Forum - View topic

NEWS: Funimation's Fullmetal Alchemist Rights Expire on July 31

Lycosyncer wrote:

Once again, screw you Aniplex for your shameful pricing practices and how you've made yourself inaccessible to casual people who don't want to spend more than $100 on your crappy way of selling your shows and movies.

Saying that Aniplex s being unfair to casual fans is a weak argument to me. True, casual fans will not pay over $100 for a complete show, but I suspect they also have hard times accepting to pay $40 for a complete set from Funimation or Sentai. I believe that casual fans are important for Funimation, but mostly when they acquire titles with wide appeal like Attack on Titan. But for Aniplex casual N.A. anime fans are inconsequential.

The reason why Aniplex USA is still around after 5 years of resentment and flame wars is because enough of the more hardcore anime collectors are willing to pay their prices. Casual fans have never been (and probably never will be) a concern for AoA.

angelmcazares wrote:

Lycosyncer wrote: Once again, screw you Aniplex for your shameful pricing practices and how you've made yourself inaccessible to casual people who don't want to spend more than $100 on your crappy way of selling your shows and movies. Saying that Aniplex s being unfair to casual fans is a weak argument to me. True, casual fans will not pay over $100 for a complete show, but I suspect they also have hard times accepting to pay $40 for a complete set from Funimation or Sentai. I believe that casual fans are important for Funimation, but mostly when they acquire titles with wide appeal like Attack on Titan. But for Aniplex casual N.A. anime fans are inconsequential. The reason why Aniplex USA is still around after 5 years of resentment and flame wars is because enough of the more hardcore anime collectors are willing to pay their prices. Casual fans have never been (and probably never will be) a concern for AoA.

That's pretty much my assessment because there are enough fans willing to pay the prices so AoA continues to sell their shows for those prices. If no one was buying at their prices then they would lower them, but since that is not the case then why would they. It's basic economics 101 and AoA is more than happy to continue business as usual because its working for them

WOW this has been blown way out of proportion, I'm not defending AOA, but given that this is not a new title, I doubt they are going to start throwing out giant $300+ sets, or $60 8 parts out. And even if they do, they will still give out a standard Blu-Ray. I know they did that wit Gurren lagann, but the Blu-Ray set was brand new.

So when shows like Kill la Kill and Sword Art Online are broadcast on Toonami and get a fairly sizable following that would be willing to buy it, like my roommate with KLK, but then can't buy it because the prices are wholly unreasonable we're just supposed to say 'Thank you sir may I have another'?

I'm still not understanding...why can't they renew the rights? Was it always going to be a limited time, despite the extreme popularity of the franchise? What happens to the manga?

ohstalon06 wrote:

So when shows like Kill la Kill and Sword Art Online are broadcast on Toonami and get a fairly sizable following that would be willing to buy it, like my roommate with KLK, but then can't buy it because the prices are wholly unreasonable we're just supposed to say 'Thank you sir may I have another'?

You and your friends CAN buy it, you simply CHOOSE not to pay Aniplex's markup, which is entirely understandable. I'd be slightly more sympathetic if you had no way to watch it at all (why hello CrunchyRoll, do you have Kill la Kill for me? yes you do). Why should I have to pay $60 for Overwatch, when I can play Battleborn for $45? Or Candy Crush for free?

Getting the material directly from Japan (without translation) used to be the ONLY way to get this stuff, and for a few things (like any Macross seres) it STILL is. I don't buy Aniplex's releases because I don't consider it worth the cost, but I don't begrudge them their choices and IF they sold something (at the same price) that I wanted badly enough, I'd buy it because they would be providing me that OPTION. (I'd seriously consider buying GaruPan der Film from Japan IF it came with English subs)

The reason why Aniplex USA is still around after 5 years of resentment and flame wars is because enough of the more hardcore anime collectors are willing to pay their prices. Casual fans have never been (and probably never will be) a concern for AoA.

- There will only be 970 units available and this is exclusive to the UK.
- Our Ultimate Edition set will be a 31cm x 25cm replica of the gate seen in the show. You can see the concept art for this (right)

- Inside the gate there will the entire series, spread over two boxes in a our traditional Collector’s Edition style packaging with the half the series in each.
- Following our traditional Collector’s Edition format, each of the two halves will come packed in a rigid case with a digipack to store the discs and there will also be art cards contained in each. (See images below)

- In addition to those, there will also be a 260-page art book included with the Ultimate Edition that will act as the definitive companion to the series.
- As if that wasn’t enough, pre-ordering this before 1st October will also get you a custom Alchemist certificate, with your name and a special Alchemist name as well.
- Pre-orders for this are avaialble exclusively at AllTheAnime.com and through Zavvi.com
- The SRP for this set is £299.99, but until 5th July you can pre-order this at both sites for only £124.99 (yes you did read that right) and after that date until 1st October it will be £149.99. Any units that have not been pre-ordered will be made available following the release date to other retailers. (The SRP still being £299.99, minus general retailer discounts as deem appropriate.)

However, Netflix still has FMAB up for streaming, so my guess is FMA will be the same way - meaning we can at least still see it legally.