Guide to Toho Film/TV Distributors

For the discussion of Toho DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, streaming services, VHS, and other formats where Toho films and soundtracks can be found.
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Tohosaurus
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Tohosaurus »

Whew! I went through and everything should be far more up to date now. That's quite a job!

Let me know if there are errors or questions as it's a lot to look through myself. :D

Added in 59 seconds:
UltramanGoji wrote:How does Paramount do with catalog titles?
Pretty odd they've never put King Kong (1976) out on Blu-ray despite what I would think would be a decent market for it.

/rant
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Terasawa »

The Human Vapor, The Last War, and Gorath are all held by MGM. Also, Classic Media is completely out of the picture now.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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Terasawa wrote:The Human Vapor, The Last War, and Gorath are all held by MGM. Also, Classic Media is completely out of the picture now.
And we've seen a stateside release of none of these films since the early VHS days. I know Comet plays Gorath on TV on occasion, I don't know about the other two.

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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Terasawa »

Vapor has been scheduled on Comet but I don't think it's ever been played. I think the last time that was seen on TV was in 2004.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Tamura »

I'd be interested in a guide more comprehensive than a list mainly showing who you can buy Toho-acquired-and-approved video releases from. A cursory search of the Library of Congress public copyright catalog shows some interesting clues about the current and past video, TV and theatrical rights situation to both the Japanese and US versions, and it could explain why Toho blocked US versions from the Criterion set.

Conventional wisdom states that all the Classic Media/former UPA titles had reverted outright to Toho... it seems more likely that Janus/Criterion acquired the Japanese versions from Toho, while whoever owns the US versions anymore still owns them. I recall that when Classic Media reissued the former UPA titles they had to acquire the rights to the Japanese versions from Toho, which then ultimately reverted.

I have a hard time understanding the legalese of some of the documents that come up in the LoC searches, but check this out... while Son of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and other Showa Godzilla titles were acquired by Tristar from Toho in 2004, a year later both SoG and GvsTSM are listed in a library of titles Classic Media owned and used as collateral for a loan from a bank. The point here is that Tristar acquired only what Toho owned, and Classic Media acquired what UPA and Golden Book owned, which apparently included two Godzilla films that were already in print via their original versions acquired from Toho. I would love to read all the contracts for these films over the years. It would lead to a less unsatisfying conclusion to this whole thing.

Meanwhile, as of today, you can legally stream US versions like Godzilla vs The Thing, Godzilla's Revenge and Gigantis the Fire Monster (as Godzilla Raids Again) on Amazon Prime via Vivendi Entertainment. This is a more complicated situation than it seems, and I think the guide should reflect this fact.
Last edited by Tamura on Sun Feb 09, 2020 1:54 pm, edited 13 times in total.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

Well I'll be dipped. August Ragone suggested the rights were separate at one point, but I was kind of skeptical.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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If this really is the case, I wonder what stopped Criterion from acquiring US versions from whoever owns them? Maybe they didn't know someone else owned them?
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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Tamura wrote:If this really is the case, I wonder what stopped Criterion from acquiring US versions from whoever owns them? Maybe they didn't know someone else owned them?
Not saying it is the SAME exact thing, but just as Universal and Toho had to come to the table to get both cuts of King Kong vs Godzilla in the Criterion set....perhaps the US versions potentially being separated from the Japanese versions might add extra layers or wrinkles to getting them both into the same release.

Sometimes in the past, I've seen films where the physical disc rights and streaming rights seem like they get separated, like the acquiring of certain rights for disc predated the streaming era...and so then when streaming came into the mix, nobody had those rights.

That's why a lot of new rights announcements always make a point to say "physical and streaming rights" or whatever.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Tamura »

^ The difference is Universal has owned the US version into perpetuity on streaming, physical, TV and even theatrical platforms for nearly 60 years. The former UPA US versions, on the other hand, have been doled out from one rinky dink company to another (Classic Media, Vivendi, etc.) and often leased to outside companies, with possibly the streaming, physical, TV and theatrical exhibition rights split up between different companies... I can't confirm that, but it's a possibility worth considering and researching if we want to get to the bottom of who has the rights to which versions in different viewing circumstances. Again, this thread makes it seem far more cut and dry than the reality likely is. There have been multiple, simultaneous traditions of copyright transfer on both the version level, and possibly the platform level.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by omgitsgodzilla »

When I talked to August Ragone a while back he suggested that what was preventing the current owners of the US versions from coming out with their own releases was Toho threatening legal action over the trademarks -- monster names and designs and so on. If that's the case, I wonder if it would be wholly outside the realm of possibility for someone to crowdfund a technically-legal, trademark-friendly Recurring Dinosaur Infestation Blu-ray collection. :lol:
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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If that's the case then an extra big fuck you to Toho.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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That's fucking lame, dog.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by Chrispy_G »

So...Toho can't authorize/license the release of the US versions themselves because they don't actually have the US rights? Then on top of that, they threaten legal action against those who HAVE the US rights to prevent them from releasing them on their own? AND they don't seem to want to come to the table to play ball with multiple parties to allow someone like Criterion to license and release both?

What an oddball situation.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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On the OP, I think you can say that the Arrow Video Blu-ray box set is now available. It's long past February 25, 2020 now.
Last edited by mikelcho on Sat Apr 25, 2020 6:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by John Pannozzi »

Here's my list of Toho films by current US video distributors.

Keith Aiken gave me some info:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F4AMvm ... sp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZwE3Bz ... sp=sharing

His words:
"Classic Media's rights expired a few years back and reverted to Toho. Same with Media Blasters, at least for their Godzilla titles (I'm not sure about the other Toho films). I'm not sure about the Kraken titles."

"Janus has Rodan and Gargantuas. Mill Creek has a FB page and are started to get back into releasing Blu-rays. You should PM them and ask about the Toho titles... my suspicion is those have expired but I don;t know for sure. I also have no idea if Discotek still has the their Toho titles"
EDIT: Also, Section23 told me that they no longer have the rights to any Godzilla films besides the 1984 film.
Last edited by John Pannozzi on Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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John Pannozzi wrote:EDIT: Also, Section23 told me that they no longer have the rights to any Godzilla films besides the 1984 film.
That's consistent with was was assumed. Ebirah, Hedora, and Gigan were released by them in 2014, and 5 years later Criterion was able to secure them for their Showa release.

Return of Godzilla was picked up by Section23(Kraken is a subsidiary) in 2016....so in theory, if it is on the same 5 year type of dynamic...then next year it will be freed up for another company to get. In theory.

I thought I heard once that certain Godzilla films Sony had would begin lapsing in 2020 or 2021, considering that Sony has such a chunk of the series, it will be interesting if they just let them go or try to hold onto them further.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by o.supreme »

Nice list John. ADV films is long defunct, so I would think the rights to Yamato Takeru (Orochi) would go back to Toho.

Half Human was released on VHS by Rhino ( now S!F) almost 30 years ago, pretty sure Toho has that since it's under self-ban.

Gorath, The Human Vapor , and The Last War are probably back to Toho as well. If they ever got a release, it would probably be just Japanese with subs since the Audio elements of the English dubs supposedly in MGM vault are probably beyond preservation now, which is sad
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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o.supreme wrote:Nice list John. ADV films is long defunct, so I would think the rights to Yamato Takeru (Orochi) would go back to Toho.

Half Human was released on VHS by Rhino ( now S!F) almost 30 years ago, pretty sure Toho has that since it's under self-ban.

Gorath, The Human Vapor , and The Last War are probably back to Toho as well. If they ever got a release, it would probably be just Japanese with subs since the Audio elements of the English dubs supposedly in MGM vault are probably beyond preservation now, which is sad
They are beyond preservation now. In fact, they're so far gone they're starting to turn pink. I found that out in G-Fan #121.
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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

Post by mikelcho »

Great list, John! Only a few goofs on it:

*In the Criterion/Janus list, it should be Monster Zero (I checked it out on a copy of the DVD once and this is right).
*In the Sony list, it should be Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla.
*In the Media Blasters list, it should be Yog: Monster from Space.
*In the Universal list, it's spelled Onmyoji (and there's a second and final film that's also on DVD, Onmyoji II).
* Gorath is owned by MGM.
*Godzilla vs. Biollante is owned by Lionsgate (however, are they connected to Miramax in any way, shape or form?).
Last edited by mikelcho on Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Guide to Toho Film Distributors

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o.supreme wrote:Half Human was released on VHS by Rhino ( now S!F) almost 30 years ago, pretty sure Toho has that since it's under self-ban.
At one point semi-recently this was claimed by Wade Williams. In fact, he was the party who licensed the film to Rhino and later Englewood Entertainment for its VHS releases.
Gorath, The Human Vapor , and The Last War are probably back to Toho as well. If they ever got a release, it would probably be just Japanese with subs since the Audio elements of the English dubs supposedly in MGM vault are probably beyond preservation now, which is sad
These are still with MGM, which I think probably holds the rights in perpetuity through a long chain of acquisitions and mergers.

It's worth noting that there are two telecines of The Human Vapor that have been released on tape: the first is from a 16mm print as would have played on TV (this is the Video Gems transfer), but other licensed releases used a new transfer that was clearly struck from a 35mm element. It's hard to pin down the date of the later telecine but it could have been done in the 1980s. That 35mm-sourced telecine played on TV in 2004 during a Quentin Tarantino-hosted marathon on the defunct TRIO channel. So at some point before MGM acquired the three Brenco-Toho films, at least one of them had a 35mm element in good enough condition for telecine.
mikelcho wrote:They are beyond preservation now. In fact, they're so far gone they're starting to turn pink. I found that out in G-Fan #121.
Can you elaborate on the context of that as mentioned in G-Fan?

Even if the film elements had faded that much, that level of fading alone doesn't necessarily render the film unusable. For example, the 3D Film Archive restored the 3D elements of the 1954 sci-fi movie Gog, which had experienced severe fading (although the left eye element, which was more faded, was restored from a 35mm release print). Incidentally, that was an MGM title.

Last edited by Terasawa on Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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