Import Anime Forums

First of all, hi to everyone.

Since it's my first post on here, I was very cautious and watched the sticky animation about posting and starting useless threads with nothing to say, just to be sure I wouldn't be nuked for duplicating an existing thread. But I think I'm good to go now.

I entered the world of HK so-called *imports* anime sets because I live in France, and honestly, there are some things you simply can not get otherwise. And no, i'm not fluent in japanese, so I wont get jap R2 w/o english subs.

Of course I was wondering if I could somehow get legit stuff, without losing the english subs, and most of the time it's either 20 times the boot price, censored, or incomplete. So I simply had a go at some stuff I found on eBay, just to see what engrish and pixelisation were all about. Here is the summary of the journey:

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-Fist Of The North Star:
24 DVDs, MI (20 for original (part 1, 2 and 3), 3 for Shin, 1 for movie)

--Intro:
Couldn't find a review of this on IA, nor on the entire www (though there must be a reason this MI set is larger that the 17 one that comprises parts 1, 2 and 3 as well) so it was a random hit.

--The Set:
2 boxes, huge (i mean HUGE) sleeves containing the DVDs (box1: 14, box2: 10), hilarious MEPG2 typo on the outside of the box, the funny NO COPY logo too. Looks cheap, but not THAT cheap.

--The Content:
It has the engrish (understandable, yet engrish), it has pixels (a fair amount of them in moving scenes, looks like a cheap .rm at times), but it's all of the Fist of the North Star, and it's what I wanted to get, now i finally got it ($100 incl. S/H, that was fair, don't you think?)

---

-Ranma 1/2:
22 DVDs (161 eps), AC/MI

--Intro:
As for the Fist set, i couldn't find a review of this on IA, nor on the entire www. I went random on that one too.

--The Set:
Exact same look and feel that the Fist, same packaging, same stuff. 2 boxes, the HUGE sleeves too (box1: 12, box2: 10), MEPG2 typo, NO COPY logo too. Average cheapness.

--The Content:
It has the engrish (understandable, yet engrish, and sometimes in the middle looks completely incoherent), it has pixels too, (less that the Fist, though, let's say a higher quality .rm feel, but then again, all the Ranma for $80 incl. S/H, that was fair I think (comments welcome).

---

-Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO):
10 DVDs (yes 10 like the legit boxset, 43 eps), unknown company

--Intro:
This looked damn legit, you can find a picture of this one there: http://image.inkfrog.com/pix/youyou96d/gto12.jpg

--The Set:
As i said, it's split in 2 sets, looks good (ahhh, gatefolds), and it would take a HK knowledge to point the finger at this one and say BOOT!

--The Content:
Has chinese and cantonese audio, added to the japanese one. the Dolby logo looks telesynced, so it scared me at first, but the rest looks like a DVD rip. It has the infamous engrish (at some rare times, it's really higher quality subs here) but what will for sure annoy me soon is the chinese names, it's confusing if you've already seen the anime w/ japanese names , it has some rare pixels, but all in all looks really good. All of this for $38 incl. S/H, I guess I will have to live with this chinese to english translation.

---

Conclusion:
I kinda liked this journey into HK imports land, with its typos and pixels. I will for sure visit again

-pill

Thats alot of typing their- bet that took alot of time - Articnightfall.com has a newbie page, you might be interested in. Check that out when you get a chance, you might also check google for sellers in your country- without knowing who the manufacturer is and having a few reviews of that set and manufacturer, i personnally stay away from stuff- there's some real junk out there- this site has a review feature which i follow when i dont know what Im doing ( no bodys perfect ) Ebay has a lot of Crap on it also - be careful ! another note is that some sites only sell certain brands- My favorites are FX ( gone - I think) and MI ( Manga International -) Mac is a good runner up , but not always great. wish you the best my friend .!

Didn't read your whole post, but if you want cheap english subbed stuff buy fansubs and watch them on the computer. If you pay for shipping most people are willing to ship internationally. Otherwise i'd suggest buying an R1 dvd player and NTSC tv and importing from America.

Those great teacher onizuka sets are legimate mainland china dvds. I checked with Yesasia.com customer service, cause they know what is bootleg and what is not. Those sets are made by Sima Culture, they use mostly dvd-5, BUT! they do not compress over 5 episodes per dvd so they can keep the quality high, so thats why there are a lot of disks. SOme of them can be very high quality and some of them can be a huge pain in the ass.......... Stay away from the Mainland China "Cowboy Bebop" set. Subs are horrendous........

by the way......... Pill....... I recently went to china town on tuesday and I saw those "HUGE" cases. Yes, they are very big......lol

If your going to do that , why not just download them from Animesuki and play it on your computer for free ? - not all the titles are their , but the unlicensed ones typically are , and there fresh off the old TV, most are even Fansubbed for you !

Quote: i'd suggest buying an R1 dvd player and NTSC tv and importing from America.

Actually, many newer DVD players can now play NTSC DVDs on PAL TVs (and vice versa). And if you import a player from the states, you can use that player on your PAL TV (though you'll also need a voltage converter for your electric outlet).

Of course, if you know where to look, you can also find DVD players that can play all DVD regions (such as the Philips DVP 642, for example).

Kiruyuki Wrote:Those great teacher onizuka sets are legimate mainland china dvds. I checked with Yesasia.com customer service, cause they know what is bootleg and what is not. Those sets are made by Sima Culture, they use mostly dvd-5, BUT! they do not compress over 5 episodes per dvd so they can keep the quality high, so thats why there are a lot of disks. SOme of them can be very high quality and some of them can be a huge pain in the ass.......... Stay away from the Mainland China "Cowboy Bebop" set. Subs are horrendous........

I dont really know that much about mainland China releases, but I got told that China did not sign the Bern convention, therefore nothing that is made in China is truly legit (which copyright owner would allow such imperfection in subbing?). I am really surprised that yesasia.com (from which I already ordered some dvds, such as both Kill Bills) says that this is *legit*, and yet it costs less than 2 single licensed GTO dvds from Japan. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I don't believe you, but I really do not understand everything.. the word 'Licensed' is what makes something legit/non-legit, right?

Anyway, for the price I paid, this GTO set owns all HK 5DVD sets, image quality wise, that's for sure.

Cidien Wrote:Didn't read your whole post, but if you want cheap english subbed stuff buy fansubs and watch them on the computer. If you pay for shipping most people are willing to ship internationally. Otherwise i'd suggest buying an R1 dvd player and NTSC tv and importing from America.

My post was mainly an off-side review of some sets I bought from eBay.

Aside from that, I have an all-region pioneer player, and I watch all my stuff on TV, so this is not a region/hardware issue. And there was no way I could find the Fist of the North Star entire series uncut and all, with english subs, on DVD. Hence my going for a HK set.

this china set are not bootleg because the company that make take licene from the company that made the anime
i have saiyuki set
its 10 dvd and the sub are good and the quality is good as r1 because they dont put more than 5 episodes
i like china version but its to hard to find
thanks

But of course, some licenses do not state where they should get their source. There are some legit Chinese DVD sets that are, believe it or not, sourced from HK boots, like the "One Piece" DVDs, for instance. Some Gibli DVDs from Zoke Culture are the same way.

Well, legit or not, the GTO set I have does indeed have great video (that's a fact, it's flawless), but the subs are sub par. I mean, the names have been translated to chinese, that's one thing, but the grammar is a bit faulty, timing is off at times, and the signs are not all translated. So, it was cheap, and it looks great, but these subs issues are really annoying. Makes me want to get fluent in japanese in order to watch these w/o subs.

from my knowledge i've bought trigun and bebop sets that look just like them, mainland china. video quality is great but the subs are pretty goddamn awful on bebop, and the subs on trigun were good.

scince-fiction anime always come with awful sub from hk or china

For the record I left a review on the 22 DVD ranma set. I don't know how long ago you searched but I did leave a review some weeks ago. I told JJ to make sure it read 22 dvds instead of 20. Oh well welcome to the forums.