These prices are BS for subs-only discs and an 8 page booklet. I would love to see the sales charts for this....also the full press release is here...if this doesnt justify illegal fansubbing I don't know what does.

Kudos to Bandai for trying to release an anime quick for the starving westerners...but this shit doesnt fly.

I like Shigofumi but not enough to pay that much for two episodes. No 13 episode show should be released on 7 DVDs, let alone at that price. I am one of the people who do buy the anime I like, but when it is priced like that for just two episodes, I don't care if it comes here a year later, its better then that price.

In my opinion, 13 eps should fall on 2 discs, at $5/episode.

I'm still mad about this because I like True Tears. I like the fact that the anime system is evolving to releases within months of the actual airing date. I also like the fact that Bandai is producing Subs-only discs. The only thing that fails out of this entire thing is the way they have handled the release. Its really just kinda pathetic how they dropped the ball on this. Investing early on in an anime and pushing a Subs-only disc was supposed to lower the production costs and in turn make it so we as consumers are inticed to buy their product. There is no way I am going to think about buying this.

Wow....just....Wow. This is insane, who do they really think will be paying that much for that little?
I mean, sure you can discount the fact that yes there are some extreme otaku out there that will happily shell out that much, but really that is almost highway robbery there.

For once, I find myself agreeing with everyone else's comments here (so far).

The first time Bandai Visual (which is a SEPARATE CORPORATION FROM REGULAR BANDAI MIND YOU) said they would be selling a DVD series at $40 a volume, it was MS Igloo, and they at least had the excuse of saying the CG was such high quality and required alot of editing to be good quality in english, that it at least had SOME justification.

This move on the other hand, I don't care how quick they picked it up, this is bulls***. They should've learned from their bigger brother company that made that mistake with FLCL (the 2 episodes a disc thing didn't fly then, and it sure as HELL won't fly for a jacked up price now).

(sorry for the double post)

Oh, and see now why I told you people that separate sub and dub volume options were a BAD IDEA?!

Hell I'll give FLCL a break since the dubs are freaking fantastic. The fact is that Fansubbers have been doing the same damn thing with their releases for free and the only incentive to buy this disk is an 8 or 12 page booklet (depending on which one you buy). for 30 bucks its an outrage. Like I said keep the Subs to Online only deals through the Bandai website that way you can keep stock of supply and demand instead of having to deal with the fluctuation of retail and ensure that your product is at an approachable pricing. With the constant worry of a recession is Bandai just banking on people buying this crap with their Tax Refund? I mean seriously?

What retailer is going to buy this crap? Subs only are already a tough sale. Package only one disc to it and charge 40 clams. I doubt we'll be seeing this on store shelves. There better be some fantastic subtitles with this.

@mana: Online subtitled downloads from their site maybe, but with dvd production runs it's just as expensive if you do it online or if you do it in stores, since dvds are usually printed in large mass production runs. The only difference between the two is who they're sending them to.

Even if these came with amazing dubs I still wouldn't buy them (and I'm a big dub fan too). In fact, this is officially the first time now that you won't find me condoning downloading, just for the sake of sticking it to them so they'll hopefully eventually get a clue!

I rather have subs only if allows for cheaper releases (see Media Blasters). However what Bandai is doing is ridiculous. Those prices are astronomical from my American point of view. Now I would have to agree with godlen a bit. I would be less adverse to this action if these dvds contained the usual 4-5 episodes per disc. AT 39.99 I might be willing to pay premium to get my anime faster.

This is the issue that is happening in japan as well. Dvd sales are going bad because of this crazy pricing, its only possible (although not very well) in Japan because the fandom is bigger and more desparate than in the US. You have larger army of rabid otakus in japan willing to pay top dollar. This won't last long and things are being asked to change.

Overall the whole anime DVD distribution industry is not going so well in all fronts. Who knows what might happen.

I used to buy R2 dvds back in the Love Hina era (started with LH of course) for around $60 each, which was the going retail price. All I can say is that I never got around to finishing the set (6 out of 9) because it got too ridiculously expensive. I can see why the prices in japan are much more expensive for the dvds because the market over there is of course much larger. But to price it like that over here where its just starting to pick up more momentum is just going to scare people off.

Charging $1 a minute for STANDARD DEFINITION content is beyond outrageous. That’s more expensive than what american studios charge per minute for High-def bluray or hddvd movies.

You know, this was Geneon's downfall...trying to retail at the R2J costs in the R1 market, it just isn't going to happen unless there is something other than the love of anime to warrant the purchase.

Hell, BV USA is taking this one step further and following the R2J release cycle of 2 episodes per disc...and funny enough, increasing that trend by doing a single episode on the last volume. Honestly, there better be some huge incentive to purchasing these volumes at that price, or else people will just wait for the reduced boxset.

I meant to add this in...

There are R2J discs that I have purchased through my otaku life, KimiNozo for example netted a cost around $400 total after I included stupid export and shipping markups. So I do understand the pricing scheme overall, the difference is the cost of living differences between our region and that of Japans are just too wide to use this business sense here.

I watched a fansub of both True Tears and Shigofumi recently. Enjoyed them both as did my wife and our roommate. I believe firmly in supporting the US market releases once they are licensed over here for release. I will support companies, but I won't support this company. I told my wife last night that these two shows would not be purchased when they were released and instead we would continue to collect the fansubs until someone over at Bandai Visual comes to their senses. I will not support this type of pricing structure even though I believe firmly in supporting the market!