I recently saw Anime Ltd announce that they were going to be releasing Hideaki Anno‘s OVA classic, Gunbuster. When they finally set up preorders, I hurriedly checked to see what I would be getting if I picked it up. When I checked what the contents on the disc would be, my heart sank. All that’s on the disc are the six episodes with both English and Japanese audio. While the package itself was still worth it enough that I ended up preordering anyway, it also reminded me of all the times that I’ve looked at an Anime Ltd product, saw it had little to no extras, and passed on it. Therefore, I thought it’d be interesting to discuss Anime Ltd, their lack of on-disc extras in their releases and why this is a problem for me.
For those of you unfamiliar with Anime Ltd, they are a distributor of anime in the UK and Ireland and I distinctly remember when the formation of the company was announced. They proudly and boldly declared that their goal was to become the “Criterion of Anime“. Anyone familiar with the quality of Criterion releases will know that this is quite the statement. Over the years, we’ve seen some good, even great, releases from Anime Ltd but, beyond my criticism that they focus too much on recent anime rather than releasing classic anime TV and films, I find myself increasingly disappointed by their lack of on-disc extras.
The reason that I specifically state a lack of “on-disc extras” is that many Anime Ltd releases do feature quite a bit of physical content. Some nice packaging, an art book, art cards (which I don’t really care for) etc. While these can be very nice, my personal favourite being a considerable 128 page book written by Jonathan Clements called “Sacred Sailors: The Life and Works of Seo Mitsuyo” in the release of Momotaro: Sacred Sailors, this doesn’t come close to replacing on-disc extras for me.
While not all on-disc extras are made equal, I’ve seen plenty of pointless filler in my lifetime, I’ve watched many amazing behind-the-scenes footage, incredible deleted scenes, fantastic explanations of special effects and makeup and, my favourite of all, commentaries and a booklet simply can’t replace this. I certainly do appreciate meaningful physical extras but, just like many things in life, a mix is usually better and I believe that they should be supplemented by on-disc extras.
Now some may be wondering why I’m holding Anime Ltd to such a high standard. It’s become rather notorious how dire on-disc extras are when it comes to anime with many simply choosing to include a textless opening and closing. However, I would argue that Anime Ltd set this standard themselves when they compared themselves to Criterion. While not all anime necessarily have a wealth of extra content to include, titles such as Gunbuster which have proven to be influential within the anime industry or having contributed greatly to the rise of an anime legend should certainly contain at least some level of meaningful on-disc extras examining how it was made, the impact that it had and any other interesting tidbits. Even a cursory glance at the Japanese release of Gunbuster shows a variety of extras that, for whatever reason, we’re not getting.
I do admire Anime Ltd and have had the wonderful opportunity to watch many fantastic series and films that they’ve released. However, that does not mean that they are protected from criticism and I’ve often found myself looking at a series or film, then at the price tag and saying “This costs too much for too little content.” and passing on it. Even if there were only a couple of good on-disc extras, I’d suspect that I’d be picking up quite a bit more of their releases. Let me know your thoughts on Anime Ltd and their lack of on-disc extras, if you want on-disc extras and, if you do, which ones, what you think about their releases in general, whether you think Anime Ltd have achieved their goal of becoming the “Criterion of Anime” or if, like me, you believe them to have fallen short and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!