Forum - View topicNEWS: Aniplex USA Adds Valvrave the Liberator, Gurren Lagann TV Anime Series
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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The people who seriously collect shows aren't going to care that there's already fansubs available. They want a high-quality, good-looking physical release with all the extras that will sit on their shelf. AoA by and large delivers on those expectations, though there is a case to be made that maybe they could translate their extras, improve the quality of their boxes and tighten up their subtitles. These are definitely legitimate areas to criticise them on. Anyway, Garden of Sinners had fansubs available before AoA released the infamous US$400 boxset which then sold out, so presence of fansubs does not deter those who really want it.
As to the homegrown releases not needing to be bare-bones or cheap, look, you can't appease everyone. Some people won't want the extras and will insist on getting a cheap no-frills DVD, because they either cannot afford Blu-Ray prices or they don't have a Blu-Ray player. Others will insist on getting Blu-Ray for the higher-definition, but also don't want the extras. Some will want DVDs with extras, others Blu-Rays with extras but cheaper than the LE releases (and presumably delayed), others will want a Blu-Ray with the extras at the same time as the Japanese because, and I paraphrase, "this is America goddamnit and we shouldn't have to pay those darn-high Japanese prices, and we shouldn't have to wait either for a show that's already been out for five years". AoA cannot appease everyone no matter what they do, and trying to is a fool's game. They released three different physical versions of PMMM and put it on the net for streaming, and they still faced a crapstorm of controversy and criticism. So yeah, you say they just need to be decently priced, but if they've got the extras, and they presumably are on Blu-Ray, then what's the difference between the normal release and the LEs, apart from one being cheaper? The only way that would work is if the normal release came out twelve-to-eighteen months after the LEs. Either that or the normal release is DVD-only, but then numerous fans would boycott it anyway because they wanted HD. |
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ssandulak
Posts: 128 Location: BC Canada |
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Yeah I thought the way they did PMMM was amazing and kind of wish they went that way with all their properties. It gave those of us who wanted to buy the LE (because we really loved the show) a way to do so, but also gave other options (including blu ray!) for those in different price ranges, or for those that just really liked the show and wanted to own it. Seems odd that people would complain about the PMMM stuff, as that really kind of hit all the bases imo.
I'd still be curious on how some of these shows are priced far different than others. Like what the reasoning behind it is. Different properties? The time frame it's released in? A combination of things (I would imagine this is the case, still curious). I've heard to curb reverse imports, and that makes sense...but then they put something like PMMM and the monogatari series for cheaper so wouldn't they (they being countries outside of NA) just reverse import those? (The monogatari series being insanely popular also). I can even see on the Bakemonogatari side since it came out a while ago, but Nisemonogatari was more recent, and same thing, way lower on the price side of things as opposed to say...Oreimo for example. Then we have the reverse happening with Gurren Lagann where it's actually cheaper for us to import from Japan...it's all very confusing 
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Yep, there is no such thing as a "typical" AoA release. I don't think they've ever released two different titles the same way. I assume they are experimenting to see what works best for them, but I wish they'd figure that out and then stick to a predictable forumula the way other anime distribs tend to do.
My personal AoA fave is the PMMM model: bare bones DVD, bare bones BD and LE combo. But they've never repeated that model, so I guess they're not that high on it. |
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GWOtaku
 Posts: 678 |
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Putting the price debate aside, the lack of translation for any of the "bonus feature materials" marks a total lack of effort that absolutely no one should be satisfied with. When they rolled out those Kenshin Blu-rays, they had translations for the booklets that were included. In contrast, with Gurren Lagann the DVD and especially the BD set offer extra material (staff commentaries, etc) that the vast majority of buyers won't be able to appreciate because they can't understand it. What's the point of paying for that material, then?
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Ambimunch
 Posts: 2012 |
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I too think PMMM style would be great, but my favorite was the DRRR release. Each dvd had like 8 episodes, or the BD box set which is the one I got. I don't see anyone complaining if they released a series in parts for a reasonable amount. The boxset was just around 20$ more expensive than the 3 DVDs combined but it was a BD port+LE set with some extra stuff not included on the DVDs. Unfortunately not all their releases follow the PMMM or DRRR style 
Its sort of killing me inside because I want some expensive stuff from them in my collection, but the other side of me refuses to pay such high amounts. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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@ Ambimunch - but remember that the two different Durarara!! releases didn't come out at the same time the way the PMMM releases did. The three DVD sets came out first and then the BD LE came out about 18 months later if I remember correctly. When DRRR first came out, we as consumers had no way of knowing whether a BD version would ever be offered. This is what I mean by a lack of consistency. The fact that DRRR had the kind of release it did ... does that mean that there will eventually be an AoA BD release for Garden of Sinners? Who knows? It's that kind of uncertainty that bugs me.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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The PMMM standard BD release hasn't dropped in price since it came out. It still costs around $120 here in the US, which is still THREE TIMES the cost of the exact same release in the UK. And this is amongst the most sane pricing AoA has come up with.
I'd like to see a domestic release of Garden of Sinners, but if AoA continues to ask the sort of prices they have in the past (as I strongly suspect they will) then even if they did give us a domestic release, I still wouldn't buy it. |
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superdry
 Posts: 1309 |
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DRRR isn't the greatest example, but I get your point of consistency, to use since the initial release in Japan was only on DVD with the BD boxset coming out like 2 years later. AoA started to release the DVD sets pretty much near the end of the JP DVD release. |
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Ambimunch
Posts: 2012 |
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When you say domestic release, do you mean a cheaper release for Garden of Sinners? Because they offered the LE BD a few years back for like 400$, then they released the DVD 6 months ago for 150$. I think the DVD box set is "okay" priced. You're getting 6 or 7 films, if each goes for 20$, so yeah you're basically coming to the same price. If AoA kept that price range, I would be grumpy, but I wouldn't complain at all---unfortunately they're very inconsistent and price stuff from 50$-to-150$-to-400$+ which is a big red 'X' in my book. Do you think the BD re-release for the standard edition of the series they recently announced will go for 300 or more? |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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The BD release they offered was an import, not a domestic release, which is, obstensibly, why they charged so much for it. So far as I am aware, AoA has never released Garden of Sinners in BD as a standard domestic release. The only current version available via Right Stuff is a LE DVD which is going for $150 for 522 minutes or runtime, which is shorter than a 24 episode series. Is that a reasonable price? Well, I'll leave that to you, though it is more than I'd pay even for a BD version (though not a *lot* more than I would pay). As for TTGL, the BD that they have announced is, once again, an import, and they use this fact to justify a very hefty price point. Will we get a domestic release later on? A standard one? PMMM is only 12 episodes, but they're charging $120 for standard BD, so should we expect $250 for the 27 episodes of TTGL? Or will they kindly lower it to something like $200, which is "only" $50 over what they're now asking for the LE DVDs. Whatever AoA ends up doing with TTGL domestically, I doubt we'll see any version listed for less than $100, and probably not any BD for less than $150. That's pure speculation on my part, just to be clear. I don't recall what I paid for my Bandai DVDs of TTGL, but it wasn't over $60, and the complete collection was, IIRC, less than that. |
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DeathShrike
Subscriber Posts: 6 |
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This. |
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Gambeno
Posts: 29 |
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Yea but its not a series its movies. Most Anime Movies are around $20 or more a movie and that's the cheap ones. They are usually a lot more and come with nothing but the movie. I think you are being a little unfair here. You can't buy ANY movie for that price even bare bones on DVD on release day much less a limited edition with extra. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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The movies vary in length from around 2 hours down to 32 minutes. Would you pay $20 for a 32 minute movie? I sure wouldn't. I figured giving the total runtime was a way to show just how much anime you're getting. Yes, these are movie-quality animes, so it's not the same as a regular series (I would assume the production values are higher). But I was using Garden of Sinners as an example of AoA's pricing strategies. I also used PMMM, which is a regular series: 12 episodes in BD for $120, or $10/episode in standard release (you can get the whole thing in the UK for $40). If they follow a similar pricing strategy: TTGL has 27 episodes, and at $10/episode that would be $270 for a standard BD release. Does that seem like a reasonable price to you? It doesn't to me. I was trying to answer an earlier post regarding TTGL, and my conclusion was that I doubted *any* release by AoA will be below $100 if we judge by their past actions. |
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ssandulak
Posts: 128 Location: BC Canada |
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Yeah I can't imagine under $100 for anything from AoA...Still not sure why Baccano is, though I'm super glad it is
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