[Jest]

Where are these amazing Anime dvd deals that are talked about in this thread? I'm in America, lived in Los Angeles for a number of years and now I'm in Texas and I've never seen Anime available for 20 bucks a dvd. Everything I've seen has always been @ least $30 per dvd (unless there's some sort of sale) and Box sets running @ $70-$80.

You can rattle of price listings here or there or online prices but that really doesn't matter to the average anime fan like me. I don't spend my time researching all kinds of anime. I enjoy watching good series' but don't dedicate myself to anime anymore than as a casual hobby. For me, spending $30 per dvd (4 eps per dvd) for a 24 episode series ($180) is ridiculous. Even @ $20 per dvd ($120) is far too much for a series. Especially when I can buy a "live" series for much less (ex. Heroes Season 1 was $49.99 for 23 45 min. long episodes, and even that was pricey imo). It gets even worse for longer series like Rorouni Kenshin, Inuyasha, Naruto, etc... I purchased the entire Kenshin series including movies and it cost me over $200 when all was said and done. To someone like me who only "dabbles" in the hobby that's a LOT of cash thrown down. I'd much rather torrent or even pay a $5 a month subscription fee to a site that offers direct d/l and unlimited access. It just makes more sense.

I do understand the point of supporting the industry itself by purchasing anime through legal outlets but it's just not something that I care enough about to sacrifice on MY end.

The "itunes" idea is actually great. If the Japanese companies would cut out the middle man and offer a unified service something along the lines of Napster or Limewire or Itunes (duh) with their own Subs, make it subscription based and they could cut production costs and improve profits. High Quality video would be relatively easy to get to those that want it with little effort. They wouldn't have to worry about series not selling through prints (making 259k dvds and only selling 100k, losing money on the wasted copies) and consumers wouldn't have to worry about their series being "sold out."


I dunno...I'm not exactly an expert with this kind of stuff...it just seems like that would make more sense to me.