It's official.  In my house at least, we have moved on from the VHS format.  I no longer even own a VCR and all those tapes I've collected over the years taking up massive space is marked to be cleared.  In clearing out the basement getting ready for some much needed renovations I had to make the not-so-tough decisions to throw out a lot of clutter, most of which will hopefully be sold, recycled or deposited to the local Goodwill but will be gone nonetheless.  As anyone who ever cleared out boxes of junk from a basement knows its veritable minefield of forgotten memories.  I'd almost forgotten what a collector of rare anime on VHS I once was, now of course made useless by DVD.  It's not just because DVD looks and sounds better than VHS, but DVD's easier distribution made it cheaper and plentiful.

Once upon a time a VHS of an animated rendition of the classic Japanese literary work “The Tale of Genji” fetched a premium price if you could even find it.  It was one of my rules never to venture into the triple digits for a tape, so I never obliged the mail order bootlegs from Japan.  Years ago however I found shops in a rare trip to Toronto that provided my once sharp anime collecting eye with rarities galore, now of course all useless.  What in the early 90's was rare on VHS purchased mostly by madmen willing to pay steep prices for a second generation tape mailed from Japan is today sold in perfect copy on DVD at the local record store.  For years I'd only heard about the Anime classic “Akira”, tapes once fetched large prices I was never willing to pay but secretly I always wanted to find in an unnoticed bargain bin somewhere.  Today, the special edition Akira DVD collector's set packaged in a tin box grimaces sarcastically from the aisles of the local HMV.  Full of extra features and at a price so low I've never even bothered to pick it up.  There it sits, what was once a boon to any collector now so easily, readily available to any local college kids with even a casual interest.  Although much is gained by the proliferation of data made cheap and easy, but as a former hobbyist who once collected rare anime on VHS, something is also definitely lost.