50 best OVA's in Anime
The OVA ("Original Video Animation") is a pretty uniquely Japanese phenomenon, where animators would make, sell, and completely control their own product, without the kind of compromises and censorship required for TV or theatrical release. And then sell direct to the consumer, on home-video formats.
The 80's VHS boom saw amateur or low-level animators making their own videos using whatever equipment they could scrounge together, borrow, or use at uni or after hours at work. And then selling the tapes themselves, direct to stores, via mail-order, at conventions, or direct to consumers, not unlike the "mixtape" phenomena of the 80s/90s/00s hiphop, or the "DIY" approach of punk rock in the 70s and 80s, with many of the artists creating OVAs being college students, or sometimes even high-school kids.
Some OVAs follow a 'Movie'-ish format; A single, uninterrupted story maybe 40 to 100 minutes long. Sometimes it's 4 to 12 TV-style 23min episodes of a single series. Or less often, just a collection of loosely-connected or unrelated shorts
So, while especially older OVAs are less polished than movies or TV, they're also often more innovative, unique, and raw. The low barrier to entry meant animators could just do whatever the individual, or a small team thought was cool, rather than what studio execs or TV producers thought would sell cinema tickets/ad spots. Which meant a lot of horror, bizarre, surreal imagery, and often a very personal, unique vision from the animators.
[Many OVAs are incorrectly catagorized by IMdB as "TV series/mini-series", (or even "Movies") instead of "video", because AFTER the original OVA release became popular, TV channels picked them up for broadcast (a few, like Fooly Cooly or Bubblegum Crisis, even made it onto Western broadcast TV). But (AFAIK) everything on this list was FIRST released on some home-video format; Usually VHS or DVD, but also sometimes Betamax, Laserdisc, etc]
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50 Best Anime TV Series, Pre-2001
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566865122
Best Anime TV Series, Post-2000 list
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566867873
Best Anime Movies list
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566862986
The 80's VHS boom saw amateur or low-level animators making their own videos using whatever equipment they could scrounge together, borrow, or use at uni or after hours at work. And then selling the tapes themselves, direct to stores, via mail-order, at conventions, or direct to consumers, not unlike the "mixtape" phenomena of the 80s/90s/00s hiphop, or the "DIY" approach of punk rock in the 70s and 80s, with many of the artists creating OVAs being college students, or sometimes even high-school kids.
Some OVAs follow a 'Movie'-ish format; A single, uninterrupted story maybe 40 to 100 minutes long. Sometimes it's 4 to 12 TV-style 23min episodes of a single series. Or less often, just a collection of loosely-connected or unrelated shorts
So, while especially older OVAs are less polished than movies or TV, they're also often more innovative, unique, and raw. The low barrier to entry meant animators could just do whatever the individual, or a small team thought was cool, rather than what studio execs or TV producers thought would sell cinema tickets/ad spots. Which meant a lot of horror, bizarre, surreal imagery, and often a very personal, unique vision from the animators.
[Many OVAs are incorrectly catagorized by IMdB as "TV series/mini-series", (or even "Movies") instead of "video", because AFTER the original OVA release became popular, TV channels picked them up for broadcast (a few, like Fooly Cooly or Bubblegum Crisis, even made it onto Western broadcast TV). But (AFAIK) everything on this list was FIRST released on some home-video format; Usually VHS or DVD, but also sometimes Betamax, Laserdisc, etc]
==========================================
50 Best Anime TV Series, Pre-2001
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566865122
Best Anime TV Series, Post-2000 list
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566867873
Best Anime Movies list
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566862986
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