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Haibane Renmei - Is this bootleg?


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Ken Hayashi



Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:18 pm Reply with quote
My copy of Haibane Renmei:





It's all written in Japanese, so I can't tell where it's from or who made/produced the DVDs. I suspect it's from Japan, and it carried a RRP of 12,800 yen which is like $180 in my currency. Obviously I paid a lot less than that, about $60 (thank you, Mr. Secret Source of Anime). But even if they were gonna sell it for $180, I would have bought it too anyway.

BTW, the ALL IMPORTANT sticker from the Singapore Board of Film Censors. That means this anime can legally be sold in Singapore because our dearest government has reviewed the contents and found it to be socially acceptable; and that our government has not be slammed, slandered, cursed at, made fun of, ridiculed in any way in the anime. Or maybe it's just because there's no porno in it, but I'm just guessing. Here, look at the sticker:



Here's one from Ai Yori Aoshi:



No joke I tell you. They're serious about this. I don't know how they issue the serial numbers. It could be a different number for each individual sticker, or for each individual title/film/movie/whatever. I really don't know. But I do suspect that the "B" that preceeds the number means that the title is rated "Parental Guidance".
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Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:25 pm Reply with quote
Yup it's a boot. You can tell since the subs are English and Chinese, not to mention that they spelled Renmei wrong on the box (they spelled it Renmai). I fail to see how a sticker is supposed to help things though, they can be easily counterfited.

And then there's the whole boxset thing.. in Japan you can only buy HR as 5 sep DVDs (Link)
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Ken Hayashi



Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Well, the government here don't care about bootlegs.
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Yup it's a boot. You can tell since the subs are English and Chinese, not to mention that they spelled Renmei wrong on the box (they spelled it Renmai). I fail to see how a sticker is supposed to help things though, they can be easily counterfited.


Actually, it's dangerous to counterfiet government stickers. They may not care if you sell boots, but boot their approval stickers and they'll smack you, hard.

All the bootleggers did was copy the Japanese packaging and change a few things
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Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:36 pm Reply with quote
Sword of Whedon wrote:

All the bootleggers did was copy the Japanese packaging and change a few things


If they can find you. If there was a sticker on there then 1. it was either copied or 2. The government gave stickers to a boot operation.
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Ken Hayashi



Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 12:43 pm Reply with quote
Kazuki-san wrote:
If they can find you. If there was a sticker on there then 1. it was either copied or 2. The government gave stickers to a boot operation.


And the answer is .......

2

Yup, the government doesn't care about bootlegs. And since the company that made the DVDs is not based in Singapore, they don't give a shit. Some importer brings in the discs and submits a sample of each to the board of film censors for clearance. If they deem it watchable (no questionable content, no porn, etc) they issue it a sticker. That's the procedure.

And since the only local company I know of that markets licensed anime in Singapore does not carry this title, they are not taking any legal action against any retailer that sells the bootlegs. Well, they can't anyway.
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Nani?



Joined: 20 Jul 2003
Posts: 632
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 1:02 pm Reply with quote
Is it a bootleg, I'm not sure, probably. I could read some of the Japanese packaging (company names, my Japanese is not very good) to make me wonder.
My general unfamilarity with East Asian companies makes me wonder. What is the company logo, if any.

All the best,

Nani?
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Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 1:08 pm Reply with quote
Nani? wrote:
Is it a bootleg, I'm not sure, probably. I could


Well like I said the subs are English and Chinese (one the best signs of a boot) There is no Japanese release with all 13 eps, you have to buy them as 5 sep DVDs, and they do not have subtitles. And the fact that they mispelled Renmei pretty much clinches it. I bet it's region free as well.
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 2460
Location: Do not contact me for support.
PostPosted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 7:09 pm Reply with quote
A scan of any company logos would be better in identifying whether it's a bootleg or not.. the information there refers to Pioneer LDC, and has the standard disclaimer ("Don't view this in a dark room", etc), but there's a lack of any company logos, so it's hard to tell who actually supposedly made the disc.
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rainking187



Joined: 24 Feb 2004
Posts: 35
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:41 am Reply with quote
Yeah it looks like a boot to me, though if your country doesn't care about bootlegs then I suppose it could be considered the official release in your country. But I must say 12,800 Yen is an outrageous price for a bootleg.
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frostedsaiyan



Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 637
Location: Maryland
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:48 am Reply with quote
rainking187 wrote:
Yeah it looks like a boot to me, though if your country doesn't care about bootlegs then I suppose it could be considered the official release in your country. But I must say 12,800 Yen is an outrageous price for a bootleg.


Usually in other countries certain items are more expensive. I remember seeing a Japanese site selling the Gundam Seed dvds for $60.00 a piece.
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rainking187



Joined: 24 Feb 2004
Posts: 35
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:52 am Reply with quote
[quote="frostedsaiyan"][quote="rainking187"]Yeah it looks like a boot to me, though if your country doesn't care about bootlegs then I suppose it could be considered the official release in your country. But I must say 12,800 Yen is an outrageous price for a bootleg.[/quote]

Usually in other countries certain items are more expensive. I remember seeing a Japanese site selling the Gundam Seed dvds for $60.00 a piece.[/quote]

If those are the official R2 DVDs, then that's the correct price. But $130 for a bootleg? I don't know Ken Hayashi's country's policy on importing, but my advice is to buy them off eBay for like $20 a pop.
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Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 2:11 am Reply with quote
frostedsaiyan wrote:

Usually in other countries certain items are more expensive. I remember seeing a Japanese site selling the Gundam Seed dvds for $60.00 a piece.


Yeah, that's for the official import of the R2 release though. That's usually the price for one ep, but GS couldn't do that since it's such a long series.All of the R2 dvds had 4 eps on them except for the last which had 2 (13 discs in all). Anyway back to HR. Some places like to tout their boots as "imports" and so try to charge a higher price. Certainly in a country where there aren't many anime sources, they can probably get away with it. When boots first started making it here several years ago, a few stores I dropped into were trying to sell HK boots for about $60-$65 a pop. When that didn't work all of the prices dropped so that now you can pick up an entire boot series for around the same price as one legal disc.
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Ken Hayashi



Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 11:58 am Reply with quote
rainking187 wrote:
Yeah it looks like a boot to me, though if your country doesn't care about bootlegs then I suppose it could be considered the official release in your country. But I must say 12,800 Yen is an outrageous price for a bootleg.


It is the ONLY release. And I can't buy it off Ebay or other. Because they will be intercepted by the postal service and forwarded to the board of film censors and I will most likely just receive a warning letter and a notice that the DVDs have been confiscated and destroyed. The only other choice is to smuggle the official releases into Singapore from wherever they're sold. I don't have any friends visiting Japan, the US or other in the next few months so they can't buy the stuff and bring it in for me. Myself, I'm probably going to Oz again in November but there's no guarantee that I'll find HR for sale there.
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Kazuki-san



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 2251
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 5:01 pm Reply with quote
Ken Hayashi wrote:
And I can't buy it off Ebay or other. Because they will be intercepted by the postal service and forwarded to the board of film censors and I will most likely just receive a warning letter and a notice that the DVDs have been confiscated and destroyed.


One question, if HR is "approved" by the board of film censors, why would they confiscate an import of it?
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