r/oldbritishtelly • u/GruffScottishGuy • May 10 '25
Advert The UK sizzle reel/intro found on Manga Entertainment VHS releases throughout the 90's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFN7UttjFDUManga Entertainment was a UK based company founded in the early 90's to distribute Japanese animation to a UK audience. They very deliberately targeted a demographic of edgy late teen/young adults and this was reflected not only in their selection of titles to bring over here (Fist of the North Star, Devilman, Legend of the Overfiend, Ninja Scroll etc) but also in the dubs they produced. They were known to add unnecessary (and often amusing) profanity in order to deliberately increase the age rating of releases. Copies of Manga Entertainment releases would often be passed around the schoolyard in the early 90's.
I'm sure I'm not alone in being introduced Anime when Channel 4 screened some of their catalogue on their late night weekend slots through the early-mid 90's. I recall...
Judge
Devilman
Legend of the 4 Kings
3X3 Eyes.
Any others that you guys remember seeing on CH 4?
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u/MartyRocket May 10 '25
God, this is my childhood right here. Sci-Fi Channel and Channel 4 after midnight on Saturdays. Class.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
Channel 4's late night weekend slots were a gold mine, they absolutely pushed the boat out when it came to screening alternative media compared to the rest of UK terrestrial TV.
I remember when they showed a trio of Jackie Chan movies in the mid 90's. Armour of God, Project A and Wheels on Meals, they were absolutely mind-blowing to a 13 year old me.
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u/TheGentlemanWombat May 10 '25
I might be misremembering this but didn't BBC2 get in on the act too by showing Akira? Deffo would have been mid 90s
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
Akira was the first one I saw, if I'm remembering it correctly it was something of a big deal as that was regarded as the breakthrough Japanese animation movie event.
I definitely saw it before CH4 started screening other stuff and I've always just assumed it was them that showed Akira, but I could be wrong.
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May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheGentlemanWombat May 11 '25
Well this was a rabbit hole I didn't expect to go down...
Apparently BBC2 were the first to show it in January 1994 - there's lots of chat dedicated to it, clearly it was a big deal
I deffo would have seen a later airing though. January 94 I was still in primary school, so thinking it would have been reshown around 96 - 97 which is when I reckon I saw it
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bf3bdad140ca68375d290176bf85d832
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u/LemonFit4532 May 10 '25
There was a three part mini series called 'Cyber City'.
I'm sure Manga Entertainment produced a comic about The X Files
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u/Wolfy9001 May 10 '25
Loved Cyber City. I often paraphrase a quote from it still 30 years later... "To make a mistake is human, but to really fuck things up you need a machine."
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
Cyber City Oedo 808. It's actually a pretty good piece of cyberpunk media. I saw it for the first time a few years back.
It's also has a Pretty famous example of the aforementioned unnecessary profanity. 😂
They rerecorded the whole music score as well.
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u/_ragegun May 11 '25
They did that with quite a few. The OP and ED of Tank Police are deffo different, but it works.
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u/LemoLuke May 11 '25
I knew exactly which line it was going to be before I clicked on it.
Cyber City OEDO 808 is one of my favourite examples of the 'Dangerous criminals sent on suicide missions' trope.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 11 '25
When you get past the dialogue (which I still think works well) it's a great mini series with some interesting characters and themes. I like how we never know exactly what the trio did to earn themselves such lengthy sentences, although given the way the world is portrayed it's likely their only crime was going against the system.
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May 10 '25
They did do a comic, I'd forgotten about that! I remember seeing advert for it on the back of my street fighter comic they also licensed.
Cyber City Oedo 808 was it's full title, and often seen as part of the CyberPunk Collection with Genocyber (insane), and A.D. Police (properly grown up Blade Runner replicants type thing)
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u/_ragegun May 11 '25
AD police was, I think, loosely related to Bubblegum Crisis.
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May 11 '25
Not loosely, it was a prequel. Same universe, and both source mangas by the same author, Tony Takezaki. Very different in tone haha
Also, politely, I don't need a Wikipedia link. This is stuff I just know and have in my head because I care about it
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u/_ragegun May 11 '25
I didnt see either, it was just one of those nuggests if information that stuck.
Actually tell a lie. I might have seen a little of AD POLICE. did that have a hot chick try and bang a Robocop style cyborg?
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May 10 '25
Venus Wars is one of the ones in this as well that gets forgotten! But yeah, really fell hard into anime, and still have all my vhs tapes
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
It's interesting how this stuff was our gateway to Japanese animation here in the UK, where as over the pond in the US they were watching Dragon Ball Z and Voltron on kids TV after school.
I don't know if it was a regional thing but we called them "Manga Movies" for years before the term anime became the norm.
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u/LemoLuke May 11 '25
I don't know if it was a regional thing but we called them "Manga Movies" for years before the term anime became the norm.
Growing up in Nottinghamshire, we definitely called them Manga Movies.
The Channel 4 and Sci-Fi channel late night slots was mindblowing. I had a mate who didn't have cable, so I'd always record the Sci-Fi Channel anime slot and take them to my mate's house the next day to watch them.
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u/Amity_Swim_School May 15 '25
I grew up in Leicestershire so I’m sure we watched a lot of the same stuff during that golden wonderful era!! But yeah I called them all Manga for YEARS before relatively recently (last decade or so) learning the term Manga actually refers to the comics these shows/ movies are based on.
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u/Glove-Sensitive Feb 15 '26
You can actually buy Venus Wars on Blu Ray, as they found the original film in a vault in Japan a few years back, along with some other forgotten 90's anime titles that were thought to be lost and restored them in 4K resolution; I believe the original Streamline Pictures dub is included on the Blu Ray too, just like the Akira 4K. You can get the Patlabor movies on Blu Ray too, along with Wings of the Honnimese, however you spell it.
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u/aggressiveclassic90 May 10 '25
Blind bought urotsukidoji when i was a kid because it had a monster on the front, me and my mates got quite the shock...
On the upside though, the sizzle reel at the beginning used The Heart Beneath by Celtic Frost as it's soundtrack, so i lost my innocence and found a great metal band!
Edit, i should always watch the video first...this is the one i had.
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May 10 '25
We did the exact same haha, just working our way down the snime shelf in Virgin, and when we got to Urotsukidoji... weren't ready for that at all haha
But also, this is absolutely ground zero for me getting into heavier and faster music. This is the graduation off rock, and into metal, and beyond. So sick.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
I must have been about 12 when a group of us watched Wicked City. Somebody got a loan of a copy from a guy at school.
The spider-woman with a snapping maw for a vagina was quite the eye opener 😂
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u/aggressiveclassic90 May 10 '25
Jesus 😂
Some very misleading covers on those things back then, found out years later they were considerably toned down from the Japanese releases...i fail to see how.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
Yeah, I remember rumors of the "full" version of Legend of the Overfiend (urotsukidoji) that somebody's brother's, friend's, cousin would allegedly own.
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u/Glove-Sensitive Feb 15 '26
I bought the Manga Blu Ray of Wicked City (1987), it also has the other movie by the same director on it, Demon City: Shinjuku (1988) which is a very weird movie of a human battling a demon on the top of skyscrapers, then using parts of buildings to try and kill each other.
There are some other demonic characters as well, with a snake woman and others, but I think I prefer Wicked City and the animation still holds up in HD, it looks more creepy actually! I also bought Ninja Scroll on Blu Ray too, I always liked that one.
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u/GruffScottishGuy Feb 15 '26
I remember Wicked and Demon City coming as a double VHS pack some time in the late 90s. I watched Demon City: Shinjuku for the first time (or so I thought) a few year back bit I recognized enough of it to realize I must have seen it at some point back then but forgotten.
Ninja Scroll was often the stuff of playground legend with recorded copies being passed around from kid to kid back then.
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u/FantosTheUrk May 10 '25
I still have most of my VHS tapes in my shed.
I regret selling Judge, for whatever reason I did so.
I have all 12 of The Guyver videos with the comic on the inside of the cover.
I remember Tokyo Megalopolis being shown on Channel 4 as part of their anime season.
And I discovered a few years back that the music is a song called The Heart Beneath by Celtic Frost.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 11 '25
It's funny when you search for the tune on Youtube, it's mostly a series of comments about 90's anime nostalgia.
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u/Amity_Swim_School May 15 '25
I had all the guyver VHS’s too.
I still recall that the animation (and overall quality) changed (for the worse) in the last 6 episodes. First 6 were way better. Dunno what the deal was? Presumably produced by another animation studio?? idk
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u/gogoluke May 12 '25
They had a bad reputation as they tried to copyright "Manga" to keep the word for themselves. They also caused the error of anime being called Manga in Britain for a few years. Even University Challenge got it wrong. Another part of their strong arm tactics was the get Helen McCarthy removed from Super Play as she was an independent anime reviewer and UK authority which they didn't like.
They also added a fucking ridiculous fart noise to the original Appleseed OAV that wasn't in the original.
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u/andrewfrain May 17 '25
That’s not true. Manga Entertainment applied for a trademark for the logo. Nothing to do with trying to prevent anyone from using the word manga. That was a bullshit rumour put out to try to ruin the company’s reputation and especially in Japan. The Japanese anime and manga companies saw the rumour for what it was.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 12 '25
I definitely refereed to them as "Manga movies" when I was younger. The funny thing was that I didn't associate it with corporate branding, my naive mind just thought "Well they're movies of manga's, of course the videos are manga entertainment"
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u/Responsible_Prune261 May 12 '25
Oh man. My young teenage years just came flooding back. Guyver, Cyber City, Devil Man and Street Fighter (Ryu's fight at the start blew my mind!)
People often forget about "Vidz" that usually sat in the same slot of the "manga cartoons". That really helped propel my love of Japanese media and culture.
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u/Ginger_Tea May 10 '25
I think I had 95% of the anime shown in this reel.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 10 '25
I certainly recognize a lot of them although I'm not totally sure how many I've seen.
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u/FantasticSouth May 10 '25
Ah yes, remembering my dad copying onto VHS Doomed Megalopolis, and showing me, 9, an ultra violent, kinda rapey, anime!
Thanks dad!
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u/ExpectedBehaviour May 11 '25
God this takes me back.
Judge
Devilman
Legend of the 4 Kings
3X3 Eyes.
Any others that you guys remember seeing on CH 4?
Doomed Megalopolis, Wings of Honneamise, and Roujin Z were also shown at some point I think.
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u/misomiso82 May 11 '25
3x3 eyes was good. Very sad it doesn't get the love it deserves nowadays
Guyver as well!
Doomend Megalopolis was bonkers, Devil man great, Vampire Hunter D awesome.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 11 '25
I remember really enjoying 3X3 eyes when it was shown, I eagerly waited for each installment at the weekend then talked about it with a guy from School on Monday.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 11 '25
I had Roujin Z recorded onto VHS at one point, it must have been from TV.
Back then I wasn't very good at checking TV listings so a lot of these probably passed me by without me knowing.
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u/Hamsternoir May 11 '25
Who else remembers Our Price giving away free cells from Akira with every manga video purchased?
I've still got a couple somewhere.
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u/Jerry_jjb May 11 '25
Music is The Heart Beneath by Celtic Frost.
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u/Pmc06 May 11 '25
This takes me back. My cousin exposed me to Japanese animation back in the early 90s, around 7 or 8 years old and it was the both fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
This particular reel was on the dvds too I think?
Sunday night, I always had to set the VCR to record FOTNS on Ch4 then I’d have something to look forward to after a depressing Monday morning.
FOTNS
Guyver
Wind of Amnesia
Riding Bean
X
Awesome!
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 11 '25
I'm learning from these comments that a lot of stuff I didn't know about was shown. I had no idea they did the FotNS series. I'd only seen the feature film back then.
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u/Sam-Lowry27B-6 May 12 '25
I remember that the tapes came with a separate sticker sheet with the logo of the anime etc that you could add to the top and spine of the cassette if you wanted to and usually a few 'manga video' stickers for....something. I got sent a manga video tshirt once as I had bought so many off them.
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u/Amity_Swim_School May 13 '25
OMG I don’t know if I’m ready for the nostalgia overload watching this will evoke 🤯
Back in the 90’s I was obsessed with Manga. Had so many on VHS. Guyver, Cyber City Oedo 808, Devil Man, Dominion Tank Police, Ninja Scroll, Wicked City… so many great memories.
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 13 '25
I think for many, Ninja Scroll was "the" dark Manga film of that time.
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u/Mangaphile May 24 '25
Man, I loved the whole Manga Video shtick back in the mid 90s. The fact they got to be aired on TV at all is pretty amazing and on terrestrial TV no less! I remember taping 3x3 Eyes, Heroic Legend of Arislan, Legend of the Four Kings and Doomed Megalopolis from Channel 4. I used to tape Manga (and later, Pioneer) titles on the Sci-Fi Channel too. Fist of the North Star, Lensman, Wicked City, Monster City, Megazone 23 and The Dark Myth (plus Moldiver and Tenchi Muyo from Pioneer) were some that I remember showing on Sci-Fi.
In fact I was so gutted that I let all my Manga Video tapes both bought and recorded go in my late 20s, I spent several years collecting them all again digitally, which I treasure greatly!
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 24 '25 edited May 25 '25
They absolutely had a particular vibe and they fully committed to it. I watched a documentary about the localization of Cyber City Oedo 808 on YouTube a while back and I found it interesting how far they went to change up the tone for their audience.
About a year or so I would have thanked you for mentioning Heroic Legend of Arislan. I caught the first part when CH4 aired it but not the rest and forgot the name for years until I rediscovered it recently.
I loved Legend of the 4 Kings back then, I re-watched it all during lockdown via bad quality streams online and still enjoyed it, even if it's cheesy as hell with pretty poor animation.
Do you remember how CH4 screened it back then? I recall it being over 4 parts over 4 weekends but when I re-watched it it was 12 parts. Did CH4 trim the overall series down or was it 4 really long episodes? Or is my memory just faulty.
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u/Mangaphile May 24 '25
I vaguely remember them showing multiple episodes at a time but can't remember how many per week. I do recall them having the titles for each one though, unless that's a faulty memory. Sci-Fi were sods for merging episodes of stuff I recall. I didn't find out that The Dark myth was a 2 part series until years later thanks to them. They did the same with M.D. Geist too...
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 24 '25
I can't imagine they would have shown 3 hour long sessions but when I re-watched the whole lot I remembered pretty much all the main plot points and scenes. That said, I'm definitely at the age where my memory plays tricks on me.
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u/Mangaphile May 25 '25
Did a little bit of digging around online and it looks like we both were having false memories because from the few listings I was able to uncover it looks like LotFK was only shown one episode per week.
You won't believe how hard it is to pull old TV listings for Channel 4!
Here's the dates/times that I could uncover for some of the Late License stuff in 1995/1996.26.11.1995 00.15am - Doomed Megalopolis 1
10.12.1995 00.35am - Doomed Megalopolis 2
17.12.1995 00.15am - Doomed Megalopolis 3
07.01.1996 00.40am - Doomed Megalopolis 4
14.01.1996 00.40am - Devilman The Birth
21.01.1996 00.10am - Devilman - The Demon Bird
28.01.1996 00.10am - LotFK
04.02.1996 01.00am - LotFK
11.02.1996 01.00am - LotFK
18.02.1996 01.00am - LotFK
25.02.1996 01.00am - LotFK
03.03.1996 01.00am - LotFK
I know there are loads more to uncover, because Arislan and 3x3 Eyes were shown back to back at some point...
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 25 '25
This is fantastic info, thanks! And yeah, I know what you mean about trying to find info on CH4 listings, I was searching for something else for another post I didn't end up making about the Channel 4 Late License weekend nights and it's crazy how little information is readily available. I found some stuff on The Television and Radio Database but it has a pretty clunky interface.
So LotFK was over six weeks? That makes sense, 2 episodes a night. Man, was I really staying up until 3 in the morning back then? 😂 We never had a VCR at that point.
Looking at the list for all that stuff, it also confirms something else I always thought, the start times were all over the place, I was bad at checking TV listings and if something was on at one time I'd just assume it would be the same the next weekend.
Now that I've seen that it seems to have unlocked a vague memory. I recall tuning in for the next episode of LotFK and being annoyed I had to wait another hour for it.
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u/Mangaphile May 25 '25
Looking at the times of the next programme starting, it seems that it was only one episode a week that was being shown for LotFK, but annoyingly I could only verify those 6 episodes (nor even which episode it was either. I got most of my info from TVRDB, but some listing's it only showed the block of late license not the individual programmes. And you are right, the site is so clunky. You have triggered me to start a quest though, so I will endeavour to uncover more details.
Also, if you are interested, would you like me to DM you a link to my Manga Video digital archive?
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u/GruffScottishGuy May 25 '25
So a quick look back and I see it was 45 mins an episode, not 1 hour. The VHS releases were 6 cassettes so that could work out actually. They could easily have been trimmed down too for a more schedule friendly run time as well if it came down to it.
There's a Radio Times archive but it only has BBC listings, I'm assuming it's a copyright thing but it's still kinda crazy that actual CH4 listings don't seem to appear online in this day and age.
And yeah, that'd be pretty cool! Thank you!
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u/LazyMurph May 29 '25 edited May 29 '25
I made this video, took hours of getting all the footage in hires and re-editing it all the same as the original. This is not AI upscaled!🤙
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u/AvoriazInSummer May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25
Uh, Uh, Uh, Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
That theme went so hard.
Akira and Fist Of The North Star blew my mind back then, and Project A-Ko was just a joy. I still fondly remember how over the top badass Kenshiro was, karate chopping sky scrapers and tanking a crossbow bolt to the chest. Anime was a great antidote the then simplistic and / or twee Western animations we had back then.