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Answerman - Why Did Anime Companies Start Including "Clean" Openings And Endings?

Western publishers don't care as much about bonus features as they used to (and often, they're not allowed to include stuff that was made for the Japanese release).

What sort of things might fall into this category of features not included from a Japanese release and why wouldn't western publishers be allowed to include them (copyright or some limited licensing agreement I could suppose, but would that be the only reason?)?

Physical objects packaged with the disc:
Liner notes, storyboards, posters, music CDs, stickers, calendars, various cardboard fold-ups, doorknob hangers, paper doll kits, pencil boards, plushies, books/pamphlets of various sizes, plastic "clear files", stationary, small toys and trinkets. Manga. Audio dramas. Pins, batches, and patches. Boxes which you could use to form a "box set" once you bought all the discs to a given show, garage kits, figures (ranging from very simple to very fancy/expensive), and probably more. It was also common for there to be mail-in forms where you could send in proof-of-purchases for all the volumes in a series and then get a rare collector's item. This might have been a fancy box for the set, limited-edition discs (with music videos, bonus content, director/staff/VA interviews), audio CDs, etc.

Generally speaking, Japanese physical releases were a lot more forthcoming with Omake stuff than what I have seen in Domestic anime releases. Yes, we can often buy fancy DVD or BD box sets that come with extras, but in many cases you got free stuff packaged with a standard Japanese LD/DVD/BD without paying extra for it. Music CDs often came with extras too. I would assume VHS tapes did too but I am not sure. Most of the handful of anime-related vinyl records I own did.

And sometimes it can get fairly exotic. One thing I think is really cool is that I've seen a handful of LDs which they had molded with colored plastic instead of just the usual clear/sliver color. I have about 400 LDs, and only 6 are colored like this: All 5 OVA volumes of Galaxy Fraulein Yuna are pink on the top side and the disc itself has art directly printed on it, and the final disc in the Tenchi Muyo thanks edition box set is a vibrant gold color, also with art on one side. If I had to guess there are probably other examples of this but those are the only ones I am aware of.

Then again, Japanese releases were/are very costly, so one would hope that one gets more for their money.

What sort of things might fall into this category of features not included from a Japanese release and why wouldn't western publishers be allowed to include them (copyright or some limited licensing agreement I could suppose, but would that be the only reason?)?

And episodes that're packaged with Japanese manga/LN releases are nearly always off the table entirely, since the licensors want to keep them so scarce that readers feel compelled to pre-order expensive limited editions.

And episodes that're packaged with Japanese manga/LN releases are nearly always off the table entirely, since the licensors want to keep them so scarce that readers feel compelled to pre-order expensive limited editions. So anyone wanting to legally watch, for instance, Ayana Taketatsu's voice-acting debut, is out of luck.

There are still a number of Dragonball OVAs that have never been released here, as well as the One Piece OVAs and first seven moviess. So even the mainstream series are still missing quite a bit of content in the American market.

I just recalled an excellent example of how the legal licensing can affect releases too: Evangelion. Evangelion was infamous for the poor animation quality and the massive amount of still frames, etc, during some of its later TV episodes. When the physical media was released in Japan these episodes were redone with new animation, better timing of the audio, etc. In fact, you couldn't even buy the "as broadcast" TV eps in Japan. However, the first ADV domestic release contained only the "as broadcast" version and did NOT have those improvements. Apparently this is because ADV's license extended only to the "broadcast versions" of the TV eps and they would have had to re-negotiate a new contract for the updated versions. I understand that did happen for later domestic releases.

One Piece is kinda special: All movies have been released in several territories in Europe, including the UK!
(Those not previously dubbed by Funimation only got sub-only DVDs in UK)

That has happened quite a lot over the years. A lot of American releases didn't include the changes made to the Japanese home video release because the rights were only for the broadcast version. It's also been a problem with Crunchyroll and other streaming services where they never go back and update their library with the uncensored or improved versions.