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Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is It Worth Collecting Anime On VHS?
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13616 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Both a native Japanese VHS and a domestic VHS for a dub/sub is the only home video medium some anime have been released on. Heck, you might say the same thing about LaserDisc.
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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Without VHS, how are you going to watch classics like Junk Boy?
I went through a period about 10 years ago of taking my VHS collection, and everything I couldn't find on retail DVD, I backed up to DVD-R. Subsequently, I found many of those titles on import DVD, and as for what's left... I still haven't rewatched any of them. I have still kept the anime VHS tapes though for the sleeve art. Some titles that I initially had on VHS are available on Blu-ray now. Couldn't imagine watching Akira, The Wings of Honneamise, Ghost in the Shell or Ninja Scroll on anything less than Blu-ray. VHS would be collecting for the sake of collecting. It's not something you'd ever watch, but it's something that you'd own because you're interested in all aspects of a particular title that you might love, collecting all release versions on VHS, DVD, Laserdisc, UMD, or VHD! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDxSidSVTig |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2666 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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The only reason why I ever bought any anime VHS tapes once I entered the fandom was because there were shows that I was curious about, and the only way I could watch them with an English translation was via those old VHS releases. Anime like Eat-Man ['97], Next Senki Ehrgeiz, Dancouga, the Godmars movie, Dangaioh (no, Manga's hacked & dub-only DVD doesn't count), & AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave-, and while some have since finally received a DVD release (Eat-Man & Dancouga), others still remain VHS-exclusive in North America. I've even had to import some Japanese VHS tapes for stuff that never got a better release there, like the Rokudenashi BLUES anime movies or Shinken Legend Tight Road. Are any of these some of the all-time classics? No, but I have found some titles in this category that I felt were surprisingly enjoyable, like Ehrgeiz, Shinken Legend, & Rokudenashi BLUES 1993.
Considering how fickle VHS can be over time, both in age & use, I've since recorded just about every one of my VHS-exclusive anime to DVD, since I have a VCR/DVD-recorder that lets me do direct dubbing, i.e. record a VHS tape straight to a DVD-R. My recorder even lets me view VHS tapes via HDMI, and while it's obviously nothing great, I think they tapes I've seen held up better than I expected, though that might be due to the player more than anything. So is it worth collecting anime on VHS? Personally, I'd say it can be worth it, but only if you really want to check out some old anime that never got better than VHS. Honestly, though, most of these shows have since either been simply ripped & shared online, or received newer fansubs that use either LD, DVD, or even HD sources. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5504 |
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For films or OVAs I guess it wouldn't be too bad as a novelty, but could you imagine having a 26 episode TV show? If it only has 3 episodes, like my Pokemon video tape had, then that would be 9 tapes.
Edit; Thanks Alan45 Last edited by MarshalBanana on Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10018 Location: Virginia |
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Is that a typo? 26 episodes at three per tape would be 9 tapes.
However, by the time they started selling TV series on a regular basis, they would offer a mix of four and three episodes per tape and provide a 26 episode series on 8 tapes. Usually the first and last tapes would have four episodes. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4157 |
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Still, that's not much of an excuse. I still have a few things on VHS that never made it over to DVD, including a Godzilla film but the possibility of them out right breaking while attempting to play... or break the VCR itself... increases with every year. VHS was the format that we as a people should look back and say "What on Earth were we thinking?" LD isn't that much better with its half hour sides but at least playing one of them won't put the player at risk just from basic playback. Is the person asking this born after the VHS era? "Use your mind, beware which rewinds". It's kind of hard to scan... just like VHS. And then there's tracking. Heat and light warp. Basic static. I switched over to DVD in 1999 and never looked back... except for my original Star Wars films. I had the T*H*X masters, the WS Gold and FF Silver Special Editions and even the original theatrical release that had matte cuts around the ships. And never bought any of them on DVD. |
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Cain Highwind
Posts: 315 |
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About a decade ago during my Tatsunoko phase, I found the English Dub for Time Bokan on two VHS tapes. There was a guy on Amazon who was selling a single VHS tapes of the 90s Hurricane Polymar for well over 200 dollars. I messaged him asking him if that was right since it seemed excessive and he insisted it was right.
And yeah I made a digital conversion of my VHS Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystals anime. Watching the Urban Vision promo was interesting. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2666 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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First, every Godzilla has since been given at least a DVD release. Even Godzilla 1985 got a DVD & BD release by Kraken Releasing, complete with a brand new, uncut dub. I guess the only exception would be the original English version of Godzilla 1985, which added in scenes of the Steve Martin character from the English version of the original Godzilla, which is indeed still a VHS-exclusive. Still, it's not like it's hard to preserve these VHS tapes nowadays. As I mentioned, I own a HDMI-compatible VCR/DVD combo unit that lets me record VHS tapes directly onto DVD-Rs, so most of my VHS collection has a backup now (I still have a few anime left to record, though). Recording VHS to digital isn't anything new, either, as computer hardware for such a thing has existed for over a decade, and today it's not all that expensive to get something that lets you hook up a VCR to a computer to record VHS as a digital file. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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The two home media formats I plan to collect anime on in the future are Blu-ray and VHS (though I've thought about getting a laserdisc player...or even a VideoNow just for the nostalgia).
Some other things you can only get on VHS are the Toonami version of Tenchi Muyo (the only version retail stores like K-Mart would stock) and a Manga UK tape entitled "Mean & Mercenary", which was literally just a compilation of the most violent scenes from Angel Cop, Fist of the North Star, Ghost in the Shell, Violence Jack, etc. |
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DJStarstryker
 Posts: 140 |
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Honestly, anime on VHS was a pain. It degraded, they only had room for EITHER dub or sub on the tapes (and for the sub fans, they charged more for those), you had to rewind, but they also took up a lot of space on shelves. I actually used to own the entire Pioneer subtitled run of Fushigi Yuugi on VHS. That was a 52 episode show, so was 16 tapes. 16! For only one show!
VHS doesn't just degrade with use, it degrades while its just sitting there on the shelf. I really don't suggest buying anime on VHS at all, unless there's something that exists only as VHS. And when you find it, convert it to DVD or another format ASAP. |
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Cynicat
Posts: 7 |
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The problem with VHS tapes (beyond the horrible 200 line resolution) is that they deteriorate every time you play them, and they deteriorate even if you don't play them (due to "print-through"). To make matters worse, they often were record on poor quality tape.
Optical discs got rid of many of those problems. DVDs were good (even Video CDs were better than VHS!), but Blurays are much better. |
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Mune
Posts: 382 Location: Minnesota |
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Funny enough, I still own vhs anime. Unfortunately, they haven't been upgraded to DVD or Blu-ray. I don't even own a vhs player anymore. It's sort of sad. Good thing is that they mostly retained their value.
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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One thing that I can't seem to find on youtube is the introduction that was added to the La Blue Girl VHSs. I was over a friend's place, and she told me that I needed to watch the intro to this thing (the VHSs themselves belong to her husband, and yes, he somehow has a set of 6 of them where the spines form a picture and are in a paper box to house them all, yes, they made that). Now, keep in mind, this series is a hentai series with high schoolers, but the intro went out of its way to introduce us to everyday Japanese culture, including how colleges in Japan look just like high schools with uniforms and everything, and since these girls are absolutely totally definitely in college, everyone is with complete certainty at least 18 years of age (woohoo!) I remember watching that 3-minute or so introduction just going "my god, is every single line out of his mouth going to be blatantly wrong then?"
Anyway, here's a fun one from Media Blasters, where the first 30 seconds of CGI are so eye-bleedingly bad it makes Food Fight look acceptable (the rest of the promo vid is funny in other ways though) Also, Discotek and Mike Toole, can you PLEASE make something like this as a joke intro for a future panel you do? That would be the greatest thing ever! And no one else is cool enough to put a joke this awesome into their more serious panels. It wouldn't need to be as long as the VHS ones, just as charmingly awful! |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3019 |
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In rural areas like the one I grew up in, it was most often a combination of two things: (1) Many folks assumed that all the foreign-language tapes you could get at Blockbuster were either "artsy-fartsy" French/Italian films or (as Mystery Science Theater 3000 referred to them) "hyper-violent porn cartoons". and (2) back in the 80s and 90s there were still a TON of people who refused to let anything associated with Japan be brought into their house "because they bombed Pearl Harbor". |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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I hate to admit the only anime I have on VHS are the Subtitled non-director's cut version of MD Geist that has the Norio Wakamoto voiceover I like so much better than the director's cut version and Dog Soldier from CPM also subtitled. Not to mention the VHS for Dracula: Soverign of the Damned, and that Frankenstein anime also, both from Vestron.
I'm actually one of the poor souls who actually hopes that Discotek decides to actually release a DVD of that Dracula thing with both the Japanese sub and the English dub on it. |
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