but I'd like to own it on DVD someday.

The Discotek releases are only for the first two movies (1979 Galaxy Express and Adieu). The TV series has actually been picked up very recently by some other company (S'more Entertainment) that up till now hasn't done any other anime releases of note.

greg wrote:I just looked at their page and saw a poster for Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie! Well, I didn't care much for the movie, but I'd buy it from them in hopes that they'd release the TV show someday. Somebody really, REALLY need to release Cobra for R1. The movie will be released in August 2012. With English dubs, for some reason. IMHO, they need to ditch the dubs and maximize their profits. Media Blasters is already in the process of going under. I haven't had a chance to buy any of Discotek's stuff yet, but I don't want them to go under!

Just for clarification, none of the dubs on Discotek releases are their own. Discotek only includes older dubs if the title in question had one at some point back in the day (and even then, only if the dub was made for an uncut release). In any event where a title either had no dub at all, or only had an edited dub, Discotek are more than okay with doing a sub only release (as they have done for the remaining three quarters of the Fist of the North Star TV series that Manga never dubbed).

The inclusion of older dubs is purely for completist/historical purposes it seems; just about all, or at least a good majority, of their releases seem to even default to the Japanese track with English subs. Discotek has never produced (and doesn't seem likely to ever produce) their own English dubs for any of their releases. They're a small enough company as it is that is catering to a niche enough audience as it is, and they're very much aware of that fact.

Also I happen to love the Cobra movie just fine, but that's neither here nor there.

greg wrote:Discotek really needs to work on their online catalog. Not only is it not in alphabetical order, but the randomness of genres makes it even worse. Lupin the 3rd, Torture Chamber, Sexual Parasite, Fist of the North Star... so bizarre. They really need to categorize their catalog better.

Yeah definitely with you there. Their website is kind of a clusterfuck.


Oh yeah, so there have been some major new announcements from them as of the last month or two.

Besides the Cobra film, they've also finally made official their acquisition of the original theatrical Golgo 13 film (aka The Professional). This was rumored and more or less “known” by people who follow them closely on Twitter and Facebook for well over a year now, but its great to see it confirmed in black and white now. Its got a release date set for July 24th. While the Golgo film has seen a decent enough DVD release by way of Urban Vision about a decade back, the release was non-anamorphic widescreen, and featured a garish and hideous as all hell English title card (that looks like the title card to a bad late 80's Saturday morning kid's cartoon) replacing the far more easier on the eyes original Japanese one, and without the benefit of alternate angles.

Discotek's release is confirmed to be anamorphic with a fully remastered and generally far better print of the film, and while it hasn't been stated anywhere, one can assume that the embarrassingly awful English title card will in all likelihood be gone as well. Definitely worth an upgrade if you happen to own the first DVD release and are as big a fan of the film as I am, much like their Demon City Shinjuku release is more than worth the upgrade even if you already own the old CPM release of that title (the image quality of their Shinjuku release leaves CPM's in the dust).

Their other big announcement is the entire original blue jacket Lupin III series on one complete DVD package! This has a June 26th release date, and since that series was never dubbed in any capacity that I can recall, this will most certainly be a sub-only release. Considering how important they are, the first two Lupin TV series are huge gaping voids in the R1 DVD anime market that are in dire need of being filled (and no, those shitty single releases for the early chunk of the red jacket series hardly count). This is yet another in what is becoming an increasingly larger string of fantastic and way long the hell overdue releases that no one up till Discotek has had the testicular fortitude to put up for.

And with that having been said, the crown jewel announcement (for me at least): Venus Wars. Fully remastered. Anamorphic widescreen. Venus Wars. Holy. Fucking. Christ. On. A. Bike.

This is COLLOSALLY fantastic news for a number of reasons, not the least of which being A) the fact that Venus Wars is one of the most criminally unsung great anime classics of the medium's 80's golden era and B) the fact that its only had one (double dipped) DVD release that contains one of the most notoriously abysmal and unwatchable video transfers of an anime in the industries' whole checkered history. The original R1 DVD release of Venus Wars by CPM is simply wretched to such mythical proportions as to where you almost have to see it yourself to fully appreciate firsthand what a truly shitty, bargain basement DVD transfer actually looks like.

This is one of the most in-dire-need-of-a-re-release anime titles that one can possibly care to name, all the more so since there has been a mouth wateringly gorgeous anamorphic remaster that's been available in Japan and European territories for quite a good number of years now. Discotek has that transfer now and they'll be releasing it on R1 DVD at an as yet unannounced date (that I can find anyway).

'Bout. Motherfucking. Time.

Their rate of titles is slow and incremental (especially in comparison to FUNimation, who seem to pump out new releases with the regularity of a daily bowel movement, and with a non-existant, standards-free taste in titles to match that analogy), but the tremendous quality of their releases more than makes up for the comparative lack of quantity. At the rate they're currently going in terms of choice titles to pick for licensing, I surely can't be the only one expecting a Robot Carnival release on the hopefully very close horizon, right?

If it somehow wasn't official yet, it certainly is now: Discotek is THE primary, currently active U.S. anime licensing company that's worth supporting and giving a shit about. Period.

Brain Trash wrote:The Discotek releases are only for the first two movies (1979 Galaxy Express and Adieu). The TV series has actually been picked up very recently by some other company (S'more Entertainment) that up till now hasn't done any other anime releases of note.

Well, I hope they hurry up and do something with it, instead of just sitting on the rights.

Brain Trash wrote:Just for clarification, none of the dubs on Discotek releases are their own. Discotek only includes older dubs if the title in question had one at some point back in the day (and even then, only if the dub was made for an uncut release). In any event where a title either had no dub at all, or only had an edited dub, Discotek are more than okay with doing a sub only release (as they have done for the remaining three quarters of the Fist of the North Star TV series that Manga never dubbed).

Ah, ok. Just like ImaginAsian DVD releases. They included the dubs of Orguss on the DVDs that had been completed way back in the early '90s by L.A. Hero, just for archival sake.

Yeah definitely with you there. Their website is kind of a clusterfuck.

For a lack of a better word, that really describes it perfectly.

Awesome news about Lupin and Venus Wars. As for the latter, I bought the DVD for super cheap once several years ago. I loved the movie, saw it only once though, but the animation was brilliant. For some reason, I kept getting it confused with Big Wars, which I didn't care much for.

As for Lupin, I tried buying all of the DVDs that Geneon had released, but those clowns didn't number the releases at all. A thinpak reissue would be nice.

This is COLLOSALLY fantastic news for a number of reasons, not the least of which being A) the fact that Venus Wars is one of the most criminally unsung great anime classics of the medium's 80's golden era and B) the fact that its only had one (double dipped) DVD release that contains one of the most notoriously abysmal and unwatchable video transfers of an anime in the industries' whole checkered history. The original R1 DVD release of Venus Wars by CPM is simply wretched to such mythical proportions as to where you almost have to see it yourself to fully appreciate firsthand what a truly shitty, bargain basement DVD transfer actually looks like

I never really noticed the quality being poor, but then again, I don't have an HDTV. I didn't think it was so bad, but I am fairly dense. You're right that the movie is unfortunately not well-known, especially in this age where your average anime fan is a Naruto-watching retard who says idiotic sentences like "Watashi wa EAT SUSHI desu!"

Their rate of titles is slow and incremental (especially in comparison to FUNimation, who seem to pump out new releases with the regularity of a daily bowel movement, and with a non-existant, standards-free taste in titles to match that analogy), but the tremendous quality of their releases more than makes up for the comparative lack of quantity. At the rate they're currently going in terms of choice titles to pick for licensing, I surely can't be the only one expecting a Robot Carnival release on the hopefully very close horizon, right?

If it somehow wasn't official yet, it certainly is now: Discotek is THE primary, currently active U.S. anime licensing company that's worth supporting and giving a shit about. Period.

Oh holy crap, a proper Robot Carnival release would be so excellent! Way back in the day, I'd bought Robot Carnival on VHS when Orion Pictures was re-releasing Streamline's videos. I bought it at Suncoast (R.I.P.---boy, that store brings back memories), and the video quality had a glitch. So I returned it, and requested them to order a new version. Then they said they had it in stock again, so I go there, buy it, only to realize that the nincompoops had sold me the same damn video again. I never did get it, and I'm not sure if there ever was an LD release of the movie. I actually shamefully must admit that I ended up buying Robot Carnival as a Chinese bootleg DVD. I think it's the only bootleg I ever bought (and on purpose, too). Naturally, the subtitles were completely absurd. Oh wait, now that I think about it, I did get a KOR boxset that was a bootleg, but then I bought it when it was officially released on DVD by AnimEigo. The subs on that one were fine, for the TV-series portion, because they'd used fansub scripts (they even said "NOT FOR SALE OR RENT") during the eycatches. The OVA episodes, however, were typical Japanese to Chinese to English translations ("Much the funny! Brother is play joke now.")

Anyhow, what was I saying before I interrupted myself? Oh yeah, Robot Carnival. You are so right about Funimation. They tend to release a lot of the moeblob crap, right? All I know is that Media Blasters is in trouble these days, unfortunately. I bought their GoLion and Dairugger XV box sets when they were being released. Any company that delivers the classics deserves my money, but you're right: Discotek is becoming the de facto company for releasing great classics. I would even go as far to say that they seem to have taken the position that AnimEigo has had, with their labor of love for the classics. Heck, maybe Discotek can release the second series of Yawara. Hey, why not get their hands on the stuff that ImaginAsian once sold? I wanted to get Cat's Eye and Everybody's Boy Remy (my Mexican friend said they got that show in Mexico and it was great---similar to Romeo's Blue Skies).

I believe I did recently describe Discotek as 'doing the Lord's work' here with their releases of out of print and never-released anime titles. Their Animal Treasure Island and Puss In Boots are just about perfect. When their Unico comes out it's going to make a lot of former 80s kids very happy.

davemerrill wrote:I believe I did recently describe Discotek as 'doing the Lord's work' here with their releases of out of print and never-released anime titles.

That is such an awesome way to put it! I am not familiar with Unico or Puss n Boots, but I imagine my daughter will enjoy those titles.

So Discotek is releasing shows in collected volumes, right? My precious bookshelf space is rather limited, and I would much rather not get individual DVDs of TV shows. ImaginAsian had a good idea to release a box with the first disc, and subsequent discs were sent in sleeves to be later added to the box. Media Blasters (IIRC) did an okay job with their GoLion and Dairugger XV DVDs by releasing them in thinpak sets of 3 each.

Puss In Boots is where Toei Animation gets their logo, the smiling cat is "Pero" the titular Puss. The movie is one of those great late 60s kids movies full of action, Miyazaki did the key animation and you can really tell, particularly in the final chase scenes. Unico is a cutesy Sanrio character, but the two films get very dark. Smaller children may get spooked. Both have some terrific animation (Kawajiri from "Ninja Scroll" was involved) and they really are entertaining; I've heard from lots and lots of people that are very excited to finally see a legit DVD release of Unico.