Can we PLEASE find some Anime lost media!?!?

Ok yeah I'll get right on that for you.

@AniMarter Yeah good luck with that https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Lost_Anime

@tchitchouan Don't worry I'm getting right on it.

No, that ain't happening, anime is produced in japan and if this were ever to happen, it would be in japan. So your queries shouldn't be here, it should be in Japanese forums. Anime is not like film cinema or games, the reels are often either destroyed or hidden forever, also finding and releasing any lost anime against the original companies' consent is a crime that is punishable by japanese law, copyrighted works are subeject to extreme regulations and if the publisher does not wish for it to be published, it will remain hidden forever.

1. The lost copies are probably hidden or destroyed in japan
2. The anime medium isn't important enough to warrant such a search
3. Extreme legal and logistic hurdles may be encountered if one wishes to engages in a lost media hunt (you can't just go a company vault and ask for production reels and stills, those are closely guarded trade secrets)

Ok yeah I'll get right on that for you.

We can't find anime lost media anymore, because of woke.

@tchitchouan you do realize all lost media is usually copyrighted right? It's not just anime, and it's not like Japan is much stricter. I mean mei and the catbus is publicly available on the Internet archive and that's Ghibli ... One of the strictest anime studios? It's not that copyright laws are the issue, the issue is nobody is actually looking for lost anime media

That would require two things:
1. The lost media community at large would have to learn about the existence of more anime lost media.
2. There needs to be some kind of sufficient evidence that the lost media in question is out there somewhere. There's no point in searching for something if there are little to no leads, or if whatever leads do exist all exclusively lead to dead ends.

The Phantom Blood search is still ongoing because progress was made towards finding it, even if it's still currently lost, and it was started in the first place because David Productions' anime adaptation propelled JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to mainstream status in the west.

@JackOfDeath No, the real issue is lost media is locked away or hidden somewhere and it's hard to get access to to it due to various reasons preventing it.

@JackOfDeath No, the real issue is lost media is locked away or hidden somewhere and it's hard to get access to to it due to various reasons preventing it.

@tchitchouan What about hardcore, serious collectors with deep pockets? That sounds like another place to look through maybe.
Just an idea though, I dunno.

@JackOfDeath japanese people have better things to do than look for some lost anime.

It has been a major source of frustration for me for a while, believe me. I'd love an opportunity to watch series like this:


https://xss.now.cc/anime/7625/Yousei_Dick

There are also many series which are not strictly speaking lost media but have been sitting planted on my PTW for years regardless, on there since close to when I first joined MAL, due to being only partially or completely untranslated for English (no English subtitling) and prior and existing fansubbing groups seemingly having no interest or plans for them in the foreseeable future despite them being out for years and decades. It's a terrible thing. The quantity and variety of fansubber groups seems to have sharply decreased since the advent of online streaming of media and associated official services too, which doesn't help.

I think what bothers me most is when finding out about lost media of the animeverse from as recently as the 2000s or 2010s. You could more readily understand and forgive it when it's something from like the 1960s or early 70s, similar to older (even much older than that) live action cinema and television. But this shit is still happening to content from 2007 or 2012? In the age of information and digital technology where everything seems like it'd be recorded and saved nine million times from 100 million angles and every jerk and their mother has a smartphone camera recording every fancy cappuccino they sip out on the town? It's just crazy and bizarre to me that it's a phenomenon which persists even in this day and age.

You're absolutely correct in the general notion that there are a lot of problems - many many in the world, which could be much more easily and quickly solved by those keen to do so if there wasn't such widespread ignorance of them by the vast majority, and this is one of them. Not as serious a tragedy perhaps as issues like lack of adequate medical treatment for more obscure diseases, but still a cultural and civilizational concern worth addressing.

@tchitchouan you could say that about anyone looking for lost anime to begin with

@tchitchouan What about hardcore, serious collectors with deep pockets? That sounds like another place to look through maybe.
Just an idea though, I dunno.

Occasionally something will pop up.
https://xss.now.cc/forum/?topicid=2084715

@JackOfDeath yes that is accurate.

@tchitchouan so why does it seem like you're so against it? Are you gatekeeping lost media or something

@Lucifrost yeah when people finally start a discussion on it. This is what I mean by we need to spread the word of lost anime instead of saying "damn can't find it? Oh well."

The search for lost anime media has become a growing interest in the community. Over the years, several anime episodes, pilots, dubs, or full series have either disappeared, gone unaired, or were never officially released outside Japan. Whether due to licensing issues, production troubles, or just time forgetting them, a lot of these works have slipped through the cracks.

Fans are increasingly motivated to track these down — sometimes even forming online groups or communities dedicated to archiving, sharing rare VHS recordings, or translating obscure materials. It’s a mix of digital archaeology and passion for preserving anime history. Some lost media includes alternate dubs (like the original Sailor Moon pilot by Toon Makers), unreleased OVAs, or older shows that aired only once and never got home releases.

Finding these is tough. Sometimes the creators themselves no longer have the material, or it exists only in physical formats like old tapes that are nearly impossible to locate. But as interest grows, and as the anime community becomes more globally connected and tech-savvy, there’s hope that more lost anime media can be recovered.

So yes — while it’s challenging, the call to “please find some anime lost media” is real, and the hunt continues.

@JackOfDeath No, i'm not against it, in fact i did my best to find all the hidden and lost bikini armor media.
I'm merely stating the difficulties encountered when trying to find lost media like these anime right here which were thought to be lost for YEARS.

@tchitchouan looks like you found this pretty easily 🤓☝️

@JackOfDeath No, these anime had been lost until around 2021 but nobody cars about them so it didn't make any news.

Empress Chung (Lost Media):

I present to everybody a lost anime called Empress Chung
It was released in 2005, and almost nothing is known about it outside of Korea
Any Korean bros in here?

@MaiNeville a Korean anime from before 2020!?!! I didn't know such a thing existed 😱

@JackOfDeath Yes, Empress Chung is known for being released simultaneously in both Koreas (North and South)
There is rumor that it had a DVD release, but nobody produced any substantiated pictures to prove it.
There is 0% discussion on it, no reviews, nothing.

Link: https://xss.now.cc/anime/4544/Wanghu_Sim_Cheong

Yeah I’d rather spend my time watching the thousands of anime that aren’t lost. Maybe I’ll consider searching for lost media anime once I run out of things to watch — but that’s not happening anytime soon.

I really wish it were that easy. There are plenty of series and even one shot short anime series from back in the '60s and 70s that's technically on MAL, but no one seems to be able to track down.

It's not like people don't want to find them but it's hard to do when piracy keeps getting prevented or attacked.

I'd love to go over anime lost media someday, but the hunts are a lot more complex than usual lost media. It's usually old copies of anime that are destroyed or locked away somewhere. Obscure/rare "possibly lost" merch is a lot easier of a hunt because of how typical that is in other spaces, but I don't think anime merch is what people would be looking for without a nostalgia factor.

I can't say the same about older stuff, but we should be happy about how hard it is for what we currently have to get lost- weebs and gamers pirate more than anyone else, and that usually leads to pretty good media preservation.

@kanarazukarasu you've rated all of attack on titan a 10 but you don't care about it's lost media..... Yep makes perfect sense