Keep Circulating The Tapes / Anime And Manga Rescued

• Three anime that feature work by Yoshitoshi Abe (Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Renmei, and Texhnolyze) fell into this trope for U.S. fans after Geneon stopped distributing the titles they'd licensed. All three series have been relicensed by Funimation and are now available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital services.
• After Manga Entertainment's license expired in the late 2000s, the Astro Boy 1980 series was unavailable on home media and streaming in the United States. It was eventually rescued by Discotek Media, who released a Blu-ray set containing the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) and the American version in May 2022.
• The Azumanga Daioh anime went into limbo for a few years after ADV Films went under. Time went on and the old ADV sets started increasing in price. However, Sentai Filmworks eventually got the license and gave it a DVD release in 2016. The manga, which was also under license by ADV, was eventually rescued by Yen Press and given an omnibus release with a new translation.
• Bandai Entertainment announced on January 3, 2012, that they would be ceasing DVD production. Fortunately, however...
  • Sunrise, an animation studio that has produced many of the titles licensed by Bandai, has announced that they are currently discussing with other distributors to give their properties "new homes". The first show to get a new distributor is Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, which is being released by Nozomi Entertainment.
  • As of Otakon 2013, Sunrise announced that several more titles have been rescued by Funimation^note Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, The Vision of Escaflowne, My-HiME, My-Otome, Code Geass, Angel Links, Crest of the Stars, Tales of the Abyss, Witch Hunter Robin, Banner of the Stars, and Passage of the Stars and Sentai Filmworks^note The Big O, Argento Soma, Betterman, Scryed, Z-Mind, Zegapain, The Girl Who Leapt Through Space, Infinite Ryvius, Kurokami: The Animation, Brain Powered, and Overman King Gainer.
  • We can now add Lucky Star and Haruhi Suzumiya to Funimation's list of former-Bandai shows.
    • Gundam Unicorn is now no longer the only title to be rescued. Sunrise has made a deal with Right Stuf to distribute almost all other Gundam titles, including the original Mobile Suit Gundam. This deal also includes unreleased titles, meaning that ∀ Gundam will finally be getting a long-awaited U.S. release.
    • Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, better known as the Toonami-classic Ronin Warriors, was picked up by Discotek Media, along with the OVAs. Unfortunately, they currently only have plans for the japanese dub of the anime due to issues that need to be cleared first (though the OVA will have its own english dub included).
  • Blue Submarine No. 6, one of the non-Sunrise titles licensed by Bandai, has been rescued by Discotek Media and will receive a future rerelease.
  • During San Diego Comic Con 2013, Funimation, who previously released .hack//Quantum, announced that they acquired the rights to several .hack series^note .hack//SIGN, .hack//ROOTS, .hack//Legend of the Twilight, and .hack//G.U. Trilogy.
  • Funimation also managed to license Eureka Seven, another one of Bandai Entertainment's non-Sunrise shows (this one in particular was made by Studio Bones). Not surprising, considering that Funimation has previously released its sequel series.
  • IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix, an original series co-produced by Production I.G and Toonami, initially had its DVD release handled by Bandai Entertainment and, like many other Bandai shows listed here, went under when Bandai halted production. To add insult to injury, Cartoon Network wrote the show off as a financial failure, which prevented it from ever airing on the channel again. It was sort of rescued when Toonami was able to take advantage of the complex structure of its production deal and "un-write off" the show, allowing them to air reruns on the revived Toonami on [adult swim]. The show was then definitively rescued when Discotek Media announced that they managed to license it for a 2015 DVD rerelease.
  • Funimation announced the rescues of Nichijou and Wolf's Rain in consecutive weeks in November 2016, the former not even having a chance to be released before Bandai went down.
• The anime version of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo experienced this when it had a one-run on Toonami in 2005, and only two DVD sets were released in the states. The company that was distributing them went under rather quickly and without notice. But in 2012, S'more Entertainment officially released the anime in two box sets (divided into 38 episodes each) in the states. However with a catch,the japanese episodes of the series did not actually come with a subtitled track. Even though the box set says they are included, they most certainly are not. Years later, their license lapsed, and Discotek Media swooped in to rescue it, this time adding subtitles to the Japanese track and giving it the treatment it deserved from the beginning.
• For the longest time the only way to watch the 2001 Cyborg 009 series was via bootlegs, torrent and internet uploads and the only complete versions were the original Japanese version, if you wanted to watch the entire series in any of the languages it was dubbed in that weren't Japanese, you were out of luck because even then they didn't even have all of the episodes, on top of this, only the first eight episodes of the entire 2001 anime were released on DVD in the US (the UK and Australia were a bit more fortunate and got the entire first half) and it was Screwed by the Network in the US, other countries that aired the series were fortunate enough to actually get the entire damn thing. However on 13 August 2017, Discotek Media announced that they've rescue licensed the series and that they'll be releasing all 52 episodes on DVD and SD Blu-ray marking the first time the entire series has ever been legally available in English.
• Daltanious was slated to be released in the US, which never happened because someone mistook it for GoLion and dubbed that instead. The Italian, Chinese and Spanish dubs have also been lost to time. Fear not, for Discotek Media has licensed the rights to it and has the English-subbed Japanese version available for your purchase.
• Danchi Tomoo has only 39 out of 78 episodes available on DVD in Japan, while the special Natsuyasumi no Shukudai wa Owatta no ka yo? Tomoo doesn't have a DVD release at all. However, in 2017 Bandai Channel began streaming the entire series and the special in Japan.
• In Australia, Madman Entertainment successfully licensed the Digimon Adventure dub and put out a pair of box sets constituting the series' complete run. No word on whether they'll follow up on any of the other Digimon series currently lacking full dub releases, nor on any such thing for the rest of the world.
  • They're YTV's copies, featuring a logo on the openings. 'Sly', an executive at Madman, said this was the best quality one available to them. They don't seem to be missing any scenes, but what happened to the clean originals?
  • In late 2012, a remastered box set of all 54 episodes was released in Region 1 countries. Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers, and Digimon Frontier followed throughout 2013, with Digimon Data Squad coming the following year. Still no word on any of the movies, but we'll see...
  • And to solidify Adventure's rescue, both Adventure and Adventure 02 are on Netflix, in both English and Japanese.
  • As of May 2014, Tamers has been added as well.
• Two Shin-Ei Animation series, Dororonpa! and Gatapishi, are available for streaming on Yahoo! GyaO and Amazon Video Japan. However, episodes 113-115 of Dororonpa! aren't available on both streaming services for some reason.
• Four Fujiko Fujio anime series, Perman (1967 anime), Kaibutsu-kun (1968 anime), Umeboshi Denka, and Jungle Kurobe, were extremely rare after their initial airing for years due to a lack of reruns and home media releases. However, it wasn't until the 2010s when all four series were released on DVD box sets in Japan, finally making them available again. King Record released Kaibutsu-kun in October 2010 and Perman in November 2014, while Toei Video released Jungle Kurobe in December 2015 and Umeboshi Denka in January 2016. However, it's worth noting that the Perman and Umeboshi Denka DVD box sets aren't exactly complete due to a few episode's video track, audio track, or both elements being missing.
• Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics only had a few long-out of print VHS releases during its Nick Jr. run in North America and a few DVDs from Fox Kids Europe in the early to mid 2000s. The English and Japanese dubs were unavailable for years after Disney's rights lapsed, until Discotek Media announced a bilingual release in 2021.
• Fans of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! were often frustrated by the fact that all of the Japanese episodes have taken a long time to be fansubbed. Those fond of making/watching fan videos were often frustrated by the fact that if an episode had been fansubbed, it was nearly impossible to find it without subtitles. Some of the episodes were clearly ripped from damaged VHS tapes^*these include episodes 54 ("One Crazy Knight"), 60 ("Crusade for the Blade") and 66 ("The Chill Factor"), among others, and the fansub would apologize for this from time to time. Fortunately, as of December 2022, the complete series has now been fansubbed. The series was released in its entirety on a special Blu-ray collecton in spring 2023, coinciding with the Kirby franchise's 30th anniversary.
• In 2020, Discotek announced that they rescued Kodocha after being out of print for a decade ^note  as well as the infamous licensing issues and to further sweeten the deal, this time, we're getting all 102 episodes of the anime and all the music rights have been cleared ^note  This is likely due to a change over in management at Johnny's & Associates as the agency is now managed by Johnny Kitagawa's niece, Julie Keiko Fujishima after Johnny himself passed away in 2019. , thus finally freeing this show from the rights issues that plagued Funimation's release back in the mid-2000's. ^note  When Funimation released Kodocha, Johnny's management at the time wouldn't even let them reference TOKIO or use their song "7 O'Clock News" (the first opening), so they had to censor any references to TOKIO in the subs and mute pieces of the Japanese audio track, which is likely why this show didn't exactly sell well for Funimation and more or less why they dropped the license in 2012.
• The first five volumes of the Lucky Star anime are pretty easy to find on the cheap, usually no more than 15 USD each. The sixth and final one? Good luck. Thankfully, the entire series was included with Funimation's initial Bandai rescue bundle, and the unreleased OVA was included as well (though sub-only). And the manga was reissued by Viz Media a few years back.
• For years, Mad Bull 34 never saw a DVD release in North America, since Manga Entertainment had lost the rights to it before DVDs came into the picture. Discotek Media now has Mad Bull and released it in 2013 with bilingual audio, even promoting it as "quite possibly the best bad anime ever made."
  • Same goes for Violence Jack almost word-for-word.
• The Medabots anime has had a spotty history. Back during its initial run, ADV Films did release the first two seasons in several volumes, which are now hard to find. Shout! Factory re-licensed the series years later and put out the first 26 episodes, but sales were so bad any further plans were canceled. However, Discotek Media acquired the license and put out the first two seasons on Blu-Ray. However, season three looked to be off the table because the dubbed masters had been lost... so they asked the fans for help. In December 2020, they announced masters had been found, and promised a release date in 2021.
• For quite a while, Mon Colle Knights was nigh-impossible to find due to its obscurity, although there are scarce amounts of episodes on video sharing sites in both English and Japanese. Discotek had since rescued the series, albeit the initial release (both when it was made available via Crunchyroll as well as the initial Blu-ray release) was sub-only. It wouldn't be until December 2021 that they found suitable dub masters, and May 2022 that the dubbed version would finally be released to Blu-ray.
• Monster Rancher suffered from this. Season 3 was dubbed but never aired in the US, and for years all we got were VHS releases of Season 1, and one DVD with 8 episodes. Discotek Media later rescued the series and released the entire English-dubbed series in 3 boxsets (including Season 3), and another box set containing the entire Japanese series with English subtitles.
• The English-language version of The Mysterious Cities of Gold was believed to have been lost after the dubbing studio went bankrupt. However, DVD editions of the entire collection were finally released in 2008, and the whole show is currently avalible as a streaming purchase.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion and its two films Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion, despite comprising one of the most influential anime franchises of all time, was this for all intents and purposes. The last time in the US that the series was released on DVD was in 2004 by ADV Films, and went out of print because of the company's closure. Because of this, box sets have been noted to go for up to $300 on sites like eBay. However, there was a moment of return that made waves for the anime community. Studio Khara waited until they finished the Rebuild of Evangelion films to begin re-licensing the original series in the English-language marketplace. In August of 2021, an announcement was made that in the US, Gkids would release the series on Blu-ray in the US in a box set that includes Episodes 21-24 in their director's cut forms and the two movies with both their original ADV dub track (albeit only on the limited collector's editions) and the dub track made for Netflix. The base set was released in November, while the special editions launched in December.
• For sixteen years, the easiest way to watch the first Nintama Rantarou movie was through VHS copies until it was finally released on DVD by Pony Canyon in Japan in November 2012.
• For years, the vast majority of Oyako Club was very rare due to a lack of a home media or streaming release. This finally changed when Eiken began streaming select episodes of the series on their official YouTube channel on November 1, 2021. Since then, the company has uploaded episodes on a weekly basis.
• After Geneon went defunct in 2007, Satoshi Kon's wildly ambitious and original Paranoia Agent, went out of print for years, with both the DVD box set and the individual volumes becoming very expensive on the second hand market. This was finally rectified in 2020, when FUNimation announced that they had rescued the license and released it on their streaming release, with Toonami also airing reruns of the show for the first time in over a decade.
• The first three Pokémon movies, all of which were distributed by Warner Bros. in territories outside Japan, have had their DVD and VHS releases long out of print. With the exception of occasional broadcasts on WGN America, Cartoon Network and television stations, as well as a brief triple feature DVD release in 2009, a long-standing legal dispute between Nintendo, Warner Bros., The Pokemon Company and Toho kept any further home media releases off the market. By the time The New '10s came around, the films became increasingly sought after, with the price for the first movie on DVD going as high as $116 on Amazon as of December 30, 2015. Fortunately, the dispute was officially settled in December 2015, and a Triple Feature Steelbook Blu-ray set of the movies was promptly announced by Viz Media and Warner Home Video for release in February 2016, along with DVD reissues. The catch? Only a 2.0 lossy Stereo track of the 4Kids English dub was made available, and the special features from the DVD releases are unlikely to be brought to the new set (which means no Pikachu shorts), but something is just better than nothing in this case. The Johto seasons of the anime, after being subjected to incomplete volume releases that soon went out of print and became incredibly expensive, became easily available again between November 2015 and October 2016.
• Ranma ½'s DVD release was slowly going out of print (helps that 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 is re-releasing 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 entirety of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime was rereleased by The Right Stuf International - through their Nozomi Entertainment label - across three DVD sets (using the show's remastered Region 2 DVD release as the video base), as well as the movie.
• Ringing Bell: A major factor with this movie being very obscure in the West is because the 1983 English Dub was only sold on VHS tapes (back when affording an actual VHS was expensive). The VHS tapes later went out of print making it difficult for Americans to watch the film. Once Discotek Media picked up the movie in 2013, it was able to get re-released on DVD which includes audio tracks for the English and Japanese versions and subtitles for both languages. The movie is also available to watch on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Crunchyroll in America.
• Robot Carnival. This old classic that was among the first exposures of anime to the West has only received a Region 2 DVD released a looooooong time ago. It was rights issues, as original US licensee Streamline Pictures went under. Fortunately, Discotek Media has licensed it for a Region 1 DVD release.
• After over 10 years of the first four seasons being out of print and the final season not being licensed at all, Viz Media announced the rescue of the original Sailor Moon anime at Anime Central 2014, with plans for a DVD and Blu-Ray re-release featuring an all-new uncut English dub, and a streaming run on Neon Alley and Hulu. Madman Entertainment has picked up the Australia and New Zealand rights to this dub. The series was not streaming in Canada for over two years after it started streaming in the US, due to Hulu's nonavailability up north, until it finally showed up on Tubi TV in July of 2016, albeit in subtitled form only.
  • 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-flipped manga was available in English. Tokyopop's old censored and flipped editions went for high prices for quite a while.
  • Code Name 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.
• Geneon Entertainment released Sakura Wars: The Movie on DVD in September 2003 for North America. However, with Geneon's shut down in 2007, said release went out of print and was hard to find. Fortunately, Funimation picked up the distribution rights and released it on Blu-ray and DVD in October 2013.
• For the longest time, only half of Samurai Pizza Cats was available on a hard-to-find DVD box set. This box set had a good 26 episodes (most series only run that long), but the second season had some of the funniest episodes of the series. There was also almost no merchandise in the US. Cue frustrated fanbase. Until Discotek announced the license of both the dub and original version in two complete box sets^note 52 for the dub, 54 for the sub which includes the two clip episodes. Cue happy fanbase. (Even more so after the below Power Rangers announcement came the same day.)
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei was literally this since its license pickup by Media Blasters in 2010, but it was dropped in 2013. Not even releasing a single volume or box set of it even. Until...Nozomi Entertainment has licensed rescued the series for a 2020 Blu-Ray release stateside.
• The uncut ADV Films releases of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman have become out of print, hard to find, and painfully expensive if you do find them. However, at Anime Boston 2013, Sentai Filmworks (the successor to ADV Films, appropriately) announced that they've acquired Gatchaman among other shows, with plans for a DVD and Blu-Ray release of both the TV show and the OVA. Thank you, Sentai Filmworks.
• The English dub of the Japanese puppet series Star Fleet (or X Bomber as it's known in Japanese) for many years was only accessible from fan circulation. The entire Japanese dub had been released to laserdisc in the 90's and DVD in the early 2000's, the English version mostly disappeared after syndication ended in the late 80's/early 90's. The circulation mostly relied on tapes released in the 80's in the UK and US (where the show never even aired). All these tapes were cut up, losing much of its material to be made into hour-long episodes in the US or in the UK's case, the compilation films "The Thalian Space Wars" and "Space Quest for F-01"; which were greatly incoherent, cramming much of the series' story arc into a single hour and a half. The tapes in the US were usually the go to as they suffered less cuts, spanning the entire series, although with the 24 episodes combined into 8 compilation tapes. In 2009, Fantastic Films released the first DVD release of the English series with all the episodes intact from their analog broadcast masters.
• Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie has been released multiple times with different edits for censorship, with the uncut version being released by Manga Entertainment and streamed by Netflix. The DVD by the former has since gone out of print, and Netflix no longer streams the movie. Recently, the movie, along with the infamous Street Fighter cartoon, has been licensed by Discotek Media for a re-release on DVD and Blu-Ray.
• Symphogear only had a release on Funimation's website in 2011, until their rights expired a few years later. In July 2019, Discotek Media announced a DVD and BluRay for the series. It is also currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
• The 1987 anime Tales of Little Women was dubbed in 1989 for HBO and gained something of a cult following in the US. It never received a home media release outside of an out of print VHS, but was eventually picked up in reruns for Creator/TBN's "Smile of a Child" channel, until 2015 when it was taken off the air. In 2017, Amazon has since put it up on their streaming service, and episodes have been made available on file-sharing sites as well.
  • The Tom Sawyer anime was dubbed in 1988 for HBO, and was distributed on long-out of print VHS tapes by Celebrity Home Entertainment. In 2017, Amazon has put it up on their streaming service, and it's also streaming on Tubi TV.
• Tico of the Seven Seas had a Canadian English dub called Tico and Friends that was lost for several years until it showed up on Oznoz in 2017.
• Transformers: Armada, the first part of the Unicron Trilogy, aired on Toonami back in the early 2000s and received several DVD releases from Rhino Home Video. Said releases have unfortunately gone out of print, but recently, Amazon has added a pre-order page for a DVD rerelease of the complete series. The distributor, according to a couple articles commenting on the subject, is Gaiams Americas, who provides most of the distribution for Shout! Factory, who currently handle most of the recent Transformers DVD releases. The second installment in the Unicron Trilogy, Transformers: Energon is also set for a DVD rerelease from Shout! Factory. Much like its predecessor, it too was given a release by Rhino Home Video, which eventually went out of print. Hopefully, this means that the third and final installment, Transformers: Cybertron, will get the rerelease treatment as well.
• For almost 20 years, the English Dub for both of Sanrio's feature films adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's Unico series (The Fantastic Adventures of Unico and Unico in the Island of Magic) was only released on VHS which later went out of print in recent years. Once The New '10s rolled around, Discotek Media was able to re-release both Unico movies on DVD in the West (complete with an English and Japanese audio track). As a bonus, both Unico movies gained a special Blu-Ray box set called "Unico Double Feature" which contains both movies on two separate discs. Fittingly, both movies were re-released a year after the original manga series gained an official English translation (as a result of a successful kickstarter by a group of Western fans) in 2012. Both movies are also available to watch on Amazon Prime, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Crunchyroll.
• For the longest time, there was no way, legally, to see Sonic X in its uncut form. 4Kids attempted to rectify the situation by streaming it on Hulu, but that only limited its availability to the United States. To add insult to injury, the Japanese text was still removed (something 4Kids had nothing to do with for once). Thankfully, Discotek Media announced their plans to finally give the uncut version a proper Blu-ray release.
• For the longest time, US fans of the 2001Shaman King anime only ever had two uncut bilingual DVDs (which featured a separate dub with the 4Kids cast and a faithful script) containing episodes 1-6 released by Funimation before they were canceled. Three more volumes (with eps. 7-15) were solicited, but never came out. The edited 4Kids dub, which successfully completed its run on FoxBox, never had a home video released in the US, and no other official release of the uncut/subtitled version had transpired. Thankfully, Discotek has since licensed rescued the 2001 anime series, and will be releasing them in two separate versions: both the 4Kids edited dub and the original Japanese version.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • In regards to the edited English dub, For the longest time, if you wanted any of the franchise on DVD, then you had to be prepared to fork over a chunk of change. Yu-Gi-Oh! received DVD sets via FUNimation for seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, and Capsule Monsters, but just as 4Kids was about to release all of season 4, they got into a dispute with FUNimation Entertainment, and after that, 4Kids' shows generally didn't come to any home video format for many years, never seeing the light of day, and the DVDs that DID come out went for a lot of money since they were discontinued for years especially the box sets. GX got a few DVD sets, but 5Ds was pretty much nonexistent on home video.
  • When 4Kids went kaput and the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise rescued by Konami, Cinedigm got the license to release the series on DVD. All of the original series is out, as well as releases for GX, 5Ds, Zexal, etc. They also put out the "Bonds Beyond Time" on billingual DVD and Blu-ray (using Manga UK's subtitles).
  • In regards to the original uncut Japanese dub, there were briefly uncut DVD releases of the original series, containing a then-new uncut English dub with the original music intact, and an option to watch with Japanese audio and English subtitles on the DVDs, but only three volumes were released before Yu-Gi-Oh! DVD releases came to an end. Then for the longest time, there was no word on a subtitled release for the three series. Fortunately, you can now also watch the entirety of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! for free on on Hulu and the official Yu-Gi-Oh! website, and both sub and dub of it, GX, and 5D's are now available on Crunchyroll, as well as the dub and 80+ episodes of the sub of the original series.

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