Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga UK Cancels Future FMA: Brotherhood Blu-ray Discs
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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As well-meaning and diligent as their staff members may be, one would find it hard to support local companies to an extent sufficient to prevent news like this. To do so, as vulcanraven01 mentions, would involve incurring greater costs and waiting longer periods of time. Aside for an implausible reduction in BBFC requirements and fees, and also an decrease in the minimum print run permitted for BD releases, I can conceive of no way to prevent this sort of eventuality. One fathoms that Funimation provide plenty of assistance to their sub-licensees, though there are only so many negative factors said assistance can counteract. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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He's stated that FMA as a whole sold fine, but the BDs just weren't selling enough, especially since sales decrease volume-on-volume for long series.
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Nilrem
 Posts: 142 |
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This news feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth for those of us who have been buying the UK blu-s (alll 700 of us:p), but I can't fault Manga's position if they really are doing that poorly with the FMA:B blu-ray sales.
However as I've bought the first couple of blu, and I'm enjoying the PQ/sound I suspect I'll be importing the third and forth sets from Australia if I can find a good price (inc shipping). |
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gtmacc
Posts: 21 |
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Well that news certainly sucks, so i was only 1 of 750 to buy the blu ray over here so far
 not good news for blu ray anime.
Going to have to import the rest of the series on blu ray now if thats possbile, would of prefered to have my money going to the uk anime industry though. |
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Nephtis
 Posts: 138 Location: Australia |
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Excellent. Hopefully I find the cash from Christmas to begin investing in these. Feel bad for those in the UK but wow those sales are super poor. |
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DangerMouse
Posts: 3983 |
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Same here, loved the first series and am loving the new one. |
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I'm actually pretty suprised by those numbers though. Perhaps it's just a personal misconception but I always thought Europe in general and the UK in particular were first-adopters when it came to electronics. (Well, the wealthier countries, clearly if your people are having trouble buying groceries they're probably skipping the Blu-Rays.) I wonder if the recession over there has played a bigger role in this than first thought would suggest.
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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The economic downturn has been mentioned as a problem by industry sources, but I've yet to be informed that the market in question has suffered disproportionally to other local markets affected by our poor exchange rates. One must note that many fans consider the number of locally-available anime Blu-Rays to be insufficient to justify upgrading to such a standard. This is certainly my view on the matter. Because the industry relies upon customer support, one might suggest that the effect of such an attitude upon the BD market is vicious. |
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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Or perhaps the anime itself wasn't popular enough to deserve BD over here. If we had BDs for the first FMA I'm pretty confident it would sell a lot more than the second. |
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Nilrem
Posts: 142 |
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I think that is very much a major part of it. I went Blu not because of the anime, but because at the time I had some spare cash, and the player had several discs with it making it a good deal. The amount of anime on blu here is so small that there is zero incentive to upgrade to blu, unless you're able to get a good deal on a player, or are looking at a player for more general blu-ray discs. I think there are a grand total of 41 blu-ray anime discs listed at one of the big retailers, and that includes pre-orders up to March (and a couple with no date), several mis listed discs (street fighter the movie), and a couple that are double packs and listed both separately and as part of the double pack. The Blu premium probably doesn't help either (£15 for the DVD version, £25 for the Blu, after discounts). |
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ConanSan
Posts: 1818 |
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Outside of releaseing the show on DVD at a decent click, Magna's really screwed the pooch on this one (and as someone who reviewed the preview disk, they made a mess of the Subtitles too)
The time between the US Simulcast and the UK service was attrocious (well into the last 20 some episodes) as was the quality of the stream (think the 240p option of youtube compressed into a 3/4 window). No TV deal to speak off, which hardly surprising given that FMA 1 basicly headlined two channels which have gone the way of the dodo over here (Rapture and AnimeCentral) And now this, which could very well be the death knell for Manga putting out anything that requires more than one release on Blu-Ray (Movies, stuff with 13 or less episodes like Eden of the East) because the consumer has every right to think "I'm not going to buy this, they're just going to get two sets in and leave me hanging" from that. |
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JonLa
Posts: 55 |
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I'm very disappointed by this - I won't be picking up the dvds instead. Maybe I'll try for the Australian releases but the exchange rate isn't as favourable as it used to be when I picked up the R4 Rurouni Kenshin.
It's probably a combination of factors - not just the lack of BD takeup, but the availability of the R1 bluray at a cheaper price months in advance, and the failure to stream the series at the same time - leading tech-savvy fans to the HD fansubs that were out there very quickly. And then why would you buy the series, six months later? Slightly related: I just tried to watch the Manga BD in English, but with the subs on - it was late, my wife was asleep, and it does get very loud in the action sequences, and I'm going deaf in one ear... No joy. Unlike Eden of the East, they've disabled this possibility. Why? |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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It was the same with the FUNimation discs. http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showpost.php?p=1785542&postcount=179 |
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pugwash2004
Posts: 2 |
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Late posting as I've just found this out but tbh it's their own fault.
In the past they've released single discs all the way through a series and then released a single boxset at 1/4 of the price. They've done this on dvd and now they're doing it on bluray, more fool them. I've been caught in the past like this with their release of Ghost in the Shell series 1 and got so sick of their slow release schedule I bought the discs 3-10 from Australia before disc 5 was even out in the UK. Only to find out they've got a special edition boxset a few weeks after they released their version of final disc. So on series 2 I didn't buy it until the boxset was out and saved a bundle. Same goes for Bleach, why buy the single discs knowing that they'll be a in a boxset! Especially as you can watch it for free on Crunchyroll. No doubt many of the people who would have bought the series as a boxset will be buying the US / Australian versions when they're released. Just as I'm going to buy the complete boxset US version of Soul Eater bluray in April. I'll support UK bluray distributors if they support us and instead of fleecing the fans they release a single boxset instead of single discs. |
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