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Bigger/more is always better. In the future (AKA lame-o business-speak's "going forward") we'll see porn featuring individuals with 5 24" penises penetrating multiple females that have car airbag-sized funbags.

Hurray for hentai!

I was going to post this earlier, but couldn't find anywhere to confirm it. According to Anime On DVD (sorry, this is their news archive page), Consumer Electronics Digest have polled various studios, and the four studios above (Sony, Disney, Fox, Paramount) have all stated that they "have no intention of using the ICT flag on their releases.". The Sony executive is quoted as saying "(t)he perception...that we're withholding something from consumers, and we're sensitive to that fact." The Fox executive is quoted "Fox is always in favor of options for intellectual property rights holders, though it has no intention of employing the ICT. The security afforded by AACS enhanced with BD+ is the best of all possible solutions for content protection as we enter the Blu-ray era."

If someone's got access to Consumer Electronics Digest and can confirm this, that would be great...

Though at this point there is still no hope for all those older titles with the stupidly high price points.

Ah, so you're no stranger to sarcasm.

and cite a few more "exceptions". i can always use the list to find the better picks out there.

Perfect Blue is simply an adorable anime. Look at her! Isn't she just so cute with blood splattered all over her?

It's also so wonderfully lighthearted how in Akira the main character's girlfriend first gets beat up by a bunch of thugs and then later gets crushed to death by the main character.

Oh, yeah, and Ninja Scroll was sooooooooooo cute - especially the tentacle rape scene!

Finally, there's Barefoot Gen in which the most darling thing happens to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

For other really cute and fuzzy anime, try Blue Gender, The Wings of Honneamise, Iria, Appleseed, Witch Hunter Robin, Patlabor, Macross Plus, MD Geist, Ghost in the Shell, and Lain.

Sheesh, even Star Blazers showed people getting shot in the back, multiple suicides, and main characters dying.

Seriously, though, one thing that could help you pick something more to your liking would be the reviews at Anime on DVD.

Ah, so you're no stranger to sarcasm.

and cite a few more "exceptions". i can always use the list to find the better picks out there.

Perfect Blue is simply an adorable anime. Look at her! Isn't she just so cute with blood splattered all over her?

It's also so wonderfully lighthearted how in Akira the main character's girlfriend first gets beat up by a bunch of thugs and then later gets crushed to death by the main character.

Oh, yeah, and Ninja Scroll was sooooooooooo cute - especially the tentacle rape scene!

Finally, there's Barefoot Gen in which the most darling thing happens to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

For other really cute and fuzzy anime, try Blue Gender, The Wings of Honneamise, Iria, Appleseed, Witch Hunter Robin, Patlabor, Macross Plus, MD Geist, Ghost in the Shell, and Lain.

Sheesh, even Star Blazers showed people getting shot in the back, multiple suicides, and main characters dying.

Seriously, though, one thing that could help you pick something more to your liking would be the reviews at Anime on DVD.

20 years ago that was true. 5 years ago that was arguably true. The reality now is that a hojillion kids are watching Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon on TV, their parents are buying up the toys and dvds like mad, and if all the fansubbers had a heart attack and died, there'd still be a hojillion kids watching anime on tv. At this point, the market generates itself. When Cartoon Network wanted to show its kids more Big O, what did it do? It paid to have Big O 2 made, since otherwise it would not have materialized. No amount of fansubs will ever match that. No Japanese executive is ever going to look at a torrent site and say "Wow! 50 thousand leeches for Naruto! We better make another season!"

Now here is where fate diverges. In one path, the dominant force for money becomes American TV. Companies churn out Naruto 2, Naruto 3, Naruto 4... because 4kids or cartoon network tell them to, and then throw bags of money at them for it. When the only money left in the market is the millions of dollars spent on kiddie show franchises, what shows will you be watching? If you say fansubs, what studio will be producing anything but said kiddie shows for American TV audiences?

In the other future, kiddie shows will continue to be made, but there will still be money in the market. Fansubbing returns to what it was 20 years ago: a way for people to discover niche gems, rather than today's dickwaving contest where people compete for popularity and compare how "badass" they are to how anime companies in the US were 5 years ago. (Aside: if you think anime companies are "sitting on licenses" for "five fucking years", Girls Bravo was announced February 11, Released June 14th. Just over 4 months. DearS clocks in just under 6 months. Doki Doki School Hours, a week or two over. No, this is not a new trend. Hit "D" and see that Dokkoida?! took just over 4 months in 2004.) Good titles that have appeal not easily quantified in "number of toys sold" or "number of cardgames bought", will continue to be produced, licensed by the likes of ADV, Geneon, Bandai, and so on, and will continue to be bought, if not by the hundreds of thousands of moms trying to quell their screaming brats, by thousands of the rest of us looking for quality entertainment. And then the fansubs. The fansubs will still be there, people will subtitle older classics that just don't have the bright colors and sparkle that new series do. Like Violinist of Hameln. Or they'll subtitle newer niche shows whose niche is so tiny as to be commercially unviable. Like Kokoro Toshokan.

I know which future I want to be in.

We CANNOT accept that it takes them FIVE FUCKING YEARS before they're ready to release a single DVD with only two episodes on it.

Feel free to quit talking out your ass anytime you want. Scroll down to Girls Bravo, and soak in that 4 month, 3 day release period.

Your VCR called, they want you back in 1996.

Biting the offtopic AC hook, because work is boring.

It really depends on what kind of experience you're looking for---relatively few (sane) people are into anime because it's anime; more are into particular genres that happen to be more commonly produced in animation, or into Japanese or Asian mass-media in general, of which anime's the easiest to obtain in the US.

That said, with a few assumptions about genres you might like given that you're posting on Slashdot, here's a somewhat recentish list.

If you're looking for something like the cartoons of your youth, but with a bit more depth and darkness: Go for Full Metal Alchemist, currently running on TV in the US.

Running immediately after that is the cyberpunk cop show Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's significantly less action-oriented than the movie it's a sequel to.

If you're looking for a war miniseries with sci-fi elements, try Gundam 08th MS Team. Gundam is an overhanging series name comparable in runtime and quality variance to Star Trek; while you may've caught various incarnations on TV that tried to be a gallery of prettyboys, a kung-fu movie, or a rehash of the original, 08th MS Team can be best summed up as "'Nam with Huge Robots".

On a similar basis, but with a heavier focus on the political end of things, Zeta Gundam is a good suggestion, but it's a heavy investment at $150 or more for the whole 2-season TV series at once. A film trilogy is currently being produced in Japan, but it's incomplete, with no US release date set, and will have a variety of story changes to make it "less depressing".

Record of Lodoss War is a classic high fantasy show---to give some idea of the style, it's based on a series of novels based on the author's D&D campaign. There are two different iterations; the one to go for, in my opinion, is the two-disc direct-to-video version, rather than the 4-disc TV version. ... And there's quite a bit more out there, but those are the apparent best bets genre-wise. Beyond that, the only real advice I can give is a pointer to a good review site, and the buying advice that, if you're getting an extremely good deal from an online store or auction, it's 99% likely that the product in question is bootleg and you'd be better off just bittorrenting it.
(Without even going into the moral issues of copying or of paying a third party to copy for you, the video and translation qualities typically suck donkey balls.) /puts on his "I spent 15 minutes typing and all I got was -1, Offtopic" shirt

umm Rahxephon is already released in US.
Rahxephon ADV Films Announced: 7/05/2002 Released: 03/25/2003

Courtesy of http://www.animeondvd.com/licenselist/

Gankutsuou is a new series (about halfway through its first and only season) with high ratings. It WILL be licensed. It's a retelling of the Count of the Monte Cristo.. certainly not niche there.

Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien has received a lot of awards among the non-Japanese anime community. Guess what, licensers look at the popularity of fansubs, and it will be picked up. Check out anidb if you don't believe me about its popularity, probably biggest interactive DB on net for anime (~20000 EP's). 8.57 (1324 votes) for Kimi, for comparison Cowboy Bebop (an extremely popular series released in US and on TV) is 8.73 (1922 votes)

Two more site-plugs while I'm at it
Kyle's edit list
AnimeNewsNetwork Anime Encyclopedia

How do you think the American public knows of these anime?

A little thing called the internets. You might have heard of it.

Oh, and let me shoot that one back at you: "How do you think the American public knows of these fansubs?" People who know they like anime can go searching for fansubs. People who might like anime, but haven't heard of it, won't learn of it from fansubs... they won't stumble onto a distribution place unless a friend points it out to them- and in that case, the friend could just as easily lend a (legal) DVD.

(Or, you could argue that a person randomly downloading from Kazaa might stumble on anime that way. But in that case, it could just as well be a DVD rip with subtitles, and not a fansub job)

For now I will stop shooting holes in your story.

You haven't contradicted me at all, yet. I already stipulated that, starting in the 1980s, fansubbers nourished the audience for anime in the USA. But that was a long time ago- even if fansubbers were a jumpstart to international anime viewership, the commercial engine is running on its own by now. US fans can see the same promotional materials the Japanese viewers do.

Well, there'll hopefully be éX-Drivers to deal with that.

Region 1 DVD Release: Dec 28, 2004. Source: Main page of AnimeOnDVD. It was announced a couple of days ago. Though I do agree that there has been no Australian release date set.

However, you will still need to use a digitizer card when ripping. Just plug in the S-video to your digitizer card, and the digital audio output into your sound card, and rip away.

We've learned that the release will definitely be anamorphic, both language tracks will be in 5.1 and Bandai does have the Tachikomatic Days Animated Shorts. We should know later this week what the final US release date is as well.

Check out Anime On DVD for any update. The forum is a friendly place to pick up info too.

We've learned that the release will definitely be anamorphic, both language tracks will be in 5.1 and Bandai does have the Tachikomatic Days Animated Shorts. We should know later this week what the final US release date is as well.

Check out Anime On DVD for any update. The forum is a friendly place to pick up info too.

Shirow is only behind the manga.

And quite a bit behind the TV series, which is quite a bit closer to his manga and coming to the US and the UK this summer (end of June, actually)...

Website (no info yet)
AoD news archive (searching for "Shell" in this page should do the trick)

np: The Orb - Valley (Orbvs Terrarvm)

It's happened to the best of us....just learn from your mistakes and do your research next time. Anime on DVD's "R2 and beyond" forum is a good place to start. There are also "safe" retailers like Yesasia

Been there, done that. The possibility of mecha-elderly gone awry is a scary thing.

Well it may be tagged as "Funny" but I can certainly answer these questions. I am the owner of the server that hosts Anime Digital.

The server is a Lotus Domino V6.01 running on a Windows 2000 server. The main anime.org.uk application is a Domino Database. We sub-host to a variety of UK organisations and clubs for free.

Joe has done some sterling work in getting this FAQ updated. Since I keep the logs I can tell that quite a few respectable companies have perused it.

Joe has twice attempted to slashdot my server now. And this time he tried it even further by posting on animeondvd and on Anime News Network.

I guess he's going to have to pay at the next London Anime Club meeting.

David "Dragon" Cotterill
President: London Anime Club

At least, in my opinion. Miyazaki has done many, many films, and Spirited Away was actually one of my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I still loved it, but anyone who liked Spirited Away really needs to see:

* Laputa - Castle in the Sky (Possibly the best anime ever)
* Girl From the Valley of the Wind
* Princess Mononoke
* Kiki's Delivery Service
* Porco Rosso (this one's just weird, but very good)
* My Neighbor Totoro

He's done plenty of others, but those are the best, IMHO.

I'd suggest getting the whole "Studio Ghibli Collection" from Anime on DVD.

Just my two cents...

It is one thing to give the Disney spin to something that is as fun to read as Treasure Island" (even if they give it a poor treatment). I have a problem with the fact that they will probably turn around and try to sell the fact that they put so much technical merit into the film that they should recieve some kind of recognition. That is just wrong. (Recognition they will then use as, "Print Spin" on their DVD marketing.) This is why we are behind the TIMES!!! I cannot wait until they give Beyond Good and EviltheDisney spin.

If you fondly remember Cliffhanger, you might enjoy the movie: The Castle of Cagliostro.

i have the region 2 (japanese) of spirited away--but it's still shrink-wrapped, so i can't give a first-person account :P nevertheless, here are plenty of firsthand accounts of the red tint.

on the same forum there is another thread reporting that the publisher of the korean release (dec 7) has announced that it will not have the red tint--although i'm not sure how that's been arranged. this seems to be a pretty severe acknowledgement of the red tint problem if the report is true.

The State of Anime Fandom in Japan

Regarding some of the general comments people are making, they seem a bit extreme on both ends, which I guess is to be expected.....both the people saying "anime sucks, it's all porn" and the people who say that "anime rules, it's the only thing that has real plot and characterization and isn't tainted by commercialization like American stuff is" are both equally ridiculous statements. Anime in fact isn't all porn, and like any other medium it has had its share of good stuff as well as a lot of bad shows. And of course, the notion some extreme anime fans have that anime is good because it isn't commercialized is ridiculous, as anime is heavily commercialized, and many shows are made solely based on how well they will sell, which is why you often see a lot of recycled plots, character designs and story concepts.

Just in general, anime is way too broad for I think many of the comments being made here to be very relevant....it has its share of crap and its share of brilliant work. I could say the same thing about movies, television, books, comic books, etc.......take almost any of the comments being made in this thread and replace "anime" with "movies", "television", "books", "comic books" etc. and perhaps this will give you a better indication of how ridiculous some of the statements are.

Anime is not all stale and recycled plots, and it is not all the same big eye style of animation......a few shows that wouldn't fit this mold would include Boogiepop Phantom, Niea_7, Now And Then Here And There, etc. If I had to guess I would say that a lot of the negative comments are being made by people with a very limited exposure to only certain kinds of anime, which would be about on par with making a value judgement on "movies" after watching some pornography tapes.

Tom

One of the biggest obstacles to anime on TV is the high cost of licensing the TV rights from Japan. Considering just how much anime we're talking about, that could be quite a lot of cash. Perhaps the downward spiral of the Japanese economy will help bring the terms down to a sustainable level. Still, promising a percentage of the profits rather than blanket licensing seems like the only way this could happen.

not true, according to some industry insiders. most recent anime licensing agreements already include the broadcasting rights.

check out this article.

you have GOT to be kidding me. Spirited away made the front page of USA Today for fucks sake!

Check out this thread on animeondvd.com for more info.

i dont think disney has a merchandising lisence for spirited away. Lisencing is a very complicated issue, and often the lisencer is very stingy about what they allow to be produced. I, however, have seen tv commercials, radio spots, and ads in newspapers.

A local video store here in Atlanta already has the original Japanese version (with subtitles) on VHS and DVD. If you really want to see this film, get the subtitled version. Disney's doing the dubbing and I know they're going to screw it up.

Except for the whole red tint debacle with the region 2 release. In any case, unlike other Ghibli flicks that are still stuck in region 2, this one should be region 1-bound sooner rather than later. And since it'll likely be bilingual (at least), it's probably best to wait for the region 1 version and hope for proper color correction.

One thing that was left out of the story is that they have retained the "original" English dub cast that did the work for the regular series (i.e. what's showing on Cartoon Network). This is big news; while it's been known that Columbia/Tri-Star obtained the U.S. rights and were probably planning on a theater release, up until now there was no confirmation on the dub cast.

There's a press release here with a bit more information that is the confirmation on the dub cast.

Metropolis is also coming out on the 23rd.

Non-anime, but animated and also being released on the 23rd is Batman: The Animated Series Vol 1, the Justice League movie, and Transformers Season 1 Box Set.

So little time...

I had to study a bit to figure out what the big deal was regarding Spriggan... Hope you find these sites useful as well.

Davak

"Death" was one long flashback with no new scenes, edited together from the preceding 26 episodes, and "Rebirth" was short and unfinished--and reproduced at the beginning of "End of Evangelion."

The boxset is cheaper and has the "remastered" volume 1 (no overlays among other things). Reviews and whatnot are available on animeondvd.com. Best price is around $95 plus S&H if you can still get the preorder price. BestPrices, DVDPlanet, Amazon (if you use their Share the Love program with coupons), etc. can nail you a good deal. It's a really good value for anime DVDs considering most are around $20-$22 each via preordering and normally retail around $30. So this post isn't totally karma whoring, personally I think, Evangelion, while not necessarily the best anime, is something every anime fan has to watch just to keep up with the times. It's like not watching the Star Wars trilogy for anime fans. You don't have to agree that it's the best anime out there (rumor has it that the director also thought it was not good in the end), and I can bet that most would agree it is definitely not the most fun at times, but it's intriguing just because it has influenced the perception of anime in so many people's minds.

I know some other helpful people got to this already, but here is a whole list of Region 2 Anime DVDs with English subtitles or dubbing. The Futurama Season one boxed set has also been released abroad, for those of you who don't appreciate animation that happens to be Japanese.

Though Metropolis may be Columbia/Tristar's first anime release, it won't be their last. AnimeOnDVD reported yesterday that the DVD release of Metropolis (expected in March) will come with a special mini-DVD that will contain trailers of Metropolis itself, FF: The Spirits Within, and... Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

If there's one anime movie that has a good shot of breaking the US market wide open it's Cowboy Bebop. Think about it, they have a ready-made market created by Cartoon Network, and everyone who has ever seen a 572398572th generation fansub (or digisub ^^) will /drag/ their friends out to see it, it's that good.

-inq

Good luck finding the Tin case limited edition now. If you're in Toronto, check Planet Hobby in the basement of Square One. There will be a non-limited Special Edition, and a movie only edition. As always, check http://www.animeondvd.com for all of your anime on dvd needs. Not affiliated, just a plug from a happy fan.

Anime in japan is much much much more expensive then in america. For the eva movies on dvd in japan its 80$ PER DISK. thats 2 disks.

In fact, the old evangelion sub vhs cost 30$ FOR 2 EPISODES. thats more then 50 cents a min.

the dvds are a steal.

for more info see animeondvd (shameless plug for my friends).

Ya'll are slow.

This was on Anime on DVD a couple days ago.

The ACTUAL release date for both is October 30 (which is a Tuesday, the most common day for new releases).
And yes, like Taco-san, I'm waiting to get Eva 6 as well. May the mayhem continue!

I don't think the DVDs are available piecemeal, and I do have the first set, and there seems to be no apparent extras. Check AnimeOnDVD for details if you really wanna know.

I'll probably get modded down for this but, what place does slash have to do anime news? Slashdot's anime coverage is always low on info, much too opininonated (and often wrong), and late.
Leave the anime coverage to the Anime News Service and Anime on DVD. /. should stick to tech news.

The only mention of Akira that I could find on Pioneer Animation's site was on their Current Titles section where they say "Akira-info coming soon". It's not on their Coming Attractions section where they list out through December.

Looks like their site could use an update...

Chris Beveridge's excellent AnimeOnDVD site has had this forever and a day.

Anime on DVD FAQ - Anime Title Information - #1: Akira

Chris Beveridge's excellent AnimeOnDVD site has had this forever and a day.

Anime on DVD FAQ - Anime Title Information - #1: Akira

I would suggest the following primer (no spoilers) to anyone who finds it questionable after the first couple episodes.

AnimeOnDVD.Com is basically the source for anime on DVD news. This past Monday, the site's main artist - Bethany Neal (who drew the marvelous Divi-Chan) and her husband, Justin, passed away in a car accident.

I don't know the details since that's what was posted on AnimeOnDVD. There is an address to send condolences to the family:

Bethany and Justin Neal
130 SW 112th Street
Seattle, Washington 98146

More information is here.

[rant] It was probably some moron who felt he could drive while having a beer. Fucking morons. [/rant]

AnimeOnDVD.Com is basically the source for anime on DVD news. This past Monday, the site's main artist - Bethany Neal (who drew the marvelous Divi-Chan) and her husband, Justin, passed away in a car accident.

I don't know the details since that's what was posted on AnimeOnDVD. There is an address to send condolences to the family:

Bethany and Justin Neal
130 SW 112th Street
Seattle, Washington 98146

More information is here.

[rant] It was probably some moron who felt he could drive while having a beer. Fucking morons. [/rant]

AnimeOnDVD.Com is basically the source for anime on DVD news. This past Monday, the site's main artist - Bethany Neal (who drew the marvelous Divi-Chan) and her husband, Justin, passed away in a car accident.

I don't know the details since that's what was posted on AnimeOnDVD. There is an address to send condolences to the family:

Bethany and Justin Neal
130 SW 112th Street
Seattle, Washington 98146

More information is here.

[rant] It was probably some moron who felt he could drive while having a beer. Fucking morons. [/rant]

Some followup information for your post:

Record of Lodoss War
This was someone's Dungeons and Dragons campaign, I'm sure.

It was. See this article in Ex for the rather complicated history of the Lodoss story.

Tenchi Muyo!
I liked the original OAVs, which aren't on DVD.

Yes they are, I know, because I bought them yesterday. Look for the Tenchi Muyo Ultimate Edition boxed set.

As for my take on the original article, I've also noticed a strong correlation between geeks and anime fans. I suspect the reason is probably due to the fact that the American entertainment establishment isn't providing much good right now. Babylon 5 was the last thing on TV that really spoke to me, and the failure of Crusade shows how unlikely it is that a worthy successor to it will appear.

Younger audience:
Slayers (magic, comedy, adventure)

Slightly older audience:
DNA^2 (romance, comedy)
Kenshin (romance, some action, comedy)
Bubblegum crisis (action)
Lodoss War (a chronicle of an ADND game)

More Drama:
Macross 7 (available on SenshiTV (music, soul-searching stuff))

If you like this stuff, check out Anipike or Anime on DVD

Actually, BGC 2040 vol. 1 on DVD has been confirmed for a 9/12/00 release date from A.D. Visions.
--

Anime *has* been moving to DVD. Actually, it's been moving to DVD much quicker than live action has. Animation may just be easier to print to the format or something. In any case, AnimeOnDVD.Com has something like a couple hundred DVDs reviewed, and more are coming every week.

My DVD collection is almost exclusively anime DVDs. I really should get some live action stuff...