Gainax no Video I: Daicon III/IV (1981, 1983)

This is a part of a series on the home video releases of Studio Gainax. For more info, click here.

Last updated October 3rd, 2022

Before Gainax was even called Gainax, they were just a group of friends operating under the name “Daicon Film.” While most of their works were tokusatsu fan films, they did produce two animated works: opening films for the 1981 Daicon III Nihon SF Taikai and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions. Each short is roughly 6 minutes long, and contains numerous unauthorized depictions of other copyrighted works and music. As such, neither film has ever had an “official” release, but they did get something close. In 1988, Daicon Film took an artbook they had previously put out in 1984, and re-released it at an eye-watering ¥16,000. The catch? It included a mail-in voucher for an “unofficial” release of the Daicon films on LaserDisc.

This disc is incredibly rare, and tends to go for about $1000 when it shows up for auctions, and that’s not particularly often. While it’s technically a Japanese release, I’m including it here as there was no Western release, and the films have no dialogue, and as such, the LaserDisc is English-friendly. (The included tokusatsu parody, however, is not.)

CONCLUSION

With only one release, you don’t have much of an option. If you want to own Diacon III and IV legally (or at least as close to that as possible), this is your only option.