True Tears for Fears
Two little Bandai Visual tidbits:
1. People whines about Kurokami’s reverse-importation schtiks. Do you care about Kurokami? Most people don’t. Which is why this nonsense continues, IMO. If it was a top selling title then I seriously doubt Bandai USA would let the Japanese have their way. Which is to say all this righteous indigination, while sensible, is not really worth much in dollars. Most of these high quality releases are for those old-timer otaku, who are generally not a force to be reckoned with or a voice to be heard nowadays. Plus, far most people watch dubs. I guess this is what happens when the Bandai Visual USA thing failed–they have to resort to some other way to pacify fears! But the whining is awfully reminiscent of the people who complained that BVUSA titles were too expensive. Of course, the true villains are those Japanese execs who are afraid of reverse importation. It happens, sure, but just how much does it hurt? I don’t know.
All bets are off when it comes to Gundam Unicorn, namely because of its profile and it being one of a kind in terms of release format. [By the way, Gundam Unicorn Japanese BD will have English dub and subs]
2. True Tears Blu-Ray box is pre-order only, and it is made only after a x number of units have been preordered. Given this special case, you can preorder it only from Bandai Visual directly. And you have to pay in advance! If the prerequisite unit of preorders (2000+) is not reached by the time the preorder deadline has past (November 10 to December 16), then that’s all folks…probably. You can find the website here. Note, they obviously do not allow oversea orders (since their payment methods are kind of limiting and they say they don’t ship out of country), so get a proxy if that’s what you want to do. As mentioned elsewhere, it’ll come with additional animation and bonus material.
At least you know Nagare-san is happy about it! That is one very BD Hiromi right there.
I wonder if it would have been more valuable to Bandai from a market research perspective to just release the bd with both tracks on it at $30 or whatever and seen if the reverse importers really bit. I mean, 324 copies for vol 1, you’re already far enough in the hole…
Also, I kind of wonder what would happen if they were to put an eng sub track on the Japanese Unicron BD release, and dub-only the US release? I mean, this broad regioning thing cuts both ways, right?
I’ve actually been buying the import Kurokami disks (err, yeah). Funny thing is, there’s fewer than five hundred people buying them - the show rarely sells enough copies to even make the sale charts in Japan, so exact figures are pretty much impossible to ascertain. This probably says less about the show than it does the anti-Korean sentiment that the whole Hetalia situation generated - Kurokami really caught a lot of flak over that.
So, given it’s not selling in on it’s home turf (despite the stack of booklets and on-disk extras you’ll probably not be seeing in the US), I do really wonder what they are thinking of here. There’s no home turf sales for them to damage. I really can’t fathom what anyone thinks they are losing from not putting subtitles on the thing.
(The other funny thing is that I’ve actually been watching Kurokami dubbed. Could have saved a lot of money buying that US release ^^;)
oh, i guess the japanese release does have english subtitles. welp
Regarding the True Tears BD-Box, actually there’s a reservation window first where they collect names/addresses, and if they collect enough names, then there’s a payment window that comes after. So at least you only have to send them money if there’s enough interest. But in either case, you’re right — you pretty much have to go through a proxy or someone in Japan since they don’t accept Credit Cards and won’t ship overseas. A very limited offer.
>kr
The Japanese Blu-Ray release of Kurokami does not have English subtitles, only English audio.
(Which means, it´s aimed at Japanese customers who might want to watch the show in a different language, not English customers).
relentlessflame: oops you are correct let me change that.
I think KR is talking about Gundam Unicorn BD, which does have English subs. Which is to say lol.
This is why you need friends who live in Japan. 29000 Yen is a hefty sum though, but considering there won’t be a retail release of this, I better grab it because the chances are, it’s not coming stateside. The state of BD Anime in the US is abysmal I am not putting much hope into it (No Tokikake or 5cm/s BD in the US yet? What blasphemy!)
I think the 5cm/s thing is a licensing problem, not that nobody wants to do it.
I talked to the one proxy I previously used and they declined to do this sort of transaction, mainly because they could be doing the work and not getting paid (if it did not reach 2000 units).
Anyone with better success please drop me a note :3
W-General: Or friends who at least visit Japan frequently enough. Eh? Eh? :P
I think i might end up going that route too. I wonder how many preorders i can solicit from oversea fans, lol. And then time a japan trip around golden week. it’s a good time to visit Japan anyways!
[…] notable, non-figure thing I did this year that was different than previous was to use proxies. That True Tears BD box, for example, has hit its 2000 preorder quota long ago, or so it seems. To do that, I had to […]