Bandai Visual

Background
Bandai Visual Co., Ltd. was a Japanese anime, film production and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings, Inc. Since the reorganization of Bandai Namco Holdings in 2006, Bandai Visual headed the group's Visual and Music Content Strategic Business Unit. Until 2012, it was involved in the production and distribution of several anime titles, including those it has directly produced itself and anime series produced by the anime studio Sunrise, a subsidiary of Bandai.

In February 2018, it was announced Bandai Visual would be merged with Lantis into a new branch of Bandai Namco, called Bandai Namco Arts. The reorganizing took effect in April 2018, and Bandai Visual has since remained an in name-only unit of it.

1st Logo (August 1983-July 1995, 2002)
Logo: On a black background, a cluster of stars fade in and zoom towards the screen. This is followed by the stars being absorbed into the background via lightspeed and "BANDAI" appears in black, which is in the signature font and has its syllables stacked. More stars fly in and become absorbed by the text, creating a golden box around the text and starts to shine as the background becomes space. The text gets filled with and a star draws a line, which becomes "BANDAI ENTERTAINMENT GROUP" and flashes. The logo becomes the usual and white and the stars fade out.

Variant: For some Tokusatsu videos, there is a version where at the end of the animation, the logo flips to reveal the Bandai Home Video logo, which consists of "BANDAI" in the signature font on a -white rectangle. The white section has "HOME VIDEO" in. Below it is a strangely shaped box with "SvS" in a strange font. Below it is Japanese kana that pretty much says "Bandai Super Video Selection".

Technique: 2D animation with flashing beams of light coming out.

Music/Sounds: Silent for the normal variant. For the SVS one, a chime is heard throughout, followed by a choir, synth drones, and a twinkling sound. When the logo flips over, a dreamy harp is heard and a different chime starts playing.

Availability: This could be seen on various tapes and VHS under the label. Sometimes, it's used on movies distributed by the company.

2nd Logo (1992-2002)
Logo: On a background illuminated with a spotlight with a  floor, there is a plaque in the distance with various moldings of two elephants, wings, and a heart. A blob emerges from the top of the plaque before transforming into a wind-up key. The wind-up key starts to turn, causing the plaque to open up and move towards the screen. It reveals a stage and various other things appear out of it. Two white balls roll along and transform into two Romanesque columns with elephants perched on top. A puff of smoke causes a white box to appear and two identical-looking elephants that wear hats (one being  with school bus  trim, the other being  with  trim) peek out, before walking out and presenting the box. The elephants become confused as the box starts revolving and opening up and become surprised as a teddy bear with a trumpet forms. It closes and revolves again, this time opening up to a blob making a crocodile. It looks at the right elephant and makes a sound similar to Godzilla's roar (but not quite), causing the right elephant to become shocked and the left one to become interested. The box closes again, rotates and opens up as the elephants step back as a block transforms into a mech (not unlike a Gundam), and begins shooting out missiles, causing the elephants to become plagued in shock. The box once more closes and spins, with the elephants looking at us before looking at the box, which shrinks and rolls around. They go into closer range and the box opens up one last time to reveal a blob, which crushes the box before transforming into the Bandai logo. The elephants sit down and then do a "TA-DA" pose of some sort.

Technique: Claymation.

Music/Sounds: Various sound effects are heard throughout to go along with the various actions. The actual music is a carnival-like theme.

Availability: Pretty common. Seen on various anime and movie releases on VHS and Laserdisc, like ''Crayon Shin-Chan: Blitzkrieg! Pighoof's Secret Mission and Tama of 3rd Street: Please! Search for Momo-chan!!''.

1st Logo (2002-2011)
Logo: On a black background, three glowing orbs (in, , and respectively) spin around in a way very similar to juggling. A spotlight turns on, turning out they were being juggled by a creature balancing on a  and white beach ball, which is on a dirty looking checkerboard floor. The creature has eyes with a star marking on his right, and has a cone shape on top of his head. The ball starts to move and he smiles. We then cut to an area with a different view on the strange creature, with various other ones, including a spotlight on a lighter pink creature riding a unicycle, with a heart on his head and stretched out. The creatures come towards the screen and stretch as they do. We cut to another shot with crowd of them coming towards a bright light emitting a slew of colors. There are creatures of different patterns already there and more of them, including the creature we saw first, coming towards it, stretching as they get there. Another cut then shows a slew of creatures cheering for a strange object rising up and rotating, made up of various instruments with a 3D version of the new Bandai Visual logo, which consists of "BANDAI VISUAL" in the signature font on a oval. The camera zooms towards the object as the hot pink creature jumps towards the camera and smiles at us before the entire object comes into view and jiggles around. The logo stops jiggling as it becomes 2D and the background becomes white.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A xylophone theme is heard, which is then accompanied by a horn and then turns into a happy-go-lucky fanfare that becomes orchestrated at the end. At the end, the trumpet section is extended towards the rest. A person is also heard making an unidentifiable sound, possibly a whisper, when the logo comes into view.

Availability: Pretty common.
 * Seen on many DVDs of their material during the time, as well as several VHS releases around the early 2000s.
 * It was also seen on UMD releases on the PSP.
 * Various video game releases also included this logo.

2nd Logo (November 2007-March 2018)
Logo: On a white background, we see the Bandai Visual logo.

Technique: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Common. Seen on DVDs and Blu-rays of anime and other media from the company.

3rd Logo (2011-)
Logo: TBA.

Technique: TBA.

Music/Sounds: TBA.

Availability: TBA.

4th Logo (2012-2019?)
Logo: Inside a black background with a light, we see a silver "B" flipping and zooming, followed by an "A" and the other letters that make the company's name. After all the letters reach their place to form the "BANDAI VISUAL" wordmark, the flash becomes bigger and disappears, turning the whole logo white and 2D.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A calm 6-note piano theme, followed by 4 other notes in higher pitch.

Availability: Found on the company's titles that mostly consisted of dramas and live-action movies.