Insanely cheap?!?

[Trish_Pinem]

Okay, I'm prolly like a year behind everyone else but I was looking into buying Fushigi Yugi from Pioneer, the entire set, which I had priced at $400 for the OAV's and the two box sets...

Well, the second box set was short on availability and I was not going to wait months for it to get on stock. In what I may call moderate desperation, as I absolutely have to have this series by the end of the year, I checked the Amazon used/new prices and wow!!! Less than $50 for a boxed set lowest priced by dvdpricesearch.com at $145?!?

Okay, that had to be waaaay too good to be true... So I click on this seller (cool anime from california) and check out some of their other items... Trigun complete at $35... Tenchi Universe TV at $55... Escaflowne at $35... okay, I'm trippin'

I could swear that each of these series were like $100+ so there has to be something wrong. It wasn't until I saw Gasaraki, a set I darn well know comes with 8 discs, being reported with only 3 discs. Now since Gasaraki isn't going to save me more than $50, I'll prolly just buy it from ADV anyways when I ever do get around to getting that but I'm still at ends trying to figure out what is going on.

After noting that they all claimed import and often had less discs than the original highly priced boxed sets, I ran a search import anime and obviously this was the darn first site that came up. First thing I notice is all the titles I found waaaay nicely priced to be released by FX. Okay... no clue who FX is.

So that brings me down to the real question. Are the anime titles being condensed by FX being redone by fans? I'm fairly certain the Japanese version won't be affected but I am rather curious if FX is doing their own dubbing and subbing of these anime... Not that I really care if they are or not as I don't really have any love for Pioneer Entertainment (the original releasing company of many of the titles on my to get list). The biggest reason I ask is because there are several titles also done by ADV that appear to be redone by FX and in all honesty, I enjoy most of the dub work done by the people from ADV.

And of course... if it is the same dub versions... how are they selling them for soooo cheap >,<

I've browsed around the forums already and I've formulated a half-guess that it has to do with DVD region settings but I can't get any straightforward remarks about whether or not the english voices are the same or not... mostly just the usual remarks of hating dub or hating subtitles which I only have to remark that if I had never had a dubbed version of any anime ever, I prolly would never have bought a single VHS... I prolly have enough Japanese language knowledge to get me through a statement of not having a clue what you're saying... which really doesn't need words anyways now that I think about it...

well anyways, wonder if my sig works...

[Terrex]

I guess your new to 'import' sets. The sets are the exact same as the R1's that you can buy at the stores. A company like FX (there are several other's) basically copy the dvd's from R1's and most of the time put 7 or 8 episodes onto one disc (the norm. is 3-5 episodes, if your familiar with R1 set's) this is done *cough* without the R1 distributors permission (which is the reason for the low prices). Rest assured that if your buying a import set with english dub, it is the same as the one's you get at the store or see on television. The sub is usually the same as well (well... at least most FX and MAC set's use the same sub's as R1's).

[Trish_Pinem]

bleh... wish I had found out about that before buying all seven Ranma boxed sets...

And on that thought... is that even legal?!? I mean, distributing rights were purchased by the respective dubbing companies or is there some kind of loophole as they are only Region 1 settings...

[Shinn Asuka]

Originally posted by Trish_Pinem
And on that thought... is that even legal?!? I mean, distributing rights were purchased by the respective dubbing companies or is there some kind of loophole as they are only Region 1 settings...

You are absolutely correct. It is illegal. However, most of us have put our morals aside to buy some of the anime very cheaply.

By the way, the Fushigi Yuugi boxsets are prone to pixilation/macroblocking in high action scenes. I only noticed it once in the OAV set. I didn't notice it often in the TV series [once during the Genbu fight.]

...Then again, I never see the macroblocking everyone else does.

[Terrex]

I guess it all depends on your definition of legal *sweat drop appears on forehead*. If you rather have official release, by all means, drop money on the R1 set's. There's usually no difference in quality if that's the only thing your worried about. If it's the legal issue, then I guess hk imports aren't for you. Hope I helped.

*edit*
Crud... Suzakuseikun anwsered before I did.

[Shinn Asuka]

*Laughs* I wanted to answer like a half hour before I did, but I had to sit around and ponder exactly how to answer.

Even the sets with just fansubs are technically illegal -- the series is still licensed. However, most companies do not care if it has not had a US license. [[ Unless that company is Bandai. Bandai's a special case -- their Japanese copyrights actually extend into US copyrights. ]]

[Trish_Pinem]

Heh... well to be honest I've never liked Pioneer so I'm not going to lose sleep over any of their stolen titles which several are so durn hard to get anyways... I've been waiting for that second box set to come in stock since september ^^; I want it now and if strip version is all that's available now then strip it is... no point wasting another couple months for an original that's $100 more...

As for the ADV titles I'm still an avid supporter ~.^

I've put so much into them and often discounted anyways in titles like Nadesico, Evangelion, Steel Angel Karumi, Princess Nine, BGC2040, etc... heck, it's almost to the point that I select titles simply because ADV did them...

And out of curiousity about out of print items... is anyone redoing a Vampire Princess Miyu set? I've been broke for so long that now that I finally have the money, it seems a lot of the old titles I wanted are nearly impossible to get

[Shinn Asuka]

If you want official on Miyu, try http://www.DeepDiscountDVD.com. I just did a search - $18 per DVD. Well, for the TV series. I believe the other is an OAV, right? That's $14.83.

[Trish_Pinem]

Yea, I can get it separately just about anywhere but the boxed set is like out of print or something... same thing with Cowboy Bebop...

[ouijaouija]

WHAT?? ILLEGAL?....

i did not know that.... coughcough.

[Arcon]

Originally posted by Suzakuseikun
If you want official on Miyu, try http://www.DeepDiscountDVD.com. I just did a search - $18 per DVD. Well, for the TV series. I believe the other is an OAV, right? That's $14.83.

DDDVD is cheap, yes, but when something goes wrong ( even if it's there own daim fault), they just cancel your order & don't even inform you. Worst customer service i have ever seen ...

Always order in small packs with those guy's ...

[NYxCalm]

that arcon fellow is from europe, so his experience was bad (customs, cc verification due to being overseas, blah blah)


all the U.S / AMERICAN people here can vouch that DDD is good! no customs, its legit, and its cheap!

*raise the roof* !!

but do give some love to JJ when you be needing them hk dvd doses man!

*raise the roof higher* !! :p

[Doc363]

Fushigi Yugi from Pioneer, the entire set, which I had priced at $400 for the OAV's and the two box sets...

400 bucks???? what the hell??

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Trish_Pinem


As for the ADV titles I'm still an avid supporter ~.^

I've put so much into them and often discounted anyways in titles like Nadesico, Evangelion, Steel Angel Karumi, Princess Nine, BGC2040, etc... heck, it's almost to the point that I select titles simply because ADV did them...

Hahaha. That's like me. I have over 60-70 R1 ADV discs now. Only HK I have of an ADV title is Steel Angel Kurumi. And that's only because I could never find it at a good price.

I'm not a big supporter of Pioneer or Viz. Bastards want to put 3 episodes per disc. Fine. I just won't buy their stuff.

But as everyone else has said. HK's are basically rips of official releases. So if it says it has "English language" on it, that means it was an R1 rip. No HK company is doing their own dubbing. they will always have the same dub as the R1's. Only thing you need to really look out for is that you will lose some picture quality on HK's. I mean, they're compressing the video to generally fit 9 episodes per disc. But with older series like Fushigi Yugi or Ranma, do you really care and is it even really noticeable?

As for the actual Bebop boxset, it has been OOP for a long time now. Only place you'll find it is on Ebay above retail. I have it, and it's basically the regular discs and a CD stuffed into a nice looking box. So you could buy all that stuff separately and it would be the same thing. Except you'd be missing the limited edition numbered box. And as for Miyu, I heard DeepDiscountDVD actually got a few in a couple weeks ago. but they're obviously out again. So good luck trying to find that too.

Also, if you're looking for some good R1 bundles, go check out http://www.rightstuf.com. Visit the store and check out their weekly specials. They always have nice deals on ADV stuff. The weekly specials change every Thursday.

[Trish_Pinem]

Deep Discount DVD (Itasca, IL)

Lemme see... I've bought Slayers Next and Slayers Try from them for half the price I bought the original series for from Suncoast... Had a real terrible time when they cancelled that order and recharged it without telling me and really screwed up my bank account in doing so... haven't bought anything from them since but other than bouncing my account, no complaints.

Yea... I started out at the most expensive place ya can buy anime it seems... SamGoody/Suncoast and since it looked like DVDPlanet or Animenation wasn't offering things terribly cheaper, I didn't want to bother with the time delay/stock problems of the only two websites I knew of that carried anime back when I first started replacing my VHS Anime... I think I've ordered one item that actually got shipped from DVDPlanet... the rest was cancelled due to incorrect stock reports on their website...

Of course DVDPricesearch changed all that and I found Deep Discount, DVDsoon (which was a horror cause they changed over the system in midorder and wouldn't refund my lost order so I had to go through my bank to get it fixed and of course I'm not even going to try them again unless they're absolutely the cheapest by $40 less than anyone else), Digital Eyes (nice place and seemingly more accurate in stock status than DVDPlanet and most often cheaper) and Amazon. I was always leary about Amazon as I viewed it as just another overpriced Ebay and not terribly reliable, but I got a few decent titles from them and haven't been too scared since. I didn't try the buy new/used zshops until I absolutely had to get the portions of Lost Universe that simply weren't getting in stock fast enough at Digital Eyes. That worked out nicely.

And as for Fushigi Yugi...

well avg price for sets 1 and 2 is $145 apiece so there's $290 of the 400 I projected and with the first OAV (I think the cheapest I saw that was $79) that brings it up to $370 and I'm not quite sure how much Eikoden was running but I'm fairly sure it was at least $30... mind you this was all original stuff from Pioneer, not from FX or other companies like them

And as far as morals go about buying them... heck... I'll just pretend like I'm paying for the collector case (not the original casing from pioneer anyways) and getting the dvd for free :p~~~~