Keep Circulating The Tapes / Anime & Manga

Keep Circulating the Tapes for these Anime and Manga.

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In General

• Anime that's available on DVD in Japan (y'know, the nation that they were produced and broadcast in) don't qualify for this Trope. However, Japanese releases only have one print run. Popular series get reissued from time to time (if you're lucky), but if it's a particular edition that you're after, your best bet is to scour auction websites.
• This is true for a lot of anime that received cut-and-paste dubs, with the only uncut version being the fansub. This is the case with most anime dubbed by 4Kids Entertainment, but averted with One Piece. In addition, most 4Kids dubs themselves aren't available on home video of any kind due to their struggles with getting home video partners. (Pokémon: The Series is an exception.) They had a particular nasty fallout with Funimation after they distributed their titles on video for years.
  • This also applies to the extremely infamous 4Kids dub of One Piece. Later episodes were never released on DVD, so those with Bile Fascination will have to look hard. The first 52 episodes were released on DVD (courtesy of Viz Media), but are long out of print and going for increasingly high prices online. With the dub's poor reception and the Funimation dub being an order of magnitude further ahead,^note 4Kids dubbed 104 episodes, whereas Funimation/Crunchyroll's dub is over 1000 episodes long and counting. it's unlikely that Toei or Crunchyroll will see any reason to re-release this version in the future.
  • Episodes of the English dub version of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! are hard to find nowadays, most infamously "Shell Shocked", which was only aired once when they did reruns since the initial run was preempted by a baseball game at the last minute. The series pilot and two other episodes were included with the 2012 Wii release of Kirby's 20th Anniversary. Funimation's VHS and DVD releases are also long out of print, and even then only 23 out of the 100 total episodes were released on those formats. When the entire anime in its original Japanese dub received a Blu-Ray release, the first episode, and only that episode, of the English dub was bundled with it.
  • Tokyo Mew Mew had 26 episodes localized by 4Kids as Mew Mew Power and then dropped due to them not being able to get a merchandising deal (despite high ratings). The other 26 episodes were never licensed. The 4Kids dub of episodes 1-11 and 24-26 has also not been shown in the US since they lead into a sharp cliffhanger (literally, their dub of episode 26 ends with a "To Be Continued..."!), however they did air overseas in the UK, Australia, Canada, etc. To this day, Tokyo Mew Mew hasn't received an English re-dub, official subtitled release (fansubs are readily available), or any home video release of any kind in the US. The 4Kids dub was only released to DVD in Australia (eps. 1-11 only) and South Africa.
  • While the home video release of Tama & Friends was never announced and released during the 2001-2002 syndication, the TV rip of all 13 dubbed episodes can be easily found.
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure's English dub only aired in Canada on YTV, and hasn't aired since 2010. The dub never received a home video release either, and Crunchyroll and Tubi has a sub-only release for the series.
  • F-Zero: GP Legend hasn't aired since 2005, and the series never received a home video release. 4Kids only dubbed 15 of 51 episodes before canceling it entirely due to low ratings.
  • Ojamajo Doremi's English dub (only the first season was licensed) has been long gone from television since its re-runs on The CW 4Kids in the late 2000s, and the home media releases by Funimation are long out of print (though it didn't help they were only released as bonus discs with Bandai's dolls of the lead characters and only contained the fourth episode). It was taken off from 4Kids' website in 2008. The original Japanese version used to be hard to find, until 2016 when a Blu-ray was released. Also, Amazon Prime currently streams the entire series in Japan.
  • Ultimate Muscle only has its first 4 episodes available on DVD from Funimation's long out of print DVD sets released in the early to mid-2000's.
  • If anyone wants to see Fighting Foodons again, they're pretty much out of luck considering that this is one of the rare anime series that 4Kids has done pretty well, if nothing else for its Narm Charm. Despite this fact, there are still no official releases for it yet. The series was eventually rescued by Discotek Media, but as a dub-only release because the Japanese version never received a home video release. It's also impossible to find the series in Japanese, even fansubbed.
• Most anime broadcast on Japanese TV has a short screen at the beginning ^note Before or after the opening theme. Some anime, such as Atashin’chi and Sazae-san, showcase the sponsors at the very end of the opening theme, rather than cutting to a different screen. and the end ^note After the next episode preview. of the episodes, which showcases the sponsors with a visual^note Either a screenshot/clip from the episode, or a unique illustration.◊ For most anime produced prior to the 90s, the visual was simply a blue background. The example is from Astro Boy (1980). However, there were some anime throughout the 90s and the early 00s, including as Doraemon, Chibi Maruko-chan, Marmalade Boy, Hana Yori Dango, Yume no Crayon Oukoku and the first two seasons of Ojamajo Doremi, that continued the use of a blue background., the sponsor logos, background music ^note  Either a sample from the opening/ending theme, unique background music, or no music at all., and a voice-over that says, "Kono bangumi wa goran no sponsaa teikyou de okurishimasu." (This program is brought to you by the following sponsors.)^note  The voice-over during the episode's final sponsor screen says, "Kono bangumi wa goran no sponsaa teikyou de okurishimashita." (This program was brought to you by the following sponsors.) In Japanese, these screens are referred to as "teikyou kurejitto" (提供クレジット). This is the same as the American underwriting spot (known as "Viewers Like You" screens) with major differences. Due to their ephemeral nature, it's common for production companies to remove them from reruns, home media and streaming releases in Japan, and all international releases of anime aside. Sometimes, the episode broadcast masters supplied to BS^note Broadcasting Satellite channels (such as Animax), CS^note Communications Satellite channels (such as Kids Station), and international streaming services (such as Crunchyroll) retain them, but without the voice-over and the sponsor logos since those elements are incorporated live at the TV network during the original broadcast. Therefore, the only way to watch them in their proper form is to track down the original broadcast versions.
  • The streaming versions of some Kodomomuke series such as Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama and Kiratto Pri☆Chan on some Japanese sites also retain the textless sponsor screens.
  • Viz Media's releases of shows such as Sailor Moon Crystal and Naruto retain the sponsor screens as well.
  • When Cartoon Network Asia aired Yo Kai Watch, some episodes kept the textless sponsor screens.
• Various anime have had shorts about traffic, fire and bicycle safety produced, including Super Mario Bros., Dragon Ball (whose traffic and fire safety shorts were the only ones released to the general public, on a now out-of-print DVD box set), Ojamajo Doremi, Hamtaro and Ojarumaru. As they were released only to schools, it's very hard to get copies of them.
• This can happen to companies of niche genres or even larger ones (example, yaoi). The amount printed is usually low to not be a risk to the company and so even finding a book a year after its English release (example Seven Days (2007)) is difficult and expensive. Fortunately due to the digital age it is possible to buy some titles online or with devices like the Kindle and the Nook.
• The shutdown of Bandai Entertainment's U.S. branch caused a lot of this:
  • Nichijou (both anime and manga) and Gosick never had an official home media release in America, although you can still watch them on Crunchyroll. For Oceania, Madman Entertainment put them out on DVD in sub-only form.
    • As of September 1st, 2014, you can't, thanks to Crunchyroll's streaming licenses expiring. But in Australia, Madman Entertainment did release a full series DVD/Blu-Ray set for at least the former. Get yourself a region-free player, and you may not be out of luck.
    • Averted as of 2016; as Funimation now owns the license and the full series was rereleased on DVD/Blu-ray in 2019 with an English dub.
  • Most of Bandai's older franchises, including Haruhi Suzumiya ^note FUNimation snapped that one up in the Summer of 2014, are discontinued in America and becoming increasingly expensive. However, most of the key ones have been re-licensed by FUNimation (such as Haruhi), Discotek Media, or Sentai Filmworks.
• The Best Film/Video re-release of the Celebrity Home Entertainment releases of early anime dubs such as Cyborg 009 The Movie: Legend of the Super Galaxy, Phoenix:2772 and Macross: Do You Remember Love?. These have never been released to DVD and with the exception of Macross:DYRL, which has had other problems regarding licensing, the other two have faded into obscurity despite deserving more recognition (Legend of the Super Galaxy being the first movie of the Cyborg 009 franchise and Phoenix:2772 being based on an Osamu Tezuka creation). The Best Film/Video releases are actually better than the Celebrity Home Video editions which were released under their "Just For Kids" banner and cut for length and content. The Best Film/Video re-release restored the full length of the films indicating that they were originally dubbed in full length.
• Central Park Media and ADV Films are now defunct. Many of ADV's later licenses were sold off to FUNimation when their distribution deal with Sojitz exploded in their face, although they still have a few (now under Sentai Filmworks). Most of CPM's licenses have been saved by other groups also, mostly by Media Blasters and Nozomi Entertainment, and FUNimation got a hold of Slayers. Ironically, ADV also got a hold of some, and those are out of print as well.
  • Central Park Media's manga is also now under this trope. Interestingly, their older DVD sets are still not too difficult to find, given that most of them were released between 1999-2002, a time when DVDs were new, highly expensive, and exclusive. Some of them won't destroy your wallet either; you can actually get a box set of CPM's original DVD release of Slayers on eBay for reasonable prices (ranging from as low as $30 up to around $80), a given because each season was originally released for about $100 each. While the series has been long since re-released, both individually and in a nicely-priced boxset, the older DVDs (and the same applies to any other older company) are coveted for their extras.
  • Sadly, while the Slayers TV series is easy to find (if you look hard enough, you can even find the old CPM releases in discount or specialty stores) the five movies and two OVA series are out of print (ADV Films had the rights to them). In this case, distribution wasn't that plentiful to begin with (either due to sub-par reviews, little promotion, or disliking the dub that differed from the more-loved TV series), and the license has expired. Slayers Premium alone, for example, can be bought new on eBay for $75 - keep in mind that it's only a half-hour long, even if it does have nice extras. Actually, if you look hard enough, collecting the movies/OVAs individually isn't usually too hard or expensive. The boxsets on the other hand can go for hundreds. Fortunately, these movies and OVAs can be found fairly easily dubbed on YouTube and other places on the web.
• After Cloverway Inc closed in 2007, several of its Spanish Latin dubs went into licensing hell, and several masters were lost or damaged. The most successful series (Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya) managed to avoid this and have received good treatment, however, the same cannot be said for its less successful series, which have become extremely rare to find due to no companies interested in distributing them, and the most of his dubs have become lost media. Good luck trying to find the Latin Spanish dubs of Mirumo de Pon!, Betterman or Bikkuriman, in the best case you will find 2 or 4 full episodes with variable quality. The fact that most of these dubs never received a home release doesn't help at all.
  • Toei Animation wanted to distribute their series themselves, so when they dissolved Cloverway they got rid of all non-Toei series. The most successful ones like Cardcaptor Sakura or Ranma ½ were fortunate to be acquired by Artworks Entertainment and are still distributed today. The least successful are in complete licensing limbo.
  • The 90s anime of Captain Tsubasa is a notable case, since it is the only one of the four series of the franchise that is not currently in distribution and it is not possible to watch it legally. Although it can be seen illegally on the internet, unlike the previous examples that are mostly or partially lost media.
• This applies to almost all movies from Eleven Arts (not the movies that are being distributed in theaters). Yeah, they have all the rights to those movies, but no company are interested in distribute them at all. Do you want to see them? Take note:
  • The touching story of a girl with a bad leg, 5-tou ni Naritai. This was fansubbed in English, Spanish and Russian.
  • The movie based on the book "Bootleg", Chocolate Underground. There is a fansubbed version in English and in some other languages, but only when this was released as a web series.
  • A story about two brothers, one of them deaf, Daisuki Dai-chan. Better luck finding it, since no DVD or RAW version exists.
  • A low-budget movie of a group of kids dealing with the Kobe earthquake disaster, Chikyuu ga Ugoita Hi. There is a English version with Russian subs also. A Spanish version is on works.
  • Yet another WWII film (albeit biased in favour of the Japanese, since it's based on a Japanese war survivor's autobiography), Garasu no Usagi. There is an English fansubbed-version on torrent and streaming sites. No Spanish version is available on the Internet. However, for people that live countries like Mexico, Japan Foundation have it covered since they sometimes show the movie.
  • The heartbreaking story of a boy with a Delicate and Sickly little sister, Momoko, Kaeru no Uta ga Kikoeru yo.. One will need lots of luck to find it in English, since no fansub want to do it, despite some good recommendations from Anime Nation. It was finally released in English in 2015, 12 years after the film's debut.
  • The story of a girl that deals with bullying and an abusive mother, Happy Birthday: Inochi Kagayaku Toki. Fansubbed in English, Spanish and Russian.
  • Another Disaster Movie, based on the Seveso disaster, Inochi no Chikyuu, Dioxin no Natsu. At the moment, there's an Italian and Russian version, but no English-translated version exists.
• Despite FUNimation licensing a good amount of it, some bits of the Tenchi Muyo! franchise remain with their licenses unrenewed. The most notable Tenchi properties that are currently out-of-print are...
  • The Tenchi Muyo Mihoshi Special, last released on a DVD double-packed with the Pretty Sammy OVAs (see below) in 2002 by Pioneer, who are now out-of-business. This DVD is now very out-of-print, and can only be found on the used DVD circuit for less than $40 if you're lucky. However, the special with the dub is on the (expensive) Japanese Blu-ray release.
  • The Pretty Sammy franchise (specifically, the OVAs and the TV version). The OVAs were, as stated above, last released on a DVD from the now-defunct Pioneer in 2002 with the Tenchi Muyo Mihoshi Special. The TV series, released in the US as Magical Project S to help distinguish it from the OVAs, was last released in a series of limited-run, subtitled-only DVDs (in two parts) and VHS tapes in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These releases were, again, from Pioneer, and are out-of-print. Part 2 sold horribly and still has a few copies left in-stock at Right Stuf for a bargain price, but Part 1 cannot be found anywhere for a decent price.
  • The English dub of the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki episode 13.5 omake is also out-of-print. It, too, was last released in a DVD set released by Pioneer in the early 2000s. The current version of the omake available on DVD and Blu-ray from FUNimation is subtitled-only. However, the dub is on the Japanese Blu-ray release.
  • Many of the earlier Tenchi Muyo DVD releases also contained special features that are not available on current releases (a lot of behind-the-scenes production notes and an interview with the composer were left out of FUNimation's rerelease of Tenchi Muyo! in Love, for instance), making tracking down these out-of-print versions a priority for the more completist-minded Tenchi fans.
• The collapse of Geneon means that a number of beloved shows have gone out of print. While many of them have since been rescued by companies such as FUNimation and Discotek Media, other licenses, such as Gregory Horror Show, Master Keaton, and The Story of Saiunkoku, have fallen through the cracks.
• For anime series produced by NHK/NHK Enterprises, get your preservation methods ready. Anything older than a few years tends to not get officially re-released in Japan unless it's super popular.
  • The vast majority of Ojarumaru episodes are unavailable on home media and streaming in Japan. To make matters worse, many, many episodes are impossible to find online. NHK E-Tele airs reruns of episodes during the show's hiatuses in the summer and winter. After the reruns, most episodes become very rare.
    • Nippon Crown released the entire 1st to 5th series ^note A total of 450 episodes. on VHS from 1998 to 2003. They later released them on DVD from 2001 to 2003, however, only some of the episodes were released. ^note 100 out of 450 episodes. Their home media releases eventually went out of print and are rare. Used copies can go for quite a lot on auction websites.
    • The first special, Ojarumaru: Shiawase Aoi no Senaka, only got a VHS release and there are currently no plans for a DVD or streaming release. However, it did get a VCD release in Hong Kong, which has Japanese audio.
    • While VHS copies of Eiga Ojarumaru: Yakusoku no Natsu - Ojaru to Semira can be found pretty easily, DVD copies require some digging, especially if you're living outside of Japan.
    • The manga version that was serialized in Shogakukan's Ciao manga magazine from October 1998 to September 2001 has yet to be collected into tankoubon volumes.
    • With the exception of the Chinese, Cantonese, and Indonesian dubs ^note  They were released on VCD. All of the volumes have been long out of print are very rare., there are no home media or streaming releases of the international dubs.
    • ''Ojarumaru: Chosakken to 3-tsu no Yakusoku'', an educational DVD that teaches viewers about the copyright system, doesn't have a retail release in Japan; it's only available to rent from the Copyright Research and Information Center (CRIC).
  • Nintama Rantarou:
    • The 1st and 2nd series ^note  However, some episodes were not included on the 1st and 2nd series DVD box sets apparently due to NHK losing some of the master tapes over the years. , and every episode of the 16th-23rd series of Nintama Rantarou has been released on DVD by NBC Universal Entertainment Japan, while Frontier Works has released the 24th series on DVD and the 25th series on Blu-ray. However, the 3rd-15th series and every episode since 26th series have yet to be fully released on home media in Japan. So far, the only DVD releases of the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and the 9th-15th series are cherry-picked episodes under the 4-volume "Anokoro no Dan" line. As for the 5th, 7th, and 8th series? Not a single episode of those series is available on DVD or legal streaming in Japan.
    • The 2-part special "Saraba Ninjutsu Gakuen no Dan" has yet to have a home media or streaming release in Japan.
  • Harimogu Harley, a family-friendly anime adaptation of a Seinen manga about the titular hedgehog and his friends, fell into obscurity after its studio, Image K, went bust. While it did get Japanese VHS releases, good luck trying to get physical copies of them and upload the episodes to the internet, as not only are they long out of print, but NHK will also take them down whenever they are uploaded. For now, only very few episodes, alongside the opening and ending animations, can be viewed online.
  • Since March 2020, NHK has made newer TV broadcasts of their programming immediately available on NHK Plus.^note A streaming service where viewers can watch live streams of TV broadcasts from NHK's channels, as well as playback streams of previous broadcasts up to a week. The streaming service is only available in Japan and requires an NHK ID in order to watch the previous broadcasts. The catch? After they're removed from the streaming service, there's no legal way to watch them.
• Many anime that were dubbed or distributed by Saban Entertainment have been in limbo since 2001, due to Disney buying the company and doing nothing with the anime licenses which have been expired for quite some time. Even when Saban was still afloat, there were home media struggles because when the company first started to license anime, VHS releases were plentiful, however by the late 90's only Region 2 and Region 4 VHSs and DVDs were released which are long-out of print.
  • The only official uncensored, English subbed release of Digimon series before Xros Wars was of the first three series on Netflix and Hulu briefly in 2015 before the license for the Japanese versions expired.
  • The Littl' Bits is notoriously hard to find in English, fans were able to collaborate and cobble together an unofficial DVD that had 22 of the 26 episodes in English. Things were looking up for a little while around 2009, when one of the four episodes missing from the fan DVD was found, but they have gone silent since.
  • Hopefully everyone taped The Noozles when they had the chance, because besides that the series had a few long out-of-print VHS releases by Celebrity Home Entertainment under their Just For Kids label.
  • Missed out on the English version of Jungle Tales (Urikupen Rescue Team), when it aired on Nick Jr. in the early 1990s? Too bad, since only Swedish-dubbed versions can be found circulating the Internet.
  • Future Police Urashiman was released as Rock n' Cop by Saban, and it is hard to find because the series never aired in America. Only the German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of the dub can be found online. Sentai Filmworks acquired the series in 2014, but it was a subbed only release.
  • GoShogun was released as Macron 1 by Saban, and had some VHS releases in the 80's. Said tapes are long out of print. Discotek Media had a subbed only release of the series.
  • Good luck finding any episodes of the Saban dub of Maya the Bee that aired on Nick Jr in the late 80's and early 90's. The rights for Maya the Bee are now owned by m4e AG (a division of Studio 100), the producers for the 2013 CGI series, and they have re-released the 70s British dub of the original series but not the Saban dub which also features 10 episodes of the sequel anime.
  • The Saban English dub of the 1986 Toei Animation series Maple Town never gained a DVD release in the US. The only way to see the episodes in English is with old VHS recordings of the show made when it was still running on Nickelodeon in the late 1980's and early 1990's, but a handful of episodes were also released on VHS by Family Home Entertainment in the early 90s. Other European countries such as France, the Netherlands, and Spain all gained home releases. Due to its popularity in Spain where it's known as La aldea del Arce, the anime gained a DVD set that contained all the episodes of the series.◊
  • Super Pig, in anime or manga form, is impossible to obtain legally. Japan saw a DVD release, and copies can be found if you know where to look - untranslated. The Saban dub is even harder to find than the Japanese version because it only aired in New Zealand and The Netherlands. The series hasn't been reran since the early 2000s in both countries nor has the English dub received a home video release.
  • Wowser hasn't aired since 1998 on Fox Family and its VHS releases by Celebrity Home Entertainment are out of print. Mediatoon currently has the rights to the series, but they have yet to re-release it or put it on their YouTube channel. The original Japanese version is even worse, because only the opening and ending credits can be found.
  • Peter Pan no Bouken hasn't aired in the US since the early 90s on Nick Jr, and a few episodes and the opening of the English dub are on YouTube, in contrast, all of the original Japanese episodes are on YouTube.
  • The rights to Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001) were sold to Disney as part of the package acquisition of Saban's assets bundled with the Fox Family (now ABC Family) company. Since Disney couldn't care less about Transformers (...give or take some toys), it has only been released in the United Kingdom. With the Shout! Factory releases of Transformers: ★Headmasters, Transformers: Super-God Masterforce and Transformers Victory this remains one of the few Transformers series (others being the Japanese Beast Wars cartoons, Transformers: Go! and The Transformers: Combiner Wars) yet to see a stateside DVD set. There is also a good chance that the rights to the series may have lapsed.
  • The Dragon Quest: Legend of the Hero Abel dub was masked in legal problems from the beginning (not the least of which was Akira Toriyama receiving zero credit) resulting in only 13 of the 43 episodes being dubbed, and no official release of either dub or original versions.
  • Ox Tales only had VHS tapes from Celebrity Home Entertainment in the late 80's, and those are since out of print. On May 27, 2008, Disney's rights to the series had expired. In 2010, m4e AG rereleased and re-dubbed the series on a YouTube channel with the same name as the show, which doesn't include the pre-existing Saban dub. Most of the episodes of the Saban dub can be found on YouTube in a remastered form.
  • Hakushon Daimaō was dubbed in 1992 by Saban as Bob in a Bottle. The series never aired in America, but it did in Canada (on YTV), Australia (on the Seven Network),in New Zealand (on TV2), and in the Netherlands (on TV 10). On December 12, 2000, Saban's rights to the show had expired without any home media releases.
  • My Favorite Fairy Tales had a complete VHS release in the 80's, but they are now long out of print. A promotional DVD with 2 episodes was released by the Daily Mirror (a British newspaper) in 2006, but it is also out of print. The only episode that was released on DVD was the Wizard of Oz episode by Digiview Entertainment in the mid-2000's, but that is also out of print. This is one of the few anime series that are still with Disney, so hopefully it will be put up on the Disney + streaming service.
  • The Fox Kids dub of The Vision of Escaflowne only aired 10 out of the 23 episodes made for the dub in the US. The entire series did air on YTV, but that was years ago. The dub had 4 VHS releases from Bandai, but they were discontinued after Volume 4 due to the higher sales of the uncut dub and subbed versions.
  • Chiisana Obake Acchi, Koochi, Socchi was dubbed as Three Little Ghosts: Afraid of the Dark. The show was released on VHS in North America by Video Treasures. However, they released only one volume, which consisted of a small number of episodes. The English version in general is nearly impossible to find online, except for a VHS rip of the aforementioned release and the Polish dub (which is based on the English version). The original Japanese version is even rarer; although it was released on VHS by Vap Video, the only footage available online is the opening theme.
• Sanrio:
  • Some animated content by Sanrio ^note  such as Hello Kitty Animation Theater, Hello Kitty Stump Village, Hello Kitty Paradise, and The Adventures of Hello Kitty and Friends are now out of print. Their OVAs from the 80s ^note  such as Sanrio World Animation and Sanrio Animation Festival and early 90s also never gained a reissue in Japan. Fortunately some western Sanrio fans managed to upload some of the Japanese exclusive OVAs to Youtube with some containing English fan translations beginning in early 2021. Some OVAs can also be viewed on Nico Nico Douga such as a few animated shorts starring Badtz-Maru, albeit in low-quality and with watermarks.
  • Hello Kitty's Animation Theater was a 2000 Sanrio effort featuring Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters acting out various fairy and folktales in surprisingly faithful adaptations. It received both an English dub and a subtitled release, packaged together, but it's fallen out of print, as have various dubs of other Hello Kitty series (...and Friends, Paradise, Stump Village) by ADV or Genenon. (The only HK series that's easy to find on DVD is Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, the English-language Saturday-Morning Cartoon from The '80s, via MGM — and they present the shorts in themed compilations, losing the Christmas Episode in the process. iTunes, Hulu, and Amazon offer it uncut.)
  • Speaking of Hello Kitty, good luck finding the original Japanese OVAs that were dubbed as Hello Kitty and Friends or the rest of her Direct-to-Video series if you live outside of Japan! Most of them can only be found online via poor-quality, watermarked rips on Dailymotion and NicoNico or dead torrents.
  • Some of Sanrio's earliest attempts at bringing their characters into animation was a direct-to-video series called "Sanrio Anime Festival" and "Sanrio World of Animation", made in the mid to late 80s (these include Hello Kitty no Cinderella, My Melody no Akazukin, Kiki to Lala no Ohimesama ni Naritai, and Kiki to Lala no Aoi Tori). However, a lot of Sanrio's OVAs from the 1980s are out of print and are collectibles by hardcore Sanrio fans in Japan.
  • An English dub of Onegai My Melody called "My Melody's Magical Adventure" actually exists. But unless you live in Asia, you have to be lucky to find at least one episode of the dub. A clip of the dub was released on YouTube but is currently removed. As a result, footage of the English dub is extremely hard to find online. The Portuguese and Tagalog dubs aren't easy to find either.
  • The 2007 anime Sugarbunnies starring the titular rabbit groups. The series spawned two follow ups between 2008 (Sugarbunnies: Chocolate!) and 2009 (Sugarbunnies: Fleur). While the three never made it to the West, the series was able to air in Europe with different dubs (notably in Italy, where the anime gained a new theme song and credits sung by Cristina D'Avena). However, clips and full episodes of these dubs are extremely difficult to find online. The original Japanese versions of the first two seasons are on Youtube.
  • Dream Star Button Nose was the very first made-for-TV anime they ever did, and one of the hardest to find in full online, whether it's the original Japanese version, the European and Latin American dubs, or the 1994 English dub that only aired in Australia. The only exceptions are the Russian dub, which can be downloaded if you know where to look, and the Arabic dub, which can be watched on Youtube.
  • Unlike Hello Kitty, most of Keroppi's OVAs can be found online easily and in decent quality, both the ones dubbed in English as Keroppi & Friends and the ones that are Japanese-only. The 2006 anime miniseries KeroKeroKeroppi: Hasunoue Town Kiki Ippatsu! on the other hand? Your best bet is buying copies on Japanese auction sites, as the DVD release is long out-of-print, and only the first episode can be watched online. There exists an Italian version but no footage or audio of it has been found.
• No anime series in the Cutey Honey franchise has been dubbed and/or released overseas save for the original 1973 anime and New Cutey Honey.
• Studio Ghibli:
  • The Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga was, at one time, very hard to obtain without resorting to online posts or downloading copies. However, a re-release from Viz Media came out in 2012. The Manson International dub of the anime film, Warriors of the Wind is likewise unavailable and hasn't seen any release since New World Pictures' distribution rights expired in 1995...but that's probably for the best.
  • While Studio Ghibli's films are easy to find, the same can't be said for their short films, many of which have not been released on any home format, although a few shorts were compiled together for a DVD compliation, the DVD remains only in Japan with no plans on releasing it outside anytime soon.
  • Exaggerated however with the Ghibli Museum Shorts, which can only be seen at the aforementioned Ghibli Museum in Japan and have not recieved any release outside of the museum whatsoever, meaning the only way you can watch them outside of the museum at all is through cam-rips provided by visitors who went there.
  • Due to Disney's dubs replacing them as the primary English dubs for the films, the original JAL English dubs for Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso have become incredibly rare and obscure with the few only home releases containing the former and the latter 2 being ironically only in Japan and are incredibly rare due to them all being long out of print. Downplayed with My Neighbor Totoro though as while it's becoming more rare and expensive in recent years and is long out of print, it's still possible and relatively easy to find the original dub at a decent price thanks to it recieving a US release, being the only JAL dub to have gotten one.
  • In 2010, Disney's Kiki's Delivery Service dub got an edit that removed Filling the Silence and the English songs at the beginning and end of the film, which unfortunately caused issues as far as the audio is concerned. Those who prefer the original version of the dub should hold onto their copies of the VHS and 2003 DVD.
  • The 2010 release of the Disney dub of Castle In The Sky did the same thing as the Kiki dub with making the film closer to the original version by restoring the soundtrack and removing any additional lines. Luckily, both were restored with GKIDS' 2016 release of the film.
  • For a while, On Your Mark, a collaborative music video between Studio Ghibli and Japanese music duo CHAGE & ASKA, became impossible to find due to Universal Music pulling their entire collection of the duo's music and videos following one of the members being arrested for drug charges (which also resulted in a delay of a Studio Ghibli compilation so that the music video could be removed). Studio Ghibli later averted this by offering a bonus disc with On Your Mark to those who purchased their Blu-Ray and DVD box set.
• Some distributors in Latin America such as Televix Entertainment and Rose Entertainment also have some of their dubs partially or almost completely lost (although they still retain their licenses, but have never given them a home release). It is practically impossible to see the complete dubs of series like Midnight Horror School or Fortune Quest L, since the only thing on the internet is clips and with the best luck in the world, between 2 or 4 full episodes. In question of Rose Entertainment, the company also claims to have the rights of the three first seasons of Slayers dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese, however since its debut in the country through Rede Bandeirantes in 2002, who lacked interest in broadcast more than the first season and didn't do a single effort on promoting the show, the anime never ever aired again in the country, being it TV, home video or streaming.
• Tokyopop:
  • Any Light Novel series licensed by Tokyopop are now forced into circulation because of the 2011 closing on their NA publishing house. This would've been difficult to begin with anyway because of how unpopular light novels are in the states. Case in point, most of the licensed series only had between one and five volumes translated, and most of them went out of print due to low sales long before Tokyopop closed its doors. The Slayers light novels are a good example; six of its fifteen volumes were released before its halt due to poor sales. Tokyopop decided to give the fans a break after some demand and translated novels 7 and 8 (completing the first arc) on a print-by-demand basis. While Tokyopop's NA house did resume operations in 2016 and most of their OEL manga were retained, no light novels and very few of their original manga licenses came back with them.
  • Most of Tokyopop's other manga series are now getting rarer because of the aforementioned closing. The laughable cine-manga is long out of print, as are older incarnations of their manga that were flipped. Titles such as Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, Clover, and Love Hina, however, are now being re-released in omnibus format, either by Dark Horse manga or Kodansha USA.
    • Del Rey's manga line averts this; most of them have been transferred to Kodansha's new USA division, including Negima! Magister Negi Magi.
    • Deadman Wonderland is an interesting case. Not many people knew about it when it came out, and due to poor sales, was cancelled after four volumes when Tokyopop restructured, which canon-wise is roughly the same time the anime wrapped up. Unfortunate, considering that when the revived Toonami showcased the anime upon its re-launch, interest in the series soared, forcing those wanting to see what happens next to resort to scanlations. Thankfully, the manga has been relicensed by Viz.
    • Possible subversion with +Anima. It was one of the casualties of Tokyopop's initial shut down and when Tokyopop returned in 2015, +Anima was not among the titles it would be rescuing. While scanslations exist and don't appear to have been subjected to copyright strikes, most of them are incomplete, usually only making it to volume 8 out of ten volumes. That said, the English version in its entirety can still be found relatively cheaply online, provided you don't mind used copies.
• Viz Media:
  • A lot of Viz Media's older manga in general. The manga under their first logo is long out of print, while the manga under their second logo (along with the demographic distinctions, i.e "Shojo" and "Action", which was used to differentiate from the English Shonen Jump manga line) are either being re-released or are also out of print. The Inuyasha manga is now being released in omnibus format unflipped (the original release was left-to-right, then by the 35th volume they went to the original format), while some others, such as Fushigi Yuugi and Neon Genesis Evangelion, are being re-released in omnibus format. A lot of their older shojo manga, for some reason, is now out of print, including the Revolutionary Girl Utena manga, Basara, Please Save My Earth, and Wedding Peach.
  • This happens to so many Viz Media titles on DVD. Especially those that were on Toonami or Toonami Jetstream and then dropped when the block was shelved 'til 2012. Without any televised medium in the US or online publicity, the incentive to sell these series tanked. Among the titles Viz has screwed over with incomplete releases (despite being completely dubbed) are:
    • Hikaru No Go (All 78 episodes were dubbed into English, 76 were put up on Toonami Jetstream, and only 52 came out on DVD. The last couple episodes' dubs weren't released until Viz put the whole series up for purchase on iTunes).
    • Full Moon o Sagashite
    • MAR
    • Blue Dragon (Season 2's dub only airing on Cartoon Network Pakistan)
    • Monster
    • Corrector Yui
    • Hamtaro (there were compilation DVDs and VHS tapes but those are long gone).
    • Prince of Tennis
    • Megaman NT Warrior
• 009-1 is another Aniplex show that both ADV and Funimation had the license to before it expires. It doesn't help that it was sadly never a huge seller to begin with.
• act-age was Cut Short in August 2020 after its writer Tatsuki Matsuya was arrested for sexual misconduct. A week later, it was announced that both print and digital volumes of the manga were ceasing distribution worldwide. As a result, there's no legal way to read the manga in Japanese or in English; used volumes can be found online, but they steadily become more expensive. The last sixteen chapters of the manga were never compiled into a volume release at all before the series' cancellation, and thus can't be read unless one can track down older issues of Shonen Jump.
• The Adventures of the Little Koala hasn't aired since the mid-90s on Nick Jr., but it saw at least one VHS release, courtesy of Family Home Entertainment, but that was only because Nickelodeon still had the broadcast rights to the series at the time. Unless those legal disputes are resolved (if they ever will be), it's unlikely that Little Koala will ever see a DVD release. As of 2019, most of the episodes are on YouTube via home Nick Jr. recordings on VHS.
• All of the Ah! My Goddess anime adaptations except for the Flights of Fancy series are out of print. This includes the 1993 OVA (formerly released by AnimEigo), season 1 of the 2005 TV series (formerly released by ADV and Media Blasters), and the Adventures of Mini-Goddess (formerly released by Geneon.
• AIR's releases have been out of print for quite some time. The series and the movie was originally released by ADV Films, until the mass licensing transfer to Funimation. Then, their license expired and their 2010 DVD became out of print. Though, Funimation's DVDs are fairly cheap to find online.
• Good luck for anyone trying to find the English dub of Akazukin Cha Cha as it only aired in Southeast Asia, & never got a release on home video. Your best chance is looking through flea markets in Southeast Asia for recordings of it. Several clips of audio have surfaced as well as eight episodes have been recovered and released online, but there’s still a lot of searching left to do.
• AKIRA is a bit of a strange case in North America, more related to availability rather than lack of being released. You may not have many troubles finding the DVD release, however it's based off of the 2001 dub. The original dub, which still has its reasons for enjoyment, not just nostalgia, you'll have to look for. The manga, on the other hand, good luck finding it - you may be able to find it in bookstores, but due to its Doorstopper-status, will be lucky to find more than a few volumes at once.
  • Averted for the film with FUNimation's 2013 release, which includes both the original dub distributed by Streamline Pictures, and Pioneer's remade dub, as well the original Japanese audio, all on one disc, just in time for the movie's 25th anniversary.
  • Even with the manga, it's still not easily available unflipped in the US, despite multiple re-releases. Kodansha did release an unflipped version eventually, but only for a 35th anniversary edition boxset; unflipped volumes are still not available individually. The Marvel Comics colorized editions from the 90s are also hard to find since they've been out of print for over 15 years, and even then, some chapters aren't available in collected format. Despite this, they're in hot demand with collectors who prefer that version (Katsuhiro Otomo approved of it, and even selected the colorist himself) or appreciate its historical significance (it's the very first fully-digitally colored comic).
• The Osamu Tezuka series The Amazing 3/Wonder 3 (Known as W3 in Japan) has been released in its original format in Japan, but for those who want the English dub? They're out of luck unless they can find bootlegs of it recorded from KCOP-TV in the '70s. The actual reels to the dub were allegedly thrown out in the trash.
• Good luck finding an official English dub of Animal Yokocho. While Cartoon Network made an English dub in 2008, it's rarely found online. Doesn't help that the majority of search results of the English dub are mostly fandubs.

Specific examples

• Astro Boy:
  • The Canadian dub of the 1980 adaptation hasn't received a home media release and it's not on any streaming service. It was notable for containing an ending segment in which Astro Boy recaps the story to a computer named Geronimo.
  • The 2005 movie ASTRO BOY Tetsuwan Atom - 10-man Kōnen no Raihōsha, IGZA ^note Set within the 2003 adaptation's universe. has yet to receive a home media or streaming release. All that circulates online is a clip of the first 3 minutes on Tezuka Productions' official YouTube channel, as well as a 1-minute trailer.
• While the original Japanese version of Akage no Anne is extremely easy to find, the South African produced English dub was lost to the public for years (in fact, the videos on You Tube of said dub are region-locked if you live in the US and Canada).
• Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales made it Stateside. Geneon obtained licensing for its spinoff series, Mononoke — and then promptly went bankrupt, leaving the series in a sort of licensing limbo that wasn't resolved until 2014 when Cinedigm and Siren Visual released the series to DVD subtitled in North America and Oceania respectively. In Summer of 2019, Discotek Media announced a DVD and BluRay for the series.
• Bakugan:
  • If you’re an English-speaking fan, then prepare to be frustrated. The first season was released on DVD in all English-speaking territories and New Vestroia was released on DVD in Canada and Australia. But the last two seasons, Gundalian Invaders and Mechtanium Surge, were never released on DVD.
  • Over in Japan, all but the fourth season got a Japanese release, which makes a complete home media release doubly unlikely.
• Bobobo Bo Bobobo:
  • The manga, which only has six translated volumes starting from the middle of the series released, and there was very little distribution. It gets even worse, because apparently the Japanese manga is going out of print as well.
  • The anime didn't get much better luck — its initial DVD run from Viz discontinued and S'more Entertainment's later two-season dual language sets were unwatchable in Japanese unless you knew the language. It was only in 2018 that Discotek rescued the series to do it justice.
• Candy♡Candy:
  • The anime, for the end result of the 1997-2002 legal battles between the two co-creators is that the series is Screwed by the Lawyers. Though miraculously, it did get a recent reissue in Latin America.
  • The Ziv International English dub of the series had a few VHS releases in the 80's from Family Home Entertainment, but they are long out of print. Only the first few episodes were dubbed mostly due to low sales, however, those episodes are on YouTube.
• A handful of episodes of Captain Harlock as dubbed by ZIV International in the early 80s occasionally showed up on VHS. Re-released by Malibu Graphics in the early 90s but not without serious audio-visual problems. The Macekre known as Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years has never shown up anywhere except as episodes taped off of television. Then there were the fuzzy fansubs of the entire series made by Corn Pone Flicks until they decided to stop distributing them (interestingly, their rationale not so much being copyright infringement but because they felt people were more interested in Captain Harlock than their own productions. Go Figure) With Discotek Media's coming release of the original series onto DVD (Crunchy Roll has has already hosted it for years), North America finally sees a release of the original 1978 series.
• Cardcaptor Sakura:
  • While the uncut anime and the first movie have been rescued by NIS America and Discotek Media, respectively (the former with the Animax dub, no less), the old Nelvana dub, titled Cardcaptors, hasn't been rescued, unless you count the first film. Geneon (then known as Pioneer) did some releases, but not only are they long out of print, but they were cancelled upon finding the uncut subtitled releases to be selling more, meaning they don't even cover the whole dub.
  • The second movie remains stuck in the limbo. This is especially frustrating when you consider that it's the Grand Finale to the series. Like with the Cardcaptors dub, Geneon did a release of this (and even made their own dub for it), but it's also long out of print. Until August 2018, when Discotek Media re-released on DVD and BluRay.
• Crayon Shin-chan:
  • The anime was aired for over a decade on Hawaii TV station KIKU in a subtitled form that was faithful to the original Japanese version. Unfortunately, the tapes used by KIKU were destroyed immediately after broadcast as part of the licensing agreement, so it only survives on the VHS tapes of fans who recorded it while it was airing.
  • The English dubs by Vitello Productions and Unbound Creative Inc. (formally known as Phuuz Entertainment) suffer through this trope. The Vitello dub had some episodes released on five DVDs in Australia and on three Fox Kids promo DVDs in the UK, but they are now out of print. Fortunately, most episodes can be found online. The Phuuz dub, however, is literally impossible to find nowadays. Doesn't help that it never received a single home media release at all and none of its episodes can be found online other than a few voice clips on Behind the Voice Actors.
  • Funimation lost the license to the series in 2020, resulting in their dub being pulled from their website as well as Hulu. While all three seasons remain available on DVD, they're out of print and go for high prices.
• Combattler V had a crappy Filipino-English dub. But because Americans Hate Tingle (Filipino audiences preferred Voltes V and Daimos) there was a lack of interest in archiving it, meaning that the only chance of Combattler V being dubbed in English is kaput.
• Crush Gear Turbo was a surprisingly-decent show with a surprisingly-good dub (the script, not necessarily the quality of the voice actors)... which has no DVD release. Had no VHS release. Has never been subbed (and never will be without DVD/VHS releases)... and both times it aired on Cartoon Network in Australia, some people missed the final episode, which resolved the entire main character arc! Arrrrgh!! Although a few volumes of DVDs of Crush Gear Turbo have been released, they are extremely hard to find. The short-lived toyline was last seen on the bargain rack. Apparently, it can be found on various sources online.
• Crying Freeman was originally released by Streamline Pictures until their license expired and their VHS prints became out of print, then it was re-released by ADV Films until their closure and their DVD also became out of print. It was released again by Discotek Media, until their release became out of print. However, various online sources have all of the OVA's episodes.
• Cyborg 009, take your pick of any of the three different series (1968-1969, 1979-80, or 2001-02) — only eight episodes out of the entire 51-episode run of the most recent series has been officially released on DVD in the US (in both censored and uncensored formats). However, all 51 episodes were dubbed into English, but are harder to find due to lack of a home video release to support it's longevity. The last few episodes weren't even broadcast on Toonami, and are impossible to find dubbed. However, the first 26 episodes were released to DVD in Australia, and are a bit easier to find. As of the present, it seems unlikely that Sony Pictures will release the series in R1 format or even stream it on their Crackle service, owing to rights issues that representatives haven't explained (indicating that the license may no longer be active).
  • You want to watch either of the earlier series? Good luck. They're nearly impossible to find, even fansubbed. The '79 series was officially subbed and broadcast on a San Francisco station in the early 80s, but recordings don't exist. It's actually easier to watch the Italian dub than it is the original Japanese version. However, a fansubbing group is doing the 60s version and 35 episodes of the 70s version is subbed so far, so things are looking up! Still no word on official releases though.
  • The manga doesn't have it much better. Tokyopop only released the first 10 out of the 36 "MF Comics" imprint volumes before they canceled the series (presumably due to low sales). However at least they ended their publication at a good spot. "The Underground Empire of Yomi" was (coincidentally) the original intended ending to the series. Comicology has licensed the series digitally, but, again, only has the first 10 volumes and recycle Tokyopop's Bowdlerized translation.
  • Out of the animated 009 films, 009 RE: Cyborg has been the only one to make it to a recent R1 release, after two years of being held up in limbo by the dub having to be redone to Production IG's preferences. The 1980 film was dubbed in Japan in the late 80s (by the same studio responsible for the JAL dub of "Mystery of Mamo"), and released to VHS in the US both uncut by Best Video Corp and in edited form by Celebrity Home Ent. (as "Defenders of the Vortex") but never on DVD,. The 1966 film and its sequel "Monster Wars" have never seen the light of day in a R1 market, though fansubs do float about.
  • Discotek Media has announced that they're rereleasing the 2001 anime. They've gone above and beyond with getting the best materials they could for the release, and will contain the entire dub.
• Daicon III & IV have never been officially released, outside of LaserDisc and VHS copies sold in the 1980s. Most of this stems from the two short films' Reference Overdosed nature, as they feature so many copyrighted characters (along with IV prominently featuring music by Electric Light Orchestra) that clearing the legal rights would be an extremely difficult task. (True to the trope's name, circulation of the existing copies was crucial in establishing the shorts' cult following.)
• Good luck hunting down the DVD copies of Daisuki! BuBu ChaCha. They're long out of print. You'll have better luck finding rips of the DVDs on YouTube.
• While all the various Digimon series were rescued by Newvideo and Saban Brands, none of the dubbed movies including Digimon: The Movie were. While that movie was on DVD. it's out of print. This is likely because, although Saban regained the rights to the English-dubbed TV series, the rights to the movie were owned by Disney as of 2019 (previously, they only owned the TV rights to that one and presumably the full rights to the other dubbed movies as well).
  • Averted as of 2023, with Discotek Media licensing The Movie, as well as giving the three films that formed it new uncut dubs.
  • The English dubs of the second Digimon Adventure 02 movie, the Digimon Tamers movies, and the Digimon Frontier movie never received a home video release and only aired on TV a few times.
• The 1997 movie adaptation of A Dog of Flanders hasn't gotten a re-release since its initial release from Pioneer in 2000. Said release is long- out of print, with the dubbed version being easier to find than the subbed version.
• Doraemon:
  • The 1973 Doraemon anime is significantly hard to come across as the result of NTV Video going bankrupt. To pay off its debts, the company sold off several of its possessions, including the master negatives for Doraemon; not helping the issue was the fact that the president of NTV Video resigning during the shows run and being replaced by one who was disinterested in anime. Because NTV Video is now defunct, it is legally impossible to syndicate the anime or provide it on home video, and the one opportunity it did have to see syndication was shot down so that children wouldn't confuse it with the then-ongoing 1979-2005 anime.
  • In the mid 1980's, Canadian animation studio Cinar produced a dub of the 1979 anime, titled The Adventures of Albert and Sidney. This dub was supposed to air on Superstation WTBS, but it apparently only ever aired in Barbados of all places.
  • If you live in Malaysia, Singapore, or Brunei and you want to purchase Doraemon manga there? Toooooooooooooo bad. It is now out of print and couldn't be purchased as of now as its Malaysian publisher Tora Aman were now defunct since 2017. Now only Malaysian and Singaporean fans were able to purchase is the Gempaz Starz's release of the six Doraemon compilation manga volumes, since that company now own the license to the manga series.
  • An English dub of Stand By Me Doraemon made by Bang Zoom! Entertainment and featuring the character names and terminology from their dub of the third TV series has yet to be legally issued outside of Japan. That aforementioned dub has never been given any official home media release.
• The Anime of the Game Dōkyūsei, English title End of Summer, is an absolute bitch to get; most people got interested in the series when Right Stuf started selling the second tape for 99 cents while clearing out inventory because HOLY CRAP 99 CENTS; they then realized they wanted to see more, which wasn't available to them because the first VHS was out-of-print. It's now 2013, Amazon has the second VHS for $7 but the first VHS is permanently unavailable. It's not available on any shady streaming sites, either; Soft Cel Pictures really buried this series. However, a torrent of the first episode is available; said torrent is a VHS-ripped fansub that looks like shit and is full of grammatical errors, but hey, it's a torrent. An edited rip of the official VHS that cuts off right before the first sex scene is also available on YouTube.
• Dragon Ball:
  • FUNimation's in-house uncut dub of the first 13 episodes of Dragon Ball was unavailable on DVD for many years due to licensing issues with Trimark (who FUNi had sold the rights to back in 1995) and Lionsgate (who bought Trimark in 2004). Funimation had to wait until 2009 for the rights to expire and revert back to them before they could release those episodes and do season boxsets for the original Dragon Ball. However, those episodes were available on Region 4 DVD in Australia, where the licensing issues had no effect. This also affected the first movie, which was unavailable uncut and hard-to-find for many years, even fansubbed until 2010 when FUNimation was finally allowed to redub and re-release it.
  • The original Dragon Ball in general was difficult to find on home video for a long time since FUNimation's "saga" sets for episodes 14 onwards were only briefly in-print, didn't sell very well, and went for high prices online. The blue "season sets" were really the first time the series had seen a major video release in the US.
  • The old BLT and Saban productions of early DB and DBZ respectively have become rare dubs since their DVDs are now out of print, and hard to find (although FUNi released a limited-edition DVD set with the old Saban DBZ eps). Westwood Media's English dubs that were made for Canada and Europe (due to some weird complexities of how Funimation originally contracted Ocean to work with them on the Saban dub of DBZ, Ocean were able to resume recording a dub of DBZ, starting only 55 episodes after they finished under Saban and Funimation, and continuing on for 169 episodes. Ocean's sister studio, Blue Water, then took over for GT and DB, using their own original scripts, far more accurate than Funimation's, and often far less censored than Funimation's TV edits), have become extremely rare since they haven't seen ANY home video release whatsoever, and only exist in TV rips. FUNimation's English dub is distributed on home video in those areas instead, as Funimation's home video license always covered the entirety of North America (which, naturally, includes Canada), and the UK was originally under AB Groupe, who initially tried releasing some of their hastily-made, France-originating "Big Green" movies on DVD, which seem to have been enough of a failure that they didn't try to release anything else Dragon Ball on DVD there.
    • MangaUK, who own the UK home video rights now, wanted to put the original Ocean and Blue Water dubs on the "Brick" DVDs in the late 2000s, however because these dubs were produced exclusively for TV, they were unable to get copies that would sync to the uncut footage. A standalone box set of the TV versions was considered, but ultimately shot down; they didn't want two different versions on store shelves at the same time.
    • In addition to the Canadian dubs' lack of availability, the original as-aired Funimation in-house dub isn't available either. Unless you seek out the original DVD singles released 1999-2004 (which are the "uncut" versions, so not exactly what aired on TV), you'll find that if you watch Funimation's dub, half the voices were redubbed nearly ten years after the fact (allegedly for consistency with their 2005 redub of episodes 1-67), a few lines and sound effects are missing, and the Bruce Faulconer score is arranged very differently (not a deliberate decision; they used early, work-in-progress mixes as the basis for their "Remastered dub", which meant the music track was missing final adjustments, which could often be as major as half the tracks in the episode being entirely different), assuming it's present at all — while the DVDs and Blu-rays include the USA replacement scores as an alternate audio option (oddly only included in stereo), the streaming versions only let you watch with the original Japanese score by Shunsuke Kikuchi (to some, this is an advantage, but to others, the Funimation dub was never meant to work with the Kikuchi score, so you end up with a very confused tone watching the show like this). One likely reason for this is the poor reception the original dub, though many fans argue that the "Remastered dub" isn't much better, or even is worse, as half the dialogue was kept as-is from the original, voice filters like Yakon or the Great Apes being made deeper are missing, and in the rare cases where redub dialogue used different lines (most of the time the redubs just reused the old scripts, but with either new actors, or just new takes from the original actors), the changes often made certain scenes make no sense (you can get changes as weird as one character suddenly saying "But remember, Piccolo and Gohan hate each other!" in the Garlic Jr. saga).
  • The old short-lived Harmony Gold dub from 1989 was thought to be outright lost (and obscure to almost anyone who didn't live in Detroit or Philadelphia at the time of the dub's only TV airings), but their dub of movies 1 and 3 surfaced on a torrenting site from a 1989 TV airing, and then in 2020, someone found a tape of all five episodes that Harmony Gold dubbed, and shared it online. The quality of the rip is very poor, but there's a better copy of episode 1 that was also found, and there's a second tape that was found too... Which was in very, very poor quality. The first 5-episode tape has been sent to someone to get a better rip, but for now, this stuff is at least circulated in some form.
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai:
    • 95 episodes with the Kenji Yamamoto score aired from April 5, 2009 to March 6, 2011, before he was fired by Toei Company for mass plagiarism (it's to the extent that literally every track he's allegedly composed throughout his career is blatantly plagiarized from something else). Reruns of these particular episodes have since replaced it with a very limited selection of cues from the Shunsuke Kikuchi score of the Z series (early TV airings after the scandal had quite tastefully-reused Kikuchi pieces, but re-scoring 98 episodes of TV is expensive and time-consuming, so the final versions on the DVDs and such, they just picked a stereo Kikuchi piece for each Yamamoto piece, and universally replaced them). On the respective Japanese Blu-ray, Japanese DVD, American television airings, and the initial American DVD/Blu-ray "Part" sets, the Yamamoto score was intact on episodes #001-#076, #001-#072, #001-#063, and #001-#052. Later releases and airings (such as the American "Season" releases) are entirely Kikuchi-scored (unless you live in the UK, where the "Season" sets used the wrong audio masters, so episodes #001-039 kept the Yamamoto score; an error that persists to this very day, as of June 2020). So your best bet to getting ALL 95 Kai episodes with the Yamamoto score would be to trade with someone who recorded the show off of Fuji Television during the aforementioned period in the run. Episodes #096-#098 were never released with the Yamamoto score, so you would be completely out of luck finding those with the music intact.
    • Fans used the fact that Funimation's English dub was mixed in 5.1 surround sound to cancel out the music in the corner channels of episodes #053-098, and replace it with Yamamoto's score, to create a fan-made, Yamamoto-scored version of those episodes. Sadly, the Japanese version was only mixed in stereo, so isolating the voices and SFX from that version to make Yamamoto-scored versions of episodes #095-098 is more difficult.
  • Fans of the Japanese version of Dragon Ball, Z, and GT are still circulating copies on the internet with the original audio ripped from the initial '80s and '90s broadcasts due to the fact the original audio masters of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (excluding the movies) were thrown out, and the high-quality audio of GT was never used on any official releases. So, the audio only survives through the optical audio tracks on the show's 16mm film masters, which sound like the actors recorded with pillows over their mouths. Finding copies on the internet with audio sourced from the original broadcasts was once extremely rare, but more recently, full, high-quality audio of all three series made it online publicly (including high-quality Fuji TV recordings of all of DB and some episodes of Z. Some captures include video, but most only include audio. The only episodes that don't have complete high-quality audio are those with short audio dropouts, or brief interruptions from broadcast news PSAs). Fans returned copies of the high-quality audio for the entire run to Funimation (they had all of Z as early as the end of 2016), however Funimation has yet to put out an official release using this material, and Toei has consistently turned down offers to take this material.
  • Averted by Dragon Ball GT to an extent; while it was still mastered on film video video and cinetape for audio, GT's final output for distribution to TV stations and foreign distributors was to D2 videotape, which contains an uncompressed, DVD-quality digital audio track of the original stereo audio mixes (though the first four episodes, like the entire run of DB and Z, were only mixed in mono). For some reason, Toei didn't use this for their official DVDs, and neither has Funimation, or any foreign distributor outside of Taiwan, however Japanese TV stations continue to broadcast GT with this high-quality stereo audio master to this day.
  • Viz Media seems reluctant to release an uncensored version of the Dragon Ball manga or with all the color pages intact. The best they'll do are the VizBig editions, which are quite censored and contain only half the color pages, or the original trade paperbacks, which contain no color pages and have wildly varying degrees of censorship (some volumes are completely uncensored, others are very heavily censored). Even the new three-in-ones (not to be confused with the VizBigs, which also each contain 3 original volumes in each VizBig book), which are advertised as being uncensored, aren't actually uncensored at all (much like the original volumes, some are uncensored, others are heavily censored). It doesn't help that much of the censorship has to do with content that in the United States is considered racist or perverted (any time Master Roshi wants to "feel" anything on a girl becomes "seeing", the few occasions when Bulma's breasts have been on full display are censored with various edits, etc. As for the racism, Mr. Popo and Adjutant Black's lips are recolored the same shade as the rest of their skin. There's also cases like guns being painted out, or being edited to look like futuristic sci-fi weapons).
• Excel♡Saga:
  • Several of the earlier manga volumes appear to have gone out of print, and can only be bought used for several times their original price, if you're lucky. It is also hard to find scanlations because no one wants to translate all the jokes and references.
  • While the Excel Saga anime has been re-released by Funimation, its sequel/spinoff OVA, Puni Puni☆Poemi, is becoming harder to get since it got stuck in purgatory along with several other old ADV titles. It may seem pointless - it's only two episodes of spastic, roadrunner-paced perversion and merciless parodies - but the extras on the Excel Saga DVDs include production notes and the history of Poemi, and the last episode even features a preview.
• Celebrity Home Entertainment distributed a moral lesson anime called EYES of Mars, again VHS-only. It once aired on Syfy as well in the late 90's, but little has been heard of this (or even Celebrity) since.
• In 1997, Urban Vision released a set of separately dubbed and subtitled VHS tapes of Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, the four-episode anime OVA sequel to Final Fantasy V. Despite having become a Cult Classic within the Final Fantasy community in recent years, these out-of-print VHS tapes are the only known releases of the series in the English-speaking world. And since Urban Vision apparently went under around 2010 and the series has yet to be granted a relicense (despite being part of Final Fantasy, a definitive Cash-Cow Franchise), odds are good that these tapes are going to be the only way to own physical copies of the series for the foreseeable future.
• While uploads of the series persist online, the Fire Emblem OVAs are nowadays extremely difficult to get physical copies of. It was only ever released on VHS, and in Japan, the Laserdisc, having never been rereleased in either another home media format or is being streamed anywhere, muddied even further by both KSS and Studio Fantasia going bankrupt years later. The English dub is just as rare, as the Fire Emblem series was still obscure outside Japan at the time, combined with ADV Films ceasing operations in 2009.
• Good luck getting your hands on the original Force Five. A certain individual, owner of the now-defunct website Grendizer.net has been keeping the series away from every other distributor by claiming to be the only authorized dealer of Jim Terry's syndicated compilation while releasing it in various editions of varying quality. The best version he ever made available, while it does remove the watermarks of inferior versions, omits not just bits and pieces here and there, but also the entirety of Spaceketeers. You can hear the saucier, messier details from the keyboard of one dissatisfied customer; be aware that discussion on that page is locked because the ensuing debate got a little too heated, to put it lightly. And, of course, seeing that the individual's website is, as mentioned earlier, defunct, even that version isn't available anymore. Thankfully, the complete, unaltered (for a certain value of the word, anyway) Force Five did see a home video release during the pre-cert era in the UK, but those tapes are hard to find.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Have copies of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa? You might do well to hang on to them, since Funimation lost the license to those after March 31, 2016 passed. Funimation also lost the license to Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) on the 31st of July 2016.
  • As of November 21st, 2018, we can add Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos to the list, since Funimation lost that as well.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and its OVAs have been rereleased by Aniplex USA in two Blu-Ray box sets. However, they're not letting you get them for cheap. The out of print Funimation DVDs and Blu-Rays remain cheaper, however, though prices vary.
• Future War 198X. Wizard Video, an internationally known distributor of horror movies at the time, once released a VHS tape of it in Australia in the mid-80's. The tape itself has 35 minutes chopped out, no credits besides the original Japanese, and an entirely different dub. This edit was taken by both sides of the Berlin Wall in Germany and Italy, each of them giving their own seperate dub. Since there wasn't much potential for a narrated foreign cartoon about WWIII to have a demographic besides the arthouse crowd, hardly any tapes were made at all. These tapes are near impossible to find. See here.
• Most episodes of Gan to Gon and Hoshi no Ko Poron are hard to find. However, the VHS recordings of both shows (8 were Gan to Gon and 70 were Hoshi no Ko Poron) were found by morikawa and was uploading every Saturday (other Saturday for Gan to Gon) until April 8, 2017 (Gan to Gon) and August 6, 2017 (Hoshi no Ko Poron) on both Niconico and YouTube.
• The subbed English versions of Ginga Densetsu Weed and Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin are somewhat difficult to find now that YouTube has begun taking down the Weed episodes. Made even worse is the fact Gin was only subbed in good quality by the original group of subbers up until episode ten, leaving viewers with the badly done original subs that don't make grammatical sense much of the time, until a new subbing team picked up the rest of the episodes. Since there is no way to even get these episodes in English professionally anytime soon, keep the downloads and YouTube vids up.
• The English dub of Go! Go! Itsutsugo Land, Let's Go Quintuplets! has, until just recently, been literally impossible to find anywhere on the internet. The first two episodes of the dub are included on the Spanish DVD release, however this is out of print and rather hard to find. Fortunately a few episodes have appeared on YouTube in recent weeks; however the uploader does not have the complete series, so some episodes remain lost to the ages.
• The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!:
  • The obscure animated Mario movie only saw a release on VHS in Japan and was never released to DVD or released in countries outside of Japan. Even the original VHS release is pretty rare and usually sells for hundreds when it hits auction sites. It's really unknown if it will ever get a proper re-release at all.
  • Allegedly, it was dubbed in Serbian and aired on TV a couple of times over there, however no copies have surfaced online.
• Great Teacher Onizuka:
  • The manga has been out of print since Tokyopop stopped publishing manga, so the only way to read it is to buy a used copy online or read the scans. Also, the 1998 live-action survives on various websites including Youtube.
  • GTO: The Early Years:
    • The OVA was only released on VHS (in Japan) back in the '90s with no indication, let alone interest, of ever bringing it to DVD. Fortunately, fansubbed versions exist.
    • The manga was actually released in English, but it's been out of print for over a decade and some volumes go for almost a hundred dollars. Unfortunately, a few of the scanlated chapters online are extremely poor quality (though most are fine).
• Hai Akko Desu doesn't have a home media release. However, the first 54 episodes can be found on YouTube. The other 109 episodes haven't been uploaded at all and are literally impossible to find nowadays.
• Are you a fan of the cute anime Hamtaro? Well, good luck finding VHS copies along with the DVD volumes! Today, looking for a copy of the show is very rare. Sadly, the DVD and VHS copies only have three/two episodes which is only the first few episodes of season 1. Finding episodes for the rest of season 1 and other seasons can only be found on the Internet. So you better download the episodes while you can before it gets deleted from the Internet or taken down for copyright law! Hopefully the entirety of the English dubbed episodes of Hamtaro won't be gone forever!
• Happy Happy Clover:
  • The 2007 anime adaptation never gained a DVD release in Japan. The fact that Group TAC later went bankrupt and closed in 2010 isn't helping the situation. Luckily Japanese fans were able to record all 13 episodes when it was airing on TV Aichi, Tokyo Mix, and Kids Station between July 6, 2007 and September 26, 2007. Meanwhile, Viz Media was able to bring the manga series to the United States and Canada beginning in 2009.
  • The South Korean dub of the anime is extremely difficult to find or even lost. No footage of the Korean dub has resurfaced outside of a Korean website that uploaded the Korean dub's theme song.
• When was the last time you read the Haruhi manga? No, not the newest version, which can be found in American bookstores nowadays — what about the 2004 version? Your answer is probably "never", because it was quickly canceled and is difficult to find even on the internet.
• Hell Girl DVDs can set your finances back in the triple digits, and there are no sites legally streaming it (not even Funimation). Likewise, even if you know/knew a store that carries the DVDs, you can't be guaranteed to get enough of the DVDs to complete the whole set.
• Himitsu no Hanazono is also considered to be this as it only aired in a few countries, with most dubs being considered missing/lost to time. This is why it has a lack of popularity in the English-speaking world, even though it's based on a popular English book (The Secret Garden). Though because of Germans Love David Hasselhoff, the anime is frequently shown on the Arabic channel Space Toon, meaning that there's a chance for someone to record it.
• Hobberdy Dick doesn't have any home media or streaming releases whatsoever. Out of the 26 episodes produced, only a few of them are available online.
• This Very Wiki has a fake entry that is a parody of this trope's prevalence in the anime fandom: supposedly, Ichiban no Tempura is a Cult Classic that was only aired in Japan once, and all those who pirated the tapes died mysterious deaths, so only the most hardcore otakus know of its existence. Of course, the truth is that no such anime exists.
• I Dream of Mimi: All three OVAs and two volumes of the manga are still available, but Volume 3 of the manga seems to be lost. The only thing known about it is its cover.
• The DVD of Jewelpet the Movie: Sweets Dance Princess was only in print for a few years, likely due to rights issues with Mana Ashida's "Zutto Zutto Tomodachi". While the DVD can still be found in some places, it's usually being sold for a high price.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime made by Studio A.P.P.P.:
  • In both the United States and Japan, the original JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders OVA is no longer available on home video. After Egyptian Islamic fundamentalists complained about a scene of DIO reading the Quar'an in the OVA, the original home video release went out of print, leaving the OVA unlicensed in Japan. In the United States, the OVA's original licensor (Super Techno Arts) is no longer in business and seeing as how the OVA is without a distributor in Japan, it is unlikely that an American company like Crunchyroll or Viz Media can ever license rescue the OVAs.
  • The Phantom Blood movie was also hit by this, but unlike the OVA no DVD release had been announced when sales were halted (it's debated whether the film would have otherwise received a DVD release, given its overall poor reception). Because of this, it's impossible to find on even the shadiest corners of the Internet, with the exception of a rough version (no voiceover, occasional storyboard frames instead of completed animation) of the first 16 minutes of the film. No DVD release means that the only way for it to be seen would be through a bootleg video camera copy.
• The little-known anime Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger is very, very hard to find. It probably has been since it was last seen in Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.
• Kasei Yakyoku: Not only is it a josei anime, but it was only released in laserdisc in 1989. Good luck finding a torrent even for the raws.
• If you want to find the Japanese print volumes and the OVA of Kaze to Ki no Uta, then good luck! Both the older prints of the manga and the OVA in VHS and Laser Disk form are out of print and it's unlikely that the OVA will be re-issued on DVD (outside of Italy), and for a long time, there weren't even any fan translations of the manga. Even worse, it would also take an monumental task for anyone to translate the entire manga since it has stylistic character usage from the 1970s, so you need a good grasp of the Japanese language to translate the whole thing. But the fansubs of the OVA and manga raws of the original print can be found around the internet.
• Good luck in trying to obtain all the Kill la Kill DVDs/BluRays containing the English dub (with the OVA included) as Aniplex has made obtaining them very expensive (as one DVD can run about $60), forcing fans to have to buy five separate individual volumes instead of a boxset. It's possible to get the whole series (sans OVA) on digital home release via iTunes (or obscure online stores), but it's only subbed. The series (with the OVA) can also be found scattered online, though, not for download unless one is familiar with URL converters (and those are a tricky matter, too).
  • To really add insult to injury, apparently, as of 2018, Kill la Kill's home releases have gone out of print, leaving the only way to get them would be to buy them pre-owned or to have them imported from other countries (which'll make said copies region-locked).
  • As of May 2019, the series' availability took another hit, as, right after they got the English dub, Netflix's license to the show had expired, so, the only way (streaming-wise) to view the show is either through Hulu or Amazon Prime, which might cost you a little extra. Netflix did get it back but the site doesn't have the English dub anymore.
• Kyutai Panic Adventure was a series of anime specials that Fuji TV produced for their annual "Odaiba Adventure King" expos back in the mid-noughties (the first two are the best-known among Western anime fans, since they entail Crossovers between One Piece and Dragon Ball Z). They've never seen the light of day on home release, because they were specially engineered for Fuji TV's observatory sphere, Roger-rabbiting the characters onto a five-screen panorama. Bootleg recordings exist for at least some of them, but given the sound quality fansubs still seem to be a pipe dream.
• If you're nosy enough, you can find the Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Korean dubs of Lady!! online. The Filipino dubs, however, have been lost to time - so if you were one of those people that managed to catch it on public TV during The '90s, consider yourself lucky.
  • And even more egregious, there were TWO of them (the first dub was done by Creator/ABSCBN and the second one was done by QTV), making this a case for Dueling Dubs. Both of them are lost media.
• Eventually averted with Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It went over a hundred episodes and has an enormous cast, so making an official release of that anime in the west would be atrociously expensive. Given that it's a rather dated anime intended for a niche audience, no distributor even tried, until Sentai Filmworks acquired the licensing rights to the OVA series in 2015.
• Whether the estate of E.E. "Doc" Smith had anything to do with it is up for debate, but none of the anime adaptations of Lensman have been seen at all since the early '90s.
• While other versions of Little Lulu such as the 1940's cartoons and the 1995 animated series are easy to find, the same can't be said for the anime from 1976, which is very difficult to find online. While a select few episodes of the English dub are available on YouTube, the rest is yet to be found.
• Little Witch Academia:
  • Do you desire to own Little Witch Academia (2017) on physical media? Well hope you're ready to shell out a good amount of money to do so because the DVD/Blu-Ray releases have only been released in Japan and have become out of print, making them incredibly expensive to obtain outside of Japan. Unforunately, there are seemingly no plans for a physical release outside of Japan, making the Japanese Blu-Ray/DVD releases your only option if you desire to own them physically.
  • The original short films, Little Witch Academia (2013) and Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade have become far less accessible thanks to Netflix removing them from the service in late 2019. Your only legal options now would be to obtain either the 2013 Blu-Ray release of the first film, which is long out of print and incredibly difficult to obtain or the Blu-Ray/DVD release of The Enchanted Parade, which does contain both short films and is easier to come by, but it's still quite pricey outside of Japan. Even then, both Blu Ray releases only contain the original Japanese dub and not the English or other dubs, so if you prefer those, you’re screwed.
• Love Live! Sunshine!!: Only two of Aqours' overseas performances (the 2019 New York Lantis Matsuri event featuring subunit Guilty Kiss ^note  the first Love Live-related performance held on the East Coast of the United States and the first day of the 2019 Los Angeles Brand New Wave concert ^note  better known as the concert where an earthquake occured in the middle of Brightest Melody), have seen official releases in full via a MyAnimeList livestream and a Fuji TV broadcast done to promote Love Live Fes, respectively. This is despite most of these lives usually have memorable moments that were special parts of Love Live! history, like the Aqourainbow formed by the fans at the end of Beyond the Pacific. Live viewings were held for the Aqours World Tour events in 2019, but only in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan, and they never recieved re-releases afterward.
• Lupin III is an interesting example, as the movies and TV Series had at least two different companies releasing them in English (as well as a on-again, off-again broadcast on [adult swim]), as well as Tokyopop's release of the manga. The distributor for the TV series (Geneon) canceled their dub/release after episode 79 due to low sales/ratings, the movie distributor (FUNimation) finished up the ones they had bought, and the second series of the manga was cancelled almost halfway through its run due to low sales. Now Discotek Media has been re-releasing the anime franchise (with every half-hour Lupin television episode available legally online in North America through Crunchyroll), but nothing for the manga.
• The Macross franchise is legendary for having multiple cases of this caused by its legal snarls:
  • Macross: Do You Remember Love? has been caught up in rights problems for so long that no one is really even sure if anyone has the rights to it. The closest thing it has to a proper Western release was an infamously bad English dub done in Hong Kong for VHS: the version of the dub that was released in America, Macross: Clash of the Bionoids, was somehow even worse, due to Celebrity Home Entertainment removing almost thirty minutes worth of material from the film in an ill-advised effort to make it "kid-friendly". A subbed release can be found on YouTube.
  • Macross Plus and the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross are the only two to have proper Western releases. SDF has been released in English a few times (notably in the form of Robotech, plus separate translations by AnimEigo and ADV Films (who made a dub) as well a 2014 Lionsgate issue of the first 18 episodes subbed alongside their Robotech versions, followed up by the posting of the subtitled version on Amazon Video in 2016), and Macross Plus was localized by Manga Entertainment. That's about it.
  • Macross II did get a proper Western release, but that seems to have been mostly because it was made without any involvement from franchise creators Studio Nue and Shoji Kawamori, neither of whom consider II to be an "official" Macross series anyways. As of 2019, Macross II is now streaming on Tubi TV.
• Any North American fans have to rely on importing Magical Princess Minky Momo as there's been no official home video release of the whole series. An English dub of the series titled "The Magical World of Gigi" (by Harmony Gold) lasted 52 episodes and managed to air in Australia, but it's even harder to find anything of it. The only commercial release of dubbed Momo material was the first OVA, retitled "Gigi and the Fountain Of Youth", which can only be found if you have a copy of the old VHS releases or have found a video rip of it.
• The later DVD box sets for Maison Ikkoku are among the rarest in anime; some of them are over $700. Because of the series' low sales, later volumes got small print runs.
• The OAV spinoff for Makeruna! Makendou. Released on VHS in Japan on March 15, 1995. All sites that claim to have copies are defunct. A downloadable copy can be found online, though.
• Mazinger Z:
  • The anime was broadcast in Spain in 1972. However, only thirty-three random episodes of the first season were dubbed before Moral Guardians forced them to pull the plug - and the last episode was never aired. IVS released several tapes, including twenty-four of the episodes aired by RTVE1. For fifteen years buying, renting, or borrowing those few tapes were the only way Mazinger-Z fans could watch the series (and only a tiny chunk of it!). In 1993, the whole of Mazinger Z and part of Great Mazinger were broadcast, and UFO Robo Grendizer was aired later, but neither series was released on video or DVD, and if you had not recorded the episodes or you did not know someone who had done so, you were out of luck. Finally, in the late nineties, several movies featuring the most famous Go Nagai Super Robots were released on video, and in the 00's a group of fans uploaded and shared both series and UFO Robo Grendizer online. However, the original Spanish dub of many episodes is still missing since they were never released (fortunately, some fans recorded several episodes and kept the tapes for THREE decades. Thanks to them part of the lost dubbing job was recovered). Given that the fights and disagreements between Dynamic Planning and Toei prevent the original anime series from being aired or released out of Japan until recently, sharing the tapes, importing the Discotek NTSC DVD sets, or downloading the episodes online is the only way Spanish-speaking fans can watch the Mazinger trilogy.
  • This trope also applies to the original 1977 English dub of the series, which was produced and aired in Hawaii (it lasted about 29 or 30 episodes). The heavily-edited "Tranzor Z" version has also lacked an official release.
• Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch:
  • The franchise has a large fanbase (although the fandom never did recuperate from the great 2004 forum war), new readers from the English vs. of the manga, and merchandise tie-ins by the truckload. But when ADV Films had it, they spent a year trying to get TV networks to pick it up and failed. Nobody wanted to gamble on a girls' series, especially not one that was also a Quirky Work. Season 1 alone is 52 episodes; that length just can't be supported by sight-unseen, fansub-based DVD sales alone. English-speakers will probably never get it. Worse, the fansubs probably won't reach the end of the series. (The trailer used to pitch the series to TV can be found here.)
  • ADV Films dubbed all the episodes, and many foreign dubs use the unreleased English dub as a reference. The dub is considered very much hard-to-find.
• Midori No Makibao: Due to its complete audience alienating premise, the anime has only seen release outside Japan in Taiwan and The Philippines (where it wasn't popular). There was a DVD boxset release but it's out of print. Someone has uploaded the entire series up to YouTube though.
• Mitsudomoe: The anime flopped horribly in Japan — to the point its second season was cut down to eight episodes — yet it proved more popular in America thanks to Crunchyroll streaming it for a decade. Despite that, it never received a home video release in the west. Now that Crunchyroll's streaming rights lapsed, there's no way to legally watch the English subbed version anymore.
• The original 1981-82 release of the Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy: Currently, the only commercially available release is the 2004 remastered 25th anniversary versions which have re-performances by all the surviving cast members (and replacements for deceased seiyuu). It also includes futuristic raygun sound-effects being replaced by more contemporary machine gun sounds. The background music in several scenes is removed in favor of more noisy explosion and gun sound effects. Lastly, the musical arrangements have been switched around somewhat inappropriately. In the second movie, the vocal piece used during the attack on Jaburo is moved to the closing credits replacing the original, more moodier music. In the third movie end credits, Beginning is replaced by Encounter which itself was removed from it's original place in the final battle. The rationale given by Bandai so far is that the original soundtracks of these films were in irreparable shape due to age. If you want to watch these movies in their original form, they you might hunt down the 90s VHS versions from Anime Village. Or the late 90s dubs (if you want to mock them that is).
• Low sales of the box set featuring the first 15 episodes of Monster prevented the rest from being released, a real loss as it was one of the biggest dubbing jobs ever. Luckily, the entire English dub is up on YouTube, and the subtitled version on Netflix. Siren Visual have licensed it for release in Australia, with the first volume (of five) due in November 2013.
• The 1988/1991 direct-to-video series Mother Goose Songs & Rhymes which told songs and nursery rhymes featuring anthropomorphic animals, is currently out of print.
• Nerima Daikon Brothers: After Funimation's rights expired and their DVDs became out of print, most of the series' DVDs (from ADV and Funi) are now prohibitively expensive. And since it's an Aniplex show, it's highly unlikely that it'll get re-released any time soon.
• The anime of Ninja Nonsense is still in print, but the manga isn't so lucky. The first three volumes can be obtained without too much trouble, but good luck finding the fourth, even with the help of the internet.
• Nono-chan is very rare nowadays due to the lack of a home media release for it. Episode 1 is currently streaming on Toei Animation's official YouTube channel, though only in Japan.
• Nori Nori Nori Suta:
  • Happy Kappy never got a DVD or streaming release in Japan. The manga the series is based on also never got tankoban volumes. Your best bet is to find someone who recorded Nori Nori Nori Suta, the show where it aired, for the anime, and for the manga, one would have to resort to finding old issues of Pucchigumi and Shogaku Ichinensei.
  • Some other shows on Nori Nori Nori Suta also suffered from this, such as Zoobles (the shorts only, the anime that came on later did get DVD releases), the Spellbound Magical Princess Lilpri shorts and the Magic Tree House anime, the latter of which is only known to exist via a Japanese Wikipedia entry and was not even acknowleged on the official website for Nori Nori Nori Suta.
• 'Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack', a 30 minute One Piece short made for the 1998 Jump Super Anime Tour, had an extremely limited release. Other than seeing it as part of the tour, the only way to get a VHS copy of it was to send off for one using a coupon in Weekly Shonen Jump. It was finally released digitally in 2022, and officially subtitled in English, as part of a live stream promoting One Piece Film: Red,^note The two films share a director but that stream was only available for a short time. Now that Film: Red has had its home video release, there is no indication of when or if the short will be made available again.
• Most of the older things that Viz released have yet to see a DVD release. One Pound Gospel also has not seen a DVD release.
• The vast majority of Oyako Club is very rare due to the lack of a home media or streaming release. Eiken started streaming select episodes on their official YouTube channel on November 1, 2021. Despite only a small portion of the series being officially available, it's at least better than what happened back then; prior to November 2021, the only way one could watch the series at all was to either catch it on Fuji TV or track down fan recordings of the TV broadcasts.
• While the first season of Penguin no Mondai was released on rental-only DVDs in Japan, the three sequel series (Penguin no Mondai MAX, Penguin no Mondai DX? and Penguin no Mondai POW) have not seen home video releases. They only aired during variety show Oha Suta, which also has no DVD releases, so the only way to see these episodes is if one has access to off-air Oha Suta recordings.
• The Osamu Tezuka manga Phoenix was published under Viz's Editor's Choice line, went through a print run, then fell off the face of the planet. Copies of the first volume go for over $60 used.
• Before there was Pink Lady and Jeff, there was the anime Pink Lady Monogatari: Eikō no Tenshitachi, a biopic anime about the J-Pop duo's rise to stardom produced by Toei Animation. Due to rights issues involving the Pink Lady characters, the only home video release was the opening and ending being included in a Toei Animation VHS, and even subsequent re-releases don't even include them. The OP and ED songs were included in Pink Lady's album though.
• Quite possibly the case for anime that got cancelled, like Please Save My Earth and Pilot Candidate (aka Candidate for Goddess). Relative obscurity of the shows, plus their aborted status, means that these won't be anyone's moneymakers anytime soon.
• Unlike most anime dubbed by 4Kids, Pokémon: The Series has most of the series available on DVD (it helps that 4Kids has never owned home video rights for the franchise).
  • Seasons 3-5 were only available completely in English in Australia (on DVD) for a while until Viz started releasing the seasons in 2016.
  • The banned episodes of Pokémon, even if they were dubbed, the most famous of which is the seizure-inducing "Denno Senshi Porygon" that aired only once in Japan, are a notable example.
  • The Japanese version for the original series in general is very difficult to find due to there being no official home video release for it^note It is available on Hulu and Amazon Prime in Japan, but Region Coding is in effect for the rest of the world., and no complete fansub. Though it's not impossible to track down recent episodes, only the hardest of hardcore fans have seen much of the first several seasons in Japanese. The only exceptions are the banned episodes.
  • The infamous "Beauty and the Beach" wasn't initially broadcast in the West due to its inherently lewd premise... and James's fake breasts. It was dubbed with some inevitable edits (and uncensored breasts) and broadcast Out of Order, after which it was never seen again. It isn't even on the DVD sets. Decent-quality VHS recordings of the dub exist online, including those in the same quality as a image on The Other Wiki.
  • After singer Noriko Sakai, who narrated the short Pikachu and Pichu, was arrested for a drug abuse scandal in 2009, OLM, the production company behind the anime, went so far out of their way to ban the short from ANY future appearance on home video. It would be 2017 before the short got to see a Blu-Ray release... in Australia (at least the English dub).
  • The Pikachu shorts in general now suffer from this outside of Japan. They were dubbed, but the older ones have been removed from recent DVD and Blu-Ray re-releases of their corresponding movies, apparently due to a combination of licensing issues and the Noriko Sakai scandal^note though Pikachu's Vacation was remastered and re-released with the first movie in Cinemark theaters, and Beyond Home Entertainment included the first three shorts in a special edition Blu-ray and DVD boxset in Australia, and the newer ones have been alotted to a limited release on Pokémon's website and then never seen again.
  • The 1998 theatrical version of Pokémon: The First Movie has remained under this status since the release of the Complete Version a year later. The latter version re-does a large number of shots in the film to add in CGI (be it replacing entire effects such as whirling clouds or simple choreographic retouches); this is the version that would be used for the film's English dub and all following home video releases. The theatrical version, meanwhile, has never seen a single re-release since its initial VHS & LaserDisc pressings in the first half of 1999, and only continues to survive thanks to the likes of eBay, Amazon, and a small number of video-sharing sites in the most obscure corners of the internet.
  • In the UK and Australia (at least), the first season, or Indigo League, was released in 2017 on both Blu-ray and DVD, covering fifty-two episodes, though the Blu-ray version is simply an upscale, meaning it has no more detail than the DVD.
  • Three episodes from Season 2 are no longer distributed as part of the season due to Jynx's original design (which was thought to be racist) being featured in them.
• While Puella Magi Madoka Magica is easy enough to find outside Japan on both video and streaming services, the various manga spin-offs are another story. Many of them received official English translations that quickly went out of print, meaning that the only legitimate way to purchase them is either through eBook format or buying used copies that often sell for hundreds of dollars on sites like Abe Books and Amazon.
• Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin never had a home media release in the US, and Funimation's streaming license expired in 2012. Though, it can be easily found on other sites.
• Ranma ½'s DVD release was slowly going out of print (It was an older DVD series with eight disks a set and initial prices being around $120 each). This is no longer the case as Viz has re-released the series on DVD and Blu-ray. Ditto for the manga, which was only available in old flipped editions for years before Viz finally picked it up again for an omnibus (and un-flipped) re-release.
• The first dub from Manga Entertainment (2003) and the OVA of Read or Die from Geneon has gone out of print and is largely hard to find, unless one want to spend about $50 or more. Likewise, the newer dub is equally hard to find. And Aniplex's rerelease has gone out of print
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • The series had a DVD library that was once out of print, hard to find, and traded incestuously with other fans via internet. Thankfully, Nozomi and Right Stuf re-released the series in three limited edition box sets in 2011 using the remastered footage, including the movie.
  • Utena happens to be one of those series that's sub-licensed. The US distribution rights actually belong to Enoki Films, who in turn sublicensed it on to Central Park Media through their Software Sculptors label. The title went out of print because CPM went under, and they later licensed it to Right Stuf.
• Robotan:
  • The 1966 and 1986 versions of the anime don't have any home media or streaming releases. The 1966 version is unavailable because of the spotty availability of the film prints. There are no full episodes of it online; only small clips. As for the 1986 version, there's no clear reason why it's unavailable, however, TV rips of the Hindi and Arabic dubs are on YouTube.
  • The tie-in manga from 1966 has been long out of print and is very rare.
• Robotech:
  • Robotech: The Movie (a Macekred version of Megazone 23), because the licensee was uninterested. Even the man who edited/rewrote it for Western release was lukewarm at best about it, and its theatrical release amounted to a few days' run in Dallas. Scuttlebutt has it that Robotech: The Movie is to Carl Macek what The Star Wars Holiday Special is to George Lucas. A version of Robotech: The Movie with all the Megazone 23 footage out is available as a bonus feature on some Robotech DVDs, but you'd have to look elsewhere for the full film.
  • Interestingly, the unadulterated Megazone 23 had its own licensing. Streamline Pictures had rights before they went under, then ADV Films after that. As of present, it's unlicensed and out of print in North America, but it could still be up for grabs by one of ADV's splintered offspring. As of July 2019, AnimEigo is currently has a kickstarter, so that they can re-release it onto DVD and BluRay.
• Sakura Wars:
  • With ADV Films' license to the Sakura Wars anime expiring as a result of its 2009 liquidation, their OVA releases have become hard to find. While its successor, Sentai Filmworks, doesn't seem to have any plans to release the OVAs, the first TV series is still in circulation and is much easier to find since they acquired the license to it that year.
  • Funimation released the École de Paris and Su-Mi-Re OVAs in the early 2000s and they have since gone out of print.
• Sailor Moon was this for a decade due to heavy licensing problems that occurred. It has since been re-licensed for an English-language streaming/home video release by Viz Media and Madman Entertainment in North America and Australia respectively.
  • All the original DVD releases from ADV and Pioneer with the original DiC/Cloverway dub are getting very expensive, with some 7-episode single DVDs going for as much as $90!!!
  • The boxsets are worse, including ADV's sub-only sets of the first two seasons, some of them have been going for as much as $2,000, which is saying a lot considering the MSRP was no more than $60 per set. The 2nd season set seems to be the worst considering that it was available for only a brief amount of time. Because of all this, bootlegs, fansubs, and DVD rips were very easy to find online until Toei started suddenly eyeballing the series like a hawk.
  • The final season, Sailor Moon Sailor Stars was never licensed in the US before the licensing issues kicked in, so it was never legally available in any format until Viz picked up the franchise. Viz's streams finally reached the season in December 2015, marking the very first time the season has been available legally in English. The same can be said for the Sailor Moon R movie short, the Sailor Moon SuperS movie short, and the SuperS TV special (which was comprised of three more shorts). Italy was the only foreign country to get those until Viz and Madman respectively confirmed they were included in their licensing deals.
  • Episode 67 was near-impossible to find in the US for many, many years since it was mysteriously absent from ADV's Sailor Moon R subtitled boxset, contributing to its reputation as being a very bad filler episode, especially after it was rumored that Naoko Takeuchi herself wouldn't allow the episode to be released because of how much she hated it. It turns out however that it was skipped because ADV didn't receive the materials for it from DiC, who had skipped the episode in their dub, and didn't have any copy of it.
  • The manga also went out-of-print from Tokyopop before Kodansha USA picked up the rights in 2011. This marked the first time the original unedited and un-fliped manga was available in English. Tokyopop's old censored and flipped editions went for high prices for quite a while.
  • Codename: Sailor V was rare and hard to find in America, even online, for years until Kodansha finally picked it up and gave it a mainstream US release.
  • The series remains unlicensed in the UK. MVM used to have the UK license to the DiC dub of the first two seasons, but it was an infamously poor seller (almost leading the company into bankruptcy), and there's a rumor that licensors there are scared to touch it. Jerome Mazandarari, the one formerly in charge of Manga UK, once said he would rather slam his testicles in the Manga office door than license Sailor Moon.
  • The original English dub by DiC/Cloverway is gone forever outside of illegal viewing and buying the tapes second-hand due to Viz claiming that the original cinetape materials for them no longer exist or are in very poor shape (there's also possibly music issues that would need to be cleared for DiC's episodes), which fans of the 90s dub are understandably outraged about.

• In Japan, the only home media format Sango-sho Densetsu: Aoi Umi no Elfie has been released on is VHS. Meanwhile in Portugal, the Portuguese dub was released straight to DVD by Prisvideo in 2007, however, it's currently out of print. The French dub, VHS rips of the Japanese version, as well as a TV rip of the Arabic dub, are on YouTube.

• The English localization of the Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei anime was announced in 2010, but there wasn't any follow up and torrents weren't a choice either, making the show very difficult to acquire. After a long wait from a localization limbo that never went anywhere for a long time, and that Media Blasters dropped the license in 2013, Nozomi Entertainment rescued the series and will be out on Blu-Ray eventually.
• Sazae-san is an interesting example because the show is still on the air (since 1969).
  • Despite having more than 2,000 episodes in the vault, not a single one was ever officially released on VHS and DVD. This was from a request the creator made before she died^note That the series must never be merchandised in any way, of which home releases would count as merchandise.; they kept their word. Episodes broadcast before VCRs became the norm are extremely difficult to find because they've never been shown again after their initial airing. This is why the show's 35th (2004) and 40th (2009) anniversary specials was a big deal for collectors: as a treat to viewers they pulled out some 1970s episodes from the shelves and broadcast them again for the first time in decades.
  • The first 50 episodes have been put out on Amazon Prime Video Japan, due to Amazon being a new sponsor for the show.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman:
  • The show was finally fully released uncut by ADV from 2004-2006, and Rhino released 40 of the 85 episodes of the 70s Battle of the Planets English adaptation (along with a handful of episodes of the 80s G-Force adaptation) before Sandy Frank's master license to the franchise expired, and all of that went out-of-print and became difficult and expensive to find. Urban Vision's DVD of the 1994 OVA also fell out-of-print around this time. However in 2013, as a result of Sentai Filmworks' deal with Tatsunoko, they now have the license to the series and issued all 104 episodes of the entire original series on Blu-ray and DVD in 2013, along with the 1994 OVA (with a new dub). They also picked up the 70s compilation film for the first time, which wasn't even in demand.
  • We unfortunately can't say the same thing about the two sequel series Gatchaman II and Gatchaman F (aka Gatchaman Fighter). The only time they were ever released in English was through the heavily, heavily butchered English dub from Saban in 1995 called Eagle Riders, and even that only had a brief 13-episode run in the states. All 65 did run in Australia, but it's still impossible to find now. The original two Japanese shows haven't even gotten fansubs. Fortunately Sentai released a subbed, undubbed set of Gatchaman II in April 2017.
• Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō:
  • There's no DVD release for the first series yet, despite how popular it is in Japan and being a long runner. Although it's available for streaming on Rakuten SHOWTIME, they only have episodes 421-519. The early episodes did get a handful of VHS releases back in the 1990s, but that was it.
  • The series' successors, Hakken Taiken Daisuki! Shimajiro, Shimajiro Hesoka, and Shimajiro no Wow thankfully don't suffer through this trope since the episodes to all three series are readily available on DVD.
• The tapes containing the (admittedly rushed and shabby, but still a fan-favorite) Spanish dub for Slayers were destroyed by the network after the airing rights expired, since they needed the space and didn't think they would be of any use anymore. Something like ten years later, another company bought the distribution rights of the dub with the intention of releasing it on DVD, but since it physically doesn't exist anymore they've been asking anyone who owns episodes on tape and the like to contribute.
• Sonic the Hedgehog
  • While the original Japanese release has been made available on Japanese streaming services, the English version of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie is out-of-print and near-impossible to find in stores and even on Amazon for decent prices. While it is very easy to watch on YouTube, it is nearly impossible to find in decent quality. The English versions are also missing the first episode's credits sequence, and have some really tacked-on edits in parts that showed Japanese text in the original.
  • The series had a manga that ran in several Shogakukan magazines from 1992 to 1994. It starred a hedgehog named Nicky who had a Superpowered Alter Ego named Sonic. The series is especially notable for introducing Amy Rose and Charmy Bee to the franchise. Unfortunately, the series has never been put into volumes. It's extremely rare and little is known about it in either the English or Japanese speaking fandoms.
  • Dash & Spin Super Fast Sonic was a Gag Series manga that ran in CoroCoro Comic in the early 2000s. They've been put into volumes, but were never translated from Japanese to another language and exported outside Japan, and have been out of print since. The first volume was entirely fantranslated and put online, and the first chapter was released online officially in June 2020, yet temporarily to promote Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), however good luck trying to find the second volume.
• The Manga UK English dub of the Space Adventure Cobra movie is only available on a French DVD release since it's other dub is much easier to re-release since it didn't use the music of a certain semi-popular British pop band.
• Speed Racer:
  • You remember Speed Racer, right? Of course you do. Now how about Speed Racer X? Even if you do, you won't be able to find it very easily. Legal issues kept the show from airing past 13 episodes in the US and none of those had an official release stateside. The only way to view the series now is through incredibly rare recordings people have done. A few episodes are on YouTube, but they're incredibly poor quality. Funimation released the original Japanese version in 2017 as part of a Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition also including both versions of the original series. They haven't given it a stand-alone release, nor are they streaming it.
  • The Funimation release was the first time Mach Go Go Go had ever been officially released in North America in its unedited form. Funimation isn't currently streaming it either. The popularity of Speed Racer effectively got in the original version's way.
• While the dub of Spider Riders has been released in its entirety over internet streaming platforms, it never got a full DVD release. And while the Japanese version was released completely on DVD (in Japan), if you want it subbed, fansubs are your only option. The edited dub was all that ever reached North America.
• Spirit of Wonder: Miss China's Ring: Released by Animeigo during the late 1990s. Now out of print for years. The OVA followup Spirit of Wonder: Scientific Boys Club, released by Bandai, may be a little easier to find.
• Street Fighter II V has become this, as it is no longer available to buy digitally or stream legally in any English website. Its out-of-print status has also made it so secondhand DVD copies run for high prices.
• Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind was released with the Special Edition of Street Fighter IV, then once more as part of the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector's Set alongside the Super Street Fighter IV OVA (AKA the "Juri OVA"). Neither of these films were ever given a stand-alone release.
• Summer Time Rendering: The official English translation of the two chapter spin-off, Summer Time Rendering 2026, was briefly available for free on Mangaplus before being taken down for unknown reasons. It is currently only available to read online through unofficial manga sites.
• Super Mario's Fire Brigade and its sister short Super Mario Traffic Safety are two late '80s/early '90s shorts by Toei. They were Super Mario Bros. PSAs made for schools and thus aren't available for commercial release. Then again, they also weren't ever released outside of Japan.
• Sylvanian Families Mini Stories Season 2 premiered to YouTube through 2018, but now Epoch has struck a deal with Amazon and the episodes are being moved to Prime Video, but will not be available via the Global Prime Video feed. This effectively means it's only available to countries with their own Prime Video feed. So if you live in a country that can only use the Global feed, yeah, better get started with the circulating before they take the episodes off YouTube. Season 1, however, remains available worldwide via Netflix for the time being, although there is evidence that suggested that the episodes were at one time also available on YouTube but have since been taken down.
• Tamagotchi franchise:
  • An English dub of the 2009 Tamagotchi anime exists, but only the first 26 episodes were dubbed, and it only aired in Australia on the channel GO!. Worse yet, the dub got screwed over by GO! in 2014, to make way for reruns of Animaniacs, so the English dub of Tamagotchi is no longer rerun there, and the dub never got a DVD release. Thankfully, most, if not all of the English episodes can be found on YouTube. The original Japanese dub averts this since all 271 episodes got released on DVD in Japan.
  • Tamagotchi: Happiest Story in the Universe!: An English dub of this film aired on Cartoon Network in the Philippines; no recordings of this dub have surfaced.
  • The franchise's first animated film, the 1997 short film Tamagotchi Honto no Hanashi, was only ever released on VHS alongside nine episodes of Anime TV de Hakken!! Tamagotchi, with no DVD releases to speak of.
  • Anime TV de Hakken!! Tamagotchi itself counts, as only nine of its 27 episodes were released on home video.
  • GO-GO Tamagotchi! originally had Ariana Grande's "Baby I" as one of its ending themes, but this was replaced by a different song being played while credits rolled on a black screen on home media and digital releases. The only way to see it is via the original broadcast versions of the episodes.
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles OVA has only seen a VHS release. It has been never released on DVD, not even in Japan. It is also currently unknown who owns the rights, as Nickelodeon, who owns the TMNT franchise, doesn't own the OVA.
• Tekkaman has at least 13 episodes dubbed, and these were released on VHS both in their separate form and as compilation videos. As the series' license has expired and the dub's master tapes were sold back to Tatsunoko, anyone wanting to see the dub must try to find the VHS releases or rely on other fans' video rips.
• Tenkai Knights has never been fully released on DVD in the US. All the country's got is just one DVD release, which combines the first 4 episodes into a movie for some odd reason. Averted in France, Germany, and Japan where the entire series was released on DVD.
• Tsuritama was pulled from stores and legal digital distribution in North America once Sentai Filmworks's license to the series expired in September 2019.
• Ultimate Teacher was released in Japan in 1988 and the U.S. got a subtitled release in 1991 and a dub in 1996, all on VHS. Everybody's rights expired before a DVD release was made, and given its obscurity, it's unlikely to get a re-release. There is hope, however, on the work's main page is a link to the entire thing (both U.S. and U.K. dubs) on YouTube, and thanks to a favorable review by Bennett the Sage, it's seeing a comeback in popularity.
• Unico:
  • The original 1986 Italian dub of the 1981 film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka Unico series (The Fantastic Adventures of Unico) only aired on a few television stations in Italy. The 1986 dub never received an official release on home video and only surviving from VHS recordings at the time. The country later created a second Italian dub for the original movie and it's sequel in 2022 available on the Italian streaming service CHILI.
  • Other International dubs of the first movie (such as Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia) have also been extremely difficult to find due to physical copies being very difficult to find in recent years.
• Urusei Yatsura:
  • Viz Media officially translated the manga for a while in the early 90's but dropped it very early into the series. One could argue Urusei Yatsura isn't as culturally accessible outside Japan as Takahashi's other series (especially with its many, many puns), but the anime has been entirely translated.^note Unfortunately, despite Viz's total lack of any activity on the license for over a decade, they still aggressively pursue and take down any scans of the manga series, even of chapters they never published, apparently at the request of Shogakukan (one of the two major Japanese publishers that owns them).
  • Viz announced in July 2018 that they had re-licensed the manga and will be releasing it in a series of two-in-one volumes with a new translation, with the first volume coming out in spring 2019.
  • AnimEigo held the license to the anime – which included the show, the OVAs, and all but one of the movies – until it expired in 2011 after two decades (that's an eternity in the anime licensing world). The one movie they didn't have, "Beautiful Dreamer", belonged to a company that went bankrupt in 2009, and copies of it are increasingly difficult to find as well. Eventually Discotek Media announced a Blu-ray of Beautiful Dreamer to be released in 2017.
  • The BBC Gag Dub only ever aired once and was never released on home video (it was The '90s after all) or DVD. Ratty home recordings of it and uploads to certain video sites are all that exist now.
• Although Ushiro no Shoumen Daare was released on VHS and LaserDisc in Japan back in the 90s, the movie has yet to receive a modern home media release on DVD/Blu-ray, or a legal streaming release, over there.
• Wedding Peach: The manga is harder to find, while the anime is also one of many stuck in ADV Films' distribution limbo. Weirdly enough, Viz recently licensed Wedding Peach Young Love, which is a retelling of the story for younger audiences.
• The X/1999 movie, a unique retelling of CLAMP's dark fantasy manga, hasn't had any known home media release anywhere since Manga Entertainment released their Region 1 DVD in 2001. Due to it repeatedly having to distance itself from current events around 2003, it hasn't yet been released in high definition and likely will not for the foreseeable future.
• Xenosaga was previously released by ADV Films until it was later acquired by Funimation. Until their license expired, and the 2011 DVD became out of print.
• Zoids: Chaotic Century and Zoids: New Century were released on DVD in the early 2000s but have since gone out of print and become extremely expensive.

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