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Answerman - Is It Ethical To Import Anime From Other Countries?

This 'frankly it's none of our business' sentiment is something I have a hard time getting behind. These are businesses, not people; they need privacy only to the extent that it is a significant competitive advantage. Keeping consumers carefully informed about the structure of business is incredibly important to maintaining a healthy business ecology and business-consumer relationship; I don't buy at all that it's "none of our business."

It is not their job to keep consumers carefully informed. They are in it for the money, and may be a little of their inner fan.

If consumers know of a company's inner workings, so too will their rivals. They may lose contracts too, because of this knowledge.

It is not their job to keep consumers carefully informed. They are in it for the money, and may be a little of their inner fan.

If consumers know of a company's inner workings, so too will their rivals. They may lose contracts too, because of this knowledge.

Talking about Aussie ratings, as someone who has imported a good number of titles from there I'm flabberghasted by some of the ratings. For instance, Nichijou has an M rating and Kaiba has a PG rating. Do they just throw darts to determine the rating? How does Kaiba which is laced with drugs, violence, and sex end up with a more acceptable rating than Nichijou?

Talking about Aussie ratings, as someone who has imported a good number of titles from there I'm flabberghasted by some of the ratings. For instance, Nichijou has an M rating and Kaiba has a PG rating. Do they just throw darts to determine the rating? How does Kaiba which is laced with drugs, violence, and sex end up with a more acceptable rating than Nichijou?

Talking about Aussie ratings, as someone who has imported a good number of titles from there I'm flabberghasted by some of the ratings. For instance, Nichijou has an M rating and Kaiba has a PG rating. Do they just throw darts to determine the rating? How does Kaiba which is laced with drugs, violence, and sex end up with a more acceptable rating than Nichijou?

This doesn't apply to anime as much nowadays because it is no longer very niche, but one reason a company may withhold a license is because they are afraid of reverse importation. It's why English subtitles are often forced with a Japanese dub, to make reverse importation less attractive. IIRC, sometimes the English is also intentionally made to look worse than the Japanese release, though I don't think that is nearly as common nowadays.

Talking about Aussie ratings, as someone who has imported a good number of titles from there I'm flabberghasted by some of the ratings. For instance, Nichijou has an M rating and Kaiba has a PG rating. Do they just throw darts to determine the rating? How does Kaiba which is laced with drugs, violence, and sex end up with a more acceptable rating than Nichijou?

Reverse importation in this case would be Japanese consumers deciding to import the cheaper foreign release instead of the more expensive Japanese domestic release.

Don't sell your region short; the UK has several prominent series/movies I've imported that are nowhere to be seen over here. You guys made out far better with Satoshi Kon's works than we did (a BD of Perfect Blue, a dubbed Millennium Actress, Paranoia Agent still in-print), you got a proper BD release of Metropolis, and you have that nice BD copy of the 1997 Berserk series. That's not even mentioning the Anime Limited releases that go for far less than their Aniplex of America counterparts. Hell, depending on the shows you like, in some respect you guys are doing better than we are.