energy prices hit anime… $39.99?!
Categories: anime, anime news, snipe
Tagged: shigofumi, true tears
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20 Responses to “energy prices hit anime… $39.99?!”
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Categories: anime, anime news, snipe
Tagged: shigofumi, true tears
20 Comments »
Talk about unreasonable, both cost-wise and content-wise.
Bandai licenses Haruhi, my favorite anime ever, and now my top 2 of the season? thanks but I don’t love them enough for 20 bucks an ep.. although I did fork over 50-60 whatever for each Haruhi box set….
Anime is expensive enough as it is for four episodes per disc, but while that’s acceptable there’s no way I’m paying that much for only 40 minutes of programming. Next they’ll be telling us it’s sub only.
CrasHthe2nd, it is sub only
To throw a question out there, if, and I say if, simultaneous (sub-only, of course) release in Japan and America becomes possible, should Americans conform to Japanese prices, should Japan conform to American prices, or should it be somewhere in the middle? I’m interested in what people think is a “reasonable” price for each episode of an anime.
I certainly think it’s crazy for anything more than $12-15 per ep, and you’d better have damn good extras attached if you’re going to be charging $15.
full price for the series (which is sub only) if purchasing DVDs comes out to be $270, made up of a single episode DVD of 30, then 6 more at 40. It should be pointed out though that this is Bandai Visual USA, which is different than Bandai, that is releasing this.
As to high price/low amount of episodes, it is almost like Bandai Visual is treating this like a R2 release, which simply will not work with the anime community in America.
Just to be clear, this is Bandai VISUAL, not Bandai Entertainment. They are two separate companies. BE has the Haruhi, BV has the Shigogumi.
BE is sane. BV is crazy.
There you go. Not only this season is crappy enough, they also license two of the better shows out there.
Now i’m happy.
Can’t wait for 2eps for 40euro
I have to assume they did some market research that concluded that was the correct price point, so my question is either: ‘what is wrong with their research?’ or ‘what is wrong with the market?’
See, I like the fact that they’re releasing DVDs only a few months after the episodes air, plus not bothering with dubs. It’s how I’ve wanted my anime for a while now.
On the other hand, like everyone has been saying, 2 episodes per DVD for that price tag is just absolutely ridiculous and I can’t imagine anyone but the most hardcore buyers to actually purchase them.
There are three costs to everything: time, money, and cheating. The less of one you are willing to pay, the more of the others you have to pay. It figures that a timely and legitimate release would be expensive.
But I didn’t expect the price to be that unreasonable. The only reason I can see is so that Japanese fanboys won’t be able to save on their DVDs by importing the R1 versions. And why do the DVDs cost so much in Japan anyway?
Good for Bandai that my contract with J.C.Staff will compel me to buy Shigofumi. Bad for them that nobody else will buy it. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson after that piece of junk Galaxy Angel Rune.
On the other hand, like everyone has been saying, 2 episodes per DVD for that price tag is just absolutely ridiculous and I can’t imagine anyone but the most hardcore buyers to actually purchase them.
And that is the Japanese DVD market in a nutshell. BV’s looking to target the same small dedicated niche market on this side of the Pacific. I wish’em the best of luck, but we just don’t have that many people that took up anime with their mother’s milk like they have over there.
Here’s an interesting question. How does anime/manga fair against other potential hobbies in Japan as far as price is concerned? Anime is a fairly cheap hobby here in the US (in moderation, compared to say, guns, ATV’s, high-end Radio Control vehicles, etc.). If anime doubles or triples in price, I’ve got options. Do those poor bastards over there have any where else to go?
I say we boycott these bastards over at Bandai Visual USA.
You know what: I’d cry if they finally clamped down on bittorrenting and the dreaded “illegal downloading.” It seems like the only way to get anime without any hassle (unfortunately).
>> CrasHthe2nd, it is sub only
Godammit…. I’m more a fan of subs anyway, but if you don’t include a dub on your DVDs then you’re /never/ going to make a good dub. It’s as simple as that. I at least like having the option of listening to it in English as sometimes a company will do a good job of it.
So while most companies have already started looking into digital distribution, BV is trying to force a price model onto us where it just doesn’t work. I could get an entire season of something else for less than the cost of 4 episodes of Shigofumi – where’s the sense in that?
>> And why do the DVDs cost so much in Japan anyway?
Because people are willing and stupid enough to keep paying for them at that price.
And they wonder why I stopped buying pani poni dash after 2 discs.
I don’t know how they expect anyone to consistently pony up that kind of money in this kind of economic climate.
This is one of the reasons on how the Chinese were able to fund their nukes…(Well hey, I’m in Asia and there are high quality HD pirated animes in here…what more can u ask for anyway? eheh..(“, )) ^^
Supply and Demand.
Don’t buy.
BV has had this pricing scheme since they started selling DVDs in the US – they were responsible for the R2-Quality Patlabor movie releases. Trouble is, they’ve kept the pricing the same, while stripping out most if not all of the extras. Now, the Bang/Buck ratio has gone from poor to insane.
Hum… I just noticed that is that theres no English audio track. So is this the price to get it released with in 2 months of the Japaneses release date? ALSO if you consider that the japaneses price for the dvd is about 40 dollars for the same amount of eps after currency conversion, the price matchs up fairly well.
This might be there answer to how we always complain about waiting so long for releases. Now the release is close in time, but we pay as much for it with generally the same content as the japanese dvds but with subtitles.
Instead of pay cheaper with english audio at a much later time.
Well I support this system since I never liked the thought of the price going to an english track which i never listen to instead of the japanese animators and voice actors. Also its within a time period where i haven’t already forgotten all about the series, so I’ll probable grab Shigofumi when it comes out.