The generic "Is this a bootleg" thread

[anthonyxscotland]

I dont know of any Japanese Region 2 release with chinese subtitles, and its extremly rare for it to have english subtitles (but it does happen, see FLCL)

www.amazon.co.jp and www.cdjapan.co.jp for region 2 releases, or www.amazon.com or www.rightstuf.com for region 1.

[sothis]

as far as your "give me a legit site" question, i've built a database for anime vendors that sell 100% legit merchandise. it specifically has a zero tolerance for bootleg merchandise, even if it's only one item. bootleg stuff in the store = not listed.

it's still VERY beta and might not have a huge ton of stores yet (and i am still building the rating feature, etc), but i'll give you the link anyways. expect a seperate post about this sometime soon ^_^

[Sides]

Originally Posted by Pado

thanks for your advice ~~~, but I know that very well too .

Right now i'm only doubting wether the english subs are good or not ;o ...

After some searching I've been able to confirm that Asia Video (HK) is a legal company (that exists :P.) I don't think yesasia will use fake publisher names anyway ... so that's alright ;o + nobody is selling it on ebay ;o ....

And after some searching I've been able to find other sites selling it too:

http://www5.cd-wow.com/detail_result...6e94bb1c73604f

http://www5.cd-wow.com/detail_result...uct_code=15444

http://www.goodswell.com/bin/miva?Me...ategory_Code=A

...... I guess I will see what it is after I bought it ..... the HK publishing industry must be going downwards if they sell dvd's with engrish in it :P :P

don't get it ! if you want it only for the english subs
i got it and it is just as bad as bootleg ones

example: in one scene Kira calls Flay Alister -> Faye Ali's Tower
or another example: Raww Le Klueze calls Mwu La Fllaga -> Florida
and also the names changes every second

i am guessing that the got the subs from the Region 6 boxset

anyone here that can type in trad. chinese characters ? go to AVP(HK) forum and bash them
and hope that they will hire someone professional next time

Originally Posted by Yebyosh

Yesasia however accepts orders and ships internationally without discrimination...

not really, like you cannot order "lengend of the condor hero" R1 dvd,
if you're not living in North America

[Dragnfly@Gamefaqs]

I got a GaoGaiGar boxed set for a friend of mine once back before I cared if it were a bootleg or not. Apart from a really grainy picture it was going pretty well until, while we were on the edge of our seats with anticipation Gai calls forth...

...

Jao Fai Lar

We were just staring at the screen in awe. We started noticing other minor screwups (example: Volfeed and Brook were used interchangably) but were stunned to see a few episodes later that Rao Gai Mar was being used. I forget the rest but this trend kept up for the entire series, oncluding Final and not -once- did they get the damn robot's name right.

[lana3007]

As funny as this might sound: i've seen not-bootlegged DVDs with horrible sutitles. I was watching Trigun at my friend's house and I am pretty sure it wasn't a bootleg and the subtitles had typos all over the place. I swear: fansubs have better quality subtitles! It was really disturbing.
I myself grew up in a country where finding a licensed CD was harder than finding a bootleg. Though real stuff is of course way better quality most of the time, but I will testify to seeing some really good bootlegs.

[OutPhase]

Originally Posted by lana3007

As funny as this might sound: i've seen not-bootlegged DVDs with horrible sutitles. I was watching Trigun at my friend's house and I am pretty sure it wasn't a bootleg and the subtitles had typos all over the place. I swear: fansubs have better quality subtitles! It was really disturbing.

I myself grew up in a country where finding a licensed CD was harder than finding a bootleg. Though real stuff is of course way better quality most of the time, but I will testify to seeing some really good bootlegs.

In these days it might be harder to know if something's bootlegged, but it's NOT that hard and if it's offical, God help us all.....


First off, licensed anime with subtitles have very little to no typos. Only fansubs and bootlegs have an abundant amount. Also, did the Trigun DVDs come in a box or a case and if so did it have an anime company logo on it? If an anime distributor company logo is not on the box and/or the DVD itself, it's a bootleg.

[Yebyosh]

Originally Posted by Razer_2mb

In these days it might be harder to know if something's bootlegged, but it's NOT that hard and if it's offical, God help us all.....


First off, licensed anime with subtitles have very little to no typos. Only fansubs and bootlegs have an abundant amount. Also, did the Trigun DVDs come in a box or a case and if so did it have an anime company logo on it? If an anime distributor company logo is not on the box and/or the DVD itself, it's a bootleg.

At this moment, I had found that the only certainty for whether a DVD ( or VCD for that matter ) is a bootleg or not, is if the company prints its physical address and contact information on the casing.

Company logos, DVD logos, casings, region codes, one language subtitles only, print quality, quality of the subtitles, etc are all irrelevant. The pirates are becoming as close to the original product as they can. Read my above post on the recent Tsukihime bootleg I saw on the shelves. The only thing they hesitate to print is an actual physical contact address ( since when do criminals advertise to the cops "Hey, here's my factory. Come on over." ).

Regarding the official Hong Kong Gundam Seed DVDs' bad English subtitles, it could be expected since their main language is Cantonese ( a Chinese dialect ). Hence their main concern of quality would be the primary Chinese subtitles. It is a bad business practice ( especially since they advertise an English subtitle track onboard ) but seeing how they have to fight on par against the local bootlegs, it can be understandable on why they did it.

[DarkCntry]

Right now bootlegs biggest mark is that they are all typically region-free discs, along with multiple sub tracks. Even a lot of bootleggers are putting more official-looking marks on their packaging to look real, even so far as to recreate the original production house information.

[Yebyosh]

Originally Posted by DarkCntry

Right now bootlegs biggest mark is that they are all typically region-free discs, along with multiple sub tracks.

I can point out that is incorrect. Quite a few official R3s are region-free. Odex and Blue-Max of Singapore, as well as legal Hong Kong production houses produce multiple sub track official releases ( to capture local bilingual population and to compete against the pirates ).

[DarkCntry]

True, but those aren't typically sold on a global market, are they? The point I'm trying to say is that more often than not, the ones that are multi-sub and region-free are bootlegs when you see them online. I know that there are quite a few in the SE Asia area that are multi-sub to fit the wide array of languages, and that region-free is starting to dominate the market there, but overall, these are still the key factors to a bootleg.

[Yebyosh]

Originally Posted by DarkCntry

True, but those aren't typically sold on a global market, are they? The point I'm trying to say is that more often than not, the ones that are multi-sub and region-free are bootlegs when you see them online. I know that there are quite a few in the SE Asia area that are multi-sub to fit the wide array of languages, and that region-free is starting to dominate the market there, but overall, these are still the key factors to a bootleg.

Uh... R1s are supposed to be sold only on a North American basis. R2s segmented into local European or Japanese markets. So the DVD market is supposed to be sort of restricted to a localised non-global basis. The only truly international kind of setting would be Region 0 ( so-called region-free ), of which there are legal products

Plus the fact is the Tsukihime bootleg I had pointed out, which is out on the market, is marked Region 1 and has English subtitles only on the cover ( the DVD inside might be region-free instead, go figure ). So that is the direction the bootleggers might be flooding the market soon. It lacked the DVD logo on the front cover but all of its other characteristics go against the long-held indicators of bootleg products.

The bootleggers do evolve with times as well. Sometimes even faster than the media giants

[Sides]

Originally Posted by Yebyosh

Regarding the official Hong Kong Gundam Seed DVDs' bad English subtitles, it could be expected since their main language is Cantonese ( a Chinese dialect ). Hence their main concern of quality would be the primary Chinese subtitles. It is a bad business practice ( especially since they advertise an English subtitle track onboard ) but seeing how they have to fight on par against the local bootlegs, it can be understandable on why they did it.

well since hong kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China
English and cantonese is still their offical language
(similar to Macau-> Portuguese and Cantonese).
I was expecting acceptable subs from AVP(HK), because
I got few vcd and DVD movies from them, where the english subs are good
So i was bit surprise seening those bad subs
but than again the Gundam dvds came with 5.1 JPN, 2.1 JPN and
2.1 cantonese audio, which was also a surprise

aboot region codes (don't know if it is true), apperantly you need to pay fees for using region codes CSS
if it is true we'll see more companies moving to Region 0, to save cost (especially smaller companies,
since they allready need to pay cost for mpeg-2 license, dolby license, etc.)
Is will make it harder to spot bootlegs
So the only good way to check real stuff from bootleg is to look at the address, just like Yebyosh said

[Zappster]

I was thinking of trying out Ranma on DVD. Now I live in the UK and checking shops and online stores there doesn't seem to be anywhere that sells it. I know there are sites that sell region 1 versions of it but they might incur import tax on top of the price which could be quite a hefty amount. So I thought I'd check out ebay(I know it's a haven for bootleg anime etc....) and I came across this.

What do you guys think? is it legit? Basically this is my last resort before importing and I was hoping you guys might help me out as I certainly don't want to be supporting the type of people that sell bootlegs on ebay. The guy is a powerseller and seems to sell a lot more anime for similar prices. If a lot of that stuff is bootlegs then I'm surprised the seller hasn't been reported already.

thanks in advance

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Zappster

I was thinking of trying out Ranma on DVD. Now I live in the UK and checking shops and online stores there doesn't seem to be anywhere that sells it. I know there are sites that sell region 1 versions of it but they might incur import tax on top of the price which could be quite a hefty amount. So I thought I'd check out ebay(I know it's a haven for bootleg anime etc....) and I came across this.

What do you guys think? is it legit? Basically this is my last resort before importing and I was hoping you guys might help me out as I certainly don't want to be supporting the type of people that sell bootlegs on ebay. The guy is a powerseller and seems to sell a lot more anime for similar prices. If a lot of that stuff is bootlegs then I'm surprised the seller hasn't been reported already.

thanks in advance

Thats a bootleg... Ebay really does not care about them unless the company comes and kicks their ass. Hints as to that being a bootleg: Logo is completely wrong, Region 0 discs, no english licensor outside of US.

[zrdb]

Yeah, it's a copy, I know cause I have the entire Ranma 1/2 series on hkdvds.

[pandasama]

Malaysian anime pirates going one step further than their HK counterpart. Taking the english subtitles from fansubs. Of course i rather pay for R1 dvds than buying bootleg. I always shop at www.dvdpacific.com

For example I still remember seing Karas with english subtitles from Nyanko Fansub . Also they also dont have all the episodes of Gakuen Alice since they are still wating for Naisho to release new episode (I think everyone's waiting from them).

So that's the difference between HK and Malaysia anime bootleg dvds.

[pandasama]

Originally Posted by Zappster

I was thinking of trying out Ranma on DVD. Now I live in the UK and checking shops and online stores there doesn't seem to be anywhere that sells it. I know there are sites that sell region 1 versions of it but they might incur import tax on top of the price which could be quite a hefty amount. So I thought I'd check out ebay(I know it's a haven for bootleg anime etc....) and I came across this.

What do you guys think? is it legit? Basically this is my last resort before importing and I was hoping you guys might help me out as I certainly don't want to be supporting the type of people that sell bootlegs on ebay. The guy is a powerseller and seems to sell a lot more anime for similar prices. If a lot of that stuff is bootlegs then I'm surprised the seller hasn't been reported already.

thanks in advance

Hey zappster. I used to order online from dvdpacific when i was in the UK. Their delivery is cheaper than Amazon plus fast and friendly service.

[DaFool]

Originally Posted by pandasama

Malaysian anime pirates going one step further than their HK counterpart. Taking the english subtitles from fansubs. Of course i rather pay for R1 dvds than buying bootleg. I always shop at www.dvdpacific.com

For example I still remember seing Karas with english subtitles from Nyanko Fansub . Also they also dont have all the episodes of Gakuen Alice since they are still wating for Naisho to release new episode (I think everyone's waiting from them).

So that's the difference between HK and Malaysia anime bootleg dvds.

Philippine anime pirates >>> Malaysia and HK pirates. Why? Because they bootleg the bootlegged products So what we have are generic unlabeled DVD-Rs which you pop in and whola! an HK bootleg menu. Or a TV-raw compilation with fansub scripts. Some are just plain straight fansub compilations. Or if you're lucky, a rip of an R1 DVD. So bootleggers don't even bother to translate their own English subtitles? Some don't even bother having a factory at all

[megx07]

I just had a quick question about getting the movie.
I know it's not supposed to be released in the US until Jan 25, but I got one off of ebay from Japan. It says its unwrapped, and that it has english subtitles. That should be okay, right? I only ask because it seems like everyone's trying to download it and I'm just making sure that copies do exist with subtitles that actually make sense, and arent just fansubbed.

let me know =)

[NoSanninWa]

Wrong. It's a bootleg.

I don't know if it is a Hong Kong sub or made from a fansub, but I doubt that it is legitimate.

Quick question: Does it have an English language dub track? No? That's a pretty good tip off that this is not the actual English release product.