The Decline of Original Video Animation - A Brief History of Anime OVAs 

Kinda sad that nowadays there's no "do whatever tf you want" in anime. So many insanely creative and weird things that had no chance of airing on TV got made just because OVA existed.

No intro at all. They just jumped straight into the content. I love it!

Record of Lodoss War OVA is legendary.

The greatest achievement of OVAs is letting anime run slightly over multiples of 13 episodes.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an awesome OVA!

Honestly, I think streaming only anime like Netflix CAN be the next evolution of OVA. Hell, both Devilman Crybaby and Baki both would never have been able to air in japan due to the themes and explicit acts in them. Crybaby in particular feels like it was made to break as many taboos on japanese television as possible. (down to the intro being much more inspired by american streaming intros than japanese OPs).

I love the 80s-90's OVAs glad that my old club had a bunch of old VHS and VCDs. Those old titles pushed the boundaries of what could be shown and portrayed in a limited time and bigger budget than tv syndicated shows. Its sad that its in decline it may ran its course but I still love the history behind them.

Battle Angel Alita is probably one of the more famous OVAs due to the success of the film adaptation Alita: Battle Angel. Burn Up W is also a great OVA!

Dirty Pair Flash, Agent Aika and Tenchi Muyo are still some of my favorites.

I'm always impressed by many of the OVAs made in the 80s and 90s, some of them have theatrical-quality animation, but ever since the switch to digital ink & paint some of the charm was lost. I especially like the OVAs that continues the story of a TV anime, like the GPX Cyber Formula OVAs, there's a huge leap in animation quality

Basically, it was like straight to video/dvd. But ovas was awesome because the writers could make it more uncut then the tv show. For the ones that started out like a tv series. Sometimes the ovas wipe up the leftover storylines. They have more freedom to say & do they things they wanted to do. Without all the censorship of the TV heads getting in the way

The OVA era really helped push the Anime Medium to new heights.

My favorite OVAs (so far) are Angel Cop, Gunsmith Cats, and Getter Robo Armageddon.

I really want you to make a indepth analysis of the entire topic, OVA's defined Anime in the 90's

I would like to see a follow-up on this video that deals with Original Net Animation's rise.

Thanks for describing the history of OVAs. My favorite OVAs are Rurouni Kenshin Trust and Betrayal and Golden Boy.

Project A-ko is a classic

I'm not sure this video really dug into the decline of the OVA 😕

Oshii has had one heck of a career

Still watch all my favorite OVAs from the 80s and 90s. they are so crazy with the animation they still blow me away. was just watching Birth, such awesome animation quality.

Gundam got some amazing content thanks to OVA. One day I won’t cry during the ending of war in the pocket

Honestly, OVA's are probably some of my favourire anime and the fact that even those that are episodic in nature have a longer run time than TV anime is great. I still prefer feature length OVA movies or at least something with 2-4 hour long episodes at most but usually OVA's have higher animation quality and are more experimental which is fantastic.

Of all the crap that's happened in the modern era, OVAs no longer being a thing is probably the most tragic. Honestly, for those of us who got to experience it. A 3 part OVA that pulled ZERO punches was an unforgettable experience of violence and gore. 😎 👊🏼 😈👹 💥

I live in New Zealand there was a period in time between like 2005-2008 where we had one tv block of anime (not counting naruto) with about 3-4 series that would air in it, this was also the time where data caps where still a thing with ISP's so downloading and the streaming options werent really viable so if you liked anime your only option was to buy DVD's of series and there was only 2 retailers that stocked it. A full series would cost you between $50-$150 depending on the length of the series, if you were buying single volume releases they were around $30 each. I was a big fan of Macross Delta and since the Japanese DVD's had English subtitles I brought the whole series its wild af to me that each volume (not including shipping) cost about the same price as a full series of that many episodes would cost

I love Hellsing Ultimate OVA, and like Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu OVA

they evolved ,they became ONA

My favorites are Cyber City Oedo 808, all episodes of Gall Force, Genocyber, Original Bubblegum Crisis OVA's, Genesis Survivor Gaiarth, Angel Cop, Cybernatics Guardian and Detonator Orgun.

Oh hell yeah, AyakuWeb talking about OVAs!!!!

DVDs don’t have clearer picture quality. That is a myth. This comes from the low quality of American made tapes on mass releases. When tapes follow the Japanese standard or closer to that standard the picture is about the same as DVD but with different artifacts. DVD is capable of higher fidelity than Japanese standard VHS but was mostly unused until later in its lifespan. Even anime tapes released in the west as well as releases of movies by smaller studios had superior and sometimes much superior quality to mainstream VHS releases by large studios. An exception are the Disney animated feature releases which used a higher tape standard than a Universal Pictures live action movie release. Most companies releasing anime used higher end tapes, often customized for the OVA format, often using a white cassette over the usual black tape cartridges. Another big issue is VCRs displaying poor picture and sound over time when not cleaned or maintained properly, then attributing that quality to the tapes. A lot of the infamous distortion in picture and sound is not from the tape but the VCR! Some of it is from the tape especially when not stored properly, but even then most tapes can be reset to mostly good quality with a full play through and rewind. Also keep in mind CRT TVs give a more flattering picture (even with modern digital sources) which is the same phenomena with projectors. If you project a VHS tape with a modern projector setup for home they still can look great, because it’s an analog output style like CRTs.

Older ovas are so good. There was so much crearive freedom and there was a lot of artistic ambition back then.

In the summer of 2018, I spent it watching the English dubs of the Ambassador Magma and Giant Robo OVAs as well as rewatching the Sonic The Hedgehog OVA. Aside from Sonic, I don't know if you all know who Ambassador Magma or Giant Robo is. Basically these two 90s anime were adaptations of tokusatsu shows from the 1960s which were based on manga. Ambassador Magma (Magma Taishi in Japanese or The Space Giants in early localization) was created by Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka. The live action versions from the 60s were basically about taking more liberties on being more like Ultraman or Godzilla where the title robot characters would fight off kaiju. The 90s OVA is more faithful to the original manga where it's more of just a mech anime with some science-fiction and philosophical themes. There used to be a channel literally called Classic Anime where you can watch old OVAs in English. It was where I saw these shows. But it's since been taken off. Now only the subtitled versions are available. I prefer dub because it's easier for me to enjoy.

Ecchi anime like Maken-Ki get some insanely beautiful OVA episodes.

Samurai X and Hellsing Ultimate are really good OVA’s

my husband loves Area 88 Eria Hachijiyuhachi

I loved the Gundam OVA’s War In The Pocket & 8th MS Team. Not being on tv let them really show blood my and horrible war can be. Also Goku: Midnight Eye kicks ass!

Currently my fav ovas gunsmith cats and Exdrivers

nice topic keep it up!

I loved this video

Dallos! Freaking amazing!

Most of the manga entertainment releases were good to great. Project A-ko was funny af. Especially the fist of the north star girl.

2:24 That's Kimagure Orange Road. There's no way I would miss that. It's my favorite romance anime/manga of all time.

Gunbuster & Diebuster. Despite the different titles, they really are two halves of the same epic story, and they will always have a special place in my heart. 💜

The golden age of OVAs was during the bubble economy. It was a time where Japan had money to burn and animators went wild. Some OVAs had near theatrical quality or were sold in America as movies. It was stuff like this that you would find in some dark corner of a video rental and beg your parents to rent. Just pray they don't want to watch it with you. Or sometimes its cool. Modern anime is pretty uniform. For better or worse, it has blurred the lines between theatrical, tv, ova, and ona. Most modern TV series are treated like ovas of old by having comparable animation quality and even having a similar number of episodes, about 13, as a high quality ova like Lodoss War.

Never was a big anime fan but i loved so many OVAs Blue Sub is by far number 1. Also here in Japan I was finally able to get Flag years ago on Bluray but it's already now ll up on youtube.

Golden Boy is peak anime

@2:01 still cliffhanging? And Giant Robo fans thought they had it bad...

It's ok we still got those "Anime" OVA If you get what I mean

The only OVA I think I ever saw was this one called “Galerians:Rion!”

Does that technically make VeggieTales an original video animation or not because that became a series?

The only OVA (no TV series,just OVA) anime I've watched is Denpa Teki na Kanojo.

Bubblegum Crisis forever!

DVD = digital VERSATILE disc

"Broadcast," not "broadcasted."

Hmmm.... I use to believe that OVA where 1 to 3 spin-off episodes after the main episodes ended and most of the time has nothing to do with to main story and if they do it would be to fill in a few plot holes. Anything before the Official show would be considered a pilot.

I think you can make an argument that streaming platform exclusives are the equivalent of OVAs so things are not too dire, but yeah we’re never gonna see anything quite like the Memories OVA or the countless weird examples brought up in this vid and comments again

The Black Jack OVAs

Ahhh 1980’s was the bubble economy and then the pop, 1,000¥ was NOT even alittle bit $10 there, like not even alittle, there is a thing called inflation.

Dragoon OVA

Frequently I dream that I find a bunch of lost VHS and Laserdiscs in some random warehouse. I sometimes dream of translating some obscure OVA from the 1980s. I have no idea why that happenned.

5:36-5:40 Rozen Maiden jumpscare (in a good way) I have never see this ad before, I wonder how did you find it.

Ilse's Notebook

The claims of OVA, not being shown theatrically is not exactly true. Megazone 23 was one of the early OVA, which actually got a theatrical screening, I even own ticket stubs from its showing

I love the Alien Nine OVA! It's too bad they ran out of money.

I wouldn't have bought those dvds 😂 $90 for three or four episodes

Comment for the algorithm.

It's a crying shame

most of fav animes are OVA.

A lot of OVAs in Japan were made by game companies. Look for them. Salamander on the NES has an anime. And so does Kendo Rage on the SNES. As does Ninja Gaiden (Ryukenden). They exist. It's just a shame America had no interest in them.

Doomed Megalopolis!

at least attack on titan got some.

I disagree it just evolved you can find stuff on youtube im about to make my own

AIKaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Iczer 1

Tezuka's own animation production substandard, downright awful stuff.

Sometimes that's what actually cause s the downfall. We can't just do ah we want and automatically expect others to accept it let alone love. Not only that but so of those things can turn out to be crap! Just take a look at Disney and Warner Bros and other Western Media. That and well politics and agendas, but let's face it we shouldn't be surprised! Another reason is that They also like to just reuse the same old clichés over and over again! Enough Hypocritical Bitchy Control Freak Tsunderes and Dense Doormat MCs!

tenchi muyo isn't popular, barely anyone remembers it.