New poll; preview anime before buying?

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
It's new poll time again and this week we are asking you if you like to preview anime before buying? This is especially relevant with the rise of Internet "digi-subs" (fan-subs) and the apparent lack of anime on UK TV. Do you like to have an opinion of what you are buying, before you buy it?

For the last opinion poll, we asked if "anime could be labelled as cartoons". Thanks to the 132 people that voted; 26 voters (19.7%) felt "Yep! Anime just another form of cartoons" while the large majority of 89 (67.42%) thought "Heck no! Anime is a world apart!".

You can find the opinion poll a little way down the right menu and as always, feel free to join the discussion in our forums.
 
I have yet to preview a single anime before buying it , every titles ive bought has been based on net reviews/hype , or more often than not just the fact I like the cover art. I have yet to regret a dvd purchase either really ( with the exception of the first Vampire Hunter D film ) , so I see no need for myself to preview them. Plus I wouldnt enjoy the majority of the series ive seen on dvd as much if id seen parts of them beforehand .I like to have only the tiniest idea of the plot before starting a anime on dvd ( back of the box blurb type info), its part of the fun.
 
I'd have to agree with MangaMinX on this one, previews are generally a waste of time it only takes a few minutes on the net to gauge a titles popularity, the sheer volume of review sites out there usually help in avoiding the real stinkers.

And though it's difficult to put into words i can usually tell if i'm going to like a title from the feeling i get just looking at the front cover and reading the details on the back. I've done this with many titles like Lain and Noir and every time the gambles paid off.
 
i used to go by the trailers (my anime collection began as the series featured in the NGE DVD trailers - the first series i bought!) but with Miyazaki stuff as the only exception i won't buy anything now without reading a couple of reviews first. i have been lucky though because i haven't bought anything that i haven't enjoyed.
 
Well personally i usally preview by watching fansubs first because i just cant afford to take a risk on wasting money on something that might turn out to be garbage, i'm self employed and live on my own so i dont have a regular income and have to be careful how i manages my money. I also have another problem in that most of my favorite anime hasn't been released over here, Macross, UC Gundam, Creast/Banner of the Stars etc. and are unlikely to be, with the excpetion of the Gundam movies :D

That said I do buy as many anime DVD's as i can afford because having a fansub, or even a DVD rip, is nowhere near as good as having the actual DVD
 
Pretty much the same here- all the trailers, ads, reviews and recommendations I see while browsing the web are enough to alert me to plenty of series that I might like; if they sound interesting then I'll just go ahead and buy or rent the DVD. I don't really feel any strong urge to preview, and for the most part I've liked everything I've ended up with. The only series I didn't really like was Angel Links, but to be honest my expectations for the show weren't that high even before I bought it (just wanted to see it anyway as it's set in the same universe as Outlaw Star).
 
For some anime (as Martin said), you don't need to preview to know it's going to be good. Anything by Miyazaki, Otomo, Satoshi Kon, ABe and even Studio BONES is well worth a "blind buy".

Though I also watch fansubs, mainly because I'm an anime fan who wants to watch the latest and greatest anime. If it was on TV, I'd watch that instead. It's not really a matter of morals, I'm just a hungry anime fan ;)
 
Paul said:
If it was on TV, I'd watch that instead. It's not really a matter of morals, I'm just a hungry anime fan ;)
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There is that element of it too, i've bought a couple of things after seeing them on the Sci-Fi channel back when they showed anime and i picked up Metropolis after seeing it on Sky Movies, although i probably would have gotten that eventully anyway as i'm a huge fan of the original Fritz Lang version
 
Back in the days before there was actually so much anime released each year, I used to go on cover art, or if I liked a theme tune and more often than not voice actors! Some years you could watch everything released and still only have a handful of anime titles! Nowadays I will read reviews (finding non biased reviews is pretty hard in a lot of cases though!).
Fansites are a good place to visit if you're not sure about a particular title. I'm not so open minded as I used to be either and the prospect of buying something filled with fan service (panty shots etc) is very off putting these days, so I'm more inclined to want to preview something now than I used to be. I wouldn't say fansubs is necessarily the best way though, as you can never be certain what will get a release (well not in my case anyway!!)
 
Since theres no real, legel way of previewing anime (well there is some that you can watch on tv first) i normally read reviews and take a chance on a disc or two.
 
Does anyone bother with DVD rental? I've heard that Amazon does some pretty good deals, though obviously, it's a bit of hassle to send stuff around the post.
 
I've been renting from amazon since December (£9.99 each month for 6 rentals- more affordable than Blockbuster's more expensive deals). It's actually a lot less hassle than it sounds, the DVDs really do come the day after they're posted 90% of the time and you get a pre-paid envelope to send them back (they just come in a thin plastic case, not a full DVD case). It's even relatively easy to change the destination address, and you get 10% off all DVD purchases (except for recently that seems to be excluding VAT). It's helped to see shows that were way down my wish list, even though I'll probably buy most of them eventually, it's nice to be able to see more anime close to release.
 
Paul said:
Does anyone bother with DVD rental? I've heard that Amazon does some pretty good deals, though obviously, it's a bit of hassle to send stuff around the post.
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i got into Cowboy Bebop by renting the film from my local branch of Choices (a mate of mine worked there and convinced me to join) and after seeing it i promised myself that i would buy the series when it came out over here.
 
These days I generally try to at least borrow a volume of an animé before buying it. A couple of years ago it wasn't really feasible to 'preview' anything before buying. These days though, I find it's easier for me to at least watch 1 or 2 episodes of a show before spending cash on it. A lot of this is owing to my joining up with a local animé club, since they regularly screen different shows.

I don't generally go for the download fansubs personally. Too much of a hassle, and I prefer DVD quality on a proper screen if possible. The most I've downloaded is the RahXephon 15 minute OAV which came with a game out in Japan (which, let's face it, is never going to come here). That, and 'On Your Mark', which is Miyazaki's one and only animated Music Video (and it's very much worth the download if you can find it).
 
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