Central Park Media and Urotsukidoji
The best-known "anime porn" title, and the one which started the American adult video market, is the notorious Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend; first of the "erotic grotesque" (more popularly known as "tentacle porn") genre. This began in Japan with the January 1987 release of the first of a five-video adaptation of Toshio Maeda's horror comic-book novel, produced by West Cape Corporation, best known in America for its Space Cruiser Yamato/Star Blazers space adventure series. Urotsukidoji is about the invasion and conquest of Earth by oversexed supernatural demons who enslave humanity and use our women as their sexual playthings. Generations pass. There are human plots to destroy the monsters, which often attempt to take advantage of their sexual obsession and turn it against them. The tale becomes more complex when a third group eventually emerges of human/monster crossbreeds, rejected by both parents. They are intellectually inclined to join the humans, but their intense carnal drives are still too uncontrollable to make them comfortable allies for the human rebels. Sequels eventually extended the series to eleven videos.

The first Urotsukidoji episode, a complete story in itself, was dubbed into English by John O'Donnell, president of New York City's Central Park Media (CPM) video distribution company, which had been releasing adventure anime videos since October 1991 under its U.S. Manga Corps label. Urotsukidoji was actually premiered theatrically in London at a two-day anime film festival on October 30 - 31, 1992, where it played to sold-out screenings on both days. Its American release was at NYC's Angelika Theater in January 1993. It began a national art theater tour in June, which resulted in local press coverage practically everywhere it played about how "Japanese animation certainly isn't like American animation!" CPM scheduled it for a video release in August, 1993.

According to Valerio Rossi, CPM's marketing/production coordinator, it was the company's realization that Urotsukidoji was too sexually intense to fit into its U.S. Manga Corps "boys' adventure" line that led to the creation of the separate Anime 18 label. All five episodes were released, both on video tape and laser disc, between August and December 1993. They sold so well, and generated so many requests from anime fans for more of the same nature, that CPM's Anime 18 releases have been appearing steadily since then. Plus, the original 35 mm Urotsukidoji story is still popular on the art theater circuit as a midnight feature.

F3 (Frantic, Frustrated & Female), one of A.D. Vision's earlier releases, is now available in rerelease on its SoftCel Pictures label. Image courtesy of A.D. Vision. © 1994 WAN YAN A GU DA/Pink Pineapple.

A Closer Look at the Labeling
A.D. Vision, in Houston, released it first anime video in November 1992. For the next two years, its A.D. Vision Films label included both regular action-adventure anime and some of the milder erotic comedies such as F3 (Frantic, Frustrated & Female) , often with editing of brief explicit scenes to make them suitable for a "Parental Guidance Recommended" warning. The company's first release under its SoftCel Pictures label, reserved for an emphasis of explicit adult scenes, was The Legend of Lyon in November 1994. A.D. Vision put out 19 SoftCel Pictures releases during 1995 and 12 through the first half of 1996, some of which were rereleases of previous A.D. Vision Films titles in their unedited form.

Janice Williams, A.D. Vision's production coordinator, says that the company has had very few SoftCel releases since June 1996, but that is not because they have not sold well. "They are almost all still in print and selling very consistently. A.D. Vision made a tremendous investment in mid-1996 to license a great quantity of general anime titles. We are currently working through a big production backlog getting them onto the market before we can produce new SoftCel releases. We constantly get e-mail requests from our fans asking when we are going to put out a new SoftCel title. We will definitely resume them soon."

The Right Stuf International, in Des Moines, does not consider itself really in the adult market. President Shawne Kleckner says, "Manga Entertainment released an edited version of Violence Jack and a lot of fans wanted to see it uncut, so we arranged with ME to release an unedited edition (in November 1996). It was too intense for our regular Right Stuf line, so we created the Critical Mass label. Then in 1997 we had a chance to license a really funny adult comedy, Weather Report Girl, and we did not want to pass it up. We do not have any specific plans at present for any more Critical Mass releases, but there will doubtlessly be more when the right titles come along."