R1 or HK?

[Pristine]

I started to get HK because it looked like a nice way to up my collection without spending so much. but it just never felt like I really owned the series and the quality made me go XP or there was a glitch or the artwork bothered me. In the end I just wasn't satisified and so I'm back to R1.

Some stuff you can easily get for cheap but others it's not so easy. I am really interested in getting Fushigi Yugi, Chobits, and Saiyuki 7+ and I have yet to find a price I'd be willing to pay. I'll have to get em when there's another DDD sale.

So yea, I prefer R1 but I do have HK for a few series that have major bad glitches on their DVDs or so I've been told and yet look fine on HK like Ronin Warriors. I guess I should have kept Arjuna but oh well.

[r00ster]

Originally posted by Prophet Hero
If I enjoy a series I'll usually replace the HK set with R1 originals. I've done this with GTO, Tenchi and Cowboy Bebop amongst others. It's not much of a gesture, but it's something to show my appreciation. For a series like YUA I went R1 all the way.

With movies I'll try buy the originals whether it's R1, R2 (UK or Jpn) or R3.

I do the -exact- same thing... I'll order a ton of series en masse HK, and then once I've watched the series 1-3 times, if I -know- I'm going to keep watching it repeatedly down the road, I'll seek out a good deal on the R1's.

I do the same with MP3s... I test the water first, and if something will have staying power in my collection, or I'll really cherish it.. heheh... then I go out and buy the domestic retail.

Some series, though, if the HK is really well done (quality and packaging-wise)... and/or the R1 is especially un-special (i.e. The Big O, which has to have the worst packaging I've ever seen).. I'll just stick with the HK.

...and with movies, I always go R1.

[BeardFan]

For me it's a budget issue. Got ?500 for anime a year. I buy my HKs in bulk, so that makes 100 HKs (postage and tax already included), giving me around 700 episodes. So that's around 2 eps a day, which is close to what I actually watch.

R1s are expensive for me as I live in Europe and you have to add postage and tax. And European R2s are also still very expensive. Cheapest in Germany is 13 episodes for ?55. Normal is 26 episodes for ?200 (like Noir on 8 discs at ?25) or ?180 (like Slayers on 6 discs at ?30). That gives an average price per episode of around ?6. So with my ?500 budget I only get around 80 episodes, that's less than 2 eps a week, compared to the 2 eps a day I get with HKs.

So as long as the price per episode ratio still is nearly 10 times in the favor of HKs, I will continue buying them.

[Andromeda18_]

Originally posted by Steve_the_Talking_Pie
Can I say one thing? Stop saying R1 DVDs are 4 episodes for $30. Look at http://www.dvdpacific.com dammit.

Saint Seiya goes $20 for 5 episodes (more like $12 online). Same with many other series including Wedding Peach.

Not to mention, Perfect Collections and Box Sets. Pre-order stuff at TRSI with a membership. No offense to some of you, but I've been buying anime for a lot longer than some of you (way back in the clamshell VHS days).

So make some claims against R1s, but back it up with actual information. :p

You, Vicious and everybody else that lives in the USA might not pay $30 for 4 episodes but like Elcoholic and Gubi-gubi I live in Europe and after paying for the S&H and customs the final price is usually more than $30 (At the current exchange rate it's more like $37=30?). I used to pay much more in the past but after some research I was able to find cheaper prices. At least with HK's I haven't had to pay customs which is really great since taxes are high around here. What I'd really like to know is how Bumperboy got his Steel Angel Kurumi for only $28.79! I paid about $74 (s&h + customs included) for mine and we're from the same country! Did that include s&h? And by the way, where are you from? I live in Porto.

Anyway, I wasn't making a claim against R1's, just stating my reality. And I'm quite happy with what ADV is doing, selling their box sets for a much lower price than usual. I've already bough Steel Angel Kurumi and am going to buy Soul Hunter next month. I'll still give my preference to HK because from my point of view they're good and cheap but once in a while I'll buy some R1s if it's a good deal.

Nina I'm sorry but I can't help you find sites that sell cheap manga since 98% of mine comes from France. There's a huge variety of manga for sale in France, the volumes are always very similar to the Japanese ones, the quality is great and I only pay about $8 for each volume (the cheapest I pay for manga ordered from the US is $17). I can however recommend you some titles if you'd like, most of the ones I own are already for sale there or will soon be.

[morgorath]

Ok I will bite on don't use prices for buying HK over R1. I have seen probly the biggest buyer of anime (schultz) and seller of anime (JJ). look I am going to take 2 series Kenshin and Generator Gawl. I watched Schultz buy every DVD of Kenshin and DBZ. He loved it. He got really happy when they came in the mail. Right now you can buy a R1 disc of kenshin at $20.49 (US) so for all 22 disces that comes to 451 US dollars. Or you can buy the 3 Collection sets for 313.23 US dollars. Click here is where I got my prices it is a whole saler company offering the chealest prices with out going ot an Auction site. Now JJ offers the same series for 84 US dollars. Click Here

Now Generator Gawl is 17.30 a DVD disc at the same site only a 4 disc series total comes to 69.20 US dollars. Or you can buy the Perfect Collection for a mear 34.35 US dollars. clic here to check source Now Jj if he had it in stock would sell it for 14 US dollars. click here Because he sells at 7 dollars a disc.

Now based on those 2 it simple to see that if you are straped for cash buying from JJ is cost effective. But from just a personl side I buy the Kenshin set from JJ and would buy the perfect collection of Gawl from the other website. It is about money when it comes to series like kenshin, Dragonball, Ranma, & Slayers. But when I have the cash and I see a Perfect Collection Like the kenshin is being redone I buy them too.
I support the compines so they keep beinging the series over to us. Peace I'm out...

[Vicious]

Originally posted by morgorath
It is about money when it comes to series like kenshin, Dragonball, Ranma, & Slayers. But when I have the cash and I see a Perfect Collection Like the kenshin is being redone I buy them too.

Thos long series are a pain. Dragonball - I'm buying on HK's. I don't like how Funi does alot of the stuff with 3 episodes per disc for super long series.

Ranma - I got that one on HK too. I'm not a big fan of Viz either. Plus, that is a super long series that sucked during the middle. I am tempted to buy the R1's for the 1st 2 seasons though.

Kenshin - I got the 1st 12 discs off Ebay for $120 total. I stopped collecting after disc 15, because the last arc sucks. But even if I had to pay $20 a disc for that one, I would have because that is an awesome series IMO. Plus, every disc had at least 4-5 epiosdes on it.

Slayers - I have the HK's for it, but just got an awesome trade offer for some of the R1's. So I'll be replacing those. But I don't think I would have bought them R1 myself.

Those long series are expensive as hell unless you collect them as they're being released. that way it doesn't seem so bad because the cost is spread out ove time.

You Europe guys . . . I don't know what to say. You guys get the short end of the stick I guess. But you guys aren't really in Region 1 anyways. Don't they have R2 or R3 releases or whatever it is whereever you are that can be had for cheap?

[BeardFan]

Originally posted by Vicious
You Europe guys . . . I don't know what to say. You guys get the short end of the stick I guess. But you guys aren't really in Region 1 anyways. Don't they have R2 or R3 releases or whatever it is whereever you are that can be had for cheap?

R1s are no problem as codefree players are easyly available (codefree costed about $20 extra on my Sony player and a lot of the cheap models can be turned codefree by "cheats" like pressing certain numbers on the remote).

Of course there are local R2 releases, but the problem is, that they are licensed and produced indepent for each country. So you have a UK version with English sub/(dub), a German version with German sub/(dub), a French version etc...

All these versions are normally produced by independent companies for their independent small markets, so the numbers of the releases are small and the prices are higher as you have to get in your fix costs.

It really would be clever to produce a "pan-European" DVD with a lot of different language subs, but that doesn't happen as there is no "big" company that would buy licenses for complete Europe and distribute it.

And there's a kind of distribution cartel for anime and almost every shop will charge you the recommended retail price, so there are no discounts as in the US.

[Cidien]

I used to collect R1's but i'm starting to switch more to HK's. One reason is they are cheaper. (Not always though as I just bought Gasaraki for $35 after shipping) I still buy R1's when there are no HK's or the HK set is in japanese or poor quality. The main reason i'm switching to HK's is because of saved shelf space.

Now if all companies switched to the collectors boxes (Like Bubblegum Crisis or Boogiepop Phantom) and sold them at decent prices I would probably never buy another HK again. But as it is they are generally overpriced (note the word "generally") and take up way too much shelf space. I'm currently selling Trigun on Ebay and gonna use the money to buy Trigun on HK and grab a couple others while i'm at it.

Currently I think the only R1's i'm looking to keep forever that I know there are HK's of are Full Metal Panic, Gundam Wing and Noir. Noir mainly because of quality issues i've been hearing about and Gundam was a gift. FMP I don't want to sell because I payed $30 a disc and i'm not about to sell those away lol.

[gubi-gubi]

Originally posted by Vicious
You Europe guys . . . I don't know what to say. You guys get the short end of the stick I guess. But you guys aren't really in Region 1 anyways. Don't they have R2 or R3 releases or whatever it is whereever you are that can be had for cheap?

There are R2s in the UK but they are awful and there is a VERY limited selection to choose from as anime isnt very big in the UK. We mostly get Manga Entertainment stuff as they were and still are the main player in the UK industry. The variety in the USA is amazing and alot of people take that for granted... Look at the Shojo titles compared to the UK for example...

[Prophet Hero]

Originally posted by Vicious

You Europe guys . . . I don't know what to say. You guys get the short end of the stick I guess. But you guys aren't really in Region 1 anyways. Don't they have R2 or R3 releases or whatever it is whereever you are that can be had for cheap?

As BeardFan says it's not that cheap in the UK and Europe - even with online discounts you're looking at prices of £15 in the UK (about US$27 at the current exchange rate). However, there are sometimes (online) sales and things get knocked down in price every so often.

The problem lies in anime still being viewed as esoteric in the UK (worse is that its forever associated with Manga because of the company) although the situation isn't as bad as it was 10-12 years ago. Anime is treated as more exclusive than World Cinema in the majority of stores and titles rarely make-up the items on offer during massive price-cut sales.

However, I've discovered that you can find certain R1/R2/R3 bargains if you make the effort to hunt around (often the bargain is relative to where you live - I picked up the first GTO boxset for around £30, which was great for me) and if you're actually prepared to pay for more it as opposed to a HK set. It's all very well to say that R1s are expensive, but if at the same time you're spending money on something else non-essential instead...

[Prophet Hero]

Originally posted by gubi-gubi
There are R2s in the UK but they are awful and there is a VERY limited selection to choose from as anime isnt very big in the UK. We mostly get Manga Entertainment stuff as they were and still are the main player in the UK industry. The variety in the USA is amazing and alot of people take that for granted... Look at the Shojo titles compared to the UK for example...

I don't think it's that bad in the UK. ADV is fairly strong and we've got big series such as Noir, Rahxephon, FMP, Lain, NGE, Tenchi, .hack, Fruits Basket, Ghibli movies, etc. Sure, we're behind the US but it's no where near as bad as it was back in the early 1990s.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Prophet Hero
ADV is fairly strong and we've got big series such as Noir, Rahxephon, FMP, Lain, NGE, Tenchi, .hack, Fruits Basket, Ghibli movies, etc.

Half of those big series you just named are by ADV.

[Ryoku Slayer]

I prefer both r1s and HKs.



HKS: because they are cheap and the gate fold cases are very nice. Sometimes they lack of quality and extras. But that is ok, if it is watchable then so be it.

R1s: more expensive than hks, but has no faults in it like pixelation and crap like that. Another reason is that I like the extras in it like music videos, sketches, and other stuff.




I only get the r1s if they are cheap lol. For example the steel angel kurumi and soul hunter are both cheap titles. If you bought the single volumes of those it would cost you i think over 100 or more on each series. So sometimes the r1s are ok. I was looking on d.a.d and they had SMJ for only 17.49 a volume(2 disks). So sometimes the r1s aren't so bad.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Ryoku Slayer

R1s: more expensive than hks, but has no faults in it like pixelation and crap like that. Another reason is that I like the extras in it like music videos, sketches, and other stuff.

Another reason I like the R1's is because of extras like commentaries and interviews with the American VA's. ADV seems to do alot more of these types of extras than the other companies. Although, Geneon did put in a commentary on the newly released ROD disc 1.

If you go and watch your Steel Angel Kurumi R1's, you'll see that it's loaded with extras. It has interviews with the VA's, photoshoots with tehm, and even commentaries on the very last disc. That's one of my favorite releases because my girl Hilary is all over the place in the show and in the extras.

[fahad17]

dose anyone know if there is any R1'2 studio ghibli box sets for sale and where.