The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[usamimi]

I assume those BDs don't have subtitles.

Yeah, since they're Japanese releases, 99% chance of no English subtitles. But the cms for the blu-rays already look a million times better than the DVDs, picture quality wise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdonUBqN1X0

[greg]

I don't own a Bluray player, but my friend told me that all Bluray DVDs are region-free. It's only the regular DVDs that will be region-encoded. This is my friend who travels to Japan at least once a year, works in IT, and is very on top of technology. I assume he knows what he's talking about, because I don't.

[usamimi]

We have a PS3, so we use that as a blu-ray player.
I've heard that some companies that release anime are trying to region-lock certain releases to hinder importing, but for the most part blu-rays released in Japan are region 1 (which is the same region as US blu-rays, but if they're region-free, this is great news for people living in, say, Australia or Europe).

[llj]

I don't own a Bluray player, but my friend told me that all Bluray DVDs are region-free. It's only the regular DVDs that will be region-encoded. This is my friend who travels to Japan at least once a year, works in IT, and is very on top of technology. I assume he knows what he's talking about, because I don't.

I'll have to correct your friend here. Blurays have regions, but Japan and North America share the same region, which is why people who buy mostly from Japan and North America think it's region free. Here's an image showing the regions:

I've heard that some companies that release anime are trying to region-lock certain releases to hinder importing, but for the most part blu-rays released in Japan are region 1 (which is the same region as US blu-rays, but if they're region-free, this is great news for people living in, say, Australia or Europe).

They can't region lock releases, but they can stipulate that American companies release crippled BDs. Many of the newer anime shows released on BD have locked subtitles (can't take them off no matter what you do) or may not be 1080p releases. One recent release even took out the Japanese track and was dub only. These are the various ways Japanese companies try to dissuade reverse importation.

I think Japan and North America sharing the same region has been pretty terrible for anime BDs, overall.

[usamimi]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, I heard a LOT of complaining from friends when they released the Persona anime on blu-ray with only a dub track. O__o I've never gotten into Persona, so I'd probably never buy it, but that's still pretty lame.

I haven't seen many other companies do that yet, but I hope it's not something that catches on. It's bad enough that companies like Aniplex are charging close to import price for their DVD/blu-ray sets, I don't want to have to pay $500 to get an entire series on blu-ray in Japanese with no subtiles. -__-

On the plus side, at least Disney's Ghibli blu-rays are well done. The re-release they did of Nausicaa was well worth the money for me to buy a second time. (I need to get Whisper of the Heart and Laputa on blu-ray still, though, before they start getting harder to find.)

[llj]

I don't think the Persona 4 BD dub-only will be a trend, but it really depends on the release dates. Since Sentai released Persona 4 SO CLOSE to the Japanese BD releases, the Japanese companies had to find some way to cripple the American release.


The U.S. Penguindrum BD, for instance, was released in 1080i, and with obvious interlacing issues and motion artifacts. The Japanese BD was 1080p. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's just annoying enough to make you curse under your breath.

I've noticed that generally, the closer the American BD release date is to the Japanese BD release date, the more likely the American BD will be crippled in some way. It's also more common with newer anime. BD releases of older anime tend to be perfect. So I don't anticipate the upcoming Patlabor BDs to be crippled. It's hard to predict, though, since BDs of older anime are not very common in the U.S. anyway

[usamimi]

The U.S. Penguindrum BD, for instance, was released in 1080i, and with obvious interlacing issues and motion artifacts. The Japanese BD was 1080p. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's just annoying enough to make you curse under your breath.

Oh wow, really? I have the Penguindrum BD but I haven't watched it yet (I watched the fansubs as the eps came out so I've seen the series already, hence why I haven't popped it in still.) That is rather annoying, though I guess that's still slightly better than the DVD quality.

[greg]

Man, reading that sort of thing really ticks me off. I've never played a Persona game, but I would be mad if that affected me like that. DVDs are so expensive in Japan. They did the same thing with the Gundam TV series when it was first released on DVD; it was dub-only. Only recently they released it R1 with Japanese subtitles, but it is still missing an episode.

Instead of crippling American DVD releases, Japanese companies need to realize that the fact that Japanese people are willing to buy the American import DVDs means that they are not meeting the needs of potential customers. This should tell them that if only they could lower the cost of their shows, they can sell to a whole lot more people who would like to buy them, but for a lower price. If they could just lower the price, then they will have those local Japanese buyers and they wouldn't have to feel threatened by them importing DVDs from North America.

[usamimi]

I agree, I've been wondering for years why the prices of Japanese DVDs and CDs hasn't gone down significantly like it has in America. I remember before I moved to Texas, I saw some Japanese tourists in a Walmart once and they were amazed at the fact that we had an entire section of DVDs that were $5-10 or less. Someone once told me that DVDs and blu-rays were more there because they didn't sell as well or something, but I have a hard time believing that...I was more under the impression that they just wanted to squeeze as much money as possible from the market, which is a little disappointing. :/

And I agree, crippling our domestic releases isn't going to help anyone...it's just going to make the people here want to import the Japanese BDs, so then the domestic release won't get as many sales, thus leading to people bitching about how anime in America isn't getting the support it needs and that's why it's suffering...it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

[llj]

Much of the problem is the way anime companies make money. I think I once heard that up to 90% of their profits come from home DVD/BD sales, which is why they're so expensive. They also don't take the international market into consideration when calculating/estimating profits. I think that's ludicrous. There has to be a better way to do this, especially given that anime has become increasingly global in recent decades. You'd think that the cost of licensing would already offset any profits lost from reverse importing.