Once upon a time, compilations were a common method for getting anime over to other countries. In the United States, Jim Terry Productions brought together five anime (Getter Robo G, Grendizer, Starzinger, Danguard A, Gaiking) and put them all under the “Force Five” label, showing a different anime every week so that kids could choose what days to tune in. Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries saw a compilation movie release of Daimos under the title “Starbirds.” Many of the now-defunct Central Park Media’s OVA material were actually short OVAs joined together into attempts at single cohesive movies. At that time, getting anime to viewers was no easy task, and whether it was adding on new, previously unrelated episodes to fit a broadcast standard, or chopping away at an episode count to make a long series marketable, steps often had to be taken to “adapt” an anime for the foreign audience.

That spirit seems alive and well again now that William Winckler Productions, in association with Toei Animation, has stepped in to dub a whole slew of Toei shows. The titles on the list so far are Gaiking, Danguard A, Captain Harlock, Ashita no Nadja, Fist of the North Star, Starzinger, Lun Lun the Flower Girl, and GeGeGe no Kitaro, with each show to be released in multiple digestible movie compilations. Some names have been changed, such as Kitaro being now known as Kitaro’s Graveyard Gang.

It’s both obvious and confusing why this is being done. On the one hand, most if not all of these shows are not ones that could survive in today’s market if they were released in full. The shows are too long and the animation too old for many current anime fans, so releasing them in standard form would likely mean failure (though perhaps the Force Five titles could do well on their own if they could capture the same nostalgia that makes Voltron such a big seller for Media Blasters). On the other hand, with series such as Captain Harlock and Fist of the North Star already being streamed on various sites, so it’s odd that they would choose to re-release those shows in an abridged format as well. My suspicion is that Toei is experimenting with different formats in order to find something that can actually be sellable in the US, seeing as how streaming video still isn’t exactly an immediately profitable marketing technique. Compared to the Toei of old and its subpar DVD releases of shows such as Airmaster and Slam Dunk, this level of focus seems like a good thing.

Who knows, maybe this is how Pretty Cure can find its way into the US? The full TV series already found a home in Canada, so it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.