Thoughts on Anime Blu-ray and possibly 3D

[Yakumo]

I don't agree on the extras point. The whole reason to buy a bluray or DVD in my opinion is for the extras. There are plenty and cheaper legit ways to watch a movie without buying it. I only buy stuff I really like and since I really like something then I'd like to see a little behind the scenes footage. I love that stuff. The point I'm making with the BBG discs is that they are very expensive but contain nothing extra at all when the DVD release is half the price and is jam packed with extras. The bluRay does have a vastly improved picture that's for sure but still it's a gery expensive price for the bear bones set. That's Japan for you. All media here is highly priced and it has nothing to do with video on demand or rentals. It's all down to goverment bull shit as one member who posted here pointed out once when his company tried to release a DVD cheaper than the standard rate. HCK I think was his name.

[7Force]

Too bad most making of documentaries seem to be more like infomercials for the movies.

[spot778]

Totally agree with Yakumo about extras, that's 99.9% of the reason I buy movies.

To answer why extras don't carry over, it can be a lot of things. Mainly the title changes hands to a new distributor or licencee, any extras on previous discs were paid for by the original licence and rarely does a company purchase these rights on top on the DVD/Blu-ray rights. Case in point is all the laser discs and extra content, sometimes it transfers over but mostly it doesn't.

Sometimes they just screw you and make you double dip, how many times can you buy Star Wars etc.. but mostly it's a cost thing.

[GodofHardcore]

Best Extras on a Blu ray ever...

Casablanca

No shit there's alot of really intersting informative extras on the Blu Ray

[7Force]

My vote would go to the Alien Anthology with two whole discs full of extras. With movies that are a little older you typically get some worthwhile discussion on the making of the movies and maybe some analysis on their meaning and influence, instead of the "Oh my god, the work the CG guys did is SO GENIUS!" self-fellating bullshit included with new movies. For example, the Alien Anthology has a good documentary on the disastrous production of Alien 3.
If we're including DVDs then all the old Doctor Who serials also have great extras.

[derekb]

As anyone seen the Bubblegum Crisis BluRay discs? I have the DVD set and DVD set of Bubblegum Crash as well. The DVDs look OK but I don't want to pay a load of cash for the BluRays if they're the same as the DVDs without any clean up.

Yakumo

I downloaded the HD bluray rips and thought they looked better than the dvd set. The Tenchi Muyo blurays look really nice

[Lum]

This whole movies looking like video games crap needs to go. When I want to play Gears of War I'll do that. And I don't even like Western game design.

[GodofHardcore]

RAGE

Funimation for some reason likes to make their subtitles WHITE. I Got Ouran High School Host club on Blu Ray (unaware it's a 4:3 show) It looks great though BUUUUUUUUUT
THE SUBTITLES ARE WHITE AND THE SHOW IS SATURATED IN WHITE.

So the subtitles are VERY hard to read.

I hope this ADV funimation lawsuit shuts them down so the anime licenseors left can pick titles back up and give them readable subtitles

[Shou]

What makes it worse is that the BluRays should cost 21'000 yen with tax included. That's a lot of money. You could buy 3 brand new PS3 or 360 games for that much money.

Yah but who pays retail?

As a big fan of the original BGC, I got it around release for 13,000 new. Amazon.jp frequently discounts these releases by around 20-35%. We all know movies cost too much in Japan and that even the consumers these days are complaining about it.

[Shou]

Really? Looks like Amazon don't care because I order 90% of my BluRays in US format from Amazon.com I must have had about 20 or so discs by now with a few more on the way. Or is it only anime that is effected?

It's only with certain newer anime shows. Other releases aren't impacted (I'm ordering those all of the time).

[Yakumo]

We all know movies cost too much in Japan and that even the consumers these days are complaining about it.

And so they should. Prices of BluRays aren't as bad as DVDs when they first came out or Video before that but they are still way too much. Same with any "soft" in this country though. The RRP for music CDs and games is also stupidly high. Thank God for the likes of Amazon.