Ask John: Are There Any Lost Anime Episodes or Movies?

Question:
Is there any anime that is impossible to see through legal channels, or downright missing? I was wondering if there was any obscure anime that had episodes produced, but never broadcast; broadcast once, but never released on home video; or were given a print run so small that they are simply impossible to find now.

Answer:
The difficulty in chronicling “lost” anime is the very fact that it is lost or forgotten. When it comes to anime that’s simply obscure or difficult to find, there are hundreds, if not thousands of vintage OVAs and television series that have been out of print on commercial Japanese home video for years. Just to provide a few examples, recently I’ve stumbled across illigitimate streaming anime titles including the 1998 television series Yoiko, the 1991 Neko Neko Fantasia OVA, and the Choujiku Romanesque Samy Missing 99 and Cosmos Pink Shock OVA series – both from 1986, all of which have been unavailable on commercial home video for years. I’ve also recently found unauthorized online streaming episodes of director Shinichi Watanabe’s 2000 comedy television series Dotto Koni-chan, which was released on Japanese VHS for rental only. There are so many vintage anime titles that were once available on commercial home video but aren’t officially distributed in any format now that trying to list them all would be a monumental task.

Anime that have never been officially released on any form of commercial home video, however, are worthy of further investigation. Unfortunately, it’s precisely such examples that are most difficult to cite. The 1995 “Nuumamonjaa! Time & Space Adventures” OVA, better known as the Chrono Trigger OVA, was never officially released on commercial home video. It was released exclusively as a promotional video cassette distributed in extremely limited quantity. The Maze Bakunetsu Jiku “onsen” (hot spring) episode and the Card Captor Sakura: Tomoyo Video Diary specials were released exclusively as mail-away promotional video cassettes. Americans may also be privy to a relative exclusive. The March 2006 issue of Newtype USA magazine included a Lagoon Engine Einsatz anime short. I’m not aware of this promotional anime having been ever been officially released on Japanese home video.

When it comes to genuinely “lost” anime, I only know of two (or three, depending upon classification) examples, although I have little doubt that there are others which I’m just not aware of. Astro Boy episode 34 is commonly called a “lost episode” because series director Osamu Tezuka reportedly was so displeased with the production quality of this episode that he ordered all prints destroyed. Only the print shipped to America and dubbed into English escaped the purge. The Maze Bakunetsu Jiku: Tenpen Kyoui no Giant and Yokoso Lodoss-Tou E (“Welcome to Lodoss Island”) motion pictures were released as a double feature in April 1998, but neither film has ever been released on commercial home video, qualifying them as “lost” anime films.