Forum - View topicIs lost anime media common in Japan like lost film(s)? How bad is film preservation in Japan?
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mdo7
 Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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OK, how many of you watch Kenny Lauderdale's video on Youtube. He would discuss obscure topics on anime that a lot of mainstream anime news/report wouldn't cover. A few days ago, I was watching a video of his on lost anime (you may have seen it if you're his followers). It's not the first video that he talked about lost anime, He had a video talking about a Hana no Asuka Gumi 2 OVA that was thought to be lost media.
So I never seen anyone on ANN talking about lost anime or lost film when it comes to discussing anime (please correct me if I'm wrong). So I thought to myself "why not set up a topic on that", hence this topic. I think many of you know about Doraemon 1973 episodes being lost, with several thought to be lost episodes recovered many years later. So, my questions for anyone that knows anything about lost media, lost films, and lost television broadcast/footage. I've even heard that Japan's film preservation is pretty notorious like for example, I've read about Toei's lost Dragonball/DBZ audio masters (as it was discussed on a 2017 Answerman), and I've read about the lost then recovered Harmony Gold's English dub of Dragonball, and a possible lost dub done by Frontier Enterprises that pre-date the Harmony Gold, Ocean Group, & Funimation dub. How common is lost anime media in Japan? Is lost anime that common like lost silent films? If lost anime is very common back in the old day, then how bad is Japan's film preservation? Don't Japanese take film preservation seriously hence we may have potential lost anime? Beside Toei's losing the original audio master for Dragonball, the lost Frontier English dub, have any other Japanese companies lost their original audio masters, tapes masters, original film negatives for their anime? |
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Dayraven
Posts: 176 |
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Article on some lost shows:
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/lost-tv-anime/ It’s rare for anime from after the 70s to be completely lost, as in having an episode with no known surviving copies. And that’s far from the case for all 60s and 70s shows, many survive in their entirety. More subtle cases of lost media, such as lack of release in any format, missing masters, negatives, and lost dubs do happen for shows much more recent than that, though. |
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mdo7
Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I already saw that particular Cartoon Research article before you linked to me, but thanks I guess. I was hoping this thread would produce more insight information that no other anime news would report when it comes to lost anime media, etc..... Oh beside Kenny Lauderdale's video, MercuryFalcon also covered lost anime too, he just posted this new video about a lost anime from 1967. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9840 Location: Virginia |
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@mdo7
First, most of the people with encyclopedic knowledge of old anime are gone or not contributing/commenting here on ANN. It is a shame but not the tragedy it could be as most of the readership here is not interested in anything older than about 2011, if that. Second, there is a fair amount of information on the site about missing material but it is in connection with discussion of individual shows. I'm not sure how you would track all of that down short of reading much of the entire site. If you did and could compile and write it up coherently it would probably make a decent article here. If memory serves, there are only a handful of show that are missing entirely. Mostly it it a case of some or all of the master copies missing with some early shows having only the Japanese commercial release available. Mostly it is a case of some portion missing. See the discussion of the Gunbuster (missing M&E track) and UY (missing Animax dub). Unfortunately the master material usually belongs to the original studio. These are variable as to preservation, or even continued existence. Apparently early anime, like early US TV was considered not worth saving. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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There's probably a fair percentage of very old anime that're lost media -- much like old Hollywood films -- particularly the pre-Astro-Boy stuff. But they're less common for anime made after 1980 (i.e. the rise of home media releases on VHS and Laserdisc), and especially after 2000 (the rise of digital recording/ripping, archiving, and distribution). Most lost anime from the last ~40 years would fall into one of several categories:
1) OVAs and movies from the 80s and 90s that saw poor video sales and don't have any versions distributed online. 2) Movies that screened in theaters, but never saw a home video release, e.g. the Maze Megaburst Space and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Phantom Blood movies. 3) TV series that never got much traction, weren't recorded or distributed online, and whose home video releases were limited or non-existent. A fair numbers of kids' series from the 80s and 90s likely qualify. 4) Short, promotional anime that only showed at certain places in Japan for limited times. (Stuff like this.) Unless somebody filmed them with a camera and uploaded the videos, we're out of luck. 5) ONA/Web anime that only streamed for a limited amount of time and were never ripped or distributed. These links may also be relevant: https://lostmediawiki.com/Category:Lost_animation https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/KeepCirculatingTheTapes/AnimeAndManga |
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mdo7
Posts: 6253 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Sorry for the thread bump, but I got to add something into this. I got to give praise to Kineko Video for their job & effort of rescuing, remaster and restoring, and preserving forgotten anime gem (they also restored and preserved other forgotten video beside anime). For example, you may have heard and known about Kineko Video's 4K restoration of that 1986 Super Mario Bros anime (they did a hell of a good job restoring it). If it wasn't for them, this piece of Super Mario Bros animation would've been forgotten by time, and almost become lost media given that this anime special hasn't seen a DVD/BD release and there is a very low chance of that film getting a US licence. That's not the only thing Kineko Video was able to brought back, I got chance to watch their 4K scan uncut (not 100% remastered/restored) subtitled upload of Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. The quality they did for that anime TV special is good, but there's still sign of film artifact like specks, and dirt on that film and because well let me quote Kineko Video from their description on their video:
So yeah, they don't have the resource and time to give Sovereign of the Damned the full remastered/restoraton it needed. Also yeah, given how bad this anime in term of storyline/plot, I'm surprised that Marvel didn't bother to give Tomb of Dracula (which Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned was based on) another anime adaptation given that Marvel had worked with Madhouse Studio for 4 anime based on their superheroes, and other subsequent anime adaptation which included working with Toei again. I'm surprised that they didn't do another adaptation/reboot of Tomb of Dracula to fix the abomination that was Sovereign of the Damned. Anyway, I like to add also add that Kineko Video also found, restored, and made these available to anime fans given that anime has now gotten more mainstream appeal in the recent years, I'll break down to several paragraphs below: Kineko Video found and restored this 1980's uhhh one-off variety show that did a top 10 anime/manga countdown (I don't know how to describe this, but I have a supplemental article which seem to explained the content of the video Kineko uploaded). Anyway, the video has a sketch variety show feel including appearance of manga artists like Shotaro Ishinomori, & Leiji Matsumoto. It had performances by Ichiro Mizuki singing his Captain Harlock OP song, and Mitsuko Horie singing her Voltes V's theme song in there too. I mean this is some worthy historical material for all anime/manga (particularly retro anime/manga) fans. I would recommend this video for all retro anime/manga enthusiasts, and historians specialized in Japanese pop culture. Again, this video would've been forgotten by time if Kineko Video didn't found and restored this piece of historical gem. Kineko Video also was able to restored these ads for Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1985 & 1986: 1985 Shonen Jump ad (raw shot on 35mm film) Another 1985 ad for Shonen Jump (raw, also shot on 35mm film) 1986 ad for Shonen Jump (again, this was shot on 35mm film) Last but not least for this post: Kineko Video was able to 4K restore and uploaded this ad for a 1986 Toei Manga Summer Matsuri, and yep this was shot on 35mm film. Yep, you can see Captain Tsubasa, High School! Kimengumi, Maple Town specifically Maple Town Monogatari in this particular ad. So what you're seeing here is anime preservation in action!!! This is how we preserve anime history for next generation of anime fandom and for anime/manga historian to study these piece of history. This is why I created this topic for. |
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