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Answerman - Why Don't Anime DVDs Have Other Languages?

With me being from Portugal. Animated movies, normal movies, videogames, all have the option of more languages and subtitles. But lets say, if I bought a game from the UK (which happens every time I buy a game), most of the time that option won't exist, because everyone there speaks english, and while in Portugal we don't dub regular movies like in every other country, or games (only sony exclusives, or kids games are dubbed) we end up then having a lot of other options in terms of audio (and subtitles).

I would really love to watch France-set anime in French with English subtitles, especially Rose of Versailles. I've been trying to figure out if this is possible for years, with no luck. I know I'd probably get used to it after only a few eps, but watching an anime set in France, especially a semi- realistic period piece, in Japanese just feels so weird.

FUNimation included Spanish audio for their short-lived Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Uncut releases, and even released Spanish-language DVDs for the Latin American market. They didn't last too long though. Their Slayers Season 1 DVD had a bonus feature where you could watch select scenes from Episode 1 in various languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc), but that's not really the same thing.

Do you have any idea why? Unless they're borrowing from a French publisher that happens to be putting out the same titles, I can't see the Quebec market being large enough to bother, so my first guess is that Canada's done something with their bilingual requirements again. After all, as Justin mentioned, there's no attempt to pander the the United States's far larger Spanish market.

On a mostly unrelated note, this question reminds me of the Legend of Korra disc release, particularly because the foreign language dubs were so amazing. Somehow, they managed to find French, Spanish, and German dub counterparts that fit their roles so perfectly that I wouldn't at all mind rewatching the series in any of the different languages (with subtitles).

It's seriously a voice-casting miracle and I don't know if I'll ever see something like that again.

I would really love to watch France-set anime in French with English subtitles, especially Rose of Versailles. I've been trying to figure out if this is possible for years, with no luck. I know I'd probably get used to it after only a few eps, but watching an anime set in France, especially a semi- realistic period piece, in Japanese just feels so weird.

Another factor to consider is space. Many non-Japanese discs are already cramped with the addition of special features and at least one dub and set of subtitles, and adding more and more audio tracks will begin to affect the bitrate constraints on the video.

It's bad enough when too many episodes get cramped onto a disc *cough* spoiler[the new Lucky Star blurays] *cough* and there's a noticeable difference in video quality [from the Japanese release], but adding those extra tracks will force publishers to spend more for more discs (which will probably cost us more as consumers), or risk pushing out a visibly inferior product that they'll get backlash for by not using more discs.