Having trouble watching anime legitimately/piracy discussion.

Doclector

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I don't know whether this is less of a problem in the US, but I've been trying to get a little more into anime at the moment, and I'm getting nowhere because of availability issues.

See, I don't pirate/stream things illegally, ever. I want to be a film-maker myself, so it seems a tad hypocritical to do so.

But anime is really starting to test my morals. DVDs are in god awful short supply, and when they're not, they charge the same as normal full length series for a handful of episodes, which you know damn well ends with a cliffhanger.

The lack of online options is perhaps even more inexcusable. What few there are always seem to just have licenses in the US. It seems like it should be a no brainer. Offer online streaming and pay with ad revenue or make it a subscription/pay per view service. No importing, no need to charge so unreasonably. I don't like subscribing for stuff online (thus why I don't just get netflix) as I don't like to have bank details online if at all possible, but I'd definately consider it if it allowed me to watch things that simply aren't greatly available in physical form, which I always prefer.

This however, brings up a bigger question. How much right do companies have to complain about piracy when their products aren't reasonably available legit? I'm a "paying customer" here, as much as saying that makes me feel like I'm acting entitled, and as we've seen so many other times, I'm having far more trouble getting what I want than the goddamn pirates are, and not just because they don't have to pay for it.

So, do you think that companies should not have the right to stop people pirating their products when said products are not available legitimately in any easy way? Personally, I don't think so. I think when a copyright claim is made, they should have to provide evidence that the product being copied is easy to purchase legitimately in the locale that it is being pirated. If not, no right to complain until efforts are made to change that, and pirating/streaming that particular thing is not considered illegal until there are actually other options.
 

tippy2k2

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Well, if it makes you feel better, most people will agree that it is not piracy (well...it IS piracy but most people will tell you it's justified :D).

Now personally, I will not pirate. I believe that, even though there are benefits to piracy, that the negatives hurt the industry more than the positives. Now with that said, I have my own guideline for people if they are curious. I wrote this a while back and it was so much work that I like bringing it back to justify all the time I took :)

Note: Number 2 is what applies to you if you're a TLDR-type of a guy

I agree that there are grey areas (and my view point on piracy HAS actually softened from some debate I've had with people so if someone here knows they've debated this with me, know this; I have actually considered your arguments. I used to believe that no piracy no matter what if that helps inform the changes I've made in my stance). Just to clear it all up, I'll just put my opinion on piracy here:

There are only a few select exceptions to my "no piracy" rule (I still haven't and will never pirate even with these exceptions but I don't frown upon those that do when these exceptions arise).

Tippy2k2's "Acceptable Piracy time"

1. The product in question is at least two generations back AND is not available on a digital download service (like XBLA, Steam, Nintendo Virtual Network, etc.) or gains a re-release. Two generations back right now would be PS1/N64/Dreamcast era.

IF the product becomes available on a digital download service/re-release, you should delete your pirated copy and purchase the now-available product if you get the hankering to play the game again. You do not have to purchase the game if you don't ever play it again.

2. If the product in question is not available in your region due to a Publisher's decision, you must give them a year to rectify this. If they announce that it will be coming to you within a year, it is no longer a justified piracy. If you pirate it and they do release it after the year expires, same rule applies here as it did for digital services/re-release.

3. Unknown DRM that breaks the game. I don't think I'v ever seen this before but just in case it has happened, I'll include it. If Assassins Creed did not tell you that you had to always be online, that would be a justified piracy. However, because AC told you about the DRM, that is an accepted risk that you must now carry. If the AC servers go down, tough luck. You knew the bed you were getting into when you bought the game.

I don't think I've skipped one of my "justified piracy" points so in my mind, these are the only times where you could justify to me why you've pirated (as if my opinion is going to stop a pirate...).

Tippy2k2's most common questions!

"But Tippy2k2, you blond sex God of a man, what if you disagree with the DRM?"

I don't care. If you disagree with the DRM, let the company know by writing them a letter. If it bothers you SO much that you can't play the game, don't play the game. Vote with your wallet kind of thing here...

"But Tippy2k2, the perfect example of 'men want to be him and the ladies want to be with him', I wouldn't have bought the game anyway so why does it matter?"

Gaming is not a right; it's entertainment. If you are unwilling to pay for content, you do not get content. If you can not afford content, wait for it to drop in price. If you're so broke that you can't afford the game when it drops to $10, you need to re-evaluate the fact that you own a $300 console...

"But Tippy2k2, the most brilliant man of our generation, what about the statistics that state that pirates buy the most stuff?"

This is one aspect where I may change my tune but no one has been able to answer this and until they do, I'm doubtful of that claim: Besides for studies where they ASK pirates what their spending habits are, what studies show this? Every study I have seen that claims this have always been surveys and no offense guys, but I'm not going to take a pirate at his word when it comes to pirating...

"But Tippy2k2, you perfect male specimen, the developer didn't release a demo and I want to make sure I like the game!"

If the Publisher for whatever reason has chosen not to supply a demo, that does not give a person permission to make their own. We have so much information at our disposal nowadays that unless you're just blindly buying everything, you should know if you'll like it or not. Reviews, forums, "Let's Plays", videos; if you can't figure out if you'll like a game based on all the info we have, you're not researching right. Along with that, when do you decide the demo is over? Is one hour a long enough time to decide? Well...maybe a bit longer cause you haven't seen everything in the game-play. Is two hours long enough? Eh, I'm still not 100% sold. Oh, four hours in and I'm halfway through? I guess it's not worth it to me to buy it cause I've decided that I've seen all the cool stuff and won't be seeing more.

"But Tippy2k2, the man who invades my dreams at night, I want to make sure the game works on my system before I put down my money!"

There are multiple websites that will check your system to see if it can handle the game. Now, I recognize that the minimum requirements are not always right and those websites can make mistakes but...this will sound cold-blooded... tough. That's a risk you run in the PC gaming world. If you don't like the risk, wait for the price to drop to something that is acceptable.

"But Tippy2k2, you swift man of action, the industry is broken and we need to show them that we won't take it!"

Yes, the system is broken. However, you pirating everything is only breaking it more. You're not showing the big bad Publishers that you're not going to take their business practices, you're demonstrating to them that they need to apply more pressure to the choke-hold they have on consumers. This goes back to my earlier point; if everyone who was unhappy with EA's business practices wrote them a letter and chose not to purchase the next few games, EA would either change the way they do business or they might just plain sink.
 

FireAza

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Where are you located? I'm from Australia, and we actually have it pretty good for legitimate anime DVDs. We've got Madman Entertainment who are a massive company with smaller companies like Siren and Hanabee also bringing up the rear. Distribution is good too, JB Hi-Fi are one of the biggest entertainment chains in Australia, and their stores always have a large anime section.

It wasn't always like this, when Madman were small, EB Games were the only chain that stocked their DVDs, and it was a pretty small selection. They used to be crazy expensive too, usually $35 for a single DVD. I think because Madman has really grown, they've been able to lengthen their distribution and lower their prices.

Can your DVD player can play region 4 DVDs? I'd recommend importing Madman Entertainment's DVDs (http://www.madman.com.au), they're always a quality product, the build and print quality on their art boxes are glorious. If you can't play region 4s, many DVD players can be hacked to make them region-free and you can run software like AnyDVD to play all region DVDs on your PC. In fact, the law in Australia is that DVD players must be able to be made region-free :p

As to pricing, anime is a niche market. With the added cost of the double-handling that comes from a licensor buying something from someone else in Japan. You really can't expect to compare it a volume of Family Guy which is made and distributed by the same company.
 

Doclector

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FireAza said:
Where are you located? I'm from Australia, and we actually have it pretty good for legitimate anime DVDs. We've got Madman Entertainment who are a massive company with smaller companies like Siren and Hanabee also bringing up the rear. Distribution is good too, JB Hi-Fi are one of the biggest entertainment chains in Australia, and their stores always have a large anime section.

It wasn't always like this, when Madman were small, EB Games were the only chain that stocked their DVDs, and it was a pretty small selection. They used to be crazy expensive too, usually $35 for a single DVD. I think because Madman has really grown, they've been able to lengthen their distribution and lower their prices.

Can your DVD player can play region 4 DVDs? I'd recommend importing Madman Entertainment's DVDs (http://www.madman.com.au), they're always a quality product, the build and print quality on their art boxes are glorious. If you can't play region 4s, many DVD players can be hacked to make them region-free and you can run software like AnyDVD to play all region DVDs on your PC. In fact, the law in Australia is that DVD players must be able to be made region-free :p

As to pricing, anime is a niche market. With the added cost of the double-handling that comes from a licensor buying something from someone else in Japan. You really can't expect to compare it a volume of Family Guy which is made and distributed by the same company.
I'm located in the UK, and I'm not sure about the region locking on my DVD player.

I can get why anime DVDs in the UK are in short supply and expensive. We don't quite have the mass anime audience of America, and certainly not that of japan. But surely, that's all the more reason to distribute through legit download/streaming sites? Maybe this is one of those examples of an industry struggling to adapt to the massive changes that readily available internet brings up, but I would've thought that anime, an industry that kinda depends on the internet for appeal beyond japan, would know better.

Or maybe it's just UK licensing laws that are fucked up, thus why the few legit sites I know of only have licenses for the US.
 

FireAza

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Ah, the UK. I remember they used to have a decent anime market in the 80s with Manga Entertainment (thanks for causing a whole generation of people to mistakenly call anime "manga" guys!), but I'm not sure if those guys are around anymore.

I know we have some crossover with region 2 (some of our DVDs are region 4 and region 2) so some of Madman's titles might work off the bat. Try Googling your DVD player's model, most DVD players have a sequence you can enter on the remote that unlocks them.

As to streaming, the company still needs to pay the Japanese licensor for the rights, which can be in the millions for a single series. Then they need to pay someone to subtitle it, or even more if they want a dub. And there's also the web hosting and bandwidth to consider. Madman Entertainment has streaming, but in an odd reverse, they're region-locked for non-Australians.
 

Candidus

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Doclector said:
Or maybe it's just UK licensing laws that are fucked up, thus why the few legit sites I know of only have licenses for the US.
I'm also in the UK.

Licensing and bad localisation (when things are localised at all) are both going to be the bane of your position. I'm not going to say an explicit word about my own conduct, but...

When a localisation company gets its hands on a series, two things happen that are unacceptable to me: one, sanitization (uncommon) and two, subtitling by the lowest bidder (always).

I'm not going to buy a series that omits or censors any images or scenes.
I'm not going to buy a series to sit through rubbish subtitles (eg: Aniplex's Gurren Lagann; I won't make that mistake again).

It's irrational and unrealistic to expect anyone to purchase when the alternative is both objectively superior in quality, and also just a click away. That's my thinking on the matter.

Anyway anyway.

If you're serious, you have one option. Importing. Lots of importing.
 

Elfgore

Your friendly local nihilist
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I watch all of my anime online or on netflix first, but (get ready for a twist) if I enjoyed the anime, I will purchase it to support the anime. Now some of you may get angry and say I'm still a dirty stinkin' pirate, I do this so I don't have to spend forty bucks on an anime that someone said I would like, but I really thought was crap. To justify this, I will check netflix first, since I do pay for streaming, if it is not there, then I will go stream of the internet.

To me that method is justifiable, but that's just me.
 

Lilani

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Doclector said:
The most cost-effective ways of watching anime I've found are:

- Funimation.com. They have a lot of subbed and dubbed shows you can stream for free.
- Subscription-based services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and CrunchyRoll. CrunchyRoll is pretty exclusively dedicated to anime, but Netflix has a decent selection and I'm not totally sure on HuluPlus but it's worth checking out. These are certainly more efficient than trying to buy and ship DVDs. The only problem is...I don't know if you can get these services in the UK, and to what extent. Probably not Hulu, but maybe Netflix or Crunchyroll. It's worth looking, anyway. I do Netflix, just because they have a lot of anime I haven't seen but also other things if I don't want to watch anime at that moment.

Good luck! This is one of the pains of trying to be a good little anime buyer. You hear about localization branches of companies going under because of piracy, but when you try to buy legitimately some shows are like $80 for half a season. You might also try video stores or secondhand shops in your area. I don't know how it is in the UK, but I find lots of random shows and manga in shops like that here in the States. Not good if you're looking for a specific show, but it's one way to start a collection on a budget.
 

Something Amyss

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Doclector said:
See, I don't pirate/stream things illegally, ever. I want to be a film-maker myself, so it seems a tad hypocritical to do so.
Well, unless you don't care about your own work being pirated.

I don't pirate out of respect for others, but I view the obsession with piracy a negative thing and hope to never be that concerned with my works.

But anime is really starting to test my morals. DVDs are in god awful short supply, and when they're not, they charge the same as normal full length series for a handful of episodes, which you know damn well ends with a cliffhanger.
Okay, not with you so far. You pay more for a niche product, and that "tests" your morals? Jeez.

The lack of online options is perhaps even more inexcusable. What few there are always seem to just have licenses in the US. It seems like it should be a no brainer. Offer online streaming and pay with ad revenue or make it a subscription/pay per view service. No importing, no need to charge so unreasonably. I don't like subscribing for stuff online (thus why I don't just get netflix) as I don't like to have bank details online if at all possible, but I'd definately consider it if it allowed me to watch things that simply aren't greatly available in physical form, which I always prefer.
A lot of the cost is up-front, however, and deals with the licensing rights. By adding more countries, you can make it less worth their while to do so. Meanwhile, America's still a sizable consumer of the product.

Also, I'll let you in on a little secret: one of the reasons America gets these deals is that it is less friendly to the content creator. Since you've already set yourself up as an aspiring filmmaker, that is you. So you're angry that content makers in your country have rights that give them better treatment and your response is a temptation to bypass those rights entirely by piracy.

....THAT strikes me as hypocritical.

This however, brings up a bigger question. How much right do companies have to complain about piracy when their products aren't reasonably available legit? I'm a "paying customer" here, as much as saying that makes me feel like I'm acting entitled, and as we've seen so many other times, I'm having far more trouble getting what I want than the goddamn pirates are, and not just because they don't have to pay for it.
Copyright isn't just about the right to publish. It's also about the right not to publish. There is every right to complain that people are not respecting your copyright.

Now, if you're complaining about lost sales, you can screw right off.
So, do you think that companies should not have the right to stop people pirating their products when said products are not available legitimately in any easy way?
Yes, for the above reason. You are not entitled to the product, so your line of reasoning does strike me as a false sense of entitlement.
 

Kaltazraza

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Crunchyroll has quite a bit of good shows up for streaming with a paid subscription, more if you're in America.
Funimation has as well, but I don't think you can use it if you aren't in America.
 

Something Amyss

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Elfgore said:
I watch all of my anime online or on netflix first, but (get ready for a twist) if I enjoyed the anime, I will purchase it to support the anime. Now some of you may get angry and say I'm still a dirty stinkin' pirate, I do this so I don't have to spend forty bucks on an anime that someone said I would like, but I really thought was crap. To justify this, I will check netflix first, since I do pay for streaming, if it is not there, then I will go stream of the internet.

To me that method is justifiable, but that's just me.
I'm assuming by "online" you mean "piracy" since otherwise there should be no qualm. Netflix is not a controversial source of anime.

Pardon the confusion, but you say a lot of weird things. I mean, Netflix IS streaming. From the internet.

Also, if you need to justify it at all, maybe you shouldn't do it. If you need to defend it to the rest of the world, maybe you should just stop.
 

Doclector

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Doclector said:
See, I don't pirate/stream things illegally, ever. I want to be a film-maker myself, so it seems a tad hypocritical to do so.
Well, unless you don't care about your own work being pirated.

I don't pirate out of respect for others, but I view the obsession with piracy a negative thing and hope to never be that concerned with my works.

But anime is really starting to test my morals. DVDs are in god awful short supply, and when they're not, they charge the same as normal full length series for a handful of episodes, which you know damn well ends with a cliffhanger.
Okay, not with you so far. You pay more for a niche product, and that "tests" your morals? Jeez.

The lack of online options is perhaps even more inexcusable. What few there are always seem to just have licenses in the US. It seems like it should be a no brainer. Offer online streaming and pay with ad revenue or make it a subscription/pay per view service. No importing, no need to charge so unreasonably. I don't like subscribing for stuff online (thus why I don't just get netflix) as I don't like to have bank details online if at all possible, but I'd definately consider it if it allowed me to watch things that simply aren't greatly available in physical form, which I always prefer.
A lot of the cost is up-front, however, and deals with the licensing rights. By adding more countries, you can make it less worth their while to do so. Meanwhile, America's still a sizable consumer of the product.

Also, I'll let you in on a little secret: one of the reasons America gets these deals is that it is less friendly to the content creator. Since you've already set yourself up as an aspiring filmmaker, that is you. So you're angry that content makers in your country have rights that give them better treatment and your response is a temptation to bypass those rights entirely by piracy.

....THAT strikes me as hypocritical.

This however, brings up a bigger question. How much right do companies have to complain about piracy when their products aren't reasonably available legit? I'm a "paying customer" here, as much as saying that makes me feel like I'm acting entitled, and as we've seen so many other times, I'm having far more trouble getting what I want than the goddamn pirates are, and not just because they don't have to pay for it.
Copyright isn't just about the right to publish. It's also about the right not to publish. There is every right to complain that people are not respecting your copyright.

Now, if you're complaining about lost sales, you can screw right off.
So, do you think that companies should not have the right to stop people pirating their products when said products are not available legitimately in any easy way?
Yes, for the above reason. You are not entitled to the product, so your line of reasoning does strike me as a false sense of entitlement.
Wow. Way to bite my goddamn head off.

Look, I don't pirate things, like I said, it's against my morals and I still wouldn't. I'm just saying that it strikes me as shit that companies can have such poor distribution and still complain about piracy. It gets tempting, is what I'm saying. I'm anti piracy, but I can sure as hell see why people see things differently, because fact is, the pirates aren't just offering it for free, they're offering a better service.

Let's say I made a film, and the distributors/studio fucked up. It's only in cinemas for one day, or it's released on DVD in such poor numbers that barely anyone who wants to watch it can get a copy. In my opinion, pirate the shit out of it. I ain't gonna be making money, hell, how can I? Nobody can pay to watch the thing because it's not out there to pay for. Why would I give a shit about people watching something I'm clearly not making money from anyway?

I ain't no expert on the anime industry. Like I said, I'm trying to get into anime right now, I barely watch it. So if there's certain legitimate reasons why it's so ridiculously hard to get anime in the UK, fine. I'm just saying that it sucks, from the consumer's perspective, that we're supposed to feel bad about watching stuff for free that we're not being given many decent options to buy. Most of the time, I can't even find what I want to buy in shops. I'm the guy who paid way over the odds for a sanctuary boxset, a years old TV show that as I remember, wasn't popular at the time. I knew the shop was selling it for this amount because it was pretty rare. Nobody else sold it. So I grumbled and got my wallet out. The pricing sucks balls, yes, but it's a problem that pales in comparison to the fact that the pirates can offer whatever you want, whereas the legitimate sources can offer you an incredibly small amount.
 

sextus the crazy

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Doclector said:
Honestly, if it's impossible to get something legally in the UK, then feel free to watch it/pirate it. Then if it does come out legally, buy it. It's the old try before you buy strategy. Now, this relies on your personal honor, but you seem like you'd follow it.

On the other hand, you could get a region 1 DVD player and import stuff from the US. We've got relatively cheap anime in spades.
 

The Wykydtron

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Sep 23, 2010
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I just watch my anime on one of the many anime streaming sites. I always buy the ones I really like though, within reason. DVDs can be absolutely ridiculous on Amazon and the like. As for hard copies in retailers, they're cheaper if you're lucky but there was like one shelf of anime at the back of HMV and nothing else in my area, when HMV was a thing anyway.

Also did they remove Gurren Lagann from Netflix? I watched the entire thing (on my friend's account lol) then it was suddenly gone when I went to watch it again.

I look to buy my manga when I can. There's a good sized shelf of manga in the Waterstones in Birmingham and there's a few other shops besides but Amazon has non-bullshit prices for them and lol no need to go outside :3

BRB seeing if Amazon has Medaka Box at all. Skipping issues 'til Kumagawa shows up of course.
 

Gatx

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Depends what you're after. Dedicated anime streaming sites like Crunchyroll, Funimation, etc. are getting pretty good at keeping up to date with the most popular anime that come out each season. If you wanted to watch Attack on Titan, one of the most popular shows this season, Crunchyroll has every episode up til now and a new episode comes out each week about a day after it comes out in Japan. If you wanted to back and watch older shows, THEN you might have a harder finding what you want and might have to resort to torrenting.
 

Scarim Coral

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Honestly the Anime dvds in the UK ain't that bad back compared to its hay days when they started to have anime dvds in the retail shop. Back then it was £20 for four episodes!!! This was also the birth of broadband so buying new animes was like a leap of faith (no anime reviews back then). These days you get like 7/8 or 13 episodes for that same price or a tad more. In saying so you do get actualy extra for most of the dvd unlike the old days (at most you get trailers of other anime they are selling, creditless opening and closing and if you're lucky, some production sketches).

Anyway onto the topic, you do know that some of the anime company do have official Youtube channel like Funimation and Manga Entertainment etc which they do upload anime episodes. Even then I guess you can always watch anime on Crunchyroll which is like an official uploader website. Various companies have allow it to upload the episodes.
If you still don't want to stream it I guess you going have to read alot of anime reviews on a certain anime to decide if you want to buy it or not.
 

sonofliber

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pirate it, watch it, find it a few months/years later at the store or internet, remember it was great, buy it, and score another point for piracy.
 

Entitled

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Doclector said:
See, I don't pirate/stream things illegally, ever. I want to be a film-maker myself, so it seems a tad hypocritical to do so.
It would only be hypocritical if you would pirate things that you can't buy, while you would actively be hostile against people who pirate your own works for the exact same reason.

Otherwise, there are plenty of artists who either tolerate their own works' pirating in some special circumstances, or actively promote it as a generally acceptable thing as long as they still end up making a living anyways (that's guarantee was supposed to be the original purpose of copyright to begin with).

Doclector said:
But anime is really starting to test my morals. DVDs are in god awful short supply, and when they're not, they charge the same as normal full length series for a handful of episodes, which you know damn well ends with a cliffhanger.
I think it's important to point out how anime industry functions in it's actual home market.

Most modern mature anime is aired in Japanese TV, at a late night/early dawn time slot, with practically zero ad avenue, viewed by a few ten thousand or hundred thousand anime fans. Many of them are even offically uploaded to nico-nico, the Japanese Youtube equivalent.

They end up making money almost entirely by a few of the fans (at least 3-4 thousand of them) buying the expensive DVD versions as a form of extra, a proof of loyalty, for supporting the industry, or as a shelf decoration/merchandize. And then there is the actual merchandize.

The point is, anime was actually always designed to be watched for free by most people, and relying on the voluntary contribution of some hardcore fans who want something more than just a quick watching.

I find it very hypocritical when anime publishers can't find a way to directly air them on TV in the west, so they would rather charge DVD prices up-front, for every act of viewing, (contrary to their home expectations), or if they don't succeed with that, just abandon whole markets and blame the gaijins for their freeloading pirate ways instead of embracing it as a substitute for their home model, that could otherwise lead to the exact same DVD sales if they would let it flourish.
 

Legion

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Oct 2, 2008
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This is always a tricky subject, as I never know where it may break the rules giving my opinion.

A friend of mine likes anime, but living in the UK it is quite often overlooked when it comes to releases. That friend believes that watching anime online is not an issue, as long as they always buy it when it becomes available. So far they have kept that promise, even though it means they have a couple of series they don't really want to watch again.

Although why they don't just release them online for sale is beyond me. In the age of the internet, it really should be quite straight forward to sell digital copies of pretty much any show/game.

sextus the crazy said:
On the other hand, you could get a region 1 DVD player and import stuff from the US. We've got relatively cheap anime in spades.
True, but the import tax is horrific. If something costs more than £15 ($23.50ish) then we have to pay VAT on it. I bought Neon Genesis Evangelion from an Amazon seller in the US and it cost me around $19 just on the import tax. Fortunately if the seller is so kind as to not put the price of the item on the box, then it's avoidable. It's even worse because you don't even know you have to pay it until they post a note through your door saying you have to pay them before you can get the item.
 

sextus the crazy

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Legion said:
This is always a tricky subject, as I never know where it may cross the line giving my opinion.

A friend of mine likes anime, but living in the UK it is quite often overlooked when it comes to releases. That friend believes that watching anime online is not an issue, as long as they always buy it when it becomes available. So far they have kept that promise, even though it means they have a couple of series they don't really want to watch again.

Although why they don't just release them online for sale is beyond me. In the age of the internet, it really should be quite straight forward to sell digital copies of pretty much any show/game.

sextus the crazy said:
On the other hand, you could get a region 1 DVD player and import stuff from the US. We've got relatively cheap anime in spades.
True, but the import tax is horrific. If something costs more than £15 ($23.50ish) then we have to pay VAT on it. I bought Neon Genesis Evangelion from an Amazon seller in the US and it cost me around $19 just on the import tax. Fortunately if the seller is so kind as to not put the price of the item on the box, then it's avoidable. It's even worse because you don't even know you have to pay it until they post a note through your door saying you have to pay them before you can get the item.
I know that feel. I shipped stuff out of the UK once and it cost a fuck ton. *sigh*