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Anime Stores, Rentals and Theaters?
ajaygautam asks: "For the past few months (on and off), I have been trying to locate Anime stores, rentals and theaters in and around Central New Jersey, but have not been able to find much. Only Blockbuster, which carries a very limited selection. I was wondering if there is a list of such things on the Internet somewhere. I propose that we create this 'Ask Slashdot' a comprehensive list of Anime stores, rental locations and theaters that do show Anime movies."
Cosmic Castle on High Point Rd has a good selection of titles for sale, and a knowledgeable staff. They also stock tabletop RPG's, t-shirts and other paraphenalia. And pocky!
Angelika sometimes plays anime.(www.angelikafilms.com) and the Magnolia does (but only midnight showings for here, and I dont' know if they have any web address)
I normally just go on irc and download anime, because it's got better subtitles and the stuff is more recent than 'jap' anime in the US.
Also, if you're into series www.animeart.com kicks ass.
I've found that a lot of tabletop gaming and comic book stores sell/rent anime as well.. Seems the genres go hand-in-hand. Good thing, too.. I always know where to look for my anime when I move to a new city.
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Many anime shops are very localized, the only big one I can name is AnimeNation, and they're at www.animenation.com
;P)
Most others are tiny and usually exclusive to a city. The majority of anime/manga is distributed retail, through Suncoast/MediaPlay/Best Buy (same Conglom-o), and small comics shops/book stores (by means of Diamond Comics.
Or imports. R2s cost a shitload though, and include no subtitles or english dub (for the illiterate
As for theaters that actually SHOW anime, look to any LARGE city. Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, many large West and East coast cities will get Anime prints (primarily because prints cost a LOT and the US companies that do this are SMALL).
Rental:
netflix.com does dvd rental in general, including a lot of anime. Many blockbuster stores/other rental chains are starting to carry a lot of anime, or just ask your local anime geek. I myself have over 130 discs and do more loaning than any of the local stores (and I have been tempted to charge).
As an aside:
DOWNLOADING LICENSED ANIME ONLY HURTS THOSE WHO ARE ON YOUR SIDE.
Companies like A.D. Vision (biggest North American animation distributor second only to Disney) and Bandai Entertainmet are full of sane geeks like us who despise legislation like CARP, the DMCA, and the various Hollings crapscrolls, and avoid using any content control methods whenever possible. SUPPORT THEM.
For those not fluent or brave enough to order/talk to someone in Japan you can always go to...
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp
There are other stores but they require you to know some Japanese to read their catalog and order. I've never been let down by CDJapan and constantly recommend it to the "I don't know what 'gaijin' means" people who want to order stuff directly from Japan.
The majority of what is carried on ebay and half.com tends to be bootleg.
Bootleg = bad.
Especially the ones that promote series with English and Chinese subs, Region 0, and entire 26 episode series on 3 discs.
AVOID BUYING THESE, you hurt both the legal licensors and the Japanese company that produced the work (hey, we're all about fair compensation here on slashdot, aren't we?)
Yes they are bootlegs. Almost EXCLUSIVELY.
You do not want to buy bootlegs, if you profess to want to compensate the creators fairly. (as the majority of Slashdot seems to want to).
We bitch about how the companies don't go after the big time bootleggers, but the easiest way to hinder them is to NOT BUY FROM THEM.
And Bestprices and DVDPlanet are cheaper than most retailers, and are 100% legit!
Why not just rent your anime ovre the internet? DVDOvernight and Netflix both have a wide selection of anime titles, and with netflix, you can even get a free trial. You rent up to three movies at a time, they mail them to you, and you keep them as long as you want, and when you're finished, you mail them back in a pre-paid envelope they provide. Now you can watch something other than Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns while sitting alone by yourself in your parents' basement.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
For all of your anime needs just check out rightstuf.com. They have pretty much every anime known to man that has been released on VHS and DVD, but best of all its usually in stock and at very cheap prices. Plus they offer bundles, like for Cowboy Bebop, where you save over 50% from the Perfect Sessions price if you buy a regular bundle of the full set.
Not to mention they also have T-shirts, posters, and all of those other misc. items any true diehard cant live without. Which reminds me I gotta go there now and purchase the Cowboy Bebop, dont ever get the foreign sub 4-DVD set, the subbing is horrible.
There's always the user friendly J-List! I mean, their slogan is even "you've got a friend in Japan..." Oh yeah, and they sell the famous Hello Kitty Vibrator, and a t-shirt that says looking for a japanese girlfriend -- in Japanese... Man, I love this site.
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Suncoast offers a huge selection of anime titles for sale. There is one here in Vancouver, Wa. If you goto their website at http://www.suncoast.com they list all their store locations.
I'd recommend Tasogare Anime, which you can find at 4503 34th St. The owner carries a nice selection of DVDs as well as imported magazines, action figures, art books, soundtracks, wallscrolls, calendars, and so forth, plus she'll special order anything you ask for -- in my experience, she can usually get domestically released stuff in about a week, stuff from Japan will take longer depending on how easy it is to acquire.
Also, as a personal plug -- I'm the president of the Texas Tech anime club, which meets every Wednesday and Saturday as long as college is in session. It's absolutely free and open to everybody, even if you're not a student!
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Ummm....they're okay, for the occasional lucky used purchase, but check out Scarecrow Video it's THE place for movies in Seattle. It's one of the best movie rental places in the world--in fact it's a destination store for many directors, screenwriters, various and sundry Hollywood refugees...
Their collection is a great place to start learning about any kind of film--they also sell region free dvd players, new and used dvd's, etc. Truly an amazing place and one of the cultural treasures of Seattle.
If you don't want to rent, you can buy there, or you can go to Kicks or any number of grey market places in Chinatown (only anglos call Chinatown the International District by the way). There's also the place in the Great Wall mall down in Tukwila, but I'd stay away from them for the fact that many of their dvd's don't work quite right, but to be fair, they've always been really great about returns and customer service.
And for seeing anime in theaters, well, you're very lucky to be in Seattle--even some of the biggies downtown show anime, particular the theater in Pacific Place, but the one that shows the most is the Varsity on University Way.
Have fun.
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Try New World Manga in Livingston, NJ....they have all things anime from movies to soundtracks, comics, scrolls, and toys. You can even rent from them.
someone mentioned AniPike in a previous message, but they didn't mention this specific list
Anime Web TurnPike's Online Shopping guide
other lists I know of:
Anime Web Turnpike's Shopping Guide
Anime Shopping Guide/Ratings not sure who maintains this, its also included in the above link
Manga and Anime Stores (this is an AOL link though, don't know if it will work
One thing to keep in mind, not all anime you come across on the web or in RL is legit. I've seen tons of bootlegs for sale, even after anime is becoming more available domestically. Watch out for independent stores/sites in particular. Some bootleg packaging is looking more legit than licensed stuff. I can think of a half dozen sites/stores that carry bootlegs, and I've seen several mentioned already, but I hesitate to name them for fear of being sued or something. Not only are you ripping off the creators and giving money to immoral types, but you generally get really crappy quality. The packaging is NOT representative of the product at all. You are likely to find horrible translations with unreadable grammar, poorly timed subtitles, subtitles that are a bad color or cut off at the ends and just low grade video and audio in general. Sometimes its a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of some guys VHS tape off of tv, even though its on DVD.
And finally, because I've spent around $10k on anime in the past 10 years, I'll list a few of the places the majority of money has gone to and I've never had any problems with (DVD bootlegs, bad service, etc...):
Anime Castle
Anime Plus
Nikaku
Amazon.com
and Media Play (pricey!) for those anime cravings so severe you just can't wait for the webstores to deliver
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