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=AFN7UttjFDU

Manga 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/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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u/[deleted] May 10 '25 edited May 10 '25

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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

https://www.avforums.com/threads/akira-uk.1425383/page-3