Summary
Thanks to the advent of streaming, there is more anime at your fingertips now than at any other point in history. It has made the art form so easy to access that many have argued that we are living in a golden age of anime. Despite this, there have been concerns about content that is pulled from services likeCrunchyrolland HiDive (as well as non-anime streaming sites like Max and Disney+).
What many may not be aware of is the fact that this is not a new concern. Anime has been around since analog TV, and people have always wondered what happens to anime that ceased to air. In many cases, the anime becomes lost media. Thanks to physical media though, lost media can leave clues to their existence, which is exactly what happened to one anime thanks to a random newspaper article.
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What is Lost Media?
“Lost media” refers to any piece of media (such as films, television shows, radio broadcasts, video games, music, books, or other forms of entertainment) that is known or believed to have existed at some point in the past but cannot currently be found or accessed by the public. This media may be lost due to a variety of reasons, which means that it is no longer accessible to the general public.
Some of the most famous lost media include works from Alfred Hitchcock, William Shakespeare, andThe Beatles. Therefor while it is a harsh truth, it should come as no surprise that various anime have been lost over time and are no longer accessible.
How Does Media Become ‘Lost?’
Though there are many reasons why media is lost, some of the most common reasons include:
So to be clear, while there are several definitions of lost media, most ‘Digital Detectives’ (as they call themselves) don’t consider things like the DiC Entertainment dub ofSailor Moonto be lost, as while it legally isn’t available, copies of the entire dub are still preserved on VHS, DVD, and various internet uploads. When preservation is in question though, there are online communities that seek out and sometimes even restore this lost media.
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The Famed Newspaper Article
Although it may be hard to fathom in the days of the internet, back in the olden days the primary method of receiving information was on printed media such as newspapers and magazines. The vast majority of these have been lost due to the fact that they were routinely discarded and recycled. Once in a blue noon though some older newspapers pop up, and this is where interesting things can be discovered. It was when one of these older Japanese newspapers popped up that a fan noticed something strange: an ad for an anime they had never heard of before.
The anime in question was calledMon Cherie Coco(My Dear Cocoin English). The newspaper was advertising that this new shoujo series would be premiering on Nippon TV Video in 1972. According to The Lost Wiki, it appears the anime ultimately aired 13 episodes but was canceled due to financial difficulties as well as the resignation of the show’s producer Kiyoshi Watanabe. Despite this, the animedidsporadically air on TV throughout the nineties on local channels at odd times. Nohome video releaseappears to exist, and over time the show was forgotten…until now.
Has the Show Been Found?
As of this yet, not a single episode has been located. Since the discovery of the newspaper though, there has been some mild progress. As of this moment only the opening had resurfaced online (which was apparently sourced from a laser disc that was advertising various different anime at the time). What’s more, copies of the original three volume manga by Waki Yamato have been found in the wild, so the original source material is out there (though still untranslated we must point out). Some collectors have even bought some original animation cells on the black market, so we have glimpses of what the series looked like.
As for the anime, there have been some Tweets where some Japanese viewers claim to have tapes of the show, yet as of this moment none of those tapes have appeared online.
