Forum - View topicDo British fans prefer anime features over series?
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Amazon.uk has the Space Cobra movie slated for a June 30th release from Anchor Bay/Manga. At £14.99 this will come out to a little more than a domestic release once shipping is factored so I would prefer to wait if this DVD will also have a R1 release. Has there been any official announcements that I missed on this one? With the recent UK versions of Mushishi (live action) and Earthsea along with Brave Story's release next month is Cobra just another title in what seems to be a growing trend of UK only released anime movies? I have noticed that (ever since the 0083 Movie and Only Yesterday) most of the UK only anime are features and not multi volume releases.
I believe that Gunbuster 2 is going to have a double disc (only £18.74) release which I would have bought had I not already shelled out the cash for BVUSA's release. Even Tactics was only sold as two sets although with the domestic two collection release of Blood+ and Aquarion this might be a trend which the US will follow. It seems as though I've been buying an increasing amount of UK DVDs, and this trend probably will continue especially if Bandai UK will sell titles that BVUSA has released for less than half the price. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9903 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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A very reasonable move, for UK's smaller market (compared with US) wouldn't be able to support a completely independent post-production (licensing, dubbing, etc.) when buying long series in R1US releases is just a few clicks away, thanks to Amazon.uk and other online stores.
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sanbyaku
 Posts: 34 Location: london, england, uk |
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if you ask me you get a better price for an anime movie than a series, considering that to buy a movie will cost you the same (or nearly) as 4 episodes of a series (1 dvd)
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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I think part of it has to do with the intended audience - a lot of these movies aren't primarily being watched by anime fans, they're being watched by world cinema fans. That's certainly the case with Ghibli stuff and Satoshi Kon stuff (which tends to come out months earlier in the UK than the US) at any rate. It's no coincidence that Kon's recent movies (along with the likes of Memories, Steamboy, Appleseed, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie and Metropolis) have, along with Ghibli's stuff (plus Little Norse Prince and Cagliostro) all been released by mainstream or arthouse companies and not by anime companies.
Most of the above movies - and also Akira, the GitS movies and the Korean animation Sky Blue (particularly Akira which was a big mainstream success over here) probably sold more copies to people who aren't specifically anime fans than to people who are. As for TV anime, Bandai's stuff may be cheaper but, generally speaking, the US releases are significantly less expensive, quicker to come out and there are far more of them. Essentially, relative to population size, the US anime scene is stronger than in the UK but the world cinema scene is significantly more robust here and that scene, happily, has some overlap with anime. Here's hoping that results in Mind Game being licensed over here soon... |
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Leuconoe
 Posts: 83 |
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Moomintroll is, as far as I can see, correct: a lot of anime feature films here in the UK sell to fans of world cinema. This is, incidentally, more or less how I encountered anime for the first time.
I think the 0083 movie was a cost thing, though. It irks me a little, since I consider it an inferior compilation of a superior series. I'm amused (and not a little surprised) to hear that some US fans consider importing from the UK - though as Randall describes the situation, I can see how it makes financial sense. Region 1 imports are something of an issue as far as UK distributors are concerned: they find themselves competing with R1 DVDs imported by impatient fans, just as dormcat remarks. So I'm not entirely sure if it's the case that fans here prefer feature films to series - but with the pound sterling so strong against the dollar, multi-region DVD players readily available and R1s sold for import online the situation's pretty murky. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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We do seem to prefer films to series. Ghibli seems to have tapped into the world cinema audience. From my experience those who don't consider themselves anime fans will never have watched any series except for the stuff on kids' television.
That said I'm having difficulty finding an R2 version of the Evangelion films over here. |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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Thank you for all those replies from the UK. I completely forgot about The Little Norse Prince which I found a bit disappointing. I will agree that overall anime in the US is cheaper and most of the PAL conversions are upscaled 480 to 576 transfers, so except for a handful of films, GITS SAC, and a few others the extra resolution that PAL provides is lost.
I've always imported a bunch of R2 DVDs which began about seven years ago when I first watched Spaced. I have imported almost everything Pegg/Wright/Frost have worked on from Big Train to Hyperdrive along with the occasional anime title. I also have heard many complaints of the import tax but came across this bit of news which might cheer a few people up here This should help with importing anything that would cost more than the price of an average DVD. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Outstanding! Good sir, you are owed a pint. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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I've not seen them - would they work as stand-alone films for an audience that hasn't seen the series in the way that Cowboy Bebop: The Movie does? If not, in light of what's been said about the world cinema crossover, that might help to explain why they're not available here.
I love Spaced. Must get round to re-watching it soon. If you don't already have it, try Black Books - it's a great series and features a few of the Spaced cast.
Thanks for the info - that's great news. It's a royal pain when you have to split an order into three to avoid import duties or put off buying a box set because the duty would turn it from "affordable" to "overdraft breaking". |
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