Forum - View topicHey all you anime fans outside of North America...
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Fixen
Posts: 29 |
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I used to live in Hong Kong, and here's what I can say:
Anime is not that prevalent there, given the limited number of channels and even smaller number of companies that would license it. Manga is much bigger over there, and I loved buying volumes at half the price than that in the US.  ;;
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EVA fiend
 Posts: 314 Location: Somewhere in the UK. |
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I've spent quite a lot of time in Hong Kong as well & I found anime everywhere, including the local 7-11's. Admittedly, I didn't find all that much licensed anime, tonnes of bootlegs though. 
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Kidder
 Posts: 188 Location: Bat country! >.< |
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Yeah there's several places in HK that have loads of anime merchandise shops and lotsa bootleg DVD's. Manga is pretty massive. They also have the Animax channel which is 24/7 anime. I'm actually going to HK for the new years. Visit a few friends and family and eat my weight in fantastic food.
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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In support of the UK market, yeah though it has a long way to go in comparison to the US, or even France, it's a hell of a lot better than it was just 6 years ago when it was virtually non- existant in PAL, or R2. I use to import lots then because there simply was no other choice apart from a few old Manga Ent. titles and a few other old Pioneer, and AnimEigo titles that our MVM had. But more studios and US distributors have just recently opened offices with fresh titles for release here so now I wait for the R2 releases just to support our market and prove to our distributors that it is worth it to get more in.
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EVA fiend
Posts: 314 Location: Somewhere in the UK. |
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I supported the UK market when stuff was coming out on PAL VHS in the early-mid 1990's. I have over 350+ anime VHS tapes, 90% of which are UK releases. Now that anime is on DVD, I no longer support UK releases for several reasons; a). the US R1 catalogue of anime is vast, far bigger than the UK one. Why should I wait years & years for a UK release (if it gets one of course) when the Americans already have it? b). the UK is a rip off when it comes to anime on DVD. Why is it so expensive? I know that anime is still very much a niche market in the UK, but I'm sorry, you can't justify charging £20 for a DVD which may only have 3-4 episodes, especially since most people who are into anime are teenagers or people in their early-to-mid 20's; they don't have that much disposable income. I know I didn't when I was at that age. c). the current £-$ exchange rate means that US DVD's are pretty cheap when compared to UK prices. For the price of two UK DVD's, I can buy a whole boxset in the US. In the past, I did support the UK market, but I won't do it anymore. Blame it on the world market economy, or whatever, but I have a mortgage to pay, so to stretch my finances, I'll continue to import because it's better value for money in the long run. 
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TAKAVAR
 Posts: 138 Location: Canada |
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sorry for the long post, but thought it might be interesting for some.
Iran Mainstream kid's anime is aired, Digimon, pokemon, with a lot of censorship.... also some real old ones, macross, capitan Tsubasa, daddy long legs ... you get the idea. I order my anime ( actually ordered*, since I no longer live in Iran ) via Amazon and other online services, bypassing the damn random internet filters set up by the damn government with a trusted proxy or asking my bro to order from a university internet with no filter ( otherwise your credit card # will be stolen ) . There is only one place that sells anime DVDs that I know of, which is 99% bootleg or fansubs and it is underground (you have to know that the store owner sells anime, otherwise he wont mention it) the number of fansubs that can be downloaded is limited to 1 episode each 30-40 hours (super slow internet speed with multiple disconnects, that’s why they are sometimes sold in DVDs, and its crucial to trade anime DVDs with other fans). OF course this is just anime and J-pop, Hollywood live action movies are everywhere and are sold pretty much like they are sold north America, so stop imagining that I used to live in desert with camels eating people or something … Manga is impossible to find for sale. Unless other anime fans lend it to you or you order it online. (Since the custom office is dumb, they mistake any anime merchandise coming in as toys and cartoons for kids, so they go undetected, yes, they open up the boxes and look inside the thing… if there is nekkid or half nekkid pics, its gonna get busted!) Anime fans are very very rare, mostly are gamers that I have met who really enjoyed anime related PS2 titles. gamer community in Iran is the only place where anime is discussed, hopefully, when PS3 hits Iran, there will be more anime fans. “FF Advent children” was an explosion in Iran. perhaps the only title you can find everywhere and a considerable amount of people have watched it. Iranian visual pop culture is always after Realism, so something as abstract as anime is never greeted with positive attitude. While pixar animation has a fandom of their own, anime is not welcome! Over all: being an anime fan in Iran is HARD .... But there is a sense of community since we all know each other and meet regularly in cybercafés to watch anime or play a round of Warcraft III. |
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Andrez
 Posts: 67 Location: Tokyo |
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I'm in Tokyo.
It's (obviously!!) excellent for anime - but 95% of the DVD releases do not have English subtitle options. Luckily the Studio Ghibli ones do - but Totoro & Lupin III is English for the hearing-impaired... arghhh!! 
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Kidder
Posts: 188 Location: Bat country! >.< |
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lol, you know what they say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Learn Japanese! |
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Andrez
Posts: 67 Location: Tokyo |
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I have, and I am - but never going to be native speaker. Just an observation I thought I'd share!
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vickeyv
Posts: 183 |
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Hi
Well here in Singapore Its awesome the anime see we get Animax, thu its a pay channel and then there are loads of DVD and VCD releases which are baliisticaly quicker than US release and much cheaper. Naruto has already been released upto episode 135 and up i think and these cool bleach DVDS have already shown up i saw the first three or so volumes and i gotta say the covers were awesome. Yeah the DVDs are cheaper like the first three DVDS of monster for like 30 US i think if i get the conversions right. But there is one serious problem, its allllllllllll in Chinese dammit, thu with Japanese with subs i don't know about Animax thu, No English dubbed options. Btw i think i noticed that they use Kareoke styled opening for the Chinese dubs, why can't the US anime screening have Kareoke. |
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Kurashima
 Posts: 45 Location: A place amongst trees |
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I'm From Guatemala (small country south from Mexico)
And the anime situation here's not good. During the last 10 years I've been forced to see reruns of Dragon Ball, Ranma1/2 and Saint Seiya. the only modest anime source used to be the American CN and WB, but they took'm from us because all the international media brodcasting issues 'n stuff. A year ago a latin american network created their own anime chanel and I was so excited, just as so many fellow otakus that we'd finally see anime in our tv's instead fo beggin to our rich friends to let us see their dvd collection. But it didn't last long since regular cable networks aren't suscribed to it and average people can't aford satelite tv. However, not all is lost. Latin American CN is kinda catchin up with some licenses like Samurai Champloo, Rouroni Kenshin, Love Hina, One Piece and Trigun. The bad part is that I had to endure 3 times Cinderella boy (trust me, after the 2nd time it got dull). At least it's better than nothin'. |
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Chikara Guchi
Posts: 7 |
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What I really hate here is that most people mistake anime for cartoons.
Sure there are a lot of anime fans here (specially in Metro Manila), but why do I see Pokemon and Shaman king being broadcasted in cartoon network? And why is power rangers broadcasted in Hero TV, which was suppose to be an anime network? The translation is often quite accurate, though. But in the case of YYH, it was virtually butchered! I mean, what does "The White Book" have to do with "Ghost Fighter?" But there is something that I do love in Philippine anime brodcasting, and that is the voice actors. The voice actors here are so versatile! Rowena Raganit and Jefferson Utanes are some of the most versatile.  Rowena has voiced a very wide range of characters from Koenma (YYH) to Edward Elric (FMA) while Jefferson voiced both Li Shaoran (CCS) and Son Goku (DBZ and DBGT)
The situation here isn't perfect but the broadcasters try their best. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Hey Chikara, if you haven't mentioned the name "Manila" in your post, nobody would know where did you come from.
Here in Taiwan we have one dedicated anime channel (Animax Taiwan), four channels mostly anime and cartoon tailored for younger children (CN, Disney, Momo TV, and YoYo TV), and about ten other channels that would air anime on specific time slots (mostly "before dinner time" afternoon slots for children back from school) or on weekends and holidays. Yes, CN and Disney in Taiwan air anime as well, because they are more popular than your typical American superhero cartoons; the cultural background is of course more similar to Japanese rather than American. Disney even have them (Azuki-chan in particular) bi-lingual using MTS dual audio selectable with any MTS-compatible TV set -- something I don't understand why American channel providers can't do. As for the general anime ecology here in Taiwan... well, I could write a short thesis for it. In short we have about 15 anime licensors, about 8 of them are actively licensing new titles, plus 6 large manga / light novel licensors (two of them, Kadokawa and Tohan, are daughter companies of their respective Japanese publishers) and a few smaller ones. The biggest complaint, however, is outlawing all types of adult animation, including those titles with "Mature" ratings in US, for we don't have any rating between "Guided" (12+, roughly equivalent to "PG-13") to "Restricted" (18+, adult only), thus titles like Elfen Lied can never be licensed. Good thing we don't have problems with adult manga, but titles like Battle Royale have been criticized way too often (especially the scene spoiler[where a father and a daughter were having incest sex]) by soccer moms, annoyed the licensor so much and they said "We are out of the game. No more adult titles from us."
Just for the record: Azuki-chan has been rerun over and over on different channels in Taiwan for about TEN TIMES. |
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SoljaFeJah
Posts: 29 |
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here in the bahamas anime is all that big the only anime we get is the one on tv like Adult Swim and DLing it and comming to US to buy dvds lol yes sad its not the best place to live for anime fans
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daxomni
 Posts: 2650 Location: Somewhere else. |
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Thanks to everyone for your comments; they are truly appreciated. I'm currently escaping a bitter cold front at home while on holiday in sunny and tropical Thailand and I actually came across some anime on TV this morning but I have no idea what show it was. So far I haven't seen much anime at the sidewalk pirate displays but I'll take a closer look next time and maybe step into a Thai Blockbuster store to see what they have. In the US anime is becoming so common that you can even pick it up in SFO while you wait for your international flight to begin boarding. How cool is that? I'll have to see what kind of anime NRT has available on my way back.
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