Streamline Pictures was an American media company that was best known for its distribution of English dubbed Japanese animation.
Founding
Founded in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, in 1988, Streamline Pictures was one of the first North American companies that was created primarily for the intention of distributing translated
animeis the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
uncut and faithful to the original content. The founders of Streamline were
Carl MacekCarl F. Macek was an American writer and controversial anime pioneer and producer of the 1980s and 1990s.-Robotech and Harmony Gold USA:...
, who had worked for
Harmony Gold USAHarmony Gold is a television production and distribution company established in 1983. It is best known as the “creator” and main distributor of the anime series Robotech. It also partially dubbed the Dragon Ball series in the late 1980s....
during the mid 1980s, most notably on the series
RobotechRobotech is an 85-episode science fiction anime adaptation produced by Harmony Gold USA in association with Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. and first released in the United States in 1985...
, and
Jerry BeckJerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....
, an animation historian and film distribution veteran who had worked at
MGMMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
/
UAUnited Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
,
OrionOrion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
and Expanded Entertainment. At one point or another,
Steve KramerSteven M. Kramer is an American voice actor for many anime titles. He has also done voice acting for various Power Rangers series in the past, with the best-known of those roles being the voice of Darkonda in Power Rangers in Space. His wife, Melora Harte, is a voice actress...
, Ardwight Chamberlin,
Tom WynerThomas Halperin "Tom" Wyner is an English-born voice actor for anime series who usually gets tough guy or villain roles. He is also a producer, director, and writer...
, and Mike Reynolds all of whom served as series staff writers (and voice actors) on
Robotech, worked as independent writers and voice actors for Streamline.
High profile products
The first high profile product distributed by Streamline was its December 1988 release of the anime film
Akirais a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, and starring the voices of Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama and Taro Ishida. The screenplay is based on Otomo's manga Akira....
. The company was also known for its 1989 theatrical distribution of the film
Laputa: Castle in the Sky directed by
Hayao Miyazakiis a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
, and its 1992 video dubbing of
The Castle of Cagliostrois a 1979 Japanese animated film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the films featuring master thief Arsène Lupin III.The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the best known, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who also co-directed the first...
. Streamline also dubbed
My Neighbor Totoro, is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan...
, and
Kiki's Delivery Serviceis a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
, in 1988 for
Tokuma Shotenis a publisher in Japan, that was established in 1954.The company was also the parent company for the film studio Daiei Motion Pictures, bought in 1974, and the record label Tokuma Japan Communications, bought in 1972, until both were sold off when Yasuyoshi Tokuma, who established this company,...
, although these were only used as in-flight films by
Japan Airlinesis an airline headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. It is the flag carrier of Japan and its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport , as well as Nagoya's Chūbu Centrair International Airport and Osaka's Kansai International Airport...
at the time. As a fan of Miyazaki's films, Macek did not think
Laputa (of which Streamline was the distributor) had received the quality of dubbing that a Miyazaki film deserved. He thought that it could have been done better, so Tokuma Shoten gave him the opportunity to prove his words. For his first project, he asked to dub
My Neighbor Totoro, one of his favorite Miyazaki works. The Streamline dub of
My Neighbor Totoro was released theatrically in the U.S. by Troma Films in 1993; but its dub of
Kiki's Delivery Service appeared only on the 1990s Japanese laser disc release of that title. (Since then, however,
Castle in the Sky and
My Neighbor Totoro have both been redubbed by
DisneyThe Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
.)
Tokuma Shoten was pleased with the quality of the initial work, and it immediately hired Streamline to produce the
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
version of
Kiki's Delivery Service. Soon after its release, the film was bought by Japan Airlines, who showed it during their flights between
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the U.S. (The film has since been redubbed by Disney). Streamline also licensed and dubbed other popular anime series and movies such as
Fist of the North Staris a 1986 Japanese animated film adaptation of the manga series of the same name. It was produced by Toei Animation, the same studio who worked on the TV series that was airing at the time, with much of the same staff and cast working on both...
,
Wicked Cityis an animated horror neo-noir directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, based on Hideyuki Kikuchi's novel of the same name.The story takes place towards the end of the 20th century and explores the idea that the human world secretly coexists with the demon world with a secret police force known as the Black...
,
Lensmanis an anime TV series and movie based on the Lensman novels by E. E. Smith. Although these were produced with the knowledge and consent of Smith's estate, they were so displeased with the result that for several years they rejected any other suggestions of adaptation...
,
Vampire Hunter Dis a series of Japanese novels written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano since 1983.To date, twenty-two novels have been published in the main series, with some novels comprising as many as four volumes...
and
The Professional: Golgo 13Golgo 13: The Professional is a Japanese animated film adaptation of the Golgo 13 manga series released May 28, 1983 by Tokyo Movie Shinsha...
.
Home video market
Streamline, in being the first company dedicated to making anime accessible to the English speaking world, was notable for releasing a wide variety of anime that fit in a wide variety of genres, many of which do not fit completely in any genre such as
Twilight of the Cockroaches. During the 1990s
VHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
era, before the common availability of hybrid
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s, anime distributors released anime via subtitled or dubbed tapes with the subtitled editions being noticeably more expensive than the dubs which were expected to sell better. Streamline is also notable in being the only such company to eschew this practice and release only dubs of its anime. The only exceptions were the later
Akira subtitled release and their
Robotech Collection, which included episodes of the original
Macrossis an anime television series. According to story creator Shoji Kawamori, it depicts "a love triangle against the backdrop of great battles" during the first Human-alien war....
,
Southern Crosswas the third Japanese animated series released under the "Super Dimension" moniker by the sponsor Big West. This 1984 science fiction robotic mecha series followed Super Dimension Fortress Macross created by Studio Nue with Artland and produced by Tatsunoko, and Super Dimension Century Orguss ,...
and
Mospeadais an anime science fiction series created by Shinji Aramaki and Hideki Kakinuma. The 25-episode television series ran from late 1983 to early 1984 in Japan...
episodes on the same tape along with their
Robotech counterparts. (Since then, these three titles were re-released by
ADV FilmsA.D. Vision was an American international multimedia entertainment company headquartered in Houston, Texas, prior to its collapse and distress sale to four other Houston-based companies in 2009...
through Harmony Gold.)
Criticism
Because of Macek's notoriety with a certain branch of fandom, Streamline became one of the early catalysts of the sub vs. dub debate. Macek's philosophy towards anime dubbing, as stated in several interviews, most notably published
Protoculture AddictsProtoculture Addicts was a Canadian-based North American anime and manga magazine published by Protoculture Inc., an Anime News Network company...
and
Animag, has become largely synonymous with the negative connotation concerning "Americanized dubs".
Later years
Streamline Pictures stopped producing new anime releases in 1996, folding into Orion Pictures - which, in turn, would fold into MGM one year later, in 1997. Streamline subsequently went
out of businessOut of Business is the sixth album from Hip Hop duo EPMD, which changed its initialism for the release from Erick & Parrish Making Dollars to Erick & Parrish Millennium Ducats....
in 2002.
Today, the Streamline film and television library is owned by MGM, but the rights to all productions have either lapsed to other anime companies (such as
Akira and
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water) or have never been released again (such as
Robot Carnival).
List of titles released
| Year Licensed |
Title |
Last/Current Licensor or Status |
| 1988 |
My Neighbor Totoro , is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan...
|
Troma Films; Walt Disney Company |
| 1988 |
Akirais a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, and starring the voices of Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama and Taro Ishida. The screenplay is based on Otomo's manga Akira....
|
Orion Pictures Orion Pictures Corporation was an American independent production company that produced movies from 1978 until 1998. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former top-level executives of United Artists. Although it was never a large motion picture producer, Orion...
; Pioneer Animation/Geneon Entertainment; Bandai Entertainment |
| 1989 |
Laputa: Castle in the Sky |
Walt Disney Company |
| 1989 |
Twilight of the Cockroachesis a 1987 anime/live-action film written and directed by Hiroaki Yoshida that combines live-action footage with animation. The plot concerns a society of cockroaches who live peacefully in the apartment of a bachelor named Seito until a woman moves in and the humans begin to exterminate the...
|
Out of print |
| 1989 |
Kiki's Delivery Serviceis a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
|
Walt Disney Company |
| 1990 |
Lensman is an anime TV series and movie based on the Lensman novels by E. E. Smith. Although these were produced with the knowledge and consent of Smith's estate, they were so displeased with the result that for several years they rejected any other suggestions of adaptation...
|
Out of print |
| 1990 |
ZillionZillion, full title , is a Japanese anime television series that ran from April 12, 1987 to December 13, 1987 on Nippon Television in Japan and was produced by Tatsunoko Production and Sega...
|
Out of print |
| 1991 |
Robot Carnivalis a Japanese anime anthology film released in 1987. It consists of nine shorts by different directors, many of whom started out as animators with little to no directing experience...
|
Out of print |
| 1991 |
Fist of the North Star is a 1986 Japanese animated film adaptation of the manga series of the same name. It was produced by Toei Animation, the same studio who worked on the TV series that was airing at the time, with much of the same staff and cast working on both...
|
Orion Pictures; Image EntertainmentImage Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
; Discotek |
| 1991 |
Zillion: Burning NightZillion: Burning Night, known in Japan as , is a Japanese direct-to-video anime release by Production I.G, a subsidiary of Tatsunoko. It is also referred to as "Red Bullet Zillion: Burning Night" and "Zillion: Burning Night Special".- Story :...
|
Out of print |
| 1992 |
Neo Tokyo |
Orion Pictures; ADV FilmsA.D. Vision was an American international multimedia entertainment company headquartered in Houston, Texas, prior to its collapse and distress sale to four other Houston-based companies in 2009...
|
| 1992 |
Planet Busters , also known in the West as Planet Busters or The World of the Talisman, is a 1984 anime original video animation , which was released on VHS and DVD in North America by, variously, Streamline and ADV Films...
|
ADV Films (as Birth) |
| 1992 |
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a Japanese animated television series inspired by the works of Jules Verne, particularly Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the exploits of Captain Nemo...
|
Orion Pictures; ADV Films |
| 1992 |
Robotech II: The SentinelsRobotech II: The Sentinels was an attempt by Harmony Gold USA to continue the original 1985 Robotech television series. Only three episodes were ultimately animated before the project was canceled in 1986, and a feature-length film was released from footage taken from the completed episodes...
|
Orion Pictures; ADV Films through Harmony Gold USAHarmony Gold is a television production and distribution company established in 1983. It is best known as the “creator” and main distributor of the anime series Robotech. It also partially dubbed the Dragon Ball series in the late 1980s....
|
| 1992 |
The Castle of Cagliostrois a 1979 Japanese animated film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the films featuring master thief Arsène Lupin III.The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the best known, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who also co-directed the first...
|
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Manga EntertainmentManga Entertainment is a producer, licensor and distributor of Japanese animation in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Australia and New Zealand...
|
| 1992 |
The Professional: Golgo 13 |
Orion Pictures; Urban Vision Urban Vision Entertainment Inc., an American based production/distribution company created in Los Angeles, California formed in July, 1996 by Mataichiro Yamamoto to help introduce the alternative animation genre known as anime or Japanimation to mainstream media....
|
| 1992 |
3×3 Eyes |
Orion Pictures; Geneon Entertainment |
| 1992 |
Vampire Hunter D Vampire Hunter D - one of the first anime films released outside of Japan, remains a cult classic in the English-speaking world...
|
Orion Pictures; Urban Vision |
| 1993 |
The Speed Racer ShowSpeed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book, and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha...
|
Live Entertainment/Family Home Entertainment Family Home Entertainment was an American home video company founded in 1980 by Noel C. Bloom. It was a division of International Video Entertainment, which had its headquarters in Newbury Park, California.-General information:...
|
| 1993 |
RobotechRobotech is an 85-episode science fiction anime adaptation produced by Harmony Gold USA in association with Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. and first released in the United States in 1985...
|
ADV Films and Manga Entertainment through Harmony Gold |
| 1993 |
Dirty Pair: Affair on Nolandia |
Orion Pictures; ADV Films; Nozomi Entertainment |
| 1993 |
Dirty Pair: Flight 005 Conspiracy |
Orion Pictures; ADV Films; Nozomi Entertainment |
| 1993 |
Dirty Pair: Project Eden Dirty Pair: Project Eden known in Japan as Dirty Pair: The Movie , is a feature length anime film based on the Dirty Pair anime series originally released in Japan on November 28, 1986. The movie was originally licensed in North America in 1994 by Streamline Pictures but was later redubbed and...
|
Orion Pictures; ADV Films; Nozomi Entertainment |
| 1993 |
Windaria -Release and marketing:Windaria was released theatrically in Japan on July 19, 1986. In 1987, Harmony Gold licensed Windaria for release in the United States, changing the title to Once Upon A Time and trimming the movie from its 101-minute running time to 95 minutes. The English language version...
|
ADV Films (as Once Upon a Time) |
| 1993 |
Doomed Megalopolis is an anime rendition of the Japanese historical fantasy epic Teito Monogatari . Like it's live-action predecessor, Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, the anime is only an adaptation of the first 1/3rd of the original novel. It was released by Toei in 1991 as a 4-part OVA...
|
Orion Pictures; ADV Films |
| 1993 |
Wicked Cityis an animated horror neo-noir directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, based on Hideyuki Kikuchi's novel of the same name.The story takes place towards the end of the 20th century and explores the idea that the human world secretly coexists with the demon world with a secret police force known as the Black...
|
Orion Pictures; Urban Vision |
| 1994 |
Silent Möbius is a twelve-volume manga, a 26-episode anime series, and a pair of motion pictures, created by manga artist Kia Asamiya. Both anime versions have been licensed by Bandai Entertainment...
|
Miramax FilmsMiramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
; Bandai Entertainment |
| 1994 |
Crying Freeman |
Orion Pictures; ADV Films |
| 1994 |
8 Man After |
Out of print |
| 1994 |
Lily C.A.T. Lily C.A.T. is a science fiction anime film released in 1987. Carl Macek, best known for producing and story editing Robotech, produced the English version of the film...
|
Orion Pictures; out of print |
| 1994 |
Lupin III: Tales of the Wolf |
Orion Pictures; Geneon Entertainment; Funimation EntertainmentFunimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...
|
| 1995 |
Babel II is a 1971 manga series by Mitsuteru Yokoyama.Yokoyama's manga has been animated three times: in 1973 as a television series, in 1992 as an original video animation series, and in 2001 as a 13 episode television series....
|
Orion Pictures; Media Blasters Media Blasters is an entertainment corporation founded by John Sirabella and Sam Liebowitz, based in New York City. They are in the business of licensing, translating, and releasing to the North American market manga compilations and anime and live-action movies and television series to home-video...
|
| 1995 |
Barefoot Gen is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family...
|
Orion Pictures; Geneon Entertainment |
| 1995 |
Casshan: Robot Hunter |
Orion Pictures; ADV Films through Harmony Gold USA |
| 1995 |
Crimson Wolf |
Orion Pictures; Image Entertainment; out of print |
| 1995 |
Lupin III: Mystery of Mamo The Secret of Mamo, or The Mystery of Mamo, is the most common English name for the 1978 first animated feature film based on the Lupin III character created by Monkey Punch, originally released in Japan as simply and now known there as in order to differentiate it from the four others that...
|
Orion Pictures; Geneon Entertainment; out of print |
| 1995 |
Megazone 23 is a four-part original video animation created by AIC, written by Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, and directed by Noboru Ishiguro, Ichiro Itano, Kenichi Yatagai and Shinji Aramaki. The series was originally titled but the title was changed just before release....
|
Orion Pictures; ADV Films |
| 1995 |
Great Conquest: The Romance of Three Kingdoms is a Japanese anime series based on the Sangokushi manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, itself based on Eiji Yoshikawa's retelling of the Chinese literary classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms.-Shu Han: -Cao Wei: Cao hong...
|
Orion Pictures; out of print |
| 1997 |
3×3 Eyes 2 |
Orion Pictures; Geneon Entertainment |