Pony Canyon

Background
Pony Canyon is a division of Fujisankei Communications that primarily focuses on music and anime releases. Until 1987, when Pony Records merged with Canyon, the home video division was known as Pony Video.

1st Logo (1987)


Visuals: Just the Pony Canyon print logo in red on a white background.

Technique: None.

Audio: None.

Availability: Seen on the promotional music video of "STAR LIGHT" by Hikaru Genji.

2nd Logo (1988-1992)
Visuals: On a sky blue/white gradient background with a floor, a living eyeball with an eyebrow zooms up from the bottom of the screen, pauses in mid-air and blinks twice. Then it zooms into the screen so the sclera (white part of the eye) takes up the entire screen, which cuts to a mostly background with a "sun"-like light shining in the upper-left corner of the screen and some multicolor changing on the other side. In the scene, a CGI-generated face (only eyes, mouth and eyebrows) is laughing. Then, as a field of somewhat odd shapes goes through the screen behind the face, the mouth and eyes suddenly change shape as it appears to be crying and move up the screen as the background becomes completely psychedelic. Then, a slew of somewhat odd living shapes appear from various parts of the screen, including an odd looking triangular creature with what looks like a plant or green hair on top with a bucktooth that jumps from the left, then appears to be gasping in shock as another shape from the right of the screen passes through the right and the bucktoothed shape turns around to look at it. Then, it cuts to a scene where a rod with eyes on two more rods with two triangles on top and bottom zooms out and flies to the left. Two chess piece-like shapes come from both sides of the screen and the one on the left bobs up and down, seemingly tapping on something. Then, a CGI mask (looking like Andross from the Star Fox series) comes from the left and zooms far out as it goes to the right of the screen, then a triangle with two eyes comes out from behind the chess shapes and goes into the screen very fast. After all this happens, it quickly cuts to a background where all the other shapes (except the eye), including the crying face, the buck-toothed triangle and a couple of others, zoom out revealing themselves to be inside a transparent circle with white confetti floating down inside it, which zooms into the center and fades out as the Fuji eye fades in with "PONY CANYON" underneath. Then, another odd-looking creature, basically a long line with three eyes and one pink shoe, bounces from the left towards the right.

Technique: CGI graphics using TDI Explore.

Audio: A dreamy Calypso tune played on synths and drums.
 * Sounds:
 * The eyeball making a descending noise as it zooms up and pauses, then a whoosh as it zooms in.
 * Some distorted alien-like laughing as the face laughs, then even weirder crying when the face cries.
 * A trumpet note when the buck-toothed triangle gasps.
 * A sliding-up whistle sound as the triangle-rod-two eyed shape appears and moves up.
 * A "plinking" noise when the chess-like object tapes.
 * A sliding-down whistle as the two-eyed triangle appears, then a quick whoosh as it moves into the screen.
 * A weird fading out noise, probably the face crying.
 * Two chiming ditties as the three-eyed object with a shoe bounces to the right.

Availability: Seen on Japanese releases.

3rd Logo (March 21, 1992-2007)
Visuals: On a and rippling background, the words "PONY CANYON" zoom by. Then, a ring and sphere move. The sphere and the ring go through each other in alternating directions several times. The sphere settles in the ring and the ring rotates a bit. The ring spins, and it grows three protrusions that become the "eyebrows" of the now-finished Fuji eye logo. "PONY CANYON" suddenly flies beneath the "eye", causing the whole thing to jiggle a bit.

Technique: Same as the previous logo.

Audio: Assorted metallic sounds and a "cling" when "PONY CANYON" flies beneath the "eye".

Availability: Can easily be found on Japanese prints of anime released by the company, such as the anime adaption of Air. It is also known to have appeared on various Scitron laserdiscs like the Virtual Drug Series.

4th Logo (1993-1995)
Visuals: On a black background, we see the Fuji eye logo with the dot. Below is the text "PONY CANYON" and "PRESENTS" in a golden gradient.

Later Variant: The Fuji eye logo is in plain 2D, the text is white and reads "PONY CANYON, INC." and the Japanese name is seen below.

Technique: None.

Audio: None.

Availability: The Super Famicom variant was spotted on Jungle Wars 2, while the later variant was spotted on F1GP for the 3DO.

5th Logo (2004-2016)


Visuals: On a /white gradient background, several thin black,, and lines trace all about as 3 thick lines, also in that order, draw in. As they rotate to become flattened, "PONY CANYON" also appears below, flipping out as all the thin lines disappear.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: Simple synth notes, followed by three ringing sounds, which sounds similar to the 3rd Pony Video logo.

Availability: It can be seen on a lot of releases during the time frame.

6th Logo (2016- )
Visuals: On a white background, a drop falls down, turning black while the rest of the background turns  via an iris effect. The drop then shakes to change the background back to white and reveal 2 more drops, the left and the right. The black drop then hops a little bit, and rushes to the drop, causing it to roll and reveal "ony" in a black Bauhaus 93-like font. The black drop hops and becomes a "p", forming "pony", the drop hops and turns into a "c", and the black letters "anyo" appear one by one, with the  drop becoming an "n". All of this forms the word "pony canyon". The wordmark then zooms out and moves down to leave room for larger versions of the "p" and "c" to fade and draw in.

Variant: A short version has a single drop coming in, forming the wordmark as the letters draw in. This version is silent.

Technique: 2D animation.

Audio: An echoing drop sound is first heard, followed by a mellow guitar and chime tune, ending with piano notes mixed in.

Availability: Can be seen on all of Pony Canyon's current releases in Japan.