Troubles buying anime (was part of the MVM thread)

vashdaman said:
ayase said:
vashdaman said:
I'll tell you my troubles buying anime, I consider spending £20- £30 on a series I actually like to be too much, let alone the £45 they try steal off me in HMV. Anime also never seems to go on sale (well rarely) in actual shops, meaning I'm able to actually buy almost no anime as a result.
I'm ok with that as I have now discovered free legal streaming, but anime is bloody overpriced in this country.
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Compared to the US, yes. Compared to Japan, very no. Japan is too expensive. The US is too cheap. Our prices, I think, are pretty fair. I've happily collected series I like at £10-£12 a disc in the past, and would have been happy to continue doing so.

My problem now is that they've moving away from single disc releases to boxed sets, but the sets actually seem worth *less* to me than the old single disc releases because of the cheap way they're packaged. If they had switched to releasing nice artboxes I would have been only too happy to fork over £50-£70 a series. Plastic bricks I can grudgingly import for £20, so why would I pay any more? And that's being generous and not factoring in the delay between the US and UK release dates...
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I recently went to HMV with goal of buying Baccano! They almost had me ready to spend £45 pounds on it!! Thankfully I slapped myself hard in the face and snapped out of my consumerist trace before I actually went through with it. Baccano's not even 20 episodes long. Like wise I recently went to Forbidden planet to buy Planetes, they were charging £40 per half a series, thats £80 for the whole hog! They might as well be whipping down their pants and slapping their balls in face.

Interestingly I'm also of the opposite view from you on packaging. I'm not saying I don't appreciate nice packaging but I really could take it or leave it to be honest. I'd be happier buying a show at a cheaper rate and receiving it in a totally non descript, bog standard piece of cardboard with no needless extras. I buy anime to simply watch it, I'm not a collector and never will be, frankly I would be happiest if DVDs just came in brown paper envelopes, making life easy for both me and the environment.

@Reaper, thanks for the explanation. That was clearer.
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They were charging about £20-30 for Baccano in Bath, that is until they got rid of their Anime section :evil:
 
Also, is not wanting more, cheaper, symptomatic of consumerism itself? If you were anti-consumerism wouldn't you be willing to pay the true value of the product?
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You make a good point Ayase. However I could only really agree if it were the guys doing all the work and making the product who were setting those prices, as it is its not them and probably some studio exec or network boss whose wants that profit. Also make no mistake I'm not claiming to be less of a consumer in my own way than anyone else here and I never have, I'm just conscious of it, and wish one day to move away from that cycle.

Yeah, you're just costing yourself a lot of money by doing it that way, Vash. This isn't 1998
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I make no excuses, I am somewhat pre historic. If you actually knew me, you'd probably be saying something more along the lines of "Vash, this isn't 1857".
 
I'd rather my anime release quality wasn't dictated by an extremely unusual scenario of not wanting to buy online so needing the RRP to come down to slave labour levels before people will buy ^^;

While £10 on a Manga UK release doesn't translate to £10 in the pocket of the actual animators, it certainly does get back to them in terms of the licensing fees. It's in their best interests for our local distributors to have healthy, sustainable sales.

As an aside you can't buy anime offline any more where I live; all of the shops which sell home video have shut aside from Asda (which doesn't carry anime, of course). I'd like to see well made home video releases, which I'm happy to pay a fair price for, with legal streaming providing an alternative for people who don't want to pay for a quality DVD.

R
 
I'd rather my anime release quality
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So would I, but good content and disk quality are the only important things for me, I don't need a big fancy(but still cheapy) box that will just take up more space than its worth.


While £10 on a Manga UK release doesn't translate to £10 in the pocket of the actual animators, it certainly does get back to them in terms of the licensing fees. It's in their best interests for our local distributors to have healthy, sustainable sales.
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This is also true and I do want to support the releases I deem as good quality. However I will in no way hand over £80 for Planetes, while whoever set that price is slapping his penis across my face.

As an aside you can't buy anime offline any more where I live; all of the shops which sell home video have shut aside from Asda (which doesn't carry anime, of course). I'd like to see well made home video releases, which I'm happy to pay a fair price for, with legal streaming providing an alternative for people who don't want to pay for a quality DVD
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Tell me about it, I wish ASDA did sell anime. As it is for me It's mostly a choice between HMV and Forbidden Planet, and they rarely offer good value. Although occasionally I do find a bargain at FP, but its usually some crappy old anime that I regret even spending that £4 on.
 
vashdaman said:
This is also true and I do want to support the releases I deem as good quality. However I will in no way hand over £80 for Planetes, while whoever set that price is slapping his penis across my face.
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It's £14.99 on Amazon, which is practically theft :p

High street stores are always a rip off; they have to be to afford the additional expenses and lack of VAT-dodging Channel Island shenanigans the online companies can enjoy.

R
 
If you're really that averse to using your cards online (which, I have to say, is paranoia on the "there's a paedo on lurking in every playground" level), United Publication accept cheques. These days they match the likes of HMV and Amazon in pricing for UK releases (Manga UK stuff at least), though they charge postage on top.
 
ilmaestro said:
Oh man, I'd love to see the day when ASDA carried a large range of anime DVDs. :lol:

Actually, maybe I wouldn't.
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They DID sell Advent Children and probably Resi Degen, but I suppose those are known brand spin-offs, rather than anime proper.

I remember Tesco used to sell anime VHS's when i was younger, I distinctly remember seeing Perfect Blue in the shelves and then being freaked out and intrigued by the back cover =P
 
Rui said:
It's £14.99 on Amazon, which is practically theft :p

High street stores are always a rip off; they have to be to afford the additional expenses and lack of VAT-dodging Channel Island shenanigans the online companies can enjoy.

R
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OMG, Its true I just checked, the whole series! If I had the money this would be one of those exceptions I was talking about.
 
I'm pretty sure the amount that disappeared from my debit card was due to a local independent off-licence which disappeared soon afterwards.

FP is charging eighty quid for the old Planetes sets? Perhaps you should go in and tell them that it's been re-released in it's entirety with an RRP of thirty.
 
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