Otakon 2024 hosted several industry panels featuring the likes of Dark Horse, Bandai Namco Filmworks and Azuki Manga. But the convention has always been about more than industry guests. Fan panels have always been key to the Otakon experience. This year saw the return of old favorites (“AMV Hell 8”) and the debut of new ones (“Why are Blue Penguins so common in Japanese Media?”) The biggest surprise for me, though, was the pop-up “Anime Home Video Museum.”
Organized by GreatSG Creations, “Anime Home Video Museum” argued that the storage and distribution of anime is a crucial part of the medium’s history. Home video technology evolved over the decades to produce an impressive number of dead ends and hilarious goofs. It’s easy to forget about these topics when streaming is so omnipresent. But that would mean erasing the story of how anime was bought and sold, in Japan and abroad, for decades.
The LaserDisc
The distribution of anime in the United States progressed in phases. Fans traded subtitled VHS tapes (and used them to create early AMVs.) The success of the DVD market led to the initial US anime bubble, which popped in 2007. Today, in a post-streaming world, distributors of physical media like Discotek preserve and restore anime productions via Blu-Ray disc after ending formal DVD production and distribution years ago.
But, these were not the only platforms on which anime was made commercially available in the West. A memorable early format (per GreatSG) was the LaserDisc, which premiered in 1978 courtesy of Europe’s Phillips, America’s MCA and Japan’s Pioneer Corporation. As expensive as it was at the outset, it became popular among anime fans due to its high quality video and packaging. Per Anime News Network’s encyclopedia, anime was more sought after on LD than VHS for quite some time, owing to its superior for the era image quality and storage convenience in comparison. Collectors still hunt for rare LDs at conventions to this day.
The Gameboy Advance Player and VideoNow
Pre-streaming video distribution got much weirder than the oversize LaserDisc, though. Just look at the Gameboy Advance Video Player, which Majesco Entertainment released in 2004. It allowed for video playback on a GBA with especially terrible visual and audio quality. Its closest competitor at the time in Universal Media Disc (a media format designed by Sony for its Playstation Portable) was superior in every way. Yet I can’t help but find the Gameboy Advance Video Player to be far more charming. It may have been the absolute worst way to watch anime at the time, but heck, it was on a GBA!
A surprise audience favorite was the VideoNow Player. Released by Tiger Electronics in 2003, it played special “PVDs” that held one episode each. The player had a tiny greyscale screen and could play media at 15 frames per second. I have no personal experience with the VideoNow Player, but folks in the audience certainly did. It had me thinking about how your date of birth and family’s level of income determines your familiarity with these various devices.
The Video8 and QuickTime CD-ROM
Some technology covered by “Anime Home Video Museum” was notable not so much for their capabilities, as for the fact that anime was produced for the format at all. One such example was the 1984 Video8 cassette developed by Kodak and Sony. Video8 could store up to 300 minutes of video, was very expensive and was intended for amateur camcorder use. Yet according to the panelists, there was at least one anime release for the platform: 1981’s Honey, Honey.
Other technology was included for its historical relevance. The QuickTime CD-Rom was developed by Software Sculptors, a company best known initially for video screensavers, and released in 1996. Software Sculptors was later bought out by Central Park Media, a major player in the distribution scene of the 90s and early 2000s. The developers went on to found Media Blasters in 1996, which still exists to this day.
Exploring the Anime Home Video Museum
The most impressive part of the panel came after the spoken portion. Audience members lined up to see the physical “Anime Home Video Museum” set up around the podium. Many of the devices I mentioned here–LaserDiscs, the GameBoy Advance Player, even a Honey Honey Video8 cassette–were on display. I was particularly happy to see the GameBoy Advance Player, which was just as endearingly dysfunctional as I remembered.
My only criticism would be that the museum portion was quite short. After just five to ten minutes, the panelists had to pack everything up so that they could start running the next on schedule. I couldn’t help but wish for an extended (perhaps permanent) museum display. Otakon 2024 itself featured a commemorative exhibit for its 30th anniversary, featuring past convention buttons, booklets and flyers. A proper home video museum should be very doable.
An endangered species
One item in particular stood out to me: a Blu-Ray copy of the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist. This series was a classic anime of the early 2000s and a childhood favorite of mine. Now it is an “endangered species,” unavailable on streaming and out of print on physical media. “If you have the means,” read the accompanying blurb, “try to collect your favorite show physically before you lose the ability to do so because of arbitrary decisions by corporations.”
When folks imagine “lost media,” they might think of obscure projects like Super Mario Bros: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach or various lost dubs. The panelists praised outfits like Kineko Video and the Internet Archive for restoring and preserving these forgotten works. Yet if Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is any indication, nothing is immune to the crushing pressures of capitalism and time. Anything can become lost media. That is exactly why preservation–whether spearheaded by the industry or by fans themselves–is so important.
