Pioneer Incorporated Anime LaserDisc Releases

The undisputed market leader in laserdisc hardware and disc manufacturing, Pioneer Electronics of Japan also provided programming through subsidiaries such as the LaserDisc Corporation and its worldwide relatives (bought by Japanese media giant Dentsu and reorganised as Geneon, which has since left the market). LDC licensed or produced a great deal of material, concentrating on items which would best employ the special features of the LD system, including classical music, opera, and anime; it was then an obvious step to release the same programmes overseas, extending their markets at very little expense to improve their return on investment. Pioneer Entertainment (USA) became a major player in the booming American anime market of the late 1990s, reaching beyond the parent company's library of titles to handle such runaway hits as Dragonball Z. Pioneer Animation discs are generally CAV, and feature beautiful picture and sound, fully reflective of the medium's potential; U.S. releases are virtually all dual-audio, with excellent dubs, and Closed Caption subtitles which sometimes reveal nuances the dub script omits. A production which is probably unique, the English-language anime movie Armitage III: Polymatrix (featuring Kiefer Sutherland and Elizabeth Berkeley, and released in Japan with subtitles), was actually reverse-engineered from Pioneer USA's dub of a marginally successful OVA.



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