perfect collections

[rarnom]

Originally posted by Vicious
Pretty much.

I'm not at liberty to talk about discounts of any kind. :eek:

fair enough

either way that is cool for you because they do sell R1's too.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by rarnom
fair enough

either way that is cool for you because they do sell R1's too.

I was gonna mess with you for a bit. But no, we don't get any type of discount. Either that or they failed to tell me about it. :confused:

[rarnom]

Originally posted by Vicious
I was gonna mess with you for a bit. But no, we don't get any type of discount. Either that or they failed to tell me about it. :confused:

Well, for some reason it made complete sense to me that they would ask you to 'not talk' about discounts. Either way, I guess it is pretty simple work and so just the chance to be a mod is payment in itself. Funny.

Anyway, yah, back on topic, um, singles suck if they are from AV or MI.

[Cidien]

BTW, I have another thing to think about. The cheaper anime is the more people will buy it and get into it. Getting more anime into peoples hands increases the chances they will bring new people into anime which translates into more $$$ for them also. Just because they jack up the prices to maximize profits from the people the know will buy it doesn't mean they are doing what's best for them. I've stated this before, but just because a company ran a bajillion numbers and done sample tests it doesn't mean their decision is the best one they could make.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Cidien
BTW, I have another thing to think about. The cheaper anime is the more people will buy it and get into it. Getting more anime into peoples hands increases the chances they will bring new people into anime which translates into more $$$ for them also.

There's one fatal flaw in your argument: Noone finds out about the HK sites until after they're already into anime. Most people including you, found out about HK's after you had already purchased some R1's. Most people stumble onto HK sites by accident. So the people buying HK's aren't necessarily new to anime.

[Cidien]

HK sites wern't even on my mind. I just threw that out there as something to think about. Some people out there may be more likely to get into anime if it didn't cost so much. I probably would have sooner. Before toonami was out I saw Akira and a couple other things I later found out was anime and I would have loved to get into it but $30 for a few episodes was way out of my price range at that time. They could have started making money on me a long long time ago if anime had been affordable, more like it is now with some perfect collections out there.

BTW Vicious, could you check your PM box? Sent you a couple.

[Vicious]

Looks like I assumed you were talking about HK's. My fault.

[Cidien]

No prob. I should have been more clear.

[SirChico]

Looks like I'm a little late, but:

Pending on HK's or R1 perfect collections, I'd say perfect collections are cheaper then collecting singles, but it's more rewarding to complete a collection in R1's. Especially when completing a set in a nice art box.

[nattysammy]

Personally, all other things being equal I would prefer all series to be boxed in the nice HK style of cardboard gatefold, they take up less space and I think they look better. Also I want to have all the parts of a show before I start watching it, thus not collect it as and when it is released. I hate to get drawn into a story and then have to wait to see what happens.


As far as buying a official version or a HK version of a series I will always go for the HK one. It is stealing plain and simple, and i dont feel great about my money going to criminals rather than the people who worked hard to make the shows. I do like to support the creators, and I wouldnt buy bootlegs of CD's or movies [anime or live action] but the US anime distributers are just taking the piss! I feel they way they operate is objectionable and it makes me feel a little better about my own theft.

Even if you excuse the exorbitant mark ups - if this isnt the case how can they sell cetain shows at greatly reduced rates and still make a profit, ie Gasaraki - as simple good business, they still show an attitude to their customers and the work itself which seems to me a little disrespectfull.

I guess they spread six episodes over two discs instead of putting six or seven on one [thus wasting resources and increasing their own production costs] because they realise that people would find it a little hard to swallow paying $60 for one disc. But do they really think their customers are so stupid as to not realise what they are doing? I recently bought the R2 Princess Mononoke for $13 new and it had a runtime of 130 mins with extra features such as behind the scenes and theatrical trailer, so what is this 3 eps for $26 shit?

Worse still is when they take a show that someone else has created, someone else's baby, bring it over to America and butcher it. The first example that comes to mind is that travesty of a film that was Warriors Of The Wind the edited version of Miyazakis Nausicaa cut from 116mins to 84 for US distribution. OK so thats an extreme case but it seems to happen fairly frequently that they will edit out scenes, re-dub music/sound effects, and generally change the tone in their translations.

You could say that as soon as a company buys the rights to a show it can do whatever it feels will make it the most money, and most businesses do operate this way, but it is not an unbreakable law. Some businesses do try to operate in an ethical way and forge good relationships with their customers, but I dont think this description could be attributed to the anime industry. I feel like I am being taken advantage of by a virtual cartel of several companies who have no interest but to wring every penney out of the anime market, and until that changes I'll stick with HK's. These critiscism are an apologists' justification of theft, but I think they are valid points too.

The other day when I got a football bet up I went straight out and spent the cash on the entire Frank Black back catalogue. I felt bad about downloading the tracks on kazza without contributing to the artist, but I wont lose any sleep over buying HK dvds.

Oh and if there were no alternatives to R1's, I wouldnt happily buy them. Maybe I would grudgingly purchase a few [cursing under my breath all the while] if I had the cash. But I dont. For me, and I guess a lot of other people paying hundreds of $$$$ for a show is simply impossible. If there were no HK's etc I would have to stick to buying single movies and watching the cartoon network, my undeniable birth right to see any and all anime would be violated!


Hmm, maybe I should have posted this in rants, ah well, too late now :p

[Amethyst]

Originally posted by Vicious
There's one fatal flaw in your argument: Noone finds out about the HK sites until after they're already into anime. Most people including you, found out about HK's after you had already purchased some R1's. Most people stumble onto HK sites by accident. So the people buying HK's aren't necessarily new to anime.

Guess Tsukiko and I aren't most people... but then we knew that... *laugh* We bought HK's first... Sailor Moon movies, R1 rips... course I've traded and replaced them with R1's.. because Tsukiko is a Sailor Moon Addict... and yes, she bought those R1 box sets that were $150 a set... and I thought I was doing good to get the 2nd set for $100... shoot, Right Stuf has them for $50 a set... going fast... *laugh* She still has the HK's for the S series and Stars... which will probably never be released in R1's anyway.... *laugh* Course she has all the manga too... and almost all the dolls... except for the outer senshi's.... plus 2 sets of poker playing cards... stationary, star locket, wand, and an alarm clock, key chain... watch... well you get the point... *laugh*

Now you want R1 poor management? Try Figure 17, 6 disks, 13 episodes, $120... the 3rd disk has a recap of the first 3 episodes, the 4th and 5th disks are only 60 minutes long... yeah, I bought it all.. and traded it... figured I'd get my money's worth out of it that way... *laugh*

Want HK same deal? Try Spiral, 3 disks, could only get the 3rd disk if you bought the entire box set... so what were we supposed to do with the first 2 disks we'd already bought as they came out?? Suppose we could of traded them... but who wants an incomplete set? Thank goodness for fansubs or I'd still be waiting to see that last disk!! *laugh*

[Cidien]

Originally posted by SirChico
Looks like I'm a little late, but:

Pending on HK's or R1 perfect collections, I'd say perfect collections are cheaper then collecting singles, but it's more rewarding to complete a collection in R1's. Especially when completing a set in a nice art box.

I used to think this until my R1's took up all my shelf space. :p

[Vicious]

Originally posted by nattysammy

Even if you excuse the exorbitant mark ups - if this isnt the case how can they sell cetain shows at greatly reduced rates and still make a profit, ie Gasaraki - as simple good business, they still show an attitude to their customers and the work itself which seems to me a little disrespectfull.

I guess they spread six episodes over two discs instead of putting six or seven on one [thus wasting resources and increasing their own production costs] because they realise that people would find it a little hard to swallow paying $60 for one disc. But do they really think their customers are so stupid as to not realise what they are doing? I recently bought the R2 Princess Mononoke for $13 new and it had a runtime of 130 mins with extra features such as behind the scenes and theatrical trailer, so what is this 3 eps for $26 shit?

Worse still is when they take a show that someone else has created, someone else's baby, bring it over to America and butcher it. The first example that comes to mind is that travesty of a film that was Warriors Of The Wind the edited version of Miyazakis Nausicaa cut from 116mins to 84 for US distribution. OK so thats an extreme case but it seems to happen fairly frequently that they will edit out scenes, re-dub music/sound effects, and generally change the tone in their translations.

You could say that as soon as a company buys the rights to a show it can do whatever it feels will make it the most money, and most businesses do operate this way, but it is not an unbreakable law. Some businesses do try to operate in an ethical way and forge good relationships with their customers, but I dont think this description could be attributed to the anime industry. I feel like I am being taken advantage of by a virtual cartel of several companies who have no interest but to wring every penney out of the anime market, and until that changes I'll stick with HK's. These critiscism are an apologists' justification of theft, but I think they are valid points too.

Let's address these in turn.

You mention Gasaraki in your 1st paragraph. Gasaraki wasn't initially released at that price point. It was released at the same price as all their other titles. Just like anything else, like shoes or clothes, when they realize that they're not getting any more sales at that price point, they decide to drop them some, and then drop them again. So they made some money at the 29.99 MSRP, and then decided to drop the price. They would've lost money if they had immediately decided to market the entire series at $30 total.

Your second paragraph, you talk about how you bought an R2 Mononoke for $13. And then compare it to god knows what. You fail to point out how the R1 Mononoke retails for about $25, but can easily be had for about $15 if you look around.

You also forget that R2 is the region it was developed in. In other words, the Japanese don't pay themselves for licensing rights, since they're the ones that are creating it. They are charging the US companies licensing rights, so it makes sense the US would have to pass those costs onto the consumer.

The Nausicaa example you use is very very old. Stuff like that doesn't normally happen nowadays. There's the occasional Initial D screw up, but it's not very prevalent anymore. And there are actually cases where the Japanese compnaies force the US companies to change stuff. The Japanese licensors made Funi change the title of the Detective Conan to Case Closed. I've also read that they made them change the characters names to Americanize it as well. The Japanese licensors are the ones that gave ADV bad Sailor Moon masters. The Japanese licensors are the ones that gave Rightstuf the master for His and Her Circumstances that had that one love scene cut out of it. So perhaps you should do some research before automatically laying blame on the US companies.

That last paragraph is pure bias. The US companies do alot to satisfy the customers. They asked us which plushie we wanted included with the Wolf's Rain release. They asked us what questions we'd want asked when they interview the Japanese creators to include as extras for some releases. One of my boxsets was missing a mini-manga that was supposed to come with it. Since Bandai didn't have anymore, they offered to send me a free copy of the next volume for that series. I've won at least 4 free boxsets signed by some of the VA's from ADV so far. Someone like Monica Rial doesn't have to attend almost every con that she's asked to do. They're not doing all that for themselves, but to try and make the fans happy.

[rarnom]

Originally posted by Vicious
There's one fatal flaw in your argument: Noone finds out about the HK sites until after they're already into anime. Most people including you, found out about HK's after you had already purchased some R1's. Most people stumble onto HK sites by accident. So the people buying HK's aren't necessarily new to anime.

I am another person who didn't buy any R1's first. I had taped all the Bebop off CN and then I was ***this*** close to buying the Bebop limited edition boxset at Fry's like 5 years ago. (I am still pissed I passed on that one, it was like $150 or something...:mad: )

A friend told me about HK's and then I did about a year of ebay browsing and research and found a site to buy from and then I found some real good sites like this one and CJV and I never looked back. I will admit that I have a couple of R1's but one was bought used for $5 and the other is 'Memories' and I used a gift card to get it... I wanted to get 'Manie-Manie' on HK, but I saw that ADV has the rights to it and so I am hopihg they release it sometime soon and I'll pick that one up on R1 for sure. BUT, I do agree that I am in the minority and most big anime fans buy R1's first. I just am not as hardcore about anime as most.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by rarnom

A friend told me about HK's and then I did about a year of ebay browsing and research and found a site to buy from and then I found some real good sites like this one and CJV and I never looked back.

BUT, I do agree that I am in the minority and most big anime fans buy R1's first. I just am not as hardcore about anime as most.

But like you said, you had a friend tell you about it. Most people don't have that, so first thing they usually do is go to Best Buy or something like that.

Although I'm sure there are people who go to videogame forums and stuff like that who found out about HK's. Or nowadays, you see alot of them on Ebay and can trace the sellers site back from there and find HK's that way as well.