How often do you buy anime?
 

I'm thinking of buying a "few" anime, and manga, volumes; A "few" since I'll probably want to buy over thirty.
However I'm also a teenager and a gamer so money isn't on my side. Heck, I can't even buy the games I want.

I only own around 4 anime volume DVDs. I own 3 - 4 Pokemon VHSes, the original Sonic OVAs/movie VHS and a Monster Ranchers VHS but that's really it.

If you don't buy much, why?

I use to buy a lot but not that much now because there no where hardly to buy it any more in stores

I don't buy much anime because I'd rather buy figures and games. Guitars, too. Very expensive hobbies, those. ;)

Anime/manga is a hobby that's very hard on the wallet so most of my watching and reading of such things is done online, so no I don't buy anime very often. The only DVD sets I really even purchase is Funimation dubbed One Piece and while it's not priority to me I sometimes get posters, wall scrolls or figures.

I guess the things I splurge on the most would be video games and trading cards. I'm still a Yu-Gi-Oh player since elementary school. xD;

I buy anime only when the full series is available and at a discount price. Rightstuf is the best source of good price anime for any English-speaking region.

I buy anime pretty frequently, since I do the majority of my anime watching via DVD (or Bluray Disc). Sure, it costs money, but my love for my favorite series is far stronger than my need for other extravagances like expensive food or clothing. My collection of anime DVDs and BDs is small compared to some people, but it's coming along nicely.

For buying anime, like some people have said, buying online is way better than brick and mortar stores. Just make sure you buy from a legit retailer, like Rightstuf or Amazon, in order to avoid bootlegs.

Another website that can be helpful in buying anime DVDs is DVDAfficiando. It tracks your collection, sort of like MyAnimeList or Figure.fm or lots of other similar sites. It's useful for tracking your collection, with it's different tagging features, and for showing people how pimp it is. My collection is at: http://einhorn303.dvdaf.com/owned

R1 DVDs are actually really way cheap compared to other forms of anime spending. The true dark side is importing R2 DVDs and BDs. The Japanese Bluray release of Clannad will end up costing over a thousand dollars. I don't buy R2 stuff, but I am into collecting dakimakura and now Azone dolls...those can be real income drains (but their worth it, believe me!).

Best Buy is one possibility (depending on the cluefulness of your buyer). I even saw Strike Witches at the last one I was in.

However... lets face it, "big box retailers" go for volume and the small dealers are vanishing like neutrinos and can't keep stock onhand.

Best bets are with www.rightstuff.com and dvdpacific.com with amazon as a back up. There's really not any "can't find it" excuse.

Now if you can't *afford* it... then I hold you should take the "patron/peanutgallery" street performer route. Buy what you can when you can - and be honest about it. If you can only afford one series a year in your region code, then buy that. If you want to support Japanese companies directly, then buy figures, CDs, swag.

In other words, if the street performer is good and you enjoy it, do what you can when you can.

To answer the question: I brought quite a lot of anime a few years ago to build up my library of 'classics'. Lately, I've been spending more on figures and CDs but there's been some excellent sales on "sub only" series I wasn't expecting to see (like Hidamari Sketch). Usually, I've been buying one "big ticket" series a year (like Haruhi) and six or seven low-budget series (like Hidamari Sketch). The ARIA spree over the last couple of years was over and above that.

I don't buy anime too often, usually 3 to 4 series/movies a year. I am a college student, so the overwhelming portion of my money goes to tuition, and other living expenses. I can only buy that much because I stopped buying new gaming consoles, games, etc. A good way to buy more anime is to scrounge up loose change and simply colllect it until you get enough. My last two anime series were bought with $50 in spare change. Another way to get more anime is to get a job. Just playin':heh:

I buy way to much as of late. Before 2008 my "backlog" of unwatched DVDs was only a few discs, but now my backlog is so big I need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all. I think in total I have over 150 titles* still to watch. Essentially if I tried to watch all of my backlog 24/7 right now with only sleep/toilet/eating breaks, it would still take me several months to watch it all :heh:

Needless to say, certainly with the Euro taking a nosedive I've told myself I need to back down on spending (so far it works; only 2 Rightstuf orders in the last month compared to 3-5/month before). The upside of such a massive backlog is that sometimes I look at my bookshelf and think "Wow, I didn't know I had that! Cool, lets watch that now!" :)

As for manga, I've made the decision only to buy Japanese manga a few years back and bought a TON of it when I was in Japan in 2006 (several huge boxes full). Since then I've made a few more orders from Amazon Japan and bk1.jp, but not much (none this year yet). The main reason I'm able to restrain myself better with manga is partially my huge anime DVD backlog and also that I'm not that good at reading Japanese. Something like Yotsubato! is no problem, but reading something like Negima can get tiring quickly. Though I get the feeling I'm getting better at reading Japanese manga - I was able to get through the entire first volume of Otomen in half a day recently, which for me is quite an achievement.

I second Rightstuf.com as a place to buy anime btw. The weekly specials or studio sales offer great value. Also if you want to expand your anime collection quickly I suggest looking into Funimation's S.A.V.E.** line, many titles of which can be got for next-to-nothing (less than $20 for 26 eps series, less than $10 for 13 eps series or movies) through a studio sale on Rightstuf (and a Funimation sale is ongoing now).

*) Titles = single series or seasons, ie: Inu Yasha counts as 7 (season sets), while something like Rental Magica counts as 1.

**) Note that "New Retail" listed in there is MSRP, you should be able to get up to 40% off this price in a sale.

I'll help you watch some of the backlogged stuff if you want to send it to me. I'll tell you how it is.

This minus the guitar thing, Collecting guitars must be extremely expensive. :heh:

Lately I've been buying quite a lot* of anime dvds and it's about time I did to be honest. There's quite a lot of stuff I want afterall. I've decided to grab every series that I've really enjoyed or wish to rewatch one day. If I see a good deal for a series that wasn't bad, I might grab those too. And I grab some stuff I've never seen before that I've had my eyes on. I still download and watch stuff (unless it's too much hassle) which only broadens my choice for purchases. I'll probably look into getting Blurays for specific series I want to own in HD, but I'm not too overly bothered about it (Though, stuff like FMAB / DRRR!! I'd rather own in HD)

*A lot as in, over 35 titles this year so far

Also trying to build up a small library of sites I can resort to, so I'm not limited to a few, especially when considering price/availability. Importing is something I'm a little worried about, mostly concerning packaging. Damaged goods are not fun to receive. Rightstuf looks quite neat, saw some nice prices there. They even seem to have an Infinite Ryvius collection on there, hopefully in stock.

Still looking for a reasonably priced collection of You're Under Arrest (first TV series) Maybe I'm not looking hard enough...

As far as other merchandise, I'm not really interested in collecting figurines, CDs and such. Especially the prices for figurines, they can be steep. I bought an Evangelion Asuka figurine and some Higurashi ones a few years ago on Ebay, but those just sit around collecting dust. Even accidently broke the neck of one Higurashi figure by knocking it over onto the floor... Sometimes I'll see a nice looking figurine online that would probably be kinda neat to have, but that's it really. Everything else though, I don't care much for.

I buy whatever i can, whenever i can, provided it perks my interest and/or if it's at a reasonable price. This means most of my purchases are from sales and are usually stand alone anime movies due to the lower price tag when compared to a series collection.

I think my Haruhi boxset and Makoto Shinkai films are the only exception where I've gone out of my 'purchasing comfort zone' in order to have obtained them.

My collection isn't very big at all, but i do plan on adding some much wanted titles whenever I get a bit more financially stable and can afford to.

1) It's a boxset
2) It's discount / A reasonable price
3) It's my region (Region 1)
4) It's near where I live. (A state near me or even in Vienna's mall via F.Y.E.)

That's about it. I don't buy anime DVDs very often unless I feel determined enough. My Code Geass series is complete along with my Escaflowne and MS 08 team. I want to get my Gundam 00 Collective underway as well, but considering my future plans I may have to wait a bit.

Not planning on getting much this year; I'm going to a State Anime Convention that is annual. I'm pretty sure it's more important then any DVD. Well, it's important to me anyway. :p

hmm well since money has been tight the past couple years I only buy anime on my birthday, at my local con, and Christmas so overall I only buy maybe 3 or 4 boxsets a year and a couple volumes of manga Unless I find good deals at a bargin bin or find them $3 DVDs at Big Lots. So most of the time I support the companies by watching their anime on ANN, Crunchyroll, Funi/Bandai/etc.. Youtube channel, or any other legal streaming website.

Well Best Buy anime is gone down by 80% so there not much of a section left and for buying it online I dont have a card to do that or enough cash for the shipping

Rarely, never have been supportive of R1 Anime Industry in the first place . But sometimes I do purchase DVDs to show solidarity .

Ever since I've switched to purchasing R2J DVDs/ JP Blu-ray, it's been a regular monthly basis for me (you might have seen me post my purchases in other specific anime forums/threads), before that I just mainly bought R4 boxsets and a few R1's usually when it was on sale, but since the R1 & R4 market have changed the way they release anime and the packaging it comes in that has become one of the factors in me starting to buy Japanese releases instead. Then gradually, I saw the advantages of purchasing R2J's as I don't have to wait for said shows to be licensed and released on DVD in my country and that the packaging and bonuses have great appeal for my personal buying preference. I don't really need subtitles or an English dub as well.

I have say that in purchasing R2J's, I'm really only focusing on buying 2-3 series at a time. It's weird cause lately it seems every 2/3 series I'm following each season I end up purchasing them before deciding if it's worth buying, the only series I ended up watching completely but didn't buy was Nogizaka 2 cause I felt it was very lacklustre. I do also collect other merchandise as well, mainly CD's though (OST, vocal albums, CD singles & drama CDs) but for figures, artbooks, wallscrolls etc it's only for series that I'm completely interested in collecting for (which is Shana and Kara no Kyoukai for me) or a one off thing.

Yes, I know purchasing R2J's is very tough financially but I'm lucky to have a part time job that pays well and I don't use much of my money on other stuff other than paying the bills and buying grocery lol.

The only time I really can buy any anime is when I'm at a convention.

And the only ones I can really go to are SMASH! and Supernova, and Supernova's not even all anime/manga. :|

rarely I'm more of a manga person than an anime person last time i bought an anime dvd was mid last year (finishing off Ghost in the shell 2nd SAC since the dvds were on special). Manga I buy alot more often though.