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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."
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.