Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is Anime Still Region Locked?
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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...to support and justify piracy. In this day and age, even on streaming sites, we have nonsense like "Not Available in Your Region".
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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And broadly speaking, it's because of capitalism. Nonsense like region-locking is one of the zillions of side-effects of requiring people to rip each other off to survive. Life's too short to spend time putting arbitrary restrictions on entertainment, making other people spend time coming up with workarounds, but they don't really have a choice in the matter. This is pretty far down the list of important issues caused by profit-motive, partly because working around it is relatively trivial. But anything in that category is definitely worth complaining about. |
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Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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I also have a region-free player but, oddly enough, not primarily for anime. I mostly need it for my wife's DVD Region 4 and 6 Asian releases, and my Blu Region B European live-action (and it converts PAL too, rather nicely). I have to hit a button to direct to a Blu Region, but it senses DVD regions automatically. However, I do have a few foreign-release anime: Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions (both seasons) - Region B Blu, UK Roujin Z - Region B Blu, UK Interstella 5555 - Region B Blu, Germany El-Hazard (original OVA!) - Region A Blu, Japan (for some reason, it has the old Pioneer English dub!) As for speed of shipping, Amazon Japan is consistently faster than Amazon UK, often by several days. Go figure. |
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Ouran High School Dropout
Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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Correct me if I'm wrong--wasn't another weapon to dissuade reverse importation was by forcing foreign (non-Japanese) Blu-rays to always show subtitles whenever Japanese audio was selected? So when Japanese viewers watch a US anime Blu, they have the annoyance of English subtitles on screen, like it or not.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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This highlights a BIG difference between the Japanese and American markets. 20 years ago, the target market for anime in both the US and Japan was the SAME (ie. hardcore "collector" fans). This is why many fans in the 80s & 90s didn't have issue paying HUNDREDS for anime laserdiscs. But in the mid 90s, anime companies in their infinite wisdom decided to shift their "core" market to the casual consumer. (for fans of dubs, this is why we got dubs in the first place, since most of the existing fanbase thought those early dubs were terrible) With the rate of change in media, "casual" consumption of anime discs was never going to last (altho its fair to say that "streaming" could not have been predicted at the time). I don't know what the actual percentage is, but the number of viewers that actually want to buy/own physical copies of a given show that they watch is just a fraction of the viewership of the show. That's true for not just anime but all media. The target NOW for discs should be the hardcore collector, because that's the majority of people buying it ANYWAY. For that reason, Aniplex's model is the correct one, but American companies are going to have a hard time selling it due to chasing a different market for over a decade. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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It becomes clear from this article that moral arguments against piracy—specifically the piracy of content that has been released on Blu-ray in regions outside of one's own—will be of little weight for as long as current business practices remain as they are. And indeed, this appears to be indefinite.
If a viewer is incapable of legally consuming a product, even if it they can afford it, then the grounds to accuse them of committing moral harm by pirating it are somewhat trifling. This is to say, the act of torrenting a Blu-ray rip that is unavailable in their region would be morally harmless, assuming no other means are available. One could, of course, utilise this caveat to implore them to buy a multi-zone player, though the cost of it wouldn't make such an appeal the easiest of tasks. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1755 |
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The US market was mostly non-existant in the 1980s-mid 1990s, so Japan wasn't factoring in US collectors at that time. No, Americans bought the laserdiscs for a couple reasons, perhaps most importantly because, unless you knew someone in Japan who could regularly send VHS tapes, it was the only way to buy new anime. Many of these same laserdisc owners would also have equipment where they could burn VHS copies of the laserdisc material. There used to be a time where you could send $10 off to a fan distributor and receive a VHS tape full of whatever anime they had. So, people importing laserdiscs were able to recover costs in this manner. |
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Actar
Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Here's a question that maybe some of you guys can help me answer. Why is it that US anime fans aren't willing to shell out big bucks for anime discs while Japanese fans are?
Is it: - Lower wages than in Japan. - The prices of disc media, in general, is lower in the US when compared to Japan. - The audience is far more mainstream and less likely to spend more money on discs. - The very first anime discs were cheap, so people got used to it. Being not from America and having to import all of my disc media anyway, I usually just buy directly from Japan. With streaming and digital media being my (and many other's) source of anime nowadays, I actually don't see an issue with looking at BDs along the same lines as collector's items for pre-existing fans of the show akin to figures. In fact, I think that's one of the ways in which disc media has to position itself in order to survive the onslaught of new forms of media consumption. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Because they don't have to, while Japanese fans don't have much choice - & physical media is more expensive in Japan anyway so the price discrepancy doesn't seem quite as bad. Besides, as "collectors" items go, anime discs are a pretty poor offering compared to other media - unless you're in Japan & like being entered into lotteries for handshake events, I suppose. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Americans bought Japanese media "back in the day" because frankly it was the ONLY option. (that's why I bought several Japanese LDs (including boxsets) despite (at the time) not knowing a lick of the language. The original US market (LATE 80s, early/mid 90s) sold anime for around $40 for 2-3 episodes (or in a few cases, 1 episode). Heck, people not only paid "import" prices for Japanese media and toys, they ALSO spent hundreds of dollars to travel across the country to do it. (since there were less than 10 total anime conventions for years) Japanese consumers buy Japanese discs for the same reason, which is why THAT market fears reverse-importation. Because that means they WOULD have another option. 99% of consumers are not buying product to "support" the producer, they're buying what they want for the lowest price they can find. That's why Walmart & Amazon have built such large customer bases. In the grand scheme, if you think about it, there was a VERY narrow window where "mass market" BUYING of video was a thing. Blockbuster built itself into a MAJOR chain because for a time RENTAL was the way to go, because media was expensive TO BUY. Hollywood then made a run at the home market by pricing their material pretty cheap to encourage mass buying. And now that streaming means you can release media with $0 "fabrication" cost, the "race to the bottom" on price makes purchasing media all but an anachronism. Which is where we are now, the people that want to BUY media are again a pretty "niche" market. Does it happen? Sure, but how many people really wanna sit on 100s of coasters? How many parents are gonna keep buying discs for their kids to watch when they can just stream the content for cheaper, especially since most kids are gonna get bored of it quickly. In the last 30 years we've basically burned through at LEAST 3 different video formats. If you count VHS & laserdisc as one format, that realm is basically obsolete and you can't even buy equipment for them unless you're an afficionado. DVD is also obsolete, but only still truly viable because BD is backwards compatible. How long before major media companies try to dump that format to encourage the collectors to buy the SAME material AGAIN? |
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Hardgear
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If I like something, I go out of my way to give the creators money. But if they throw up too many roadblocks....
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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A region-free DVD/BD player will pay for itself if you're a fan of a lot of Aniplex titles (Kill la Kill, Madoka, Monogatari, Garden of Sinners...) with cheaper UK/Australia releases.
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Gatherum
 Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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If you're like me, have the disk space, prefer ripping, and don't give a toss about the legality surrounding the breaking of copy protections, the go-to options are going to be software like AnyDVD HD, DVDFab, and/or MakeMKV. This can be an investment, but might be cheaper than buying a region-free player.
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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Taking a step back, if there is anyone out there who doesn't know how to set up an amazon.jp account to order things, this is a really good tutorial:
http://cdn.halcyonrealms.com/japan/how-to-order-from-amazon-japan-a-detailed-buying-guide/ |
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Gatherum
Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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Isn't it basically: 1. Set up identically-named account. 2. Order Prime-eligible stuff. ...? |
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