Gaga Communications - 1988 Trailer - Fandora, Scooper etc

[Area88]

In 1987 a Japanese theatrical and TV marketing company called Gaga Communications decided to try and break the US market by licensing and approaching a number of companies in the US which could be interested in aquiring the cutting edge animated shows from Japan. They put together a 37 minute reel of trailers with English subtitles for the dialogue and American voice narration for a brief synopsis of each OVA's plot.

Their motivation in 1987 was to branch out and tap into a potentially large gap in the overseas market by being the first company to truly release Japanese shows in their original form with English subtitles. If OVA's were big sellers in Japan then their belief was that with the right support and marketing, companies would be able to sublicence from Gaga to generate a decent profitable business outlet to accomodate the small but growing number of fans in the US.

In order to make a lot of titles seem more import friendly to the American market, Gaga decided to rename alot of the title original names. Here is a list of the anime featured in the trailer including the renamed titles in brackets. All anime are listed in the order the appear first:

Crystal Triangle

Project A-ko - (SuperNova)

They Were Eleven - (Star Odyssey)

Yotoden - (Blade of the Ninja)

Nayuta - (Aura)

Roots Search - (Alien X)

Metal Skin Panic Madox 01 - (City of Steel)

Dream Dimensional Hunter Fandora

Bubblegum Crisis - (FutureScape)

Scoopers

Humanoid - (Metallica)

MD Geist - (Thunder Warrior)

Maps 1987 - (Star Quest)

Circuit Angel - (Thunder Road)

Anyway enough of a history lession, it's time to watch this lost gem dug up from the 80's. Even the illustrious wikipedia and internet groups fail to bring none if any information regarding this rarity. Anyway at 400mb this file is more than worth putting the effort in to downloading:

Click Here to Download - Gaga Communications Trailer (1988)

Stayed Tuned - More Rare and Unlicensed 80's Anime Classics Coming Soon...

Edited July 21, 2007 by Area88

[danth]

Whoa, awesome. That's the first I've ever seen of some of those shows.

[Area88]

Whoa, awesome. That's the first I've ever seen of some of those shows.

Same here, i'm so happy i found this since it's the first time i've been able to actually watch footage for OVA's i've been desperate to see. Watching footage for stuff like Scoopers, Maps and Fandora have made me more enthusiastic about seeing them than ever. My pick of the bunch has to be Scoopers though, it really does look like one fabulous rollercoaster of a ride (literally). The character designs are really cute and the most important aspect of the show is the characters are adults.

Humanoid, Project A-ko, They Were Eleven, Bubblegum Crisis Yotoden are all available uncut on DVD. Although MD Geist is on dvd too, it's the director's cut which has been reanimated in certain places and some scenes have been changed/tweaked, i recommend fans pick up the original vhs release as seen below:

Roots Search and Crystal Triangle are available on VHS too in Japanese with English Subtitles.

Fandora has been released in a very limited dubbed only by Hiromasa Shibazaki in hopes of starting a commercial anime video market in the United States by mail order from Japan during the 80's but failed due to the lack of advertising, high price point and too few established fans in America at the time. Your chances of finding this are very small but neither should you particularly be encouraged to look since those who have seen it swear it to be notoriously bad.

Scoopers, Maps (1987 original), Nayuta and Circuit Angel have unfortunately never been released in the US in any form. Overall i would say everything featured in this list is pretty much worth watching at least once especially the curious 80's fan.

[danth]

Watching the video has convinced me that I need to pick up Yotoden, and maybe MD Geist.

[Noriko Takaya]

While not an anime, don't forget about Keita Amemiya's film Zeiram. Media Blasters has re-released the film under their Tokyo Shock label and there is finally a subtitled version. The crappy dubbed version from before is still there though.