The following article contains discussions of sexual abuse, fictionalized sexual violence, and extreme gore. Reader discretion is advised.
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Rare and obscure media never fails to fascinate me. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way; lost media and “rabbit holes” have been been topics of widespread popularity throughout 2021, and it seems as if everyone loves a story that goes deeper and deeper the more they try to read about it. The subject of today’s article is a perfect example of a rabbit hole…what looks to be a simple video distribution company will actually take you down a deep-reaching chasm, carrying you past banned manga, murky pseudonyms, and at least two federal criminal investigations. This is the story of Orange Video House.
That name may already be familiar to fellow media collectors. Orange Video House was a fairly successful VHS tape and Laserdisc distributor during the 1980s. They were not a single standing house, but the latest subdivision of a bigger corporate film company. Orange Video House was a vanity label, a distributor, and a studio all in one, comparable to western companies like Troma Entertainment or The Asylum. In fact, Orange Video House has been mentioned by name as recently as November 2020 by lost media hunters who remain adamant that the Saki Sanobashi urban legend must be somehow real. This urban legend alleges the existence of a grotesquely violent underground anime about several girls trying to escape from a doorless bathroom, which allegedly has not been seen on the “surface web” in over a decade. However, the outsider anime and films that actually exist are much stranger than anything a creepypasta could describe. Orange Video House was a company determined to carve out its own niche in the industry, no matter how deep or dangerous it got.
Part I: Birth
In the year 1979, a film production company and distributor named Telecas Japan Co. Ltd. decided it was time to designate a subdivision for home video releases. Telecas held the Japanese distribution rights of numerous feature films, mostly foreign ones, including Just A Gigolo and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but Telecas was limited to licensing these films as television airings and Super 8 film reels. But, by establishing Sai Enterprise Co. Ltd., Telecas would be able to step into the brand new home video market and produce physical releases of original and imported films off to the side, without interrupting their main line of work. The home video market was promising but risky venture at the time. It was 1979 after all, and the VHS was brand new technology that no one knew quite yet what to do with. In fact, VCRs had only been available on the Japanese consumer market for three whole years when Sai Enterprise was formed. Telecas’s Sai Enterprise has no relation to the similarly-named Indian outdoor equipment manufacturer who often appears in search results today.
Sai Enterprise of Japan had a daunting task at hand: break into the brand-new home video market. Home video technology was so complicated and new in the late 1970s that VHS tapes were initially referred to as “video software” (ビデオソフト), as if the JVC HR-3300 VCR was a sort of personal computer. Home videos had a guaranteed high profit margin, as long as they actually sold; the average commercial VHS tape retailed anywhere from 5000 to 9800 yen throughout the 1980s due to a period of economic inflation. Regardless of price, home videos did quickly become a collectible commodity among tech enthusiasts, who immediately took interest in the opportunity to own a physical copy of a movie they liked. It was a tangible representation of something they liked, and they could use it to re-watch it right at home anytime they wanted. These tech enthusiasts were known as “otaku” at the time. While the term today in the west is closely associated with anime, among 1980s Japanese youths, anyone particularly devoted to a special interest could be considered an otaku. There were those such as military otaku who studied international war history and artillery, wrestling otaku who followed the thriving puroresu scene, there were gadget otaku…many of these people either owned or had access to a VCR, so video distributors had a boundless amount of genres to try tapping into. Before the end of the 1980s, multiple industries in Japan would see just how profitable otaku could be.
The home video market begun to truly grow after the first round of direct-to-video productions hit store shelves. In December 1983, the first direct-to-video anime (also known as the “Original Video Animation”, or OVA) a sci-fi adventure series called Dallos had its first episode released on home video. This was no small production, either; Dallos was directed by Mamoru Oshii and animated by 1980s powerhouse Studio Pierrot. Dallos‘s immediate success ensured that the series was able to run its full course, amassing four OVA episodes and one feature-length special. Its success also showed Japanese studios how quickly OVAs would, and could, sell. The ensuing OVA Boom lasted into the 1990s and ushered in an era of original and/or experimental films and animations. This all began several years before the direct-to-video boom hit North America, with the first Western direct-to-video film, Blood Cult, only being released in 1985.
Let us return to Japan in 1984…classic films and blockbuster releases dominated the Japanese home video market sales charts, but deep below that was an undercurrent of “video nasties” that consistently sold well. Much like in the west, the home video market quickly became flush with R-rated releases. Horror movies and erotic films, both Japanese and imported, were performing very well on monthly sales charts, and distributors took note. This sales trend stemmed from how younger, more tech-savvy consumers were buying or renting the most videos at this time. Films containing sex and violence were appealing to early 80s Japanese youths for the same reasons it appealed to youths in Britain, America, Italy, or anywhere else in the world: it was new, edgy content like nothing anyone had seen before. As society moved into the 1980s, young people more than ever were exhausted by the previous generation’s tame, conservative media in a world that seemed to become more complicated and violent every year. Trendy young yuppies and hobbyist otaku were buying and renting the most home videos, and video distributors were eager to distribute almost anything that would sell among these demographics.
Part II: Ossification
By this point in time, Telecas and Sai Enterprise had seen a number of factors become forged in the early home video industry: their target demographic was young and trendy, sex and violence were almost guaranteed to sell, and anime on video was seen as highly collectible. The sky was the limit when it came to home video content, too, with very few restrictions that could limit sales and distribution. The Japanese Film Classification and Rating Organization (also known as the Eirin) did not yet have a set of standards for rating direct-to-video features, and for the first few years, video distributors were only legally restricted from showing bare genitalia. Most content was otherwise permissible for release. This meant that, at least until the late 1980s, the home video market was a wild west for independent content creators and distributors.
Still though, few could have predicted the sudden rise and sheer profitability of animated pornography. The third original video animation ever released, following Dallos‘s first two episodes, was February 1984’s Lolita Anime, an anthology series based on lolicon manga by Nakajima Fumio. In fact, of the first eighteen OVAs ever released in Japan, eleven of those titles were animated pornography, eight of which involved underage girls. However, these titles sold very well in limited release batches, thanks to the then-ongoing Lolicon Boom. Just like how there was an otaku subculture for any centralized interest, there were lolicon otaku, and they were more than willing to fork over money for pornographic versions of the “cute girl” anime they consumed via television networks.
By the end of 1984, Soeishinsha Co. Ltd.’s Cream Lemon series had begun to overtake sales for live action adult features, including The Onanie series, which had previously been a staple of the adult home video market. Cream Lemon gained much acclaim among otaku because of how many independent artists were part of Soeishinsha’s original creative team. The series had seen collaboration with Shingyouji Tatsuya, Kizuna Kei, Hirano Toshihiro, and many other artists from the underground doujinshi and lolicon scenes. The corresponding otaku communities likely felt proud of these creators for contributing to something as successful as Cream Lemon. Meanwhile, Sai Enterprise lay dormant, but it was as if they were taking notes from afar.
Up to this point in time, Sai Enterprise had been producing VHS versions of select films from the Shochiku Fuji theatre company. Behind the scenes, Sai and Telecas had rushed several animated titles into production in hopes of capitalizing on the ero-OVA boom before it cooled. The home video format was no longer the riskiest part of the video industry; now it was finding a way to bend pornography censorship rules. Sai decided to establish a new sub-division: Orange Video House. This is purely speculation, but the “orange” of Orange Video House may be a homage to the citrus motif made famous by Cream Lemon and its home magazine Lemon People. As time would tell, Orange Video House was not above emulating anything that worked for other video companies.
It is worth quickly discussing Orange Video House’s general audience features before we truly dig deep into the company’s history. Their most successful, most popular production is Dream Hunter Rem, a supernatural bishoujo adventure series. Lead heroine Ayanokouji Rem was a mysterious woman with the stature and appearance of a teenage girl, clearly influenced by lolicon manga, but Rem was also a highly capable paranormal investigator with a number of tricks up her sleeves. She would enter the dreams of afflicted clients in order to exorcise them or save them from spirits.
The first episode was originally an X-rated cut, containing scenes where Rem and a kidnapped girl were sexually assaulted by tentacles. The release sold well enough, but viewer feedback made it clear that audiences were more interested in seeing Rem go on adventures than in graphic sex scenes. Orange Animation soon re-released a PG-13 cut of Dream Hunter Rem with a second episode’s worth of new scenes, which restructured Rem as a monster-of-the-week style paranormal adventure. Certain scenes were partially re-animated; certain shots from Rem’s nude scene were redrawn to give her a warrior bikini. The Rem series happens to be an early example of a bishoujo anime (lit. “pretty girl anime”), an offshoot of the Lolicon Boom that focused on female characters who were non-infantile but still “eye candy” for the audience. Bikini warrior girls with swords were particularly popular fixtures in bishoujo manga and anime, a fad stemming from the international 1980s warrior/barbarian movie boom. In short, Rem joined the super-powered cute girl adventure genre right at the height of its popularity. Orange Video House had originally only intended to make a trope-laden quick-seller for otaku, but they accidentally struck gold with Dream Hunter Rem. Telecas and its subdivisions would eventually file for bankruptcy right before the release of the third Rem episode, but after this, the series continued to move forward, now in the hands of King Records and several other production companies.
In 1985, the OVA Boom begun to expand into all genres, and Orange Animation did the same. All of their further non-pornographic anime titles would now be released on the mainline Sai Enterprise label. While the Rem series has gone on to become a cult classic in Japan, its spiritual successors only lasted one episode each: Superdimensional Romanesque Samy: Missing 99 was another bishoujo-with-sword fantasy feature, and Twinkle Heart: Can’t Reach the Galaxy was a sci-fi action comedy with a trio of sisters: an elegant blue-haired girl, a spunky redhead, and a comedic cutesy blonde, a dynamic similar to the lead characters of Project A-ko, which had been released in theatres just a few months prior. Promotional materials for Twinkle Heart proudly declared it as “Part 1”, but no further instalments ever made it past the initial planning stages.
Rem and her sister titles are well-known among video collectors, most of whom are unaware that these anime were even made by Orange Video House. Most western video collectors may not have even known until now that the company ever existed. Regardless, back in mid-1980s Japan, they were the video label for otaku who wanted niche content. OVH had select G-rated releases, such as their Movie Masterpiece Collection, selections of silent films featuring classic actors from the west. They at one point distributed a concert film starring an indie new-wave band called Metrofarce. However, Orange Video House’s main charm point was its wide variety of R and X rated releases.
Part III: Abrasion
Let us return to late 1984…Telecas Japan had inadvertently made itself the outer hull of an elaborate matryoshka doll: within them was Sai Enterprise, and within Sai was Orange Video House. The OVH label was officially designated to carry adult anime, gore, mondo, and “everything else”. OVH also had a short-lived sister division called Skit Club, which distributed live action adult films. OVH was set to be the biggest outlet of the Telecas corporate family tree…their first big release would be part of their original ero-anime series, Super Adult Anime. The series had a gimmick where each instalment was creatively influenced by a different underground mangaka, much like Cream Lemon, but with more emphasis on hardcore sex and imagery, hence the “super adult” moniker. These manga artists were scouted from indie erotic magazines by Orange Animation producer Okuda Seiji.
Okuda was, and still is, a prolific anime director and animator. He is of no relation to the similarly-named movie producer Okuda Seiji, but Orange Animation’s Okuda is no less notable; he has been an episode director and storyboard artist since the early days of television anime, with a portfolio including Dororo & Hyakkimaru (1969), Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974), and Doraemon (1979). Okuda maintained this mainstream anime career while providing screenplays, storyboards, and directorial work for Orange Video House under the name of “Kumazaki Satoru”. Not much is known about the rest of Orange Animation. They were usually only credited as a single entity, the “Midnight 25” team, though a number of them did move onto OVH’s future general audience releases.
The first Super Adult Anime instalment was Aoi Taiken (or “Blue Experience”), a title taking inspiration from several other adult-oriented releases. Salvatore Samperi’s taboo sex comedy Malizia (1973) had been localized in Japanese as Aoi Taiken, and it inspired a wave of similarly titled films, much like how many underground 1970s films emulated the titles of bigger films like Debbie Does Dallas and Night of the Living Dead. These knockoff Blue titles included Las Adolescentes (1975) localized as Shin Aoi Taiken (“New Blue Experience“), and both Peccato Veniale (1974) and The School Teacher (1975) were localized as Zoku Aoi Taiken (“Further Blue Experience“). This title style was used just as frequently for domestically-produced adult films; only five months earlier, Aoi Taiken: Kashin no Itami (or “Blue Moment: Nipped in the Bud“) starring Saotome Hiromi had been released on VHS to moderate sale success. Super Adult Anime: Aoi Taiken may have been one of several blue experiences, but it was the first one to be fully animated.
The OVA’s art style and story were created by erotic mangaka Hachuu Rui. Hachuu got his start in the manga industry as an assistant to Fujiko Fujio on the Doraemon manga. At some point, he moved onto a career as a solo artist, taking on the “Hachuu Rui” pen name as a joke; “hachuurui” (爬虫類) is the Japanese word for “reptile”. Hachuu’s success in erotic publications caught Okuda’s attention and he was invited to pitch a story to Orange Animation. The end result, Aoi Taiken, is a relatively generic but inoffensive porn flick: a college girl named Miki (played by adult video actress Nakamura Kyouko) goes out to tutor a high school senior, but when the two overhear the boy’s mother having an affair, Miki winds up teaching the young man how to have sexual intercourse. Nowadays, video collectors know Aoi Taiken for being the first ero-anime to use “x-ray” shots (internal views of the orifice being penetrated), and for having a behind-the-scenes special released only 11 days after its initial release date.
Originally, the second episode of Super Adult Animation was slated to be directed by mangaka Murayama Kazuo. Murayama’s adult manga was generally similar in tone to Hachuu’s, and he was the most mainstream of all the mangaka Orange Animation chose, having done the artwork for volumes 5 thru 7 of the Moonlight Mask manga adaptation. An early promotional flyer for Aoi Taiken featured two episode preview images, with Murayama’s name labelled on the second episode. However, the episode was never released and its contents were sealed; the episode is so lost that there is not even any proof it ever went into production.
Orange Animation was forced to rush the next episode into production, and just as quickly, the content of Super Adult Anime escalated in extremity. For its third-come-second episode, Orange Animation chose bondage mangaka Agata Ui, whose best-known work at the time was the “Schoolgirl Hunting” manga series (女学生狩りシリーズ) about BDSM and forcible confinement. Agata is still active as an illustrator today under the name of Sakamoto Rokuyu, but he was and still is extremely underground, to the point where Orange Video House’s The Satisfaction is Agata’s most famous work.
The Satisfaction follows an elegant schoolgirl named Reiko who has gruesome nightmares about being assaulted by a demon. One day, a stranger kidnaps Reiko from a city park and subjects her to extreme bondage, blackmailing her into returning to the shed every day. The man abruptly follows through on his end of the blackmail deal and goes away, but Reiko is so mentally-shattered that she forces herself on the first young man she sees. The Satisfaction set the standard for hentai depravity, and its grimness was topped by the very next Super Adult Anime episode, Datenchi-tachi no Kyouen (“Feast of the Fallen Angels“) by Dirty Matsumoto. Yes, that is his published name.
Datenchi-tachi no Kyouen was based on Matsumoto’s infamous 1978 manga of the same name. The series was originally serialized in Manga Erogenica, an underground hardcore manga magazine, and its omnibus edition was actually banned from being sold or reproduced anywhere in Tokyo. This controversy was what made Orange Animation select Matsumoto, and it was also used as a selling point. A heading on the back of the original packaging declared, “The long-lost work, prohibited from sale! Now resurrected as a video anime!” The anime begins as a young woman named Reika is being held captive, in bondage, by mobsters. Reika owes them money, but is unable to pay it back, so the gang also abducts Reika’s sister and niece Megumi. What ensues is a cavalcade of unpleasant physical and sexual torture, some of which even involves Megumi, despite the anime establishing her as a middle school-aged child. The anime suddenly becomes a rape revenge genre film, as Megumi mutilates the boss’s genitals, escapes her room, and burns down the gang headquarters with everyone inside – including her mother and aunt. The end credits roll as a haunting music box melody plays. It’s a horrific, haunting ending, but one that fits in among the other mondo films and art projects distributed by Orange Video House. With its origins as a banned comic and its depictions of forced enemas, emasculation, child sexual assault, mass murder, and other visceral subject matter, Datenchi-tachi no Kyouen is the closest thing in existence to a real “Saki Sanobashi”.
In spite of this, Orange Video House was quite proud of how this episode had turned out. They purchased full-colour glossy ad space for Datenchi-tachi in a handful of hobby magazines. The advertising was high quality but its release was limited; only a few magazines were willing to run the extremely graphic advertisements. One magazine, Comic Box Jr., ran a full colour ad for the Super Adult Anime series on the back cover of their April 1985 issue. Prime colour advertising like this is not cheap, either, and Datenchi-tachi was also featured in two-page spreads alongside OVH’s gore films. It may have been illegal to promote or sell Matsumoto’s original manga, but the Tokyo Metropolitan Government couldn’t touch the anime version since it was a separate piece of media. The Eirin also couldn’t touch the anime version since OVA-related censorship laws didn’t yet exist, and Datenchi-tachi‘s tapes were not commercially available, only sold by mail order, to video stores, or through consignment at local hobby shops. These down-low sales methods guaranteed that all sales records would become lost to time, so we may never know how many copies officially sold. Whoever purchased a tape back in March 1985 likely watched it and wondered what horrific, brutal depths would be reached in Super Adult Anime episode four. In a move that surprised everyone, episode four was revealed to be…Aoi Taiken 2: Seijou-Tai Lost Virgin (“Blue Experience 2: Lost Virgin Saints Squad“).
Aoi Taiken 2 followed the adventures of a bishoujo trio called the Saints Squad as they went on a lakeside vacation. One of the girls, Mai, meets a handsome older man teaching tennis at a nearby resort, and the two begin a passionate love affair. Aoi Taiken 2 was not related to the prior Aoi Taiken, nor did Hachuu Rui have anything to do with it: it was instead the anime debut of the Seijou-Tai, a trio of “gravure” pin-up models. Gravure films generally feature all-female casts and can vary wildly in content, from swimsuit modelling videos, to a model being brought to orgasm either by herself or by other actors. The Seijou-Tai were a parody of a popular idol group called the Shoujo-Tai (“Girl Squad”), and Seijou-Tai likewise released an album in 1985. As a musical group, the Seijou-Tai is comparable to a group like Vanity 6, having members chosen primarily for their looks, and songs full of sexual innuendo (i.e. “Chisakute, Chisakute”, or “Too Small, Too Small”, about not being sexually satisfied by a penis). Aoi Taiken 2 was the final episode of the Super Adult Anime series. Meanwhile, the Seijou-Tai went on to appear in a handful of adult films for Nikkatsu Video.
Orange Animation rebranded as Fantastic Animation and released one final ero-anime, Naoko’s Tropic Angel: Adrift. This OVA’s overall tone and appearance were drastically lighter than Orange Animation’s earlier project. The most likely reason for this tone change was because in Spring 1985, Soeishinsha was still dominating the adult anime market with Cream Lemon, and some of the most popular CL instalments were cutesy, comedic stories, many of which also tried to capture a shoujo manga art style. Tropic Angel is narrated by a schoolgirl named Mina who tells the viewer about a time she and her mother’s younger brother, Uncle Shigeru, were on an airline flight that mysteriously crashed in the ocean. There are no fatalities, but Mina, Shigeru, and an American girl named Jenny are swept away from the other survivor rafts, and wash up on a small tropical island. The three camp out on the island and have group sex until they are eventually rescued. Orange Video House seemed to be throwing every popular trope at the wall in one final effort to get something to stick…the OVA’s lead female characters, Mina and Jenny, were designed to vaguely resemble Lynn Minmay and Candy White, two popular characters among lolicon and bishoujo otaku. The new softer animation would make it appeal to both young women and Cream Lemon fans. The story closely resembled that of Hitonatsu no Taiken: Aoi Sangosho (“A Summer Experience: Blue Lagoon“), a popular adult film that had been released only a few years prior. Most bizarrely, the official promotional materials claimed the titular Naoko was an actual 17-year-old girl who fantasized the OVA’s plot while on a plane trip to Saipan. This Naoko has never been conclusively identified, let alone even confirmed to be a real person who ever existed. Some archivists have speculated that Naoko could possibly be the “Naoko Tsuda” credited as Tropic Angel‘s producer and theme song vocalist.
Orange Video House had given up on ero-anime, but they were determined to find their niche elsewhere. They soon set their sights upon another popular video genre that would soon become OVH’s bread-and-butter: “splatter” films.
Part IV: Viscera
Splatter cinema was nothing new to the rest of the world in 1985, but in Japan, it was at the peak of its popularity. These were films featuring hyper-violent scenes as a way to both shock the audience and to experiment with elaborate, artful gore. These films originated in America and Italy during the 1960s but quickly gained international notoriety. When thinking about early splatter and gore films, one example that may come to a video collector’s mind is Faces of Death (1978), an early “shockumentary” by John Alan Schwartz that compiled (mostly staged) footage of human injury, animal abuse, and death. Much of the film’s production history is murky, but Faces of Death went on to become an infamous “video nasty” in England, while in Japan, it was retitled Junk and screened as a midnight movie on what is known as a “roadshow tour”. Roadshows are independent film release tours wherein film distributors rent out a local theatre or set up a temporary screening site, and film-goers only have a certain window of time to catch the film before the roadshow moves onto its next venue. The company handling Faces of Death‘s roadshow tour was, in fact, Telecas Japan Co. Ltd., parent company of Orange Video House and Sai Enterprise.
Telecas had immense fiscal success with Faces/Junk, so much so that they approached Schwarz with the offer to finance a sequel. Schwarz and his production company agreed, and the end result was Junk 2, or Faces of Death Part II, a much darker film than its predecessor. Adult video producer Saegusa Susumu (better known as extreme fetish director Adachi Kaoru) was Part II‘s executive producer and Telecas Japan’s district manager. Under Saegusa’s direction, this film was to contain as much real footage as possible. To this day, the original Faces of Death has a cult following of splatter film fans who appreciate its campy 1970s gore…however, the fandom is divided when it comes to Part II because of the sheer amount of actual, non-staged death and violence. One fan even claims that only one of Part II‘s scenes has ever been confirmed to be fake. Yet in Japan in 1981, Part II was yet another successful midnight movie. Original promotional materials say the film is a “Fuji Film Joint Distribution”; this was a joint venture between Telecas and their longtime collaborator Shochiku Fuji’s distribution division. It’s important to note that Shochiku was, and still is, one of the four members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (known as the MPPAJ for short). Telecas screened Faces of Death Part II at Shochiku-owned local venues, and in May 1985, it was released on home video exclusively by Orange Video House. Not long after this, Faces of Death Part III would also be released as an Orange video, completing the “Junk Trilogy” and reviving the campy splatter of the original Faces of Death.
The Faces of Death series had concluded, at least for the time being, but its relative success had inspired other filmmakers and distributors. One of these creatives was horror writer Ogura Satoru, who had seen Faces of Death and wondered, how close to reality could a splatter film get? Real footage of war, car crashes, animal attacks, and general death was captured all the time, obviously enough to be assembled into a feature-length film, but what about a murder? How convincingly could a filmmaker stage a snuff film?
This was only a few years after Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust had been released, and its advertising campaign revolved around the claim that it contained real documentary footage of an American film team terrorizing, and then being murdered by, a tribe of South American Indigenous peoples. Cannibal Holocaust‘s marketing was so convincing that Italian authorities thought the film was a commercially-distributed snuff film and forced Deodato to prove that its lead actors were alive and well. (The actors were alive, but the tribe was indeed terrorized for real, and numerous animals died on set.) According to Deodato, the film is a commentary about how unethical the Italian mondo film industry had become. He decided to emphasize his point through particularly shocking violence, which nobody in 1980 had ever seen on film before. Cannibal Holocaust‘s biggest contribution to pop culture was its viral marketing formula: accentuate a story with shocking imagery, and then use gimmicks to build mystique around the film. Shocking your consumers ensured they would talk about you, thus providing free advertising, and they would feel an urgency to see the film, perhaps even pay money to ensure they get to see it. Now, five years later, Orange Video House seemed to finally find its niche on the home video market. The Midnight 25 team was back in action, joined by their new lead director Ogura Satoru.
Ogura soon approached horror mangaka Hino Hideshi about making a direct-to-video splatter film. Hino was so enthusiastic about the project that the group decided to make two films simultaneously, both directed by Ogura and scripted by Hino. While the stories were quite different, both focused on shadowy individuals torturing a kidnapped girl, making her into an unwilling “guinea pig” for their torture experiments…likewise, the resulting franchise was henceforth known as Guinea Pig.
The first instalment, Devil’s Experiment, especially embodied Ogura’s original vision of a faux snuff film, with its underground advertising campaign and lack of on-tape credits. A disclaimer before the film claimed, “The producers received this video. There was no accompanying information. We are researching name, age, and other information about the girl and her three killers.” The second film, Flower of Flesh & Blood, starred Hino himself as a man in samurai armour who kidnaps a woman, drugs her with a special chemical that makes her perceive pain as pleasure, and then elaborately vivisects her. The gore is shockingly realistic, thanks to Midnight 25’s advanced special effects. These were elaborate enough to warrant being released as Making of Guinea Pig, a 1986 direct-to-video special containing behind-the-scenes footage of the first three Guinea Pig films, including both Hino-Ogura productions and the third instalment, He Never Dies!, a splatter-heavy dark comedy about a man impervious to death no matter the violence he puts himself through.
The first two films were morbid, but there were still more Guinea Pigs to come…the last film made under the Orange Video House team was Peter’s Devil Woman Doctor, a dark comedy and gross-out gore film starring Peter, a 1980s drag queen, as the titular doctor. The film is so much sillier than its predecessors that it is often credited as being the sixth instalment, released in 1990, but it was very much released in 1986. The Orange Video House crew seemed to finally find its calling. The behind-the-scenes footage showcased in Making of Guinea Pig shows how many amateur creatives worked together on the film, and how much enthusiasm they had for creating artful splatter.
Part V: Decay
It was now January 1987. Orange Video House was doing quite well as a niche film studio, but the rest of the Telecas corporate tree was not as successful. Telecas Japan filed for bankruptcy that same month, and Sai Enterprise shuttered weeks later. Orange Video House and its properties were in limbo for a short while, but not for long. The Faces/Junk and Guinea Pig distribution licenses were quickly picked up by MAD Video, a label owned by V&R Planning, a distribution company founded by Saegusa Susumu in 1986, and Japan Home Video. Saegusa would also go onto produce other Faces-inspired films such as the Junk File series. Okuda Seiji took the Dream Hunter Rem franchise to other studios, and a new series, New Dream Hunter Rem, continued into the 1990s. Telecas was erroneously included in some Television & Film Almanacs as late as 1989 (pg. 213 of linked document), but for the most part, the corporate tree had been chopped down for good.
Under normal circumstances, Orange Video House and its parent companies would have faded into obscurity. They would have only been discussed by film and video enthusiasts alongside other film companies like Cannon, Toei, or Blumhouse. Unfortunately, two years later in August 1989, the Guinea Pig films were pulled into the public consciousness, not just for video collectors but for all of Japan, when one of the films was found in the home of child murderer Miyazaki Tsutomu.
The film in question was Guinea Pig 4: Peter’s Devil Woman Doctor. However, the gruesome abuse that four young children had been subjected to seemed to closely resemble the torture depicted in Devil’s Experiment and Flower of Flesh & Blood, leading the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to thoroughly investigate Miyazaki’s collection of 6000+ VHS tapes. Neither Guinea Pigs 1 or 2 were found in this collection. Before the murderer’s capture, the press nicknamed him the Vampire Killer. However, the enormous tape collection (mostly comprised of live action gore and pornography) led to the press renaming him as the Otaku Killer. He could indeed be technically considered a VHS otaku, but this influx of outsiders who now associated the word “otaku” with a vile child rapist/murderer dealt irreparable damage to the otaku subcultures of Japan. Self-identifying otaku were soon regarded as dangerous, sick individuals. Japan’s previously flourishing underground market of splatter, pornography, and hentai anime was now under legal scrutiny during a moral panic comparable to the western hemisphere’s Satanic Panic around rock music and Dungeons & Dragons.
The staff behind Guinea Pig were never indicted for obscenity charges, but they denounced the Killer and what he had put four young children through. Midnight 25’s foresight in releasing Making of Guinea Pig more than likely saved them from the same legal repercussions Ruggero Deodato had to go through; Japanese authorities carefully reviewed the footage in order to ascertain the films were not actual crimes, nor did they have anything to do with the Otaku Killer incidents. The team tried to make further Guinea Pig films as late as 1990, but the public backlash was just too heavy, and the sales were never the same. To this day, Flower of Flesh & Blood is still banned from sale and distribution in the Tokyo municipal area. In this regard, Hino regards Flower as a “success” when it comes to emulating a snuff film and fooling the viewers.
Guinea Pig‘s infamy was not over, though. It continued to grow into the 1990s, this time going international, and culminating in a particular incident that is talked about to this day as a Hollywood urban legend: American actor Charlie Sheen thought Flower of Flesh & Blood was a real snuff film and reported it to the FBI. What is confirmed is that Sheen was at a party in 1991, where someone – allegedly film critic Chris Gore – was screening strange mondo films, and he was so repulsed by Flower that he contacted the FBI. The FBI investigation did not get far, as authorities in Japan were able to corroborate their findings that Guinea Pig was a piece of fiction. The party’s screener copy of Flower traced back to Fangoria writer Chas Balun who attested the FBI investigation stopped before they ever contacted him. Sheen allegedly continued campaigning against the Guinea Pig series and all other faux-snuff films into the mid-1990s.
This was still not the end of international controversy. One year later, a 26-year-old film collector named Christopher Berthoud was detained and later fined £600 for trying to import a copy of Flower into Britain. British authorities were forced to investigate the film all over again, and while the film was concluded to not be real footage, Berthoud was still fined on obscenity charges. In 1996, a VHS copy of Flower was reported to Swedish legal authorities, and the police brought in medical doctors to assess the gore and determine if it was real. The Guinea Pig franchise has long outlived the name of its parent company and even most of the names of the staff who created it.
Much of Orange Video House’s true origins remains a mystery. How many sister companies did OVH have? What about Sai Enterprise, or even Telecas? How and why did they jump onto any trend that could turn a profit in video sales? There is no room for speculation at this time; there seem to be many more pieces in this jigsaw puzzle that must be found before the whole picture can be fully assembled. Orange Video House still remains as an example of what happens when studios try to produce anything that makes a profit…sometimes you create art, sometimes you create crap, and sometimes you create inescapable infamy.
Before we climb back out of this rabbit hole, I want to take a moment to remind you, reader, that OVH is not representative of the Japanese entertainment industry as a whole. Much of their videos are indeed the sort of content that has given Japanese media a bad name in the western hemisphere, but there are just as many films and cartoons released out here that likely make us look deranged to foreigners. If you’d like to get a more authentic look at contemporary Japanese media, I highly recommend titles such as Midnight Diner, Lupin the Third: The First, or even Pui Pui Molcar if you want something particularly silly. There’s no shame in watching felt-knitted guinea pig cars go on adventures, especially after you’ve just been reading about a different type of guinea pig series.
Epilogue: The Complete (Original) Catalogue
In spite of it all, Orange Video House still lives among with video collectors who have gone to great efforts to document its eclectic back catalogue. OVH’s original productions are well-documented, but the full scope of Orange and Sai’s distribution catalogue is still unknown. Their heyday was during the pre-digital era and much of these titles have not been properly archived. They tended to import foreign films and featurettes of all genres, ranging from erotic thrillers to US Golf Open championships. Known Movie Masterpiece Collection titles include “Buster Keaton Masterpiece Collection” and “Harold Lloyd Masterpiece Collection”.
This section will outline all original productions by Sai Enterprise and/or Orange Video House. It is not a detailed guide by any means, but is intended to bring this information into English. Sections are organized through series titles in alphabetical order.
“Dream Hunter Rem” Series
- Dream Hunter REM (ドリームハンターレム(麗夢), 10 June 1985)
- Dream Hunter Rem Special Version: “A Terrible Dream, Dr. Shinigami Revived” (ドリームハンター麗夢 スペシャルバージョン 『惨夢、甦る死神博士』, 5 December 1985) – A revised edition of the original first episode, but with scenes reanimated to remove nudity and tentacle penetration
- Dream Hunter Rem 2: “Youmu and the Holy Beauty Goddess Academy” (ドリームハンター麗夢II 『聖美神女学園の妖夢』, 5 September 1986) – The first Rem release on the Sai Enterprise label
- Dream Hunter Rem 3: “Hidden Dream! Legend of the Headless Samurai” (ドリームハンター麗夢III 『夢隠 首なし武者伝説』, 5 February 1987) – The final release carrying the Sai label name
“Guinea Pig” Series
- Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment (ギニーピッグ 悪魔の実験, 5 September 1985) – A group of sadistic researchers abduct a teenage girl and subject her to a variety of extreme torture methods
- Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (ギニーピッ2 血肉の華, 30 November 1985) – A young woman is abducted by a man in samurai armour, who takes her back to his home and vivisects her
- Guinea Pig 3: Shudder! The Man Who Never Dies (ギニーピッグ3 戦慄！ 死なない男, 10 April 1986) – A dark comedy about a man who attempts to kill himself but realizes he is unkillable by most methods
- Guinea Pig 4: Peter’s Devil Woman Doctor (ギニーピッグ 4 ピーターの悪魔の女医さん (10 April 1986) – A dark comedy starring drag queen Peter as the titular doctor, who shows the audience a number of absurd fictional medical cases. Often erroneously attributed in English as being released in 1990
“Junk” series
- Junk 1: Death & Tragedy (ジャンク1 死と惨劇, 10 March 1985) Originally released in 1978
- Junk 2: Death Ritual (ジャンク2 死の儀式, 10 June 1985) Originally released in 1981
- Junk 3: Moment of Death (ジャンク3 死の瞬間, 5 October 1985)
Orange Video House releases
- Blue Experience: The Live Action Production (青い体験 実写本番編, 21 November 1984) – Miki is a college entrance exam tutor, but while visiting her latest client, she overhears the client’s mother cheating on her husband. Contains behind-the-scenes footage and candid actor clips from the making of Blue Experience
- Metrofarce (メトロファルス, 21 January 1985) – A concert film starring the titular Metrofarce, a Japanese new wave band
- Naoko’s Tropic Angel: Adrift (直子のトロピックエンジェル ～漂流～, 10 May 1985) – A teenage girl, her teenage uncle, and an American girl are stranded on a tropical island together. Not part of the Super Adult series, but still intended as erotica
Sai Enterprise anime releases
- Superdimensional Romanesque Samy: Missing 99 (5 July 1986) – A schoolgirl named Yoshino Sami suddenly awakes in another dimension. In order to get home, she must harness her newfound superpowers to help fight against evil forces
- Twinkle Heart: Can’t Reach the Galaxy (5 December 1986) – Three angel sisters – Lemon, Cherry, and Berry – are sent from heaven to fight crime across the galaxy
Skit Club releases
- Production Idol: Kobayashi Ai, Age 19 (本番アイドル 小林愛 １９才, 31 March 1986) – A gravure film debuting Kobayashi Ai. Six years later, Kobayashi would officially debut as an anime voice actor, leading to this film becoming quite rare in recent years
- Production BODY Magazine (本番BODYマガジン, April thru November 1986) – A three episode gravure series directed by Ise Rintaro, a veteran director in the Japanese pornography industry. Like the title implies, these films were focused around filming female models in various states of undress
“Super Adult Anime” Series
- Blue Experience (青い体験, 10 November 1984) – Miki is a college entrance exam tutor, but while visiting her latest client, she overhears the client’s mother cheating on her husband. Miki’s client then asks her to teach him about female anatomy
- The Satisfaction (ザ・サティスファクション, 15 December 1984) – A teenage girl begins having nightmares about being assaulted by a demon. This seems to manifest into reality when a strange man holds her captive in a public park
- Feast of the Fallen Angels (堕天使たちの狂宴, 10 March 1985) – The mob abducts and tortures a woman who owes them money. When she is unable to pay, the woman’s sister and niece are abducted as well
- Blue Experience 2: Lost Virgin Saints (青い体験2 聖女隊ロストバージン, 10 July 1985) – Three college girls go on vacation to a tennis resort. One of the girls, Mai, meets a dashing older tennis instructor, and the two begin a passionate affair
Most of the above releases are still exclusively on VHS. The Dream Hunter Rem franchise is maintained by King Records and Media-Mix. Aoi Taiken was illegally released in the United States in 1999 as “Sex-Ed Teacher” by pornography distributor Filmco, on DVD and VHS, but both editions are now quite rare. The Guinea Pig and Faces of Death films have since been re-released by different companies, many of whom are their own wild tales for another time.
The Gonzo Brigadoon 
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