ANN has an article on Bandai Visual’s abrupt licensing of Shigofumi and True Tears. They have planned to begin releasing DVDs from both series in May 2008!!!!!!. The DVDs will be sub-only, and there will be a maximum of two episodes per disc for each series.
That last line, IMHO, is ridiculous. You can’t expect American fans to pay $30 per disc for 2 episodes of a TV series! FYI for you mathematically challenged people, that adds up to $15 a fricking episode. And they’re not even OVAs. Bandai Visual has done this before, however, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
While I guess I can expect a small premium because they’re attempting to release it so fast (2 months after the Japanese release dates) I refuse to spend $210 dollars on a 13- or 14-episode series. When anime fans demanded faster releases, it was assumed that the value of the DVDs would go up, but not to this extent. Perhaps 3 episodes a disc would be acceptable, since there’s the whole time constraint. But certainly not $30 (or even $25!) for two 30-minute freaking episodes.
I was really looking forward to watching Shigofumi subbed and then supporting its release in the US, but now I’m just bummed. Perhaps Bandai Visual will make downloadable episodes available. I’d pay 5 or $6 an episode, ‘ttebayo…
Oh, and while I’m ranting, SOMEONE NEEDS TO LICENSE D.GRAY-MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~CJ
That’s tremendously fast. …And absolutely great, too. Because that’s the best way companies can rival fansubbing. Release DVDs as close as possible to the Japanese ones. That’s probably why it’s sub-only.
The 2-eps-per-disc thing is copying Japan as well. Lucky Star is being released two episodes at a time, and it’s 24 episodes long! That series is making SO much money these past 9 months, and the market is far from exhausted.
However I agree with you about the price. For two eps on a disc and no English dialogue, they can’t make it selling it for $30. In Japan you could, because somehow DVDs over there still cost 5000-7000 yen even with the small amount of content, but Americans don’t really work that way.
I’m expecting a $15 price tag. That way they can make up money in sales volume rather than the per-disc profit.
I don’t even live in North America, so…this changes very little for me.
The U.S. (or R1, for that matter) is not equal to the world.