Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is It Worth Collecting Anime On VHS?
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 313 |
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How wonderfully nostalgic and I've never even heard of those anime titles before. |
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FLCLGainax
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I used to collect VHS about a decade ago, but usually for really obscure OAVs that had not made the jump to DVD (like Rumic World and Ultimate Teacher). Or English dubs of certain shows that weren't included on a DVD re-release, like Streamline's dub of 3x3 Eyes or LA Hero's dub of Outlanders.
 Nowadays, sometimes the tapes for these are becoming harder to find and have deteriorated to where there's buzzing on the HiFi track.
Last edited by FLCLGainax on Fri Feb 16, 2018 3:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
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Yep. At one point in high school I was giving a friend a Rurouni Kenshin DVD to borrow shortly before class, and the teacher asked if it was hentai. He did take our word for it when we said no, which is good since it would have been really annoying to have to go use one of the school's DVD players to prove I wasn't bringing porn to school. |
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FLCLGainax
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I remember hearing how Carl Macek cut the original opening titles to the Golgo 13 movie back in the '90s, because of the Japanese text. TMS didn't have a clean print of that footage.
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thenix
 Posts: 265 |
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I had (and I guess still have even after selling half of it) a good sized anime VHS collection going. Mostly just because it was cheap local finds and kinda fun to find a long series all on VHS. The problem I ran into was it takes up a lot of room.
The real answer here is Laserdisc is worth collecting. I'm going for all American released anime on LD and will get there sooner than later. |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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Oh man thats awesome that ANN has again linked to my “dsmspyder” channel where I’ve uploaded a lot of these old VHS promos. I can say that for the most part that was the only reason I held onto my old VHS anime collection; to pull the promos from them.
Do I think it’s worth actually collecting VHS? Not really. The major issue I see in trying to collect VHS titles is that its very difficult to know what shape they are in prior to buying. VHS would see major detrioriation even in good storage. The only value in old VHS may be to collect the artwork on the boxes, which would have been unique per title. Something that may be more interesting to collect would be fan subbed VHS titles from that awkward period in the 90s when fan subs were acquired that way. I see those old tapes periodically come up for auction cheap. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2545 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I actually got an old fansub VHS of B't X years ago at a terrible retro game store, but didn't actually watch it until last year, when I decided to finally record it to DVD for posterity. It obviously wasn't as "good quality" as an official anime VHS release, but I think it managed to hold up decently well for what it was, & it was neat to see the first four episodes in the ways people had to rely on back in the 90s. |
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SolHerald
 Posts: 99 |
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Besides the stuff I got when I was young (a few Pokemon tapes and the Digimon movie), the only thing I have on vhs is the subbed Dog of Flanders, which ended up costing more than most of my dvds and blurays. >.>
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Shiflan
 Posts: 418 |
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Agreed 100%. If you want to go retro, go laserdisc. The video quality is far superior to VHS (and is superior to many early DVDs), no worry about your player eating tapes, the quality doesn't degrade each time you watch it, you can chapter skip FF/RW just like any modern media, and so on. Plus, if you collect records like the original question-asker, your LDs will fit in the same shelves! |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Outside of the titles that saw VHS releases but not DVD later (or LaserDisc back in the day, I guess) there's really no point to collecting VHS. I still have a VHS copy of Sukeban Deka (with the old Madman shield logo!), which I'm not about to throw out, but I have no working player, no desire to get one, and sure as hell no desire to acquire any more VHS tapes. Any other anime VHS I had has long since been thrown out or given away.
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CANimeFan88
Posts: 346 |
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I'll always love VHS and Laserdisc no matter what other people say. But if I want to preserve that nostalgia for years ahead before all those non-digital copies deteriorate, then I will need someone to copy them all on digital format for me. I can't do it myself because I wouldn't even know where to begin. It's still gonna cost me quite a bit of money either way.
It's mostly Disney movies I want preserved. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4820 |
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The only anime on VHS I really care about keeping is my VHS copies of the original edited Pioneer dubs of the Sailor Moon movies with the DiC soundtrack and visual cuts. The only version of the Pioneer dub of the Sailor Moon movies that was released on DVD was the "uncut" English dub, which has all the same dialogue as the cut version, but it uses the Japanese soundtrack and it restores all the scenes that were cut on the VHS release and Toonami broadcast. The Power of Love segment from the R movie is included on the Pioneer DVD as an extra, but if you want to hear all the other DiC dub music cues, the VHS release is the only way to watch that version of the Sailor Moon movies.
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3874 Location: New York state. |
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A majority of the titles I've seen or heard of only being available on VHS format are mostly forgettable romps that were either one-shots used to promote a video game or manga series, or an experimental series that never got far due to low video sales during its original Japanese release.
Still, there are some diamonds in the rough worth hunting down since VHS is the only means to view them here in the states. Titles that come to mind for me are Leiji Matsumoto's The Cockpit, Ultimate Teacher, several Rumic Theater shorts (Mermaid's Scar and Laughing Target), and Spirit of Wonder: Miss China's Ring. Also in a unique instance, there is an anime worth owning more on VHS than on DVD in the form of the 1997 adaptation of A Dog of Flanders that got an uncut, subtitled release on VHS from Pioneer back in the day, while the later DVD release was English dub only and in an edited format that removed some scenes to make the film more appropriate for younger audiences. |
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1242 |
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Huh. I grew up in the 80s, and never had any awareness of that still being an issue. My folks didn't like anime at all (they could never get their heads around the idea of cartoons not being for children), but the war never came up even once. I think the reason the Japanese-ness of anime was hidden from view so often was more because some people just tune out if the slightest effort is demanded of them. So unfamiliar names, unfamiliar letters, unfamiliar foods (cough, cough, Doraemon!), etc get eliminated or localized to remove any perceived barrier to watching. I say "perceived," because even in the 90's, I remember thinking that companies went overboard on this, and were selling their viewers short. On the subject of VHS, whenever I find a dealer selling old tapes in Japan, my eyes light up, because there's a ton of old anime that never made it to disc, and some of it quite good. A few I'm happy to have stumbled across some or all of include: "Kyou kara Ore ha!!" (high school delinquent fighting/comedy) "Take the X Train" (movie about a deadly invisible force moving along Japan's rail system) "Glass Mask OVA" (gorgeous-looking and with the melodrama properly cranked to 11) "Nine" (3-film adaptation of an early Mitsuru Adachi baseball manga) "2001 Nights" (adapting part of the Yoshinobu Hoshino manga) "Rai" (TV series based on Johji Manabe manga; it's basically a Chinese epic transferred to outer space. Manabe hated so much it probably won't get re-released until it hits public domain) "California Crisis" (neat UFO OVA with a unique art style) "Child's Toy" (OVA pilot) |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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Here is my cute little collection.
I was collecting tapes during what I would say was about the last time it made any sense, which was the mid to late 00's. For a few reasons: -There were a number of good/interesting titles that didn't have a DVD release. -Of those, if an online copy existed at all, it was often at a much lower quality than even a beaten up ex-rental (if you can believe that). -People were starting to offload their VHS collections to used bookstores and what not, and others still used them, so they were plentiful and cheap. Rarely spent over three dollars a tape. -Video rental joints started selling then liquidating their VHS stock. -So even for stuff that did have a proper release otherwise, VHS was just a cheap and often easier to find alternative (I believe Gall Force in particular was rare and expensive on DVD at the time for some reason) A number of things have changed: Most if not all of those online copies have since turned up just as good or better versions (often sourced from a laser disc). Used bookstores and other such places often straight up won't take VHS anymore because nobody wants it, aside from maybe maintaining a small stock consisting of whatever they think might have a chance of selling - if it's anime, probably Sailor Moon. Some of the more interesting ones, like Blue Sonnet, are actually relatively expensive now ($15 to $30 a tape), unless you spot it in a bulk lot, where, as mentioned, shipping will obliterate all savings. Main reason to keep them around, or maybe pick one up by now, is when they look cool. I have that copy of Appleseed entirely because I think the shell looks awesome. But, also as mentioned before, these things tend to get beaten around and these days it's not so easy to inspect a large stock for the best looking ones - but, should you find one of an old favorite in decent shape and at a fair price...hey, why not? |
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