Where all the Blu-Ray anime at?

[the7k]

But yeah, Gainax needs to re-release their classics on Blu-ray. Kyoani I care less about because of the crap they pulled this season with Haruhi.

Don't let what they've become taint what they were. Kanon, Air and Haruhi are still great stuff.

And from the trailer, it looks like Disappearance of Haruhi might actually be damn good. At least it doesn't look like K-On like season 2 did.

[AmishSamurai]

I really liked the trailer for it too. Looked more like the Season 1 art and not K-on's art. The fact Disappearance is possibly the best book in the series helps.

never saw air and kanon. may add to torrent list while I'm able to. Downloading Baccano now.

[Betamax001]

It looks like there is a date for Evangelion 1.11 on DVD and Blu Ray. According to Amazon.com it should be out March 9, 2010. It still doesn't make sense for them not to issue that version from the get go. Maybe I will get this one on Blu Ray for when I get my PS3 for graduation! Now if FUNi would hurry along with Evangelion 2.0.....

[Dylan]

Now if FUNi would hurry along with Evangelion 2.0.....

Or anything for that matter.

[Hobie-wan]

Now if FUNi would hurry along with Evangelion 2.0.....

Or anything for that matter.

Funimation? Not that I've been paying attention to anime at all in a few years, but wow, I see ADV pretty much imploded. Well ok, apparently they split into a bunch of companies. But they weren't doing so hot a few years ago.

[the7k]

Yeah, it's a shame. Probably more than half of my anime VHS and DVDs had "ADV" on the spine. It still sucks knowing that the company that gave me my first tastes of Slayers, Evangelion, Excel Saga, Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, Rurouni Kenshin, Cutie Honey, Gunsmith Cats and countless other classics has gone the way of the samurai.

[Hobie-wan]

Yeah, it's a shame. Probably more than half of my anime VHS and DVDs had "ADV" on the spine. It still sucks knowing that the company that gave me my first tastes of Slayers, Evangelion, Excel Saga, Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, Rurouni Kenshin, Cutie Honey, Gunsmith Cats and countless other classics has gone the way of the samurai.

My copies of Secret of Mana, Space Megaforce, and a Valkyrie II model I still haven't put together came from Gametronix from when they were still running ADV our of the back of that store. I used to know someone who was doing translation there and not that he was an ADV employee, but when I was going to (working at) cons all the time I talked to Greg Ayres (VA) pretty often.

[DownSince86]

If you buy from Japan just about everything coming out on TV now-a-days sees a Blu-ray release. If your stateside your options are very limited...as they have always been.

Personally I stopped buying anime stateside years ago. These days I download fansubs while the show is begin broadcast in Japan and assuming I like the series I will import the Blu-ray/DVD release when it goes on sale in Japan. I support the industry like this because a lot of the shows I've watched over the years got a second (and sometimes third) season based on how well the DVDs sold.

One could argue that I'm not supporting the English speaking side of the industry and to that I say: I don't care, let it die. In the late 90s and the early part of this decade I spent several thousand dollars on anime through the likes of FUNi and ADV and compared to what I could buy in Japan the content was just disappointing.

I care nothing for the dubbed script, the subtitles were the only important part of the translation for me and when compared to what the fans have put out the "official" subtitled translations were just awful in a lot of cases. Video quality is no where near as good on NTSC-U releases when compared to NTSC-J on DVD, not only do they cram more episodes per disc in the states they also have to include an extra audio track for each episode.

Basically the more of an anime fan I became the more I started to hate the way the anime got butchered when it came over to the states. Eventually (around 2003) I just stopped buying anime in America all together and long before that I had already refused to watch it on TV.

I'm not going to argue if downloading the fansubs is right or wrong but there is no denying that if your a fan of anime and you live outside of Japan it is the best method for watching all the new stuff begin broadcast in Japan. Especially if an English translation is important to you or if you don't feel like learning how to use the popular Japanese P2P networks.

If your worried about the legality of downloading fansubs perhaps crunchyroll is for you. You can stream fansubbed anime directly from that site legally. From what I understand that site pays a fee to be able to legally distribute the anime they carry. However be warned that they do not carry everything that is begin broadcast in Japan in any given season and tend to concentrate on the more popular shows. There are also limits similar to rapidshare imposed upon free accounts.

Also one last important thing to mention; A lot of the anime released on DVD/Blu-ray in Japan includes English subtitles on the disc. You'll want to double check before buying of course. So if Blu-Ray is really important to you start looking in to importing more of your anime as a lot of popular series are seeing "re-releases" in Japan right now.

[AmishSamurai]

Only thing that bugs me about anime in Japan is that the discs cost a shit-ton more than stateside, but only have two episodes each. if they had 4-5 like in the US, or did complete series at a reasonable price, I would be all over it. Otherwise nah.

[the7k]

If you buy from Japan just about everything coming out on TV now-a-days sees a Blu-ray release. If your stateside your options are very limited...as they have always been.

Personally I stopped buying anime stateside years ago. These days I download fansubs while the show is begin broadcast in Japan and assuming I like the series I will import the Blu-ray/DVD release when it goes on sale in Japan. I support the industry like this because a lot of the shows I've watched over the years got a second (and sometimes third) season based on how well the DVDs sold.

One could argue that I'm not supporting the English speaking side of the industry and to that I say: I don't care, let it die. In the late 90s and the early part of this decade I spent several thousand dollars on anime through the likes of FUNi and ADV and compared to what I could buy in Japan the content was just disappointing.

I care nothing for the dubbed script, the subtitles were the only important part of the translation for me and when compared to what the fans have put out the "official" subtitled translations were just awful in a lot of cases. Video quality is no where near as good on NTSC-U releases when compared to NTSC-J on DVD, not only do they cram more episodes per disc in the states they also have to include an extra audio track for each episode.

Basically the more of an anime fan I became the more I started to hate the way the anime got butchered when it came over to the states. Eventually (around 2003) I just stopped buying anime in America all together and long before that I had already refused to watch it on TV.

I'm not going to argue if downloading the fansubs is right or wrong but there is no denying that if your a fan of anime and you live outside of Japan it is the best method for watching all the new stuff begin broadcast in Japan. Especially if an English translation is important to you or if you don't feel like learning how to use the popular Japanese P2P networks.

If your worried about the legality of downloading fansubs perhaps crunchyroll is for you. You can stream fansubbed anime directly from that site legally. From what I understand that site pays a fee to be able to legally distribute the anime they carry. However be warned that they do not carry everything that is begin broadcast in Japan in any given season and tend to concentrate on the more popular shows. There are also limits similar to rapidshare imposed upon free accounts.

Also one last important thing to mention; A lot of the anime released on DVD/Blu-ray in Japan includes English subtitles on the disc. You'll want to double check before buying of course. So if Blu-Ray is really important to you start looking in to importing more of your anime as a lot of popular series are seeing "re-releases" in Japan right now.

Well, I have to question the whole "Japan crams more stuff on a disc than America does" deal. I've seen DVD releases that contain no more than two episodes as AmishSamurai said, and that seems to be the norm. Even worse, the norm also seems to be to charge out the f'en ass for these two episodes - somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-70.

That's insanity. They pulled similar crap with FLCL in the states, making what should have been an easy complete "6 episodes in one package" collection span 3 2-episode releases at $30 a piece. Even though I was a huge FLCL fan, there was no way I was spending $90+ on something I had already seen about three times on Adult Swim.

If Japanese versions really were packed with more content and priced competitively, why would Japanese people import American releases of Japanese anime? http://www.japanator.com/kurokami-blu-r ... 2173.phtml

Personally, I enjoy it when a company treats a series well. With a few exceptions (4Kids and CMX), I haven't seen much evidence of companies continuing to 'butcher' a series. They know that their audience is already small and fragmented, and that needlessly editing an series will only further reduce what little sales there were already guaranteed.