How was the 1991 Arslan anime made?
Two films built like features, four OVAs built by committee, and an adaptation that simply stops.
The first Arslan anime is really two productions wearing one numbering. Episodes I and II were released as sixty-minute theatrical films in 1991 and 1992; episodes III to VI followed as home-video OVAs from 1993 to 1995. Between them they cover the first five novels, and then, famously, nothing. The remaining eleven novels waited twenty years for another screen.
THE FILMS
1991–1992Film I · August 17, 1991
Directed by Mamoru Hamatsu; produced by Kadokawa Shoten and Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Animation by Animate Film and I.G. Tatsunoko. Music by Norihiro Tsuru.
Film II · July 18, 1992
The second hour-long film, from Aubeck. Together the films adapt the novels’ opening movement: the fall of Ecbatana and Arslan’s escape.
Kamimura’s Arslan
Character designer Sachiko Kamimura translated Amano’s paintings into faces that could actually be animated, the look by which the 1990s knew Pars.
THE OVAS
1993–1995Episodes III–IV · 1993
Tetsurō Amino directs; production passes to Animate Film with Studio Pierrot and Daume. Thirty-five-minute episodes now, and the budget shows it.
Episodes V–VI · 1995
Hamatsu returns to direct the final pair, with J.C.Staff among the studios. Episode VI closes in September 1995, mid-story, at the fifth novel.
The English afterlife
Central Park Media licensed the films and OVAs in North America, issuing them on VHS and DVD; the first film’s dub was produced by Manga UK. Those discs are long out of print.