(JHV) is a Japanese media corporation which produces and distributes film and video products and is also involved in TV programming and game software. It uses the label for its

adult video Pornographic films (pornos), erotic films, sex films, and 18+ films are films that present sexually explicit subject matter in order to arouse and satisfy the viewer. Pornographic films present sexual fantasies and usually include erotical ...

production.

Company history and finances

JHV was established in May 1984 to take advantage of the explosion of

videocassette recorder A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the reco ...

s (VCRs) in Japan at that time. Following the introduction of commercial VCR Beta recorders in 1975 (and the VHS format in 1976), VCR production in Japan went from one million units in 1978 to 44 million by 1985 fueled largely by the number of movies (including pornography) available on VHS. By November 1984, the company had expanded enough to move to new headquarters in the fashionable

Harajuku is a district in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Harajuku is the common name given to a geographic area spreading from Harajuku Station to Omotesando, corresponding on official maps of Shibuya ward as Jingūmae 1 chōme to 4 chōme. In popular refere ...

district of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The company originally used the ''Penguin'' () label for its videos but in April 1986, JHV founded

Alice Japan was established on April 5, 1986, as the adult video (AV) label for Japan Home Video (JHV). Company information The early AVs produced by JHV went under the Penguin (ぺんぎん) label, the first title being the 30-minute-long softcore ''Asobi ...

(アリスJAPAN) as a label for their adult videos (AV). The company subsequently expanded into softcore movies,

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

productions, computer games and, in 1996, the satellite broadcasting business. In February 2000, JHV acquired a building in the Jinbocho area of Tokyo and transferred its headquarters there. A further move brought the Production Center to their own building in Tokyo's Nakano City in March 2005 which also became the company headquarters in April 2007. For the 2007 fiscal year, the corporation had sales of 2.25 billion yen (about $22.5 million) and a capital of 27 million yen (about $227,000). The company employed 34 people and had its headquarters in the JHV Building () in Nakano, Tokyo.

Products

The company is involved in the production and distribution of film, video products, music and TV programs.

Film and video

JHV has produced and/or distributed a number of theatrical movies, including several in the science fiction or horror genre and often with erotic overtones. Some notable film productions include the 1989 cult horror movie '' Tetsuo: The Iron Man'' directed by

Shinya Tsukamoto is a Japanese filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter, editor, director, cinematographer, art director, production designer and actor. With a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad, Tsukamoto is best known for his body horro ...

and the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the ter ...

zombie A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...

flic ''Junk: Shiryô-gari'' from 2000. Also in the horror genre were ''

Evil Dead Trap ''Evil Dead Trap'' (known in Japan as lit. Trap of The Dead Spirits) is a 1988 Japanese slasher film directed by Toshiharu Ikeda and produced by Japan Home Video. Plot TV show host Nami asks her viewers to send in home movies; she receives a ...

'' or ''Shiryo no wana'' directed by

Toshiharu Ikeda (23 February 1951 – 26 December 2010) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who worked in pink film and mainstream cinema. He won the award for Best Director at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival for ''Mermaid Legend''. Life and career Ea ...

and featuring AV actress

Hitomi Kobayashi is an important early Japanese AV idol. One of the founding figures of the Japanese adult video, she has been called indispensable to any discussion of the AV. ''Mainichi Shimbun'' calls her "one of the icons of Japanese adult cinema history." ...

which was released in 1988 and the sequel ''Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki'' (死霊の罠2ヒデキ) from 1992. ''Evil Dead Trap'' was later released by JHV on DVD. JHV also produced the first three live-action videos of the manga based superheroine series ''

Kekko Kamen is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai. It was serialized in ''Monthly Shōnen Jump'' from September 1974 to February 1978, with the chapters collected into five ''tankōbon'' volumes by Shueisha. It f ...

'', the 1991 ''Kekko Kamen'', ''Kekko Kamen 2'' from 1992, and ''Kekko Kamen 3'', released in 1993. More recent productions were the 2004 drama which won awards at the 2005 Yokohama Film Festival for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best New Director and the 2004 comedy ''eiko'' (エイコ). JHV's ''Cinemadict Collection'' () is a series of remastered worldwide classic movies with Japanese subtitles released on DVD. The collection includes the hard-to-find

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

silent film ''Downhill''. In the area of erotica, JHV makes softcore

V-Cinema Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was p ...

videos under the V Muvii () label or the SEN Planning label. Some popular series are the soft S&M ''Escape Confinement'' (), ''Keep Masked'' () and ''Pink Curtain'' (). The company also produces "gravure" non-nude modeling videos, some using the label Girls' Record.

Anime

The company has long had an interest in

products. On April 25, 1987, the dark adult-oriented science fiction horror film ''Wicked City'' (妖獣都市 or Yoju Toshi) was released in theatres by JHV and later on DVD. They also produced the anime movie which debuted in theatres in Japan in December 1990 and as a video in 1993. A different type of project produced by JHV was the comic , a series of 27 shorts broadcast on

TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as TV asahi), is a television station that is owned and operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Comp ...

in 1999. In addition, JHV had a role in the production of the following Original Video Animations: * 1987 * 1988 * 1989 * ''

Angel Cop is a six-part original video animation created and directed by Ichirō Itano. A manga adaptation written and illustrated by Taku Kitazaki was serialized in '' Newtype'' in 1989 and collected into a ''Newtype 100%'' collection released in Apri ...

'' 1989 * 1990-1991 (3 episodes) * 1991 * 1992 * 2005-2006 (2 episodes)

Computer games

''Graduation'' ( :ja:卒業〜Graduation〜 or Sotsugyō) is the title of a simulation genre computer game first released by JHV in June 1992. Two years later in 1994, a sequel ''Graduation 2: Neo Generation'' (卒業II 〜Neo Generation〜) appeared. The game, the object of which is to get five young girls with various problems to graduate high school, has since had several incarnations and been ported to a number of systems including the

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

PlayStation 2.

Notes

External links

Official website
*

at

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...

{{Authority control Film production companies of Japan Japanese pornographic film studios Anime companies Entertainment companies of Japan Entertainment companies established in 1984 Mass media companies based in Tokyo 1984 establishments in Japan