Ask John: Are Anime Broadcasts Often Different From DVD?

Question:
How common is it for animators to fix the animation whenever a series is released on DVD? I’ve heard that shows like Negima! and R.O.D. – The TV had DVD releases that improved upon what originally aired on television. This made me wonder if there will always a gap of quality between what airs and what is available to purchase. And is that to say that every DVD release we get here comes from the DVDs released in Japan?

Answer:
Anime production may be a multi-billion dollar industry, but the investment devoted to the creation of individual television series are frequently half or less the amount typically allotted to similar American cartoons. Development of a typical contemporary anime television series episode begins 3 to 4 months prior to the episode’s broadcast, and production may sometimes run literally up to the last minute, or even behind schedule. Anecdotes are now legendary about Gainax delivering episodes of the Evangelion television series so close to broadcast deadlines that network executives didn’t have time to preview the episodes before airing them. And Bones apparently fell far behind scheduled on the production of the Wolf’s Rain television series, forcing the broadcast of four consecutive hastily assembled recap episodes. And in perhaps the most striking examples of anime not having sufficient time or resources to sufficiently finish, in 1999 the Gundress motion picture was released theatrically in an unfinished state with a “completed” version later released on DVD. And the 2007 Kissdum -Engage Planet- television series suffered such massive production setbacks that this year it was re-broadcast in a slightly improved version titled Kissdum R -Engage Planet-.

Unfortunately, due to the limitations that Japanese animators have to work with, including limited budgets, lapses in the availability and efficiency of animators and other development staff, unexpected changes or demands imposed during the creative process, and broadcast deadlines, anime production studios sometimes have to make compromises in order to get episodes completed on time. In certain cases, such as the first Negima television series, the animation staff is able to finish or revise episodes, after the initial television broadcast, for the permanent, archival home video release. I honestly don’t know when this practice began, but the earliest instances I recall of television series getting touched up or extended home video versions include 1998’s Akihabara Cyber Team, Outlaw Star, and Weiss Kreuz. More recently, series including Suzumiya Haruhi, Heatguy J, Witchblade, Gurren Lagann, and Tweeny Witches have been revised and improved for their DVD release while shows including Air Gear, Gantz, Sekirei, Girls Bravo, Strike Witches, Tsukihime, and School Days were broadcast censored but received uncensored DVD releases.

Differences between Japanese broadcast episodes and home video releases are also caused by the mandates of TV broadcast standards. Japanese television networks may be more lenient about airing scenes of violence and sexuality than American networks, but Japanese networks do have broadcast standards, and those standards even vary between networks and regions of Japan. It’s not uncommon for anime television episodes to air on different Japanese networks, or in different areas of Japan with different degrees of censoring. Nor is it uncommon for Japanese DVD releases to contain footage that was censored during the earlier TV broadcast. Ideally American DVD releases would always consist of the unadulterated Japanese episodes, but that’s not always the case.

I probably can’t recall or identify every instance of an American DVD release consisting of the censored Japanese TV broadcast footage instead of the uncensored Japanese home video footage, but some examples include: Boogiepop Phantom, Demon Lord Dante, the Escaflowne TV series, His and Her Circumstances, and the Maze TV series. The original US DVD release of the Sakura Diaries television series consisted of the censored TV broadcast version, but the later re-release contained the unexpurgated Japanese home video footage. The domestic release of the Genma Wars television series is censored version apparently provided by its international distribution rights licensor.

Although I have identified some examples of American releases that may be slightly less ideal than their Japanese counterparts, American anime fans should be able to rest easily knowing that most domestic releases do contain all of the footage Japanese collectors have access to. In many cases the episodes available on DVD are identical to the broadcast footage because the broadcast footage is a complete and finished work. Due to the nature of Japanese anime production industry, occasional differences between TV broadcast anime episodes and later home video versions are inevitable, but fans should take comfort in the awareness that Japanese animators care enough about their works to return to them and improve them for posterity.