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Last edited by luffypirate on Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:23 am; edited 1 time in total

I've noticed a lot of you buy a huge amount of shows at once, but, the question is, do you watch them all? Do you buy faster than you watch? Do some of you collect for the sole fact of rarity? Do you intend to watch all those super rare titles you spend loads of cash on or just leave them looking pretty on your shelf? Are you perhaps bargain hunters that just want a huge quantity of titles, regardless of how craptastic they may be? Quantity over quality? I for the most part buy my favorite shows that I have already seen and would love to watch again and again or even introduce to friends of mine. Then again, I'm also guilty of blind buying shows at a cheap price that I have no immediate intention to watch, but may develop an urge to start later.

EDIT: Re-worded. Sorry was half asleep.

I currently own 103 TV titles (Moribito, Clannad and Clannad After Story aren't physically in my collection yet, but I've ordered them from TRSI), 7 OVAs and 13 movies. Of those, I have watched to completion 34 TV titles, 4 OVAs and 5 movies. So I guess that qualifies me as one of those collectors who buys faster than he watches.

I would never buy based on the SOLE fact of rarity unless I stumbled across such an item at a bargain price and I knew I could flip it by gouging somebody like King of Harts. Wink

I have been guilty of in the past of being sucked into blind buys based on cheep, cheep prices, but I'm doing my best to avoid that syndrome. I do try to buy based on what I hope is a good re-watch potential.

I would dearly, dearly love to stop buying new titles until I finish off my backlog, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Crying or Very sad

Its not that I buy things just to buy them, but I can't watch a sereis unless I know for sure I have the whole thing. That's why I haven't seen UC Gundam yet. I've held off watching Char's Counterattack for years because I *have* to watch Zeta first. Also most of my anime is from one bulk eBay lot where I got ~100 discs, so I am trawling through all of that.

Of course I watch them all. While I am a huge collector and typically go after the LE sets, I only collect what I want to watch or watched in the past and liked. I do love the way some of those rare art boxes look (the Kyo Kara Maoh books for example), but the interior is much more important than the exterior.

Now, rare box sets have piqued my interest in certain shows. The R.O.D. book set and the Gantz ball have encouraged me to look into getting those when the price is right. I do have my limits, though. I'll spend a lot of money on Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura because I know they're good and I'm actually getting them near their original MSRP. I won't spend a ton of money on the LE Escaflowne box or the aforementioned R.O.D. set because I haven't seen them before. I simply have go by their MSRP and their typical prices on Amazon and Ebay to see if I can find it at a "good" deal.

I also avoid Blood- syndrome of buying simply because it's cheap. If that were the case, I'd own everything in the bargain bin. I have seen cheap things and added them to my spreadsheet before (like Solty Rei and Black Cat) because their synopsis sounds interesting. Sometimes I've just never heard of a show until I see the price tag.

I'm also 98% blind buyer now with that extra 2% coming from streams. Most of my collection and a lot of my catalog consist of shows I watched in the past, but nowadays I'm mainly going on gut and instinct and getting titles I haven't seen. The only time I actually get shows I watched illegally is when it was one of those "I NEED NOW" shows like Gurren Lagann or Kanon. I'm actually trying to get over that fansub guilt thing a lot of people have.

luffypirate85 wrote:

do you watch them all?

Every single one. Sometimes more than once.

Quote:

Do you buy faster than you watch?

I batch buy. Many series in an order, then another order gets placed when the previous begins to run out. Though this year, this is changing. I'm migrating more towards the online world.

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Do some of you collect for the sole fact of rarity?

I don't fall into this category. That goes to my figure collection.

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Do you intend to watch all those super rare titles you spend loads of cash on or just leave them looking pretty on your shelf?

People do the latter? Now that's what I call "otaku".

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Are you perhaps bargain hunters that just want a huge quantity of titles, regardless of how craptastic they may be?

Score! In all honesty, I've found series I really enjoy this way, while others titled it "craptastic". Blind buying has been very good to me.

Quote:

Quantity over quality?

Quantity. The farther I can spread my $1, the better. Though, there are circumstances where the quality of the series gets a purchase regardless.

I don't consider my DVDs as "collectibles" in terms of merchandise. Most of the time, I scrap the boxes and cases they come in. I could easily throw them into DVD binders rather than cases, but then my cats would chew on the binders.

I definitely buy faster than I watch--largely because anime is a fickle mistress--she's here one day, then gone the next. Thus, if I have the cash and find a show I have interest in at a good price I'd rather buy it now and let it sit on my shelf for a year or two, than wait that year or two and find out the show is OOP and the prices skyrocketing on ebay and amazon marketplace. For example, Haibane Renmei--it was a show I had interest in and ended up getting the boxset when TRSI still had some left (and it was a weekly special)... I felt a bit weird about spending $60-odd dollars on one 13 episode series, however, in hindsight it was a great deal because they're so SO hard to dig up now.

i mean, even beyond that reason (which is pretty compelling in itself) I tend to be a pretty hardcore collector for whatever my passion of the moment is. During my mid-to-late teen years it was music. Now for the past two years (give or take) it has been anime. Collecting is sort of that one thing in life I can lean on when the rest of life seems to be going to hell.

I used to buy faster than what I could watch, but that was when I was regularly employed and had more money + less time. I do watch everything I buy, more than once if at all possible. When great bargains are out there, I will go out on a limb for marginal titles, like with those TRSI ADV and Geneon liquidation sales.

Currently, the approximate breakdown is like this:
Total series/OVAs/movies owned on DVD: 280
Unseen in any form: 9
Not seen on DVD: 11

So that's 96.8% seen, 92.9% seen on DVD. I estimate that ~110 or 40% of those items were blind buys, although in many cases I was going off trailers, recommendations, or research. The rest were based on having seen at least one episode via anime club, TV, VOD, or streams, or else having seen the entire series via bootlegs/fansubs/DVD-rips. I get rare items when I can, or when the price is right. Like with Trigun, TRSI had one of the LE tins for $30 during a Christmas sale, so I just had to get the other one for $55 elsewhere. IIRC the Remix singles weren't on clearance back then, so $85 was a bargain price for a nicer version.

TheTheory wrote:

For example, Haibane Renmei--it was a show I had interest in and ended up getting the boxset when TRSI still had some left (and it was a weekly special)... I felt a bit weird about spending $60-odd dollars on one 13 episode series, however, in hindsight it was a great deal because they're so SO hard to dig up now.

And here I spent $90 on it back in 2005 when it was still in print Crying or Very sad

I'm a bit of an odd duck when it comes to this sort of thing. A good half of my purchases were based off of seeing it previously, like off of TV, a friend's place, fansubs, etc.

The other half were more or less impulse buys, only because I couldn't resist because of the price. So that said...I have roughly 60 shows on DVD, and 30 of them were impulse buys. And strangely enough, there are only two shows that I regretted buying in this manner: Black Cat and Wild Arms.

As for shows I've haven't watched that I own...once again, there's just two: Noir and Madlax. It's really bizarre, but everytime I planned on popping in a disc into my PS3 to check em out, I always ended up copping out, and watching something else. But I can't part with the DVDs, either...

For me I like to get the whole anime first then watch it once i have them all. Also yeah I have gotten a few series where i went to get just 1 show and ending up buying a few others sometimes not watching some of them.

In my collection I think I have about 10 anime's series that I havn't watched yet.

I really try to rent something before buying, but if it gets below $1.50 an episode, it is almost easier to buy it.

As a result, I have a huge purchased but unwatched backlog.
Slayers Movies
Lost Universe
Shingu
The Twelve Kingdoms
Jubei Chan
Infinite Ryvius
Moribito
His and Hers Circumstances
Burst Angel
Rental Magica
Rin
To Love Ru
Sakura Wars
Rurouni Kenshin
Captain Tylor OVAs
Gantz
Ah My Buddha
Kodocha
Bubblegum Crisis 2040
Southern Cross
Genesis Climber Mospeada
Saiunkoku
Gaukuen Alice
Kaleido Star
Speed Grapher
Junkers Come Here
Witch Hunter Robin
Space Pirate Mito/Aoi Mutsuki
Area 88 TV

Mid watch on
Le Chevalier D'eon
Clannad After Story
Fantastic Children
Full Moon (the last half will probably be the first fansub I will partake in). I own all 7 released, but really lost steam when the rest was cancelled.
Hidamari Sketch

I have cut the rental plan down to 2 at a time to try and get rid of this backlog.

*edit forgot Hidarmari Sketch*

Zalis116 wrote:

Currently, the approximate breakdown is like this:
Total series/OVAs/movies owned on DVD: 280
Unseen in any form: 9
Not seen on DVD: 11

So that's 96.8% seen, 92.9% seen on DVD.

Every one of those figures fills me with envy.

Signed,

A Hopeless Backlogger

I currently have a backlog because I'm watching Ranma 1/2(161 episodes), but this is the first one for a long time. I usually watch as I buy, but my DVD backlog has grown to 5 shows including Ah My Mini-Goddess, Aria, Moribito, Saber Marionette J Again and Saber Marionette J to X, plus some rewatches I want to do. My streaming backlog is at 4 shows right now (I'm constantly adding) with Big Windup, Ramen Fighter Miki, Best Student Council and Mushi-shi. I do still have fansubs of Aishiteruze Baby and Kure-nai that I've kept for a just in case (just in case I go broke and don't have any DVDs and absolutely need an anime fix. It's a last resort thing). Not to mention that I'll finish up my Sailor Moon collection soon and that'll be, like, another 150 episodes + the three movies.

I think the fact that I only watch one show at a time and watch a lot of episodes in one day help keep my backlog healthily filled.

Personally I make sure that I watch everything I own at least once (but usually more than that). I don't really have any type of pattern to what I buy so it's hard for me to categorize myself. Some times I'll just buy one title then go and watch it (or it may sit on my shelf for a little while until I have enough time to watch it), or I will find a bunch of good deals and buy a few at once and then I end up having a backlog for quite some time until I get around to seeing them all. I can say for sure that I don't buy things just to have them sit on my shelf. That just seems like a waste of money, money I can't afford to waste. I have to admit I do have a backlog right now of a few titles I haven't watched yet but that's mainly because I've been busy lately. But when it comes down to it I prefer quality over quantity.

Well, I just officially went over my backlog, it's not all that bad and it'll help me answer the questions posed in the opening topic.

I do tend to buy a good amount of things at once, I would wager most of my anime spending is either during the summer (Otakon in particular) or during Birthday/Xmas, which works because they almost split the year in half. I got 4 series at Otakon and sold 1 of them for not liking it, but I have no backlog from that time. I logically still have some B-day/X-mas backlog as it was only about a month ago.

So, I've got 40 TV series, 5 of which I keep with the anime but aren't actually anime (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Invader Zim, Code Lyoko, Thunderbirds, and Firefly) and out of all 40 series, 5 are not yet complete in their viewing. Of those 5, 4 were gotten in the past 40 days or so and 1 is ages old to be honest. I have started all of them though.
I've got 10 OVA and all have been watched.
I've got 17 movies, 2 of which have not been seen which I did get within the past month.

Now, this isn't quite the same for manga, I think I get a lot more manga than most people on these boards, I've got 18 series that are more than three volumes long that are complete all of which have been read. I've got 12 series three volumes or shorter and all of them have also been read (I am counting one of these series as complete because Dark Horse never compiled the last two volumes of Club 9, same for Cro High where 12/17 volumes got published in the US and Beet the Vandel Buster, which is on hiatus). I've 35 ongoing or incomplete series, ten of which have at least one volume in them unread and one series in which I don't have a hope in hell of finding any more of it (sadly). Although I have 35 incomplete, I'm really only actively following 4 or 5 at a time, the rest tend to be added for free shipping if I need something for that or I'll get if it's cheap enough. I've had one of the incomplete series for more than a year and still haven't really touched the 8 volumes of it that I got as a used book store for less than $20.

So, I think I've got some similarities when it comes to both anime and manga, most notably that I frequently "edit" my collection by selling off stuff I either hated or never want to see again nor lend to anyone. I've had way more than 40 series over the years, looking at older pictures of my collection, I can say for sure that at least 8 different series (one of which I had 4 season of and the other one 6 seasons) have been sold at some point, but I know I'm surely missing data there because I know I don't tend to take pics of my collection with them in there because I don't feel "they belong" so to say. And when it comes to manga, I've sold a hell of a lot of that off over the years, I think the first major time I sold off a bunch of manga was back during senior year of high school 4 years ago or so. Either I'm done with them, used to like them, or still don't know wtf ever compelled me to buy that in the first place.

Now, when it comes to prices, I hit up used store. A lot. Especially for manga since that used book store opened near me a couple years ago where I think my best record is 8 manga for $24 ($3 each for the win!). I do tend to go in there looking for specific titles, like new volumes of series I'm currently collecting, but when the place kinda makes you buy 4 because it's buy 3 get the 4th free, I tend to blind buy a lot on the third and fourth manga because it doesn't cause a terrible financial upset on me.

So, when it comes to manga, yeah, I have a slight tendency to go quantity over quality when I'm buying used, but never when I'm buying new. For anime, I never go quantity over quality because I have no problem wanting to sell/trade off series I think were a terrible buy, better to get something back from them then hold onto it. And for the reason that a lot of the sold series don't show up in my old pictures is that I think I hated some of those series so much that I consider it an embarrassment to even have them in pictures, so my number of sold series is surely higher than I quoted earlier.

Now, when it comes to cheap blind buys....I don't tend to do that for manga, like I said, only when buying used, rarely when buying new (even with Borders coupons).
But then we get to the anime side of things and I'm guilty as hell. Now that I order through TRSI, I definitely add things from the bargain bin or weekly special to make that $49, sometimes it's a manga though, but if it's an anime, and seeing how I'm already on the internet if I'm ordering through TRSI, I'll do a little bit of research before I add it to the cart. It basically boils down to "Have I ever heard anything overwhelmingly good or bad about this series? Does the price make it worthwhile to shove it on the order if I've heard good stuff about it or would paying a bit more in shipping be more worth it than the potential money I could lose if this blind buy is bad?" And sometimes I think the blind buy in which I did less research on was actually better than the series that I did more research on which got me to place the order in the first place. Heck, I sold off a bunch of anime and bought Noein on the basis that not only was it $25, but one of the quotes on the back compared it to Donnie Darko and that was a great blind buy. I think out of those 40 series I currently have, 8 were half blind buys (meaning maybe I had seen an episode or something by the same company or director that could be similar) and 12 were complete blind buys in which I had at best heard the series in passing and most of the rest I had seen most of before or read some of the manga based on it before. I don't necessarily think blind buys are a bad thing, but man, when I get a really bad blind buy, I just feel so incredibly guilty, more so the more I paid for it, so it has the trade off of getting a lot of unexpectedly great series mixed with a very real chance of getting absolute garbage.

Now then, rarity. I don't tend to get stuff just because it's rare unless I absolutely adore the series with every fiber of my being and it is within my realm of possibility to get the rarest version of it. I love Princes Tutu, but as far as I know it doesn't have an artbox and even if it did, I doubt it would be cheap enough to warrant getting it at this point, not when I've already got a set of it anyway, no double dipping! Gurren Lagann started coming out just after I had seen it so I got all 3 of the LE sets for that show. But as for the rest of my series, I don't really go for rare, not to say that I don't have series that have gotten rare since (like certain volumes of the Maison Ikkoku manga and a lot of my other manga series in particular). But why not go rare? Simple by my logic in which my entire collection of anime, games, and manga is based on: my collection is not a museum that needs to look pretty and large, it is a personal enjoyment shrine. In a lot of cases, getting something in an LE or all singles won't make me significantly happy a month or so on, so why bother? And if it will, then I don't mind getting it if it's feasible to do so within budget. And if it's gonna stay in my personal enjoyment shrine, it's gonna be something I enjoy and want to watch again at some nondescript point in the future (could be next month, could be three years, whatever, I can usually tell that I'll want to watch it again, not necessarily when), otherwise, what logical basis do I have for keeping it there? And seeing how this is not a museum, I also don't mind lending small quantities of the more easily replaceable stuff out to my more trustworthy friends (although I certainly test them with easy to replace stuff first, and there are some of the more precious things I will never trust with another human being, but they can still enjoy it at my place).

Unexpectedly long post is unexpectedly long
Also, I calculated how much I spent on manga and anime in January: $132.51 on 13 manga, 2 movies, and 74 episodes (43 of which are Dub only, the rest are Hyb). And $63.77 on games, but $49.99 of that was from a gift card so it's more like $13.78. I also know I got some stuff toward the tail end of December, but I'm being annoying and not counting those.

If you asked me this question two years ago, I was watching more anime than I was buying. I might not plunk down and watch a newly purchased DVD that day when it came in, it may stew for a week or so, but I was at a decent 3:1 ratio, maybe even a 2:1 for buying vs. watching. At worst, a title might take up to a year to watch all the way through, simply because I prefer watching the whole show at once, rather than one volume at a time, spread out over the year.

Then Amazon Marketplace became fully know to me. See, I'm something of a completionist, and since '99, when I started buying anime, there were more than a few shows that I either couldn't finish buying due to lack of money, or DVDs would never show up at my local stores. With Amazon, I could finish out collections that I had missed, and could pick up older titles I had missed out on. Add to that all the new stuff coming out....and I have one huge backlog.

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