French Anime Releases - English Subs, Rarities?

ayase

State Alchemist
So I'm heading back to the UK from France in a couple of days time, and in my last days here I'll have access to a large FNAC (if anyone remembers the big old Borders stores in the UK with books, music and DVDs it's a lot like that) and noticed they have a pretty massive anime section, at least compared to UK high street retailers.

So my question is this: Are there any English friendly French anime releases (I know there are a few Kaze ones that fall into that bracket - Apparently the Code Geass OVAs which jumped out at me aren't, d'oh) and if not, is there anything released in France that will probably never be released in the UK which is kinda worth buying for that reason (Cat's Eye would seem to fall into that bracket)? Are the AL/@Anime releases that say on the back cover they're only in French really different discs to the UK ones? Seems a little bit mad considering they look otherwise identical to the UK releases, though I know the world of licencing and regions is pretty mad anyway.

I notice a similar question was asked in the Q&A thread a while ago, so apologies if this doesn't really warrant its own thread, but I thought it might be interesting topic to explore even if it proves too late for me to take advantage of and I have to make do with Miraculous Ladybug DVDs and some more comics.
 
Not that I could see! They did have some cracking releases though, were many English friendly? I can't recall.

I should also say, my level of French is... Improving (yeah let's say that, it's not a lie) and so even French only releases wouldn't really be a waste. As long as they have Japanese Audio.
 
L'Animation indépendante japonaise Volume 1&2 Blu-ray, vol.3 DVD
Midori (Shoujo Tsubaki) on DVD (Very NSFL)

I believe there also a bunch of hentai titles available with English subtitles.
 
@Scavenger Noted, cheers. I didn't notice any hentai (and I feel like I definately would have done) so maybe that's a bit much for FNAC. Which would be a little odd considering all the Manara comics they had.
 
I'm not sure it's worth it, to be honest. I don't know where you are, but my local FNACs are all kind of terrible, price-wise, when it comes to anime. I get the appeal of going through their shelves filled to the brim with anime releases (I do it myself sometimes even though I have no intention of buying anything), but they're often more expensive than online retailers. At best they price-match (new releases especially are generally fine) but I think they're rarely, if ever, cheaper. Anyway, it might be worth it to check the price of anything that's of interest to you on anime-store or even Amazon FR.

As for English-friendly releases, Beez, Kazé, and @anime are probably your best bet—though as you've noticed they rarely ever mention it (except maybe for Beez).

This would be a good starting point, though unfortunately not everything that has English subtitles is actually labeled as such—like Space Dandy and the recent Gundam Blu-ray releases.
 
I think part of it for me is just enjoying a retail experience that's almost disappeared in the UK (I always realise how much our high streets suck in comparison when I come to France). That and once postage is factored in there's probably not much in it, though I don't know what Anime Store charge to ship over the channel.

As for English-friendly releases, Beez, Kazé, and @anime are probably your best bet—though as you've noticed they rarely ever mention it (except maybe for Beez).

This would be a good starting point, though unfortunately not everything that has English subtitles is actually labeled as such—like Space Dandy and the recent Gundam Blu-ray releases.
See, this is what really interests me. So there are releases with English subs that aren't labelled as having them? This is probably too much work for one afternoon, but it would definately be interesting to compile a list of such releases...
 
For French releases i usually check the dvdfr.com website, the information there is more reliable than for example blu-ray.com
 
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