ADV Films

Background
A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1982 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Greenfield and David Williams. The company specialized in home video production and distribution, theatrical film distribution, merchandising, original productions, magazine and comic book publishing. They also ran Anime Network, a television channel devoted to airing the company's titles.

ADV stood for "Animation Dubbing Vision".

1st Logo (August 17, 1982-June 1995)


Logo: On a black background, we see stars and a rainbow-colored grid at the bottom. A CGI rendition of the A.D. Vision print logo of the time, which is the geometric letters "AD" and "Vision" in a script font and having large dots also serving the dots for "A.D.", zooms out and shines three times, each time followed by a star shining.

Technique: Computer animation made on an Amiga 1000.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Extremely rare.
 * Your best bet is to find titles packaged in black Amaray cases with the A.D. Vision logo on the artwork.
 * It appeared on the very first subtitled releases of the early volumes of Space Adventure Cobra and Urusei Yatsura.
 * This logo has also appeared in an ADV logo montage on the DVD collection of the latter.

2nd Logo (October 1988-March 1996)


Logo: On a background, three spheres rise up from a pool of liquid and start spinning as the background tilts and spins, revealing a /black background. The base turns into a rectangle and the spheres start to form the letters "A D V" and 3 smaller spheres take place next to each letter. A multi-colored "A.D. VISION" wipes across the screen and turns white as it settles under the shapes. The logo shines.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: A synthesizer fanfare with a few drumbeats and a "whoosh" as "A.D. VISION" wipes across the screen.

Availability: Common.
 * Seen on most ADV tapes and DVDs, like the early Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, and Blue Seed as well as the first releases of Dragon Half and 801 T.T.S. Airbats.
 * It also appears on many laserdisc releases that time.
 * It also has a noticeable appearance on the 1996 release of Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie (the American release of the 1995 2-Part OVA, Sonic the Hedgehog) that came out before the logo was discontinue.
 * The logo is printed on the cover of all VHS tapes and DVD discs that have it.
 * Also appears on the Devil Hunter Yohko DVD as part of a logo montage.

1st Logo (March 1996-December 2001)


Logo: On a black background, we see lasers forming white lines. The camera gradually pans over the white lines, which eventually end up forming the new ADV logo. When the logo is finally finished, it turns, and a comet shoots by, making the word "FILMS" fade in.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: Same as the 2nd A.D. Vision logo, but shorter and with additional laser sound effects.

Availability: Common.
 * Seen on ADV tapes and DVDs of the era, including Sakura Wars, Burn-Up: EXCESS, Delinquent in Drag, Trigun, Great Teacher Onizuka, Serial Experiments Lain, Kite, Hunter X Hunter, Tekken: The Motion Picture, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Apocalypse Zero (Kakugo no Susume), Generator Gawl, and more.
 * Also appears on the logo montage at the beginning of Devil Hunter Yohko on DVD.

2nd Logo (March 1999-December 2007)


Logo: A stylized sun flashes into a bright orange-red burst of light in the middle of the screen. This creates a background with various astrological symbols in an arrangement from left to right. The symbols start to flash to arrange it to look like this: "☉☿♀⊕♂♃♄♅♆♇", while on the last flash of the fourth symbol (Earth), the symbols glow and swirl around, forming the stylized letters "ADV". A white oval forms around the letters and a mass of tiny squares appear in the blurry transition below, forming the word "FILMS".

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: Futuristic sound effects throughout; no music apart from a slight synth drone at the very end.

Availability: Common.
 * Seen on all ADV tapes and DVDs from the era, such as Blue Gender, Ghost Stories, Kodocha, Azumanga Daioh, Ninja Nonsense (Ninin ga Shinobuden) and others.
 * Also appears on the Devil Hunter Yohko ADV logo montage.

3rd Logo (March 2001-September 1, 2012)
Logo: On a black background, a oval quickly passes through us, as the background rotates to reveal several stars in the distance. The ring then spins and revolves the background twice in a row, before passing through it and flying around the area. The camera then goes up close to the ADV Films logo, but with darker letters and clips playing inside those letters, scrolling along it as the background fades back again. The logo then falls into the background, where it and the ring play around, quickly zooming in with distorted copies 3 times. The logo and ring then go to their normal positions and zoom back in as the stars fade back in. The ring slowly moves to the upper left, shining as it does, before suddenly spinning to be lower, and quickly zooms to the side, wiping away the stars.

Variants:


 * There's a 20th Anniversary variant that was used for the logo's first year. After the logo goes out, it spins back in and flies to a spot near the back as a nebula fades in. An even bigger  oval, with "10TH ANNIVERSARY" engraved on it in a font similar to the corporate font, then flies into view. The logo and ring slowly turn until the camera goes under and over it, ending the logo. DVD releases have this variant start just after the logo's 3rd distort.
 * There was a 16:9 fullscreen version that were available on DVDs and Blue-ray, which was mainly used from 2008 to 2012.

Technique: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: Like the previous logo, just some sound effects, consisting of "wobble"-type sounds, an ethereal choir, screeching static noises, followed by these sounds, depending on these variants: oise when the logo spins around, followed by another "wobble"-type sound.
 * 10th Anniversary: An electricity zapping sound, followed by a held-out hollow reactor sound and the same "wobble"-type sound from regular variant.

Availability: Very common.
 * It has been appeared a dozens of their releases till September 2012 such as Chrono Crusade, Azumanga Daioh, Elfen Lied, Gantz, Rurouni Kenshin, Fruits Basket, the re-release of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Galerians: Rion, Spiral, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Gilgamesh, Blood+, Ergo Proxy, Genius Party, Genius Party Beyond, The Animatrix, and more.
 * It was also been available on UMD releases for the Playstation Portable.
 * Also appears to be the key logo on the Devil Hunter Yohko ADV logo montage.

4th Logo (2007-2009)
Logo: On a black background, a sketchy drawing of the ADV letters rotates up with the lines wiggling. The lines disappear and a ring in the same lined fashion rotates around with the rotating letters as the middle of the background becomes purple. The letters and ring fill with color and they transform from 2D to 3D as they flip, zoom, and rotate around more until the letters fly off-screen. The ring flips another time and shines as it gets filled in with black. The letters of "FILMS" turn and settle on the ring, forming the logo. The logo shines and the purple disappears. The logo becomes lined again and fades away.

Variant: In the logo's first year of usage, the text "25TH ANNIVERSARY" was below it.

Technique: 2D and 3D animation.

Music/Sounds: A couple of scratches, whooshes and shining sounds throughout with a little ditty near the end (15th Anniversary Variant only and no sounds at the end). The latter has a short laser sound.

Availability: Rare. This was used in tandem with the 3rd logo, and appeared on some releases such as the 2009 re-release of Grave of the Fireflies. The 25th anniversary variant can be seen on UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie 4: Banquet Time Dreams.

Final Note
With declining fortunes in the early 2010s due to low sales, ADV collapsed and eventually liquidated their assets in 2012. Sentai Holdings, owner of Section23 Films, Sentai Filmworks, AEsir Holdings, Valkyrie Media Partners, and Seraphim Digital, took over the ADV brand name and still uses it on some of their releases. Most of ADV's former titles have been re-released by other companies. Sentai was subsequently acquired by AMC Networks in 2022. As of 2022, ADV exists as a domiciled shell corporation.