Lost Anime – Surf Side High School (1999)

Surf Side High School (サーフサイドハイスクール) is a 1999 comedy ecchi anime that is currently lost media. It aired from June 1 to July 2, 1999, and consisted of 20 episodes, each 7 minutes in length. The anime aired on TBS during their “Wonderful” block, a late-night block that aired more adult-oriented programming, which included shows such as Di Gi Charat and The Ping Pong Club. Some of the other anime from this block is actually lost media as well, such as Only You Viva! Cabaret Club (which is how I initially discovered the subject of this thread).



A synopsis of the anime on its MyAnimeList page reads as follows:

At a high school that sits in front of the ocean, three unpopular pubescent guys, Abe, Nagaho, and Mita, spend more of their time goofing off at the beach than studying. Of course, surfing always comes first, but their other adventures on the beach and search for girls are a source of non-stop laughter.



The show also has an AnimeNewsNetwork and AniDB page, as well as a Japanese Wikipedia page. I was also able to find what looks to be a database containing more information about the show, such as the airdates for the episodes and which channels it was broadcast on.


Episode titles (translated)

Surf Side High School was produced by the studio Magic Bus and was directed by Hiroyoshi Yoshida, with character designs by Minoru Tanaka (who also did the character designs in The Ping Pong Club), and starred Daisuke Kishio, Kazuya Ichijō, Toshiyuki Morikawa, and Yukari Tamura. It was based on the manga of the same name by Ken Sawai, which ran for 5 volumes and was first published in 1996. The manga itself doesn’t seem to have been uploaded anywhere online as well, although it’s easily available to purchase from various online stores.



As of right now, Surf Side High School is almost completely lost, with there being practically zero clips or even screenshots of it online. The only footage I was able to find was the OP, which was uploaded to Youtube back in 2021.



I was also able to find the show’s official Japanese site on the Wayback Machine, as well as an official English webpage, both of which contain very low quality images from the show. The Japanese site also includes pages containing, among other things, a staff list, character bios, and episode synopses.





What’s incredibly interesting however is that, despite no episodes being available online, the anime received a full VHS release containing all 20 episodes. There were 5 VHS tapes released in full, each containing 4 episodes, with the VHS covers containing additional screenshots from the show. I managed to find listings for all 5 volumes on Amazon Japan (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4, Vol 5), but they’re all currently out of stock (don’t attempt to purchase any of these; I tried to and it cancelled my order).











I was actually able to find volumes 1, 4, and 5 for sale on Mercari (which would amount to episodes 1-4 and episodes 13-20), which I’ve since purchased and which I should be receiving relatively soon. I’m unsure as to the quality of these tapes (the descriptions said they were “rental tapes” and that they were “untested”), but I’ll make sure to rip and upload them once I've obtain them, and if all goes well, that would mark the majority of this show as being found, with only episodes 5-12 being unaccounted for. I haven’t managed to find volumes 2 or 3 for sale yet, but if I ever do, I plan to purchase them as well.

One thing of note is this comment I saw on a MyAnimeList forum page which states that somebody has all the episodes and is “waiting for better equipment” in order to upload them, however this was made back in January and nothing seems to have come from it so far, so I can’t confirm its validity.



Lastly, here’s the full version of the opening song, She’s So Lovely by ALL I NEED, from their album Sign (the full album can be found here).