The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
Someone on Twitter had messaged Viz and asked if they had any intention of putting the old '94 Ranma 1/2 VHS promos as one of the extras in the new blu-ray to show younger fans just how much they used to cost. Viz replied saying they didn't think they even still HAD them...Well, I poked around on Youtube and found that Rumic World had posted it off of one of their old tapes. So for fun, I posted about it on the Anime Nostalgia Tumblr today: http://animenostalgia.tumblr.com/post/7 ... on-vhs-for
Some of the comments I've gotten so far, I expected: people around our age, lamenting about "OH YOU KIDS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EASY YOU HAVE IT", etc etc. I think my favorite one so far was someone who said, "So glad I was not alive for that shit." Haha, oh, geez...way to make me feel old, kid.
I also added what the price equivilant of those tapes would've been if they sold them today, with current inflation. I think the next time one of my younger acquaintances complains about the price of anime, I should point them to that post...
Waves of nostalgia just washed over me when I watched that! It's too bad that Viz may not have those promos anymore, they would make a great inclusion for any future releases of the series.
Paying $29.99 (or $39.99 for the subtitled version) for two episodes of anime seems like such a strange concept now, but at the time it seemed so normal. I know I certainly didn't worry much about the price of the tapes back then, I was too excited to see new anime (and watch it again and again) to fret over the financials.
Yeah, I think younger/newer fans might get a kick out of just how much we paid back then, not really concerned over pricing...just wanting our anime! XD (Of course, if I recall, American movies on VHS weren't exactly cheap, either--weren't most of them around $20-25 a piece as well?)
Someone in the comments of my post noted that now you can even buy single episodes of some anime for between 99 cents-$2.99 per episode and then watch it instantly! $30 per 2 ep dub tape means that back then, anime was around $15 per episode...crazy to think about it like that, huh? I'd never thought of it that way when I was younger...
It's too bad that Viz may not have those promos anymore, they would make a great inclusion for any future releases of the series.