UK Anime Distributor Anime Limited Discussion Thread

Joe said:
It's technically a prequel to the original 1954 Godzilla movie, but yeah, can absolutely be watched standalone.
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Not really. It's set several years before Godzilla 1954, but not in the same continuity. There are soooo many Godzilla continuities, especially once you get to the millennium series, where each entry picks and chooses which previous movies it considers canon.
 
Dai said:
Not really. It's set several years before Godzilla 1954, but not in the same continuity. There are soooo many Godzilla continuities, especially once you get to the millennium series, where each entry picks and chooses which previous movies it considers canon.
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Ah, okay. '54, Minus One and Shin are the only ones I've seen, and the very end of Minus One made it seem like it was a lead-in to '54.
 
I've been waiting for AL's ultimate release of Macross Plus for years but I'm struggling to break down the value.
If the film/ova disks will be about £35 for the standard (still pretty pricey) that means the rest of the package is an eye watering £115 for a few postcards (£5), a poster (£3), some fancy packaging (£10-£20) and a nice thick artbook which still doesn't seem worth the remaining £87ish.
I guess I'll have to stick with my Italian copy (I cloned it & added English subs).
 
Bandai Namco Filmworks has provided some clarifications regarding the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom special edition release.

The footage shown in the special edition screening will be the same as the content included in the Blu-ray, 4K UHD-BD, and DVD release of the film
The "Special Edition Screening" is an initiative where fans can enjoy the movie, which has been updated with over 500 cuts, on the big screen first.

The new epilogue cuts can only be enjoyed during the "Special Edition” Screenings. Different versions will be screened in the first and second parts.
Please note, the epilogue cuts are not planned to be included in the Blu-ray, 4K UHD-BD, or DVD release of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom.

——
Link: 『機動戦士ガンダムSEED FREEDOM』公式サイト
 
serpantino said:
I've been waiting for AL's ultimate release of Macross Plus for years but I'm struggling to break down the value.
If the film/ova disks will be about £35 for the standard (still pretty pricey) that means the rest of the package is an eye watering £115 for a few postcards (£5), a poster (£3), some fancy packaging (£10-£20) and a nice thick artbook which still doesn't seem worth the remaining £87ish.
I guess I'll have to stick with my Italian copy (I cloned it & added English subs).
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The answer is, there is no value - it's not value for money whichever way you slice it. £149.99 for a 114 minute film and 4 OVA episodes is rancid.

There's nothing ultimate about it imo. ~£87 for an artbook is crazy. I have some super nice JRR Tolkien artbooks, hardcover, high-quality printing paper, sewn binding, etc. The most expensive one retails at £40 with 288 pages, published by The Bodleian Library.

The poster isn't even A3 size! It's A4. Art cards might as well be toilet paper at this point. I can't say much as I've spent £72 on the upcoming Naruto collector's set, but at least I'm getting 55 episodes (1320 minutes) for my money.

If Macross is something you're super into, I can imagine people paying it, and that's exactly what they take advantage of. If they made a Naruto Ultimate edition for that price, I'd probably pay it out of blind love (please don't get any ideas AL employees).
 
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Yes, it's not worth the price. I've been waiting for it to be released for years and it's finally here, so I reached for the edition. I bought it because I love this OAV and I know I'll watch it again and again. I'm willing to overpay for series like this, but in the end I think it might have been a mistake, because the soundtrack edition on vinyl also includes the series, and I'll definitely want to buy it - no matter how much it costs, lol.

Oh, I bought it cheaper because 'early bird' + Anime (un)limited ;)
 
The CE looks good, I look forward to its appearance over here, eventually. That should have everything I want, without the baggage of the packaging
 
Early on I was a big AL fan, willing to overlook & sometimes even defend the delays & ignore the pricey ultimates largely because they felt like passion projects but now I deeply regret that because it just feels like money grabbing & it's not good for the future of anime in the countries they operate out of.

Anime is far less niche than it was when I was growing up with internet speeds being much better & every major streaming platform offering a selection; even little kids shows (Hell even my dad has been watching anime series on Netflix).

More people are getting into it and many will want to actually own a copy of their favourites but will be put off when faced with looking only to find the only option is these ridiculously overpriced editions.

AL's clearly making more profit on them too as they've even seemingly started the expense of re-authoring disks to deny all but the biggest spenders on-disk content and that coupled with the long gaps & lack of info shared about standard releases are artificially forcing anime ownership to still be a niche for people with high disposable incomes.
 
Big thing you are missing to consider is the cost of the license.

The licensing costs are going to vary massively and for some of these shows, selling the standard 1000 sets at 40-50 a unit won't be enough and they have to makeup the larger "ultimate editions" to justify raising it to the price they need to to recoup the licensing fee.

It's not a case of - they sold this 26 episode series X with a CE and artbook at £50 so series Y will also be profitable if they do the same.
 
Even so, it still leaves a sour taste in your mouth as the consumer is left paying exorbitant prices for not very much in the grand scheme of things, in some cases.

I understand they have to make a profit on their releases, but there comes a price point when sticking an artbook and and some art cards in a chipboard box just looks silly.

But what do I know? I'm no business person and AL are clearly managing just fine if they've been around so long now. I guess the advantage anime distributors have is that for the duration of their licence, they have zero competition in their region - if you want a particular series, then there's only one place you can get it.
 
Wicker said:
Big thing you are missing to consider is the cost of the license.

The licensing costs are going to vary massively and for some of these shows, selling the standard 1000 sets at 40-50 a unit won't be enough and they have to makeup the larger "ultimate editions" to justify raising it to the price they need to to recoup the licensing fee.

It's not a case of - they sold this 26 episode series X with a CE and artbook at £50 so series Y will also be profitable if they do the same.
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You're right I did miss the licensing in my calculation, though I also went high end of the scale for the production. There's also staff & design to take into account but some of that is offset by them selling their designs & operating out of multiple countries.
The way I see it is that they're clearly making profit on standard editions, even movies, which are generally cheaper despite the production costs of 2 disks (50 & 25) working out similar whether the latter is an extras disk or the last few episodes of a season release.

Macross Plus is one of my favourites & one of the few I'd buy an ultimate for but £150 is painful because it's clearly whale bait & sets a dangerous precedent.
If the set does well then that tells AL they can get away with charging £150 for what's essentially a movie & we can then expect that to gradually become the standard.

I do own 1 AL ultimate release but it's not without flaws (Evangelion) with silly inserts & unwieldy size.
It was the whole OG dub being exclusive claims that suckered me until they changed that to include the limited; luckily I sold my platinum copies for £85 in preparation to offset the cost.
 
Obviosly, MAL scores aren't everything, but I do think they're useful for getting a general idea of how well received a show is. For me personally, I feel like when a show scores in the 6s or lower is when you can start to fairly confidently say "this show is bad".

Gibiate has a score of 3.81.
 
sniper_samurai said:
The EB for this week is Gibiate. I don't know what they're thinking with this one as it's considered to be one of the worst shows of recent years and doesn't have a home video release in the US. The only good thing about it is the Amano artwork. This is the second worst rated full length anime series on MAL, eclipsed only by EX-ARM.
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Technically it is getting a US release by none other than Anime Limited themselves. A few users found out about this a few days ago on Crunchyroll Store. So it's another one of those AB titles like To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. There is another title that was leaked which also screams 'why'.

Anywho the fact that they had to release this Crunchyroll Original show is funny. I ain't pre-ordering this since I know the show is bad.
 
Joe said:
Obviosly, MAL scores aren't everything, but I do think they're useful for getting a general idea of how well received a show is. For me personally, I feel like when a show scores in the 6s or lower is when you can start to fairly confidently say "this show is bad".

Gibiate has a score of 3.81.
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Says something that it rated lower than the rubbish Go Hands puts out except Ex Arm.
 
NormanicGrav said:
Technically it is getting a US release by none other than Anime Limited themselves. A few users found out about this a few days ago on Crunchyroll Store. So it's another one of those AB titles like To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. There is another title that was leaked which also screams 'why'.

Anywho the fact that they had to release this Crunchyroll Original show is funny. I ain't pre-ordering this since I know the show is bad.
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Good luck trying to find it on the likes of Amazon as well. Amazon auto corrects the search term to Gigabyte.

Like they still have much better stuff they've announced for release last year that hasn't come out yet. Where the hell is Re: Zero season 2, it's coming on a year since its US release and ALs announcement at MCM last October.
 
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sniper_samurai said:
Good luck trying to find it on the likes of Amazon as well. Amazon auto corrects the search term to Gigabyte.

Like they still have much better stuff they've announced for release last year that hasn't come out yet. Where the hell is Re: Zero season 2, it's coming on a year since its US release and ALs announcement at MCM last October.
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I'm still annoyed by the fact that they didn't announce the title until after people, like myself, bought the US version to avoid losing out on the LE.
 
I feel with this that even the selling point of the Amano art on the box is almost deceptive, as the designs are much more simple when adapted to the anime, by one of the JoJo anime character designers. I'm sure they'll get another shot at that soon enough.

1 step closer to Ex-Arm getting a local blu-ray release
 
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