2012-04-25, 01:19 | Link #61 | ||
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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2012-04-25, 13:28 | Link #63 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
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In general, producers are losing interest in selling anime DVDs/BDs as low cost, mass market items.
Demand just isn't at a level they're happy with (in recent years, partnering with Funimation, Sentai, Bandai Entertainment, etc. has provided little benefit), so they'd rather back off and be a bit more aggressive about protecting the value of their properties. |
2012-04-26, 10:29 | Link #64 |
Spoilaphobic
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: USA
Age: 37
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The US should have had it's own region code. Whoever decided otherwise needs a slap.
They can still fix it too. You update the blu-ray player software and you're done. There would be some specifics to work out, but it's possible. Unless of course, there is some stupid part of the design that breaks my logic, lol.
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2012-04-28, 07:00 | Link #71 | |
Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
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The Bakemonogatari discs come with with soundtrack CDs, character theme song CDs, character epilogue CDs, end-card pinups, extended-length episode previews, textless OP/EDs, character audio commentary written by the novel author, and new video for the character audio commentary showing the characters as they watch the show. |
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2012-04-28, 07:21 | Link #72 | |
Japanese Culture Fan
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Planet Earth
Age: 33
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2012-04-28, 08:04 | Link #73 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
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I don't buy BR from Japan but I buy figures and the exchange rate hurts.
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2012-04-28, 13:26 | Link #74 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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However, even with all the "Extras" - that's a killer for any significant sales in the US. They'd have to be able to explain successfully that these are LOW VOLUME HIGH COLLECTIBLE items and build a small market of US patrons that would sign up for this. Unfortunately, the digital cat is out of the bag on that notion. And they'd have to provide english subtitles...
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2012-04-28, 22:25 | Link #75 | |
Remember, no moe.
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Illinois, California
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I know it sucks, being used to R1 BD/DVD prices, but either deal with R1 anime or don't complain about the import prices :x
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2012-04-29, 00:42 | Link #77 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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I agree its a false comparison... yet "Joe and Jane Average" will make their choices on exactly that false comparison.
That's why I think the anime producers are better off realizing they're a niche collector market outside of Japan (just like they are *in* Japan). These are collectibles... like those $150 plastic dolls *cough* PVC-figures that adorn my office. There's a huge market in "$30" DVD average resolution packs (see Funimation & Rightstuf) but the quality Blu-ray whatnot is likely to be priced for the blueblood "don't care what it cost" people.
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2012-04-29, 02:02 | Link #78 |
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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I think it's also worth doing a "Japanese market price to Japanese market price" comparison rather than simply doing a Japanese to American price comparison.
On Amazon.co.jp, the bluray boxes for LOTR are it's around $135 US for the theatrical cut and $260 US for the extended. Compare to $60 for the US Bluray of the extended edition on Amazon.com. That's an unusually high differential from what I can see though: the complete Star Wars bluray package is $150 compared to $90 in the US, while a "priced down reissue" of Inception on Bluray is priced in the low $20s in Japan on Amazon.co.jp compared to $13 for the US version on Amazon.com. EDIT: let's through some Japanese TV series in: remember the 12 episode live action of GTO? $235 on DVD, though it uses one hour episodes rather than half hour ones like anime. The Nodame Cantabile live action of similar length is $215. Both would appear to be priced much higher than American live action shows... a Japanese box set for all four seasons of heroes is under $110. On the anime side, the bluray for volume one of Nisemonogatari (two episodes) is $63 and the second (three episodes) is $76. So bank on an overall series cost of around $328 US for the whole series (four two episode volumes plus one three episode). Slightly cheaper than most because it's only 11 episodes. The original Bakemonogatari, at 15 episodes, is available for $270 in box form - the original release would have cost more - I'd guess over $400. Looking at some slightly older shows, Sola (which came out in 2007) is available in a priced down box set for $70 (more than twice what I paid for my R1s a few years back), thought the upcoming Bluray rerelease will be around $240.
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Last edited by 0utf0xZer0; 2012-04-29 at 02:42. |
2012-04-29, 06:22 | Link #79 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
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You wonder if anyone but the most serious collector buys movies/TV series in Japan. Their prices are outrageous.
The only thing I can think to compare here is the Criterion Collection which releases great transfers of classics/foreign films/art house films, etc with loads of extras. They are more expensive on average than your regular DVD/BR but even they don't match the Japanese price system. And even if the standard of living is higher in Japan (which I expect it is) those are still some crazy prices.
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2012-04-29, 15:40 | Link #80 |
The Voice of Reason
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Age: 47
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Thing is, though, the industry is only able to stay alive because of those insane prices. Going lower is simply unprofitable, because the amount of people they'd get in addition to the hardcore collectors is (from what I've read) negligible.
Maybe if anime was treated like any other TV show, ratings and advertising would make it possible to sell BDs/DVDs at lower prices. However, since it costs money to have anime aired on TV, that loss of money has to be entirely recouped by disc sales (and probably additional merchandise). And I think it's safe to say that the Japanese collectors are not only fine with it, but wouldn't want it any other way. DVDs/BDs are collectibles to them, not so much media to watch and therefor worth every yen they invest in them.
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Tags |
blu-ray, international, kadokawa, restriction |
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