The Original Unaltered Version of “ADV Films Anime Ad Promo Circa 1999”

 

(This is a screenshot from the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 promo featured in the video.)

If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you’ll no doubt know that I’ve been reuploading these ADV Films promo videos. I didn’t create any of these videos, these aren’t my recordings, I just downloaded them and saved on my Backup Plus. And the reason why I’m reuploading them on my YouTube channel is that the original uploader of these videos no longer exists, their channel is just gone, it got deleted along with all of the content they ever uploaded. So, since I had the videos, or at least, three of them (the ones I liked the most), I took it upon myself to reupload them on my own channel so that future generations can watch them, and the people who saw these videos originally can watch them, and reminisce about the nostalgic promos within. While the first two videos did get copyright claimed, mostly because of the music that was used in the Golden Boy ♂︎ promos, still went off without a hitch. But, when I tried uploading the third one, the 1999 one, that’s when I really started having problems. Not only did it get copyright claimed ©, but it got blocked. Not worldwide, but in certain countries, and by certain countries, I really just mean Japan 🇯🇵 since that’s the only country that the YouTube uploader thing said the video was blocked in. 

At first, what I did to get that block lifted was that I just removed the offending promo, the promo that got the video blocked in Japan 🇯🇵 in the first place, the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 promo. And while yes, that did solve the problem, I still felt like I was robbing the people the chance of seeing that promo. Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, as well as the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA is nostalgic for a lot of people, and the Bubblegum Crisis franchise as a whole is considered a cornerstone within the cyberpunk genre, certainly within the cyberpunk genre in Japan 🇯🇵. You can’t get more Japanese 🇯🇵 than Bubblegum Crisis, and the reason why I say that the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA was made in response to the Japanese bubble economy 🇯🇵🫧 of the 1980s, where real estate and stock prices in Japan 🇯🇵 were over inflated. 

 

Japan 🇯🇵 may experienced an economic boom during this period, but that economic boom came at a cost, and when that asset bubble 🫧 finally burst, Japan 🇯🇵 experienced an economic recession and experienced a long period of economic stagnation afterwards during the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s; a period of time that the Japanese 🇯🇵 refer to as “the Lost Decades.” For this reason, the Japanese asset bubble 🇯🇵🫧 is sort of viewed by some people as Japan 🇯🇵’s Roaring 20s, a period of economic growth and prosperity, as well as excess and decadence followed by an economic recession; I mean, the Roaring 20s were immediately followed by the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in history…thus far. So, Bubblegum Crisis was made in response to that, that decade long period of economic growth and prosperity that Japan 🇯🇵 was experiencing during the 1980s, and the direction that Japan 🇯🇵 seemed to be going in as a country and as a society. The people who made Bubblegum Crisis clearly envisioned a more dystopian future for Japan 🇯🇵 following this economic boom. Even the title, Bubblegum Crisis is thought to be a direct reference to the asset bubble 🫧, and how it popped like a piece of bubblegum. 

 

Oh, and if you were wondering why so many earlier cyberpunk work from the 1980s and 1990s was so heavily inspired by Japan 🇯🇵, and featured Japanese iconography 🇯🇵, Japanese music 🇯🇵, and even Japanese characters 🇯🇵, it’s because of this period in time when Japan 🇯🇵 was becoming an economic powerhouse, and had become the second largest economy in the world, and many people believed that Japan 🇯🇵 was going to overtake the United States 🇺🇸 (USA 🇺🇸 or US 🇺🇸) in terms of economics, the US government 🇺🇸 and the American people 🇺🇸 in general became paranoid that Japan 🇯🇵 was going to take over the world just through economic power alone; it’s sort of the way people view China 🇨🇳 now, or viewed China 🇨🇳 back in the 2010s, only it was way less justified and way less warranted, since Japan 🇯🇵 was an ally of the US 🇺🇸, and not a rival or adversary like China 🇨🇳 is; Japan 🇯🇵 is and wasn’t overtly hostile to the US 🇺🇸 and the American way of life 🇺🇸 the same way China 🇨🇳 is now, and Japan 🇯🇵 wasn’t necessarily trying to become a superpower, but just trying to improve the lives of their people and make their people’s lives as comfortable as possible; and also get rich 🤑, many of the corporations that grew during the asset bubble 🫧 enjoyed that period because they got more rich 🤑. 

 

Nowadays, cyberpunk isn’t anywhere near as Japan centric 🇯🇵 as it used to be, and there are a lot more cultures and languages represented in these works of cyberpunk. Like there’s a lot more Korean representation 🇰🇷 in cyberpunk now, and a lot of more Korean signs 🇰🇷 and Korean iconography 🇰🇷 on display since South Korea 🇰🇷 really has captured the imagination of people in the West, South Korean entertainment 🇰🇷 is everywhere now, and sometimes outclasses Hollywood in terms of sheer quality, and as some have pointed out, South Korea 🇰🇷 already kind of is a dystopia, and can be used as inspiration for many cyberpunk stories. There’s also a lot of Chinese stuff 🇨🇳 in cyberpunk nowadays, a lot of Chinese signs 🇨🇳, a lot of Chinese music and iconography 🇨🇳, a lot of Chinese people 🇨🇳, and that’s because China 🇨🇳 has become the #2 economy in the world, and is sort of a superpower, and near peer competitor and adversary of the United States 🇺🇸 and does have global ambitions, and does want to overtake the US 🇺🇸 and reshape the world in their image. 

 

There’s also a lot of Russian stuff 🇷🇺 in newer cyberpunk too, since Russia 🇷🇺 still has a lot of global influence despite not being as powerful as it once was; Russia 🇷🇺 still thinks it’s a superpower, and while it currently has the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal ☢️, it is not a superpower in my book 📖. To me, the Russian Federation 🇷🇺 (RF 🇷🇺) is more of a middle power than a superpower, a junior partner to the real superpower, China 🇨🇳, or the People’s Republic of China 🇨🇳 (PRC 🇨🇳). The fact that Russia 🇷🇺 even had to ask the likes of North Korea 🇰🇵 and Iran 🇮🇷 for help in its war against Ukraine 🇺🇦, and is currently economically dependent on both China 🇨🇳 and India 🇮🇳, should tell you all you need to know, that Russia 🇷🇺 isn’t a superpower anymore, and is a declining power; and declining powers are always more violent and destructive when they’re in their death throes. But, while we see a lot more of modern Russia 🇷🇺 in cyberpunk works, we still get some cyberpunk works set in alternate realities where the Soviet Union ☭ never collapsed and still persists in the 21st century. This is case with Blade Runner (and the original novel 📖 the Blade Runner franchise was originally based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 🐑⚡️, though that only partially counts because the book 📖 was written during a time when the Soviet Union ☭ still existed and no one knew that it was going to collapse and cease to exist) and Cyberpunk 2077. 

 

Why are so many cyberpunk writers, filmmakers, and game developers so obsessed with the idea of the Soviet Union ☭ surviving into the 21st century? I like alternate history too, but come on, give it a rest, will ya? Setting your cyberpunk story in a world where the Soviet Union ☭ never collapsed immediately separates it from our world, or the possibility that this could be our future because it’s not our future, or a potential future for us, it’s a future for someone else, a future that will never come to pass because it has that one element that separates it from the real world. It’d like setting a cyberpunk story in a world where South Vietnam won the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 instead of North Vietnam 🇻🇳 and the country was reunified under the South Vietnamese government (the Republic of Vietnam, or RVN) instead of being reunified under the North Vietnamese government 🇻🇳 (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 🇻🇳, or DRV), or in a world where Korea was reunified either under the North Korean government 🇰🇵 or the South Korean government 🇰🇷, either after the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 or more in modern times; if Korea is under the North Korean government (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 🇰🇵, or DPRK 🇰🇵), it would have to be after the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 because there’s no way Korea would be reunified under the DPRK 🇰🇵 nowadays; if it gets reunified, it would have to be under the South Korean government 🇰🇷 (the Republic of Korea 🇰🇷, or ROK 🇰🇷). Or in a world where the Kuomintang won the Chinese Civil War 🇨🇳🇹🇼, and remained in control of the mainland, meaning the Republic of China 🇹🇼 (ROC 🇹🇼) never retreats to Taiwan, and the PRC 🇨🇳 never comes into existence. All scenarios of which I think would be far more interesting to explore in a cyberpunk story than yet another cyberpunk story set in a world where the Soviet Union ☭ (USSR ☭) survived. 

So, what I decided to do, earlier today was take the video, and re-edit it in iMovie, so that I could then reupload the video and avoid it getting blocked like the last time. What I did was I basically just muted the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 promo, and I put some text on the screen that read something like: “Sorry, I apologize that I had to mute this promo in order to avoid the video getting blocked in certain countries” and “If you want to see the full unaltered version of this video, check out my blog.” And that was my original plan: I was going to upload the video with the offending promo muted, and then I would upload the full unedited version of the video here on this blog. It was a solid plan, except for the fact that it didn’t work 🫤. It still got blocked. Why? Because the copyright issue © was not because of anything auditory, it wasn’t because of the music, it was visual. So, it was the footage itself that was getting copyright claimed © and was getting the video blocked. Bandai Namco is the company that claimed the footage, and it said that was from an episode of the series. 

 

It’s not surprising that this happened because Japanese companies 🇯🇵, Japanese entertainment companies 🇯🇵 in particular, are very strict about their copyright ©, and they do not recognize fair use laws here in the United States 🇺🇸, even if these videos admittedly weren’t technically fair use. That’s why you don’t see too many YouTube channels upload clips from Toho movies or Studio Ghibli movies, unless they’re owned by larger companies and have actual permission to upload those clips, there’s just too much of risk in uploading clips from movies and shows owned by those companies. Bandai Namco is much the same, so is Toei. So, if I don’t want the video to get blocked again, I’d have to remove that promo again. So, that’s what I did, and the video was able to get uploaded with no issue. It still got claimed because of some music used in another promo, but it didn’t get the video blocked, so I just left it to keep as much of the original video as intact as I could. So, in the end, the version of the video that’s currently available on YouTube is still in a compromised form. That’s why it’s called the “YouTube Version” because it’s the version that’s catered YouTube’s sensibilities and their rules surrounding copyright ©. 

But, even if my original plan to reupload the video to YouTube with the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 promo muted didn’t work, I’m still going to stick to the other part of my plan and post the original unaltered version of the video here on this blog. That’s what this post is about, it’s to facilitate that, to provide a venue in which I can post this video in its full unaltered form. So, hopefully, you clicked on the links to my blog that I provided in the description of the video on YouTube and in the pinned comment in the comment section and in that YouTube post, and you’re reading this because you came to the right place. If you want to watch the video, this is the place to be. If this is the post of mine that you’re reading on this blog, welcome, and feel free to explore and read some of my past posts. 

 

You won’t be disappointed, I promise you. I mainly talk about movies, TV shows, video games, and I of course talk about anime and cartoons. So, if you really like animation (whether it’s from Japan 🇯🇵 or from America 🇺🇸), this is the place to be, if you like sci-fi movies, TV shows, and video games, this is your place to be, you like action movies, this is your place to be, and if you like creature features, this is your place to be. My most popular post so far is my review of the 2006-2008 gothic Canadian cartoon show 🇨🇦, Ruby Gloom. It currently sits at 396 views, and it will surpass 400 views pretty soon, so give that one read if you’re interested. I do also talk about politics, history, and culture as I demonstrated here in this very post, but if you don’t like that stuff, then just avoid and read something else, and no, I will not stop writing about politics or history or culture, I happen to like all three of those topics and do have a lot to say on them, even if I am by no means, an expert. 

 

My concern right now is that when I try to upload the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 trailer (which has sort of become lost media) to my YouTube channel because that has copyrighted material ©. I mean, it’s a trailer to a movie (an alternate version of a movie), but the music that’s in it is the actual music from the movie composed by Kenji Kawai, they used one of the “UTAs” in the movie, I don’t know which specifically because there are multiple UTAs on the soundtrack to Ghost in the Shell (1995), which Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is an alternate version of. If I do upload that trailer, and it gets blocked, even just partially in one country, like Japan 🇯🇵, then I’ll have no choice but to delete it. I really don’t want to get a copyright strike © on my channel, I want my channel to remain in good standing. Luckily though, like I’m doing with this video, I did post that trailer to this blog. I did it back in 2023, in November of that year, that was the month that I actually started this blog, and a lot of my posts back then were Ghost in the Shell centric, and that one of them. 

 

I had the trailer in my possession (I downloaded it and saved it onto my Backup Plus, and had it on my laptop 💻; still do), I couldn’t find it anywhere on YouTube or anywhere else on the trailer, it was completely scrubbed off the Internet 🛜, so I took it upon myself to post it on my blog. I chose to post it on my blog, and not upload it to YouTube because of that reason, copyright. But, now that I’ve uploaded all of the ADV Films promo videos I had in my collection, I guess I’ll give it a try and upload that Ghost in the Shell 2.0 trailer to YouTube (reupload it as a matter of fact). If it doesn’t work, and it gets blocked, and I end up being forced to delete it, then you can always come here to watch it. I’ll provide the link to that post so you can see that trailer; ahead of time before it goes up on YouTube, and if uploading it to YouTube doesn’t work out, then it’ll be your only place to watch that trailer. Oh, and I also included the 1998 ADV Films promo video in my review of Rail of the Star ☆ because it featured a promo to that film, so if you’re interested in checking that out, click here.

 

 

(This is promo compilation video called ADV Films Ad Promo Circa 1999; unaltered and in its original form.)