UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

Aeon said:
If the OVA dubs are exclusive to the UE then that is quite frankly unacceptable IMO, given how the EU price of the CE indicates that it’s still way too expensive for what tiny amounts of content you get (not that I mind the idea of anime being shorter and more focused than usual but the price must be appropriate), at the very least, they should include all the content on all the versions rather than artificially gatekeeping it to create a false sense of value, obviously physical extras will be exclusive to collectors sets, that’s fair enough as it actually costs a fair bit extra to produce those but cutting out parts of the main product to make exclusive to a super expensive set that you can’t buy for very long anyway is disgraceful.

Personally I don’t have a horse in this race as Macross isn’t a series that interests me personally but if AL did this for a show I actually really wanted to watch (which to be fair there are not many of them), I’d be pretty livid and I can fully understand anyone else who takes major umbrage with this situation.

I also want to add that there are genuinely amazing games on Steam that go for less than a tenner and the anime industry in general still believes it’s owed our entire bank accounts and punishes western fans with needless restrictions, such as locked subs, for “only” spending around 20 to 50 quid, rather than the hundreds they so greedily charge in Japan for a show or movie that, more often than not ends up being mid anyway, this last paragraph wasn’t referring to Macross per se, I can’t say how that release will turn out other than it costing a fortune but it’s yet another indictment on the industry as a whole.
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The worst example of that has to be the Legend of the Galactic Heroes set, a ridiculously large and expensive CE only complete release to appease the licensors. Iirc it was $800.
 
I have to agree I'm not a fan of certain disc content being exclusive to LE / CE / DE / UE's. I feel even if it's in a years time we will get a more standard LE / CE of Macross Plus with the OVA's similar to NGE but if not that'll really suck.

Same goes for the SD version of Gundam SEED being exclusive to the UE as another example, I want to eventually collect Gundam but it's annoying some parts (even if they're just alternate versions of the main show) are locked behind the super pricey sets, especially when I'm just going to go for the standards for Gundam.

Way to late in the game to start collecting CE's of them all.
 
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sniper_samurai said:
The worst example of that has to be the Legend of the Galactic Heroes set, a ridiculously large and expensive CE only complete release to appease the licensors. Iirc it was $800.
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My first thought was that you can technically buy a gaming pc for that price, sure it’ll be low end but by today’s standards, that’ll still be decent, how the licensors thought that charging that kind of money for a single show is acceptable is beyond me, heck, you can live off that money for a whole month, the greed this industry has is unbelievable.
Puringa said:
And now that it's sold out it's price has gone up to over $2000 the last time I saw it on eBay...
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And you can definitely buy a gaming pc for that kind of money, I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be watching LOTGH anytime soon lol.
N-11 said:
In my opinion for the price that AL are charging for the Macross Plus Ultimate Edition, they should of really had the discs be 4K and it would of been nice to have the movie dubbed but sometimes you can't have everything.
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Even at 4K that’ll still be a ripoff TBH, there are so many amazing titles at much more acceptable prices, including in the anime industry, I remember when I picked up FMA Brotherhood at HMV for 25 quid on DVD back in 2016, sure it’s the DVD’s and not the Blu-rays but what I got out of that 25 quid was a masterpiece, with about 25 hours worth of content, one pound for one hour and the overwhelming majority of the show was the best I’ve ever seen in an anime, if it came out today then it would probably set us back a hundred at least.

Lucky_Deity said:
I have to agree I'm not a fan of certain disc content being exclusive to LE / CE /DE /UE's. I feel even if it's in a years time we will get a more standard LE / CE of Macross Plus with the OVA's similar to NGE but if not that'll really suck.

Same goes for the SD version of Gundam SEED being exclusive to the UE as another example, I want to eventually collect Gundam but it's annoying some parts (even if they're just alternate versions of the main show) are locked behind the super pricey sets, especially when I'm just going to go for the standards for Gundam.

Way to late in the game to start collecting CE's of them all.
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Honestly if I were new to the anime medium and just starting out I’d probably only be watching whatever’s on Netflix and nothing else because collecting physical anime releases nowadays requires you to win the lottery for the privilege of watching a single anime on Blu-ray I looked at how some shows are charging around 40 quid for just the standard ed now, not to mention that it’ll probably punish customers for not spending more on top of that.

TLDR, there are much better things to spend your money on.
 
There's no way in hell I'm stumping up £120 for Macross Plus. I already have the old Manga Entertainment DVDs from ages back, and I'd only consider upgrading to blu-ray at a quarter of that insane price. I don't care how nice the box or extras are, I don't have the disposable income to spare on something so extravagant. I'd rather buy multiple other blu-rays of other shows for the same price.
 
Aeon said:
Honestly if I were new to the anime medium and just starting out I’d probably only be watching whatever’s on Netflix and nothing else because collecting physical anime releases nowadays requires you to win the lottery for the privilege of watching a single anime on Blu-ray I looked at how some shows are charging around 40 quid for just the standard ed now, not to mention that it’ll probably punish customers for not spending more on top of that.

TLDR, there are much better things to spend your money on.
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That's why I'll always champion CEX, eBay, Vinted, and other second hand marketplaces to pick up anime Blu-rays or DVDs. I've picked up some absolute bargains on there - 26 episodes for £10, for example. I actually managed to pick up Log Horizon seasons 1 to 3 for £33 total on CEX/Vinted today; which equates to 62 episodes or about 53p an episode.

I think what MVM do with their DOTW is amazing as well - a weekly Blu-ray for £10/£15, a great way for people to start collecting cheaply and try out new shows without breaking their wallet.

Buying the latest anime Blu-rays on release day is a very expensive hobby to have nowadays unfortunately. You kind of have to collect the cheaper, older stuff first and wait for the new stuff to become older and cheaper!

The anime market in the UK is only going to grow if you can capture the casual market, from the casual market you can create new hardcore collectors - that's why I'm very interested to see what AL do with Naruto and Bleach; two absolutely massive IPs in anime, that have huge cultural penetration. You can really capture the kinds of customers that are like "Oh yeah, I remember Naruto/Bleach, I fancy watching that again...", you don't really get that opportunity with more obscure titles.
 
sniper_samurai said:
The worst example of that has to be the Legend of the Galactic Heroes set, a ridiculously large and expensive CE only complete release to appease the licensors. Iirc it was $800.
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Puringa said:
And now that it's sold out it's price has gone up to over $2000 the last time I saw it on eBay...
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Aeon said:
And you can definitely buy a gaming pc for that kind of money, I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be watching LOTGH anytime soon lol.
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Thankfully I'm not much of a fan of mecha series, especially the older mech series, so I'm not really interested in either Macross or Gundam - that has definitely saved me lots of cash over the years. Enough so that I was able to put it towards the purchase of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes PE from Sentai:

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Premium Box Set

Yeah, it did sell for $800, but I was able to afford it much easier by using PayPal Credit, so I split the cost over 6 months' payments with no interest for just $134 per month.
 
Girls with Guns said:
Thankfully I'm not much of a fan of mecha series, especially the older mech series, so I'm not really interested in either Macross or Gundam - that has definitely saved me lots of cash over the years. Enough so that I was able to put it towards the purchase of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes PE from Sentai:

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Premium Box Set

Yeah, it did sell for $800, but I was able to afford it much easier by using PayPal Credit, so I split the cost over 6 months' payments with no interest for just $134 per month.
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Where can i get me a Legend of Galactic heros Like that ?

without paying a Loan Shark ? :p
 
BrokenPhoenix said:
That's why I'll always champion CEX, eBay, Vinted, and other second hand marketplaces to pick up anime Blu-rays or DVDs. I've picked up some absolute bargains on there - 26 episodes for £10, for example. I actually managed to pick up Log Horizon seasons 1 to 3 for £33 total on CEX/Vinted today; which equates to 62 episodes or about 53p an episode.

I think what MVM do with their DOTW is amazing as well - a weekly Blu-ray for £10/£15, a great way for people to start collecting cheaply and try out new shows without breaking their wallet.

Buying the latest anime Blu-rays on release day is a very expensive hobby to have nowadays unfortunately. You kind of have to collect the cheaper, older stuff first and wait for the new stuff to become older and cheaper!
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Bear in mind that the more limited stuff only gets more expensive when it goes OOP, I’d say the best deals I’ve ever gotten on anime are on the MVM clearance and Christmas sales, the AL Christmas sales and the Madman summer sale………… which happened in January………….
I think Frosty the snowman was looking a bit watery while I was getting my copy of One Piece Film Z, for just a few quid IIRC, mind the import fees weren’t ideal but I ordered it with a few others that were also an absolute bargain and I’d honestly say that the deals I got there were fantastic, but it is good to know that there’s still a bunch of shows that go for a good price secondhand, that price on the whole of Log Horizon is a bargain.

BrokenPhoenix said:
The anime market in the UK is only going to grow if you can capture the casual market, from the casual market you can create new hardcore collectors - that's why I'm very interested to see what AL do with Naruto and Bleach; two absolutely massive IPs in anime, that have huge cultural penetration. You can really capture the kinds of customers that are like "Oh yeah, I remember Naruto/Bleach, I fancy watching that again...", you don't really get that opportunity with more obscure titles.
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Absolutely this, the trouble is that the current price of anime is enough to put off all but the most hardcore of collectors, I’d say I’m a middle of the road collector, who certainly won’t be pressured into buying an anime at such a high price unless it’s a show I’ve been desperately wanting to watch for a long time and even then, I wouldn’t pay the Macross price, let alone the LOTGH price; anime companies need to understand that the industry won’t grow at the rate they want it to if they don’t significantly (not a little bit like they reportedly tried in Japan) ease up on how much they charge, especially in Japan.
 
GKIDS have worldwide rights for Arcane season 1, I suppose it's possible AL could via a sublicense. It may not be anime but of course they have various titles that aren't and is definitely in their wheelhouse.

At the same time, other companies might be interested in it to given the rep/popularity of it.
 
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