The Confusing World of Celebrity/Best Film & Video Anime Releases

Last edited 2023-09-26

Thank you to everyone who’s already gotten back to me with their input! It seems that some of the Best Film & Video releases, Macross in Particular, have no correlation between the cover and the tape type. At least 2 people have mentioned they have SP-mode tapes that just “Macross” at the top. It’s likely this applies to all of the tapes, so take the below with a grain of salt, pending future research. Still, reach out if you have one of these! The more wrong I am, the more new variants there are to catalog, and that’s the fun part!

In the early 80s, Celebrity Home Entertainment licensed a number of anime it would distribute under it’s “Just for Kids” banner. While most of these were just that, “Just for Kids”, a select few were more adult titles Celebrity would cut dramatically in order to keep with the image of the label.

The seven titles (I’m aware of) cut this way were the following:

Cyborg 009 Legend of the Super Galaxy
Dallos Special
The Dagger of Kamui
Locke the Superman
Phoenix 2772
Superdimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?
Techno Police 21C

Years later, the tiny distributor Best Film & Video would sublicense these titles, and release them uncut (mostly), but they weren’t exactly clear about this. To add to the mess, they’d then re-re-release the titles again, this time with slightly different box art, but recorded in EP mode. The UPC, SKU, and often the title would remain unchanged, resulting in a massive mess of tapes containing anime that may or may not be edited, and may or may have been released in the same quality as a TV recording of a football game from 1981. This page is here to (hopefully) make some sense of it all.

If you have any better photos of these tapes, please let me know. There’s only so much I can do for a blurry, off-angle photo from an Ebay auction.

If you’d like to see info on the titles Best Film & Video distributed for Streamline Picutres as well, head over here.

Note: Any information with a cross (†) is an educated guess, and could be incorrect. If you do see something incorrect here, let me know!

Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy (a.k.a. Defenders of the Vortex)

Celebrity would chop almost 40 minutes off of this film for their release, renamed to the generic-sounding Defenders of the Vortex. Best Film & Video’s initial release would restore the original title, but the later EP-Mode release would rename it again, this time to simply “Cyborg 009”.

Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy VHS

Dallos Special (a.k.a. Battle for Moon Station Dallos)

Contrary to what you may have heard, Celebrity and Best Film & Video never released the Dallos OVA. Instead, they dubbed and released the compilation film Dallos Special, renamed to Battle for Moon Station Dallos. In an odd move, the releases from Best Film & Video were not uncut, containing the same edits Celebrity had made to their release.

Best Film & Video’s two releases of Dallos Special look nearly identical, but there are some ways to tell them apart. The initial SP-mode release has a black sky, the tagline “A High-Tech Adventure Into The Unknown”, and the back of the box is colored tan. The later EP-mode release has a navy blue sky, no tagline on the cover, and the back of the box is the same shade of blue as the front.

The Dagger of Kamui (a.k.a. Revenge of the Ninja Warrior)

Celebrity’s initial, edited release used the truly awful title of Revenge of the Ninja Warrior. When Best Film & Video got it, they’d change it to The Blade of Kamui. It wouldn’t become The Dagger of Kamui until AnimEigo picked up the film a number of years later.

As far as I’m aware, Kamui was only released once by Best Film & Video. No EP-mode shenanigans this time.

Locke the Superman (a.k.a. Locke the Superpower)

According to rumors, Celebrity changed the name from “Superman” to “Superpower” after a nasty letter from DC Comics. Either they mellowed out, or Best Film & Video never got the memo, as their releases reverted back to the original title.

While both of Best Film & Video’s releases have the same title, it’s easy to tell them apart. The initial, SP-mode tape has cover with a thick red border around everything. The later EP-mode tape would remove this, giving us a full art cover.

Phoenix 2772 (a.k.a. Space Firebird)

This Tezuka-directed film has gone under many names over the years. Hinotori 2772, Space Firebird 2772, or even the mouthful of Phoenix: Space Firebird 2772. Celebrity’s initial release simply called it Space Firebird, and the later Best Film & Video releases would use Phoenix 2772 instead.

Another example of Best Film & Video not changing the title between their releases, you can still easily tell them apart from the box art. The initial SP-mode tape has a thick grey border. The later EP-mode tape is full art on the cover.

Superdimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (a.k.a. Clash of the Bionoids)

Superdimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (or simply Macross DYRL) is a legendary anime film that has been stuck in legal battles on both sides of the pacific for decades. To date, the releases from Celebrity and Best Film & Video are the only official releases the film ever got in North America.

Celebrity’s initial, heavily edited release uses the clunky title of Macross in Clash of the Bionoids. When Best Film & Video took over, they switched to Superdimensional Fortress Macross, which was the “official” English title for the film in Japan. Their later EP-mode re-release shortens this to just Macross on the box, but Superdimensional Fortress Macross is still printed on the tape, for some reason.

Techno Police 21C (a.k.a. Techno Police)

Perhaps most well known for it’s troubled development, this film features a number of Macross alumni, including mecha designer Shoji Kawamori.

It’s initial release from Celebrity, re-titled to just Techno Police, features a number of edits, but is still within 5 minutes of it’s initial 80 minute runtime. When Best Film & Video got hold of it, they changed the title back to Techno Police 21C. Reportedly, this release is less edited than the Celebrity one, but still not fully uncut. I unfortunately cannot verify this as I do not own a copy. Best FIlm & Video’s EP-mode re-release confusingly goes back simply calling the film Techno Police, but has the same edits (or lack thereof) of the previous 21C-branded tape.

Celebrity/Just for Kids Techno Police VHS

Note: Images on this page have been pulled from all over the internet (or my scanner). I own none of the images on this page.

September 26, 2023

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best-film-and-video, celebrity, macross, vhs


Title	Defenders of the Vortex	Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy	Cyborg 009
Distributor	Just for Kids	Best Film & Video	Best Film & Video
Length	92 min	130 min	130 min
Uncut?	No	Yes	Yes
Tape Mode	SP	SP†	EP
SKU	CHE 3009	#967	#967
UPC	N/A	021442096734	021442096734


Title	Battle for Moon Station Dallos	Dallos	Dallos
Distributor	Just for Kids	Best Film & Video	Best Film & Video
Length	84 min	84 min	84 min
Uncut?	No	No	No
Tape Mode	SP	SP	EP
SKU	CHE 3007	#962	#962
UPC	N/A	021442096239	021442096239
Notes		Back of box is tan	Back of box is blue


Title	Revenge of the Ninja Warrior	The Blade of Kamui
Distributor	Just for Kids	Best Film & Video
Length	96 min	133 min
Uncut?	No	Yes
Tape Mode	SP	SP
SKU	CHE 3006	#961
UPC	N/A	021442096130


Title	Locke the Superpower	Locke the Superman	Locke the Superman
Distributor	Just for Kids	Best Film & Video	Best Film & Video
Length	92 min	120 min	120 min
Uncut?	No	Yes	Yes
Tape Mode	SP	SP†	EP
SKU	CHE 3003	#966	#966
UPC	N/A	021442096635	021442096635
Notes		“Red Border” cover	“Full Art” cover


Title	Space Firebird	Phoenix 2772	Phoenix 2772
Distributor	Just for Kids	Best Film & Video	Best Film & Video
Length	95 min	121 min	121 min
Uncut?	No	Yes	Yes
Tape Mode	SP	SP†	EP
SKU	CHE 3004	#968	#968
UPC	N/A	021442096833	021442096833
Notes		“Grey Border” cover	“Full Art” cover

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