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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."
Down the street from Vanderbilt Uni on Belcourt Avenue.. Besides doing art-film movies and Rocky Horror on Fridays, they also show Anime (Metropolis being their latest..)
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.
You're kidding.. there are movies of real people having sex out there? You mean I've been wasting my time watching all this hentai?!?
Man... if I'd ONLY KNOWN!
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
The best way I know of is a little backwards. The first step is to find the closest anime convention in your area. The Anime Web Turnpike is a good spot for this. There con page is here
Once you find a local con, find out who is sponsoring it. There is usually one or two anime stores in the area that are paying for ad space.
Also see if there is a MediaPlay or a Suncoast store near you. They tend have a pretty decet selection of anime.
Good luck.
..of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.
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.
The Chobits Soundtrack costs 2520 Japanese Yen. Just because I'm lazy I always figure that the conversion from Dollars->Yen is something around 1->100. That means that this CD is about $30(after shipping)! Chobits 2 is priced at 6300 yen, well we won't go there. People would freak in the US if asked if they want to buy a $30 CD let alone a $50+ DVD...
So why is it so expensive? There are a number of reasons. Remember when Presidents complain about Japanese not exactly playing by Free Trade rules? There are laws in place to fix minimum pricing on many goods. Copying is pretty rampant over there but unlike the US Japanese companies realize this and live with it. They treat DVDs and CDs sold as more "regal" items so they charge more. Scales in the economy seem to support itself at these more expensive prices just as well because they know die hard fans will buy DVDs and CDs with the extra goodies and price items accordingly. In fact chasing pirates is detrimental because it costs money.
So yes there is price fixing. Yes rampant copying does exist. No they really aren't related.
Buying from Japan isn't for the faint of heart or light of wallet. You don't have to get stuff directly from Japan but you miss out on a lot of good expensive stuff!
I don't know about New Jersey, but here's what I know about Toronto:
Up until AnimeXtreme opened a store on 315 Spadina Ave. (a block north of Dundas), Suspect Video had the best selection of anime for rent. I haven't had a chance to visit the AnimeXtreme store (it just opened a week ago or so), so Suspect may still be king. There's two locations for Suspect, one on 619 Queen St. W. and one on 605 Markham St., just below Bloor (on the far west side of Honest Ed's).
The AnimeXtreme club also shows anime at Bloor Cinema every other Saturday. The cinema is located at 506 Bloor St. W. (just around the corner from Suspect, actually).
As far as purchasing anime, I've found no better place than The Beguiling. Very knowledgeable staff. This is just south of Suspect on Markham. Again, the new AnimeXtreme store may have better selection, I haven't scoped it out.
That's all I've got. Hope this helps.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Well, I think it's clear that "Hentai" is a subgenre of "Anime," though some really snooty anime fans wouldn't admit it. I think it's especially true given the "acceptability" of Hentai anime in its home country, where jokes about it are sometimes found in less explicit anime, where less explicit anime is still often more explicit than U.S. custom would dictate, and where sexuality itself is viewed in a better light.
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While I don't watch Hentai anime, I have to admit being a fan of the quality games in the Hentai subgenre as well. Most Hentai games are thin excuses for looking at dirty manga/anime, but several of them are worthy RPGs or interactive fiction in themselves, like *Divi Dead*, *Eve Burst Error* (sexually explicit scenes were cut for non-Japanese versions), *True Love*, *Season of the Sakura*, *3 Sisters' Story*, etc.
I just wish more of the Japanese greats in the Hentai game category would be translated into English, since unlike with anime you can't really keep up with what's going on, or even play the game passably, unless you can read the dialogue. Most of the Hentai games translated into English have been the low-quality ones, with a few exceptions like the ones I listed above. But unfortunately the market for such games in English is relatively small, meaning the greats in Japan would often be too expensive to license for American transklation and sales.
At any rate, any anime fans interested in the good Hentai video games out there could take a look at these links:
Reviews:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Divi
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2218
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=True
Sales:
http://www.jastusa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv
http://www.peachprincess.com/Merchant2/pp.mv
http://shop.himeya.com/products/adult_win_us/ad
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