Even in the best of times when anime is being released in the US do we find some series simply not making the cut for various reasons. Whether it’s an issue with the company, sales performance or some other mysterious unknown, a number of shows haven’t had their full day in the sun over the years. There’s always hope that they’ll resurface somehow, even if they don’t finish out their dub. Some of these shows have seen extended life through streaming and others are simply lost, though some are nudging their way back into the home video world once again – but will they finish? Here’s ten more shows we’d love to see find their completion somehow:
Hikaru no Go
Viz Media attempted to bring over this series about a young student who makes contact with the long dead spirit of an amazing Go player and begins his journey of discovery into the game. With a lot of support from the Go community in the US, it never translated into sales and the show finally stopped getting released after eleven volumes which amounted to forty-five out of the seventy-five episodes made. A show about Go may seem like it could be dull but it had a sports edge to it that kept it vastly entertaining. The show has found some new life on Hulu and Viz’s own anime site, though whether we’ll see episodes past what was released on DVD remains to be seen.
This series is a bit of an odd case as only so much of it was available to ADV Films to release at the time because of how the company DiC Entertainment had dealt with it under the name Knights of the Zodiac, an attempt at doing a very kid friendly dub version that aired on Cartoon Network before being dropped. ADV Films worked with the uncut version, both in dub and sub form, but their sublicense of the property only amounted to the first sixty of one hundred and fourteen episodes before it ended in one of the worst places possible and left fans unfulfilled. Not only are there many more episodes but new OVA episodes continue to be produced in Japan.
One of the launch titles from failed distributor Toei Entertainment, Air Master suffered horribly with its release on DVD in the US. Awful subtitle design, disc disc and marketing of the show led to it only getting three of its six volumes out before the company left in the middle of the night. Fans have lucked out by having Toei stream the episodes through a couple of different sites, but the show never got to finish for the fans who bought the releases. This is a title that would do pretty well even today with a release in the half season sets with a slight bit of reworking.
When your debut title as a new company fails so badly, it doesn’t give anyone confidence. Synch-Point launched in 2001 with this title being done in a very fan friendly way with multiple subtitle tracks and a lot of love. The show had its fans but whether through distribution issues, marketing or the title simply not clicking or meeting expectations, only the first three volumes made it out (with repeated delays) before Synch-Point announced putting it on hiatus so they could put out something that actually made them money. The show still has a following and some name recognition and is a title that if rescued would earn a company some credit as helping to finish out a real tragedy in the release world.
If only one thing can be said about Toei’s debut into the US scene, it is that they were definitely ambitious. Slam Dunk was a title mentioned just as often as Dragon Ball Z back in the early 90’s by fans as an amazing title and it’s true as the one hundred and one episode show about basketball draws you in hard and never lets go. Toei manage to get twenty episodes out as they were trying to figure out how to author a DVD properly before it all just up and disappeared. Similar to Air Master, it did find a home in the streaming world years later, but it is another one that deserves a proper release in order to expose it to more people. Sports anime is difficult, and this one focuses heavily on the sport and very little on the off the court real world drama of characters, making it an even harder sell for some.
Strange Dawn
While director Junichi Sato was a bit of a golden boy during the early part of the decade, riding off his Sailor Moon stint and other shows that were being picked up, Strange Dawn was the unusual one of the bunch as released by the small outfit Urban Vision. The thirteen episode series saw two volumes released with a dub that was done in Australia which left dub fans somewhat uncertain because of the accents and dialogue choices. The show itself was among the more quirky things that Sato had created and it didn’t connect well with people at a time when there was such a glut in releases that it fell under the radar.
What better way to help a title than to shift it from a bimonthly release to quarterly? That’s the approach Viz Media took here with the show about a young girl who is very sick that’s given a chance in life to become a musical sensation through magic. Pure young girl wish fulfillment material, the fifty two episode series slowed down in the late teens and twenties before simply being solicited no more after the seventh volume got it to episode twenty-eight. The series never found its audience in the glut at the time and the release schedule made it worse, adding in that the manga fans didn’t transition over to the anime that much either. Shows aimed at girls do just as well as sports shows in the US, another unfortunate thing, but this is one that was more grounded with its characters and worked better than most.
Prince of Tennis
Sports shows will always have a hard time in the US simply because a lot of anime fans just aren’t into sports. Or even if they are, well, they’d rather watch the real thing. Viz tried with one of their biggest brands and a solid seller from their manga line-up with Prince of Tennis, which ran for 178 episodes in Japan as well as a few additional things, such as a movie and even a series of musicals. Viz’s release fell quite short of this with only fifty episodes released in four box sets that were edited with new opening and closing themes that literally seemed to be done by someone’s brother. While the show was pure shounen sports fun, it couldn’t catch a break here and simply disappeared.
Kodocha was licensed with much excitement earlier in the decade by FUNimation and they managed to get the first half of the hundred and two episodes out before saying they only licensed the first half of it. The show about a hyper young girl who has a famous novelist for a mother and spends her days working in the TV entertainment industry provided for a lot of laughs and wacky comedy, but it’s age and the content itself didn’t find a large enough market to support it (and a dub). The show blended a lot of wild and weird moments with elements that were off-putting to some – such as the lead talking about her manager as her pimp and boyfriend – while the edits that were made to it caused quite a stir, though those were largely related to the music which is a big part of the show and music rights are always difficult at best. The second half of the show is unlicensed, and like Super Gals, could easily find a very hungry and excited audience out there should it find a new home.
As hard as Geneon tried, and even with some late night broadcasts on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Lupin just couldn’t cut it. The season that they worked with had 155 episodes to it and Geneon got out 79 of them across 15 DVDs over a couple of years. Lupin’s been a long time favorite of many but it’s a hard sell with its animation style and the simple fact that it is episodic, something that’s very difficult to sell well over a length of time even to die hard fans. Still, the Lupin brand has appeal, has the allure of Miyazaki working on it and has had quite a few movies make its way out here. It’s a series that needs another chance, even if it is subtitled only with larger sets at a time instead of the five episode bilingual releases that were prevalent during the Geneon run.
I was so frustrated when Saint Seiya got canned in the middle of the arc. I eagerly had bought all of the DVDs up to that time, and then… bam. Nothing!
The fact that Full Moon was cancelled is a travesty. Its one of my favorite shows of all time. And the music was incredible!
There’s also the English dub versions of Fist Of The North Star, Btooom, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’S, D-Grey-Man & The Sacred Blacksmith. I want to add Nure: Rise Of The Yokai Clan & No Game No Life but there’s really no news of a season despite it being quite a awhile from where both Animes last episodes were released….! ^_^”
Yeah it’s quite frustrating when that happen! For me it was the The English Dub of Fist Of The North Star & Saint Seitz as well! The best thing to do is watch it in another laguage with subs or read the mangas….but I love how Funimation does there Dubs the Voice Actors they usually choose are Perfect for the Character! My Personal favorites are Grant George, Eric Vale, Crispin Freeman, Yuri Lowenthal, Doug Erholtz, Matthew Mercer, Newton Pittman, Dameon Clarke, Chris Patton, Andrew Chandler, Justin Cook, Kaiji Tang, Quinton Flynn, Patrick Seitz, Travis Willingham, Steve Staley, Steve Blum, Kyle Hebert, Travis Willingham, Chuck Huber, Vic Mignogna, Greg Abbey, Sean Schemmel, Christopher Sabat, Jason Liebrecht, John Burgmeier, Jamieson Price. For Female Voice actors its: Meredith McCoy, Dorothy Fahn, Laura Bailey, Cassandra Lee Morris, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Wendee Lee, Karen Strassman, Dorothy Fahn, Cindy Robinson, Erica Schroeder, Veronica Taylor, Orion Acaba, Julie Ann Taylor, Melissa Fahn, Stephanie Sheh, Carrie Savage.for Japenese voice actors its Masakazu Morita & Junko Takeuchi. The First list makes the second list a complete joke! XD
in the states, lupin is almost a cult anime.