Need Help

[Prince Vegeta]

Greetings,

I'm looking for a good online store that sells anime DVDs at reasonable prices, but here is the tricky part.

All the anime DVD's that I have in my collection come in sort of fancy box sets. They're not collector's edition...just regular ones but look better. For example, some have wooden cases, some have metallic cases, and some that fold out and have pictures from the series in them....if that makes any sense at all.

So I want an online store that doesn't just sell DVD's in the regular white plastic cases cause they really look cheesy.

Do you guys know of any such online stores????

The malls that i usually get my DVDs from are far away from me and things get sold out quite quickly. So I'm just stuck.

Two series I'm looking to get right now are "Shigurui" and "Death Note".

Thanks,
PV

[Ryouko]

You might try rightstuf.com. Their prices are really good and they pretty much carry everything. n.n

[miz ducky]

It depends on the company releasing the dvds. No one repackages released dvds just to resell them.

Bandai has put out some interesting box sets. ADVs box sets are generally generic, but the thinpacks take up less space. Funimation is starting their own style of new box set that folds open (at least from what I can tell in pictures). Manga Ent doesn't seem to release special box sets, but maybe I've missed something.

[Prince Vegeta]

thank you.

[Krafty]

Much of the packaging you've mentioned comes from either US special editions [which usually cost a little more] or the Chinese bootlegs.

I don't think Shigurui has come out on DVD yet as it's still a recent Japanese TV title which came out in 2007. If it is on DVD, it would be a Japanese edition and they're very expensive and would only have about 2 episodes per disc making it a 6-disc collection.

As has been mentioned already, RightStuf is good for nice boxsets. But since you're close to the US, you have a wide choice of retailers. I discount a lot because they don't ship internationally.
Ah, YesAsia.com has exciting items for sale too.

[Prince Vegeta]

Much of the packaging you've mentioned comes from either US special editions [which usually cost a little more] or the Chinese bootlegs.

yea i know....but they're so affordable and the cases look so amazing.

[miz ducky]

Bootlegs do nothing for the industry.

If you're going to pay someone to steal a product and put it in pretty packaging, you might as well just download it and save yourself the money. Why pay someone who just rips the dvds, and puts a pretty picture on a box?

Any one can do that with a good printer.

[duotrouble]

If you don't care whether you have subs or not, you could always check out amazon.com.jp. The Japanese boxsets of FMA are awesome, especially compared to what Funi put out. But they do tend to be pricer.

[Prince Vegeta]

Bootlegs do nothing for the industry. If you're going to pay someone to steal a product and put it in pretty packaging, you might as well just download it and save yourself the money. Why pay someone who just rips the dvds, and puts a pretty picture on a box? Any one can do that with a good printer.

You do have a point. The issue here is that the places I'm buying these DVD's from seem to be legitimate and there have been no legal issues with them at all. There are actually 5 different DVD stores in total in 2 malls that sell these DVD's so I assumed they were originals but there's always a chance that they're bootlegs....I can't personally tell the difference.

Though I do still think that it's a bit much to have to pay $35 for 3 episodes....that's just too crazy for my taste.

There were a few suggestions of online stores in this thread which I've checked out. The one in particular had a sale on official US releases so I'm currently dealing with them and, assuming that all works out well, I'll be dealing with them from now on.

So, overall, I'm fully aware of how the industry is affected by fans buying bootlegs and I do try my best to not take part in actions that will have undesirable consequences. However, if I was to pay the usual prices for anime series....then can you imagine how much I would have to pay for a series that has 250 episodes? Pretty close to $8000.....would you not say that that's a bit much? My only option in that case would be to wait a few years until the series gets old enough for the prices to go down.

Just thought I put in my two cents. But believe me, I know what you mean and I try my best to not be one of those people, but there is just so much I'm willing to do or not do in this case.

ps. Amazon is the most horrible organization that I've dealt with in my life. Nothing that I've ever ordered from them, including Books, DVD's, etc., has arrived without problems. So I really don't want to deal with them. Plus I really like to have the subs in my DVD's....the dubbing really annoys me as it usually involves emotionless, and monotonous voice actors.

But thanks for your input

[miz ducky]

www.rightstuf.com is a GREAT place to get anime, that's where I get all my anime and they have different sales Almost every week (not always - almost) so keep checking back.

A friend of mine swears by www.deepdiscountdvd.com

www.discountanimedvd.com DOES SELL BOOTLEGS they are labled "Imports". Don't be fooled, there is a reason you can get an entire 26+ ep series on 3 dvds for $20 or that New series that no on else has yet and they have the Whole Thing (applies to dvd buying everywhere, not all cons have a No Bootleg policy).

[duotrouble]

Plus I really like to have the subs in my DVD's....the dubbing really annoys me as it usually involves emotionless, and monotonous voice actors.

The dubbing I was talking about is Japanese. No English at all. Although never get me wrong. There are bad VAs in ALL languages and I'll watch anime in any language. (I have 4 languages already under my belt.)

Too bad you've had problems with Amazon. I love them! They have been great when dealing with me, my friends and my family. But, to each their own.

[Prince Vegeta]

I have 4 languages already under my belt.)

If Japanese is one of them then I envy you. I understand bits and pieces here and there but not enough to thoroughly understand every sentence without the subs.

The online store I was talking about earlier is rightstuf. I'm still waiting to get the DVD's and try them out. If there's not too much censoring then I'll deal with them again. But I generally hate the edited versions of anime series. Especially the way funimation does it.....replacing cigarettes with candy bars, deleting all hints of violence, nudity, a good sense of humor, etc.

The DVD's that I got are from ADV films so they should not be as bad as funimation releases, but we'll see how it goes.

[Krafty]

www.discountanimedvd.com DOES SELL BOOTLEGS they are labled "Imports". Don't be fooled, there is a reason you can get an entire 26+ ep series on 3 dvds for $20 or that New series that no on else has yet...

I've dealt with them before and they're pretty bad. Shipping was slow, not because I'm an international customer but because the item was 'out of stock' and communication was atrocious because they didn't relay that info to me.

I have used stores like this to buy 'imports/bootlegs' before because the truth is, the titles are not available any other way. No western companies had picked up the rights to officially release them. In other cases, I've been buying a few older series on DVD that were only previously released on VHS. Western companies won't be touching them because of their age and lack of mass popularity.
I recall buying the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series around 1999. It finally got a US release in 2003 but I wasn't prepared for a 4-year wait and $100 expense to see this anime. In fact, I didn't even know it was going to be released in the west.
For that reason I'm in support of bootlegs.

It's all very well supporting the official labels, I do that as often as I can because of the extras and quality videotransfer/subtitles on the discs, but there are too many downsides.

It's pointless wasting money and shelf space on a multitude of DVDs (a 26-part series can easily run across 8 individually packaged discs) and who is patient enough to wait 5+ years to see a series they've been hankering for? One could also be waiting for something that may never come along...

[Prince Vegeta]

Counting in Krafty's arguments , there are good points from both perspectives.