I refuse to spend money on disk by disk anime. Not just cuz its like... 4 eps/disk but because its also not cost worthy. theyre usually pretty expensive for 1 volume

Makes sense to me. I can only speak for myself, but I have never bought an individual disc of a series! Seriously, I just stopped to think about it and I haven't done such a thing since I stopped collecting VHS. I always opt to wait for bundled versions (even if it's less than a whole season.)

I never understood why they bothered with individual releases in the first place, but I guess streaming has pretty much made the benefits moot. Meh.

Never bought an individual disc (got some as gifts, but never actually purchased any). It seems like a waste to do so. I really, really like this idea.

No matter what I buy, whether it be anime or an Adult Swim show, or something, I usually like to get box sets. This is right up my alley.
Plus, box sets usually have really nice packaging, which is an enormous part of my DVD buying, so that's also a plus.

In the UK, a single volume was (and still is in many places) £15-25. This price applied to the 4 episode volumes of yore (e.g. Serial Experiments Lain), to the 13 episode volumes of recent times (e.g. Negima!?). Then the box set would come out for around £30-40 and you'd feel ripped off.

However, it does look cool having a bunch of matching DVD cases, instead of a box the size of about two DVD cases holding about 6 discs. This wasn't as much the case when a box set was literally all the standard DVD volumes (in original boxes) put inside a big box. Now it's a small box with lots of discs inside.

I lost my train of thought somewhere along the line, but I think box sets save us a hell of a lot of money, so skip the single volumes...

finally a company got smart. I stopped buying singles 5+ years ago when I noticed the boxsets were like double the price...for 4 times as many episodes lol.

I sort of miss singles. The cost, although higher, was spread over a few months and the companies could afford to do a better job (typically with a dub) as opposed to rushing out a sub-only collection so the 'fans' might actually buy something as opposed to just fansub watch the whole thing. Of course, companies like MB screwed themselves by putting out the collections right after the last single volume so customers would just wait until then to get the whole thing on the cheap. Waiting six months to a year for a collection might have been a better idea. Of course, it's all academic now since you can't shove the genie back into the bottle.

I can't remember if the boxsets they have released were a bit on the pricey side, but it's good they're moving in this direction for now.

Gives me hope to see a boxset of the Zombi films!

Now if only Media Blasters could get a website that is actually usable...

It's pretty good timing.

Genshiken 2 was the last show I was willing to buy in singles.

It's cheaper to buy in volumes, but I'd still favor a sort of unlimited access to the series in HD via like a website connection.

I agree that single disc releases have been a losing battle for a long while now, especially with MB. Those guys can't stick to a release schedule no matter what. They ALWAYS have major delays and always for a series I really want. Maybe now they'll get things done a bit quicker and see some profit for it. I know I'm happier buying entire series than single discs and if MB can actually street a disc or set when they SAID they would, we'd all be better for it. :)

Its hard to break tradition. I've been collecting DVD Singles since the release of Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin. But that was 10 years ago when there were only a few anime titles on DVD.

Now i look back and i have two DVD Shelfs that hold 604 DVDs each and i still have newer DVD's piling up on a regular bookshelf. Its because i bought singles for a decade. OMG - $29.99 a single at Suncoast Motion Picture multilied by six or eight or even more. How many DBZ DVD singles were released?

I saw InuYasha Vol 51 in a Dollar bin @ 99cent store earlier today. Insanity. Fifty One?

From now on i buy DVD Boxsets - all my recent purchases are these great Under $50 or even $30 boxsets that take up a fraction of DVD Shelf Space.

But it SURE IS IMPRESSIVE to show off all these single DVDs as a testament to excess and collecting passion.

I do not mind buying individual volumes. I cannot wait to see the separate box art for the different volumes of konokon. and sometimes I like box sets, but I can go either way, no big deal

Good for Meida Blasters still being able to release dvds. Now gimme my Zetsubou-Sensei DVD!!

Well its the trend, and MB was going against the tide really in still doing them. I grew up on the singles as anime fan so maybe I feel a bit nostalgic. The trend towards cheaper and cheaper boxsets just makes them a bad buy. One thing that does get lost now is booklets and pack ins. Some of those singles were full of those things. Not mandatory in importance for seeing a series but those used to be fun to get. Now barely anyone does even a one sheet with a dvd release. I do wonder about the financial end of going to box sets only. Anime companies used to be able to double dip or more with singles and box sets later but now the series tend to be more one shot for selling or maybe a much cheaper release later (like the Funi S.A.V.E. stuff). That might be the next thing: Why buy the boxset now when a S.A.VE. type edition is coming out in 6 months to a year?

I have bought individual discs, but I don't like it. If I had the option to instead get them all at once I would take it. Price isn't really the problem, I just hate waiting for the next disc.

I've been buying my anime in sets since ADV started them way back with Noir and RahXephon, so I support Media Blaster's choice here.

NOW GIMME MY ZETSUBOUSHITA.

I did buy single volumes, but the trade-off was that the price to collect a series in singles meant that I would only ever buy series I REALLY liked, and that I would never, ever, purchase a series as a "blind buy." Too much money was at stake to end up with anything but excellence.

Of course, as the "age of the initial-release boxset" blossomed, I was really excited. Other than the price, the annoying part of having bought singles was seeing a "better" compiled release come out, sometimes with some fancy new art box. When a series is initially released in something like 13-episode collections, a buyer is more likely to feel "Okay, this is the product they're releasing; this isn't an edition they're going to amend a year from now and supplant with an edition I would've rather purchased."

The last series I remember purchasing as singles was Gankutsuou - and that purchase was sort of half-driven by Geneon's imminent collapse and feeling that this was a series that I -had- to own now, in case no one rescued the license from Geneon. I don't regret that decision (the covers of the individual volumes and the art box are really snazzy) - I liked it enough that it was worth that price, to me. But I look at the series I've purchased recently - Gundam Wing. Honey and Clover. Eureka Seven. And just a few days ago, I ordered Azumanga Daioh. The realization isn't so much that I bought them all as box sets (which is true) - it's that looking around, no one's really selling the singles for them anyway (once again I can applaud Viz for releasing H&C in 13-episode sets right from the start, like they did with Buso Renkin). Sure, you see the singles scattered around here and there, but any boxset with consumer-sensible pricing, will mark the singles of the same series as redundant.

My example may have more to do with the fact that, of all current and past offerings, I'd rather have (slightly) older greats that are time-tested than new things that I don't know if I like (and are still being released as singles before the box set). However, there are two series - Seirei no Moribito and Code Geass - that I -know- I like and will definitely purchase, but have not because I simply don't like the singles-release plan. Code Geass would simply be a shelf space-eater, but Moribito attempts to foist an 8-disc release plan on buyers for a premium price per volume. A look at Amazon tells me the prices on the two-volume bundles has come down, but...why not wait for the collected edition? I'm very patient when it comes to my dollar; I can wait it out. It seems that many other fans also can.

Here, I think Viz is the company to take notes from. With series like Busou Renkin and Honey & Clover, they do two smart things. First, they do 13-episode boxset releases, which is a good halfway meeting-point between singles and full-series box releases. The MSRPs on these are often a little high, but can be obtained for less on Amazon or Rightstuf.com. Secondly, the result of this is that they please the consumer while preserving the perceived value of their product. When I see those series in 13-episode sets, I get the feeling that, to Viz, that's the set they'll be selling for a long time - they're not gonna go repackaging these in some other compiled set. And if it has that air of finality about it, I think people who want it are more likely to go ahead and buy it.

As others have mentioned, the "all or nothing" approach to an initial boxset release is kind of mitigated by having many shows available for viewing via online streaming - and let's be honest here, people who were "waiting for a boxset" with the intent to buy the series had probably seen it originally as a fansub. Here's to meeting customers halfway!

And I still don't care.

Seriously, if anything I like gets licensed by these smut monkies, it might as well not have been licensed.

Cuz it'll get shoved out the door without any due care or attention whilst they give dubs to shows that absolutely don't deserve them.

"Do you miss the days of buying your anime volume-by-volume?"

HELL. NO.
I hated waiting like 3 months in between every volume, and the pain in the ass of buying every single one, and if your store didn't have that particular volume, you had to go hunt it down.
I'll wait for thinpacks. It works. Stick with it!

Well, I prefer boxsets cost-wise, and they save a lot of shelf space. They're definitely the superior format functionally.

But I do have to say, single releases really went a long way in making every episode in a series feel special. You'd watch and rewatch the first 2-4 eps while you bide your time for the next release, then watch and rewatch that volume until the next, and so on and so forth. Served in little chunks like that, it made each episode seem like a valuable commodity.

Served in these big season/half-season boxes, that dynamic is gone, I feel. When you can go through a large count of eps in quick succession, they all sort of blur together to a degree, and there's little incentive to rewatch again and again. It's probably a big factor in why anime fans seem less invested in any particular show than they used to, and perhaps why many feel they enjoy the hobby less. Time was, I could tell you exactly what happened in a given episode of Evangelion, just given the number... Hell if I could do that with, say, Claymore, which I just watched.

Like VinceA said though, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, and box sets are a win to the consumer in an overwhelming amount of ways versus single releases. I do miss the old dynamic, but in the end I like the money I save a lot more.

Well the anime I've ever bought volume by volume was Lucky Star. But I do prefer box-sets because you're saving A LOT more money but the box sets usually don't come with the extras that single volumes do.

I've never in my life bought anything but boxsets. The extras are just never worth it, unless you're the most hardcore of fans. Its always more cost-effective to just buy it in a boxset. Takes up less space too.

Great news, and others should follow suit. Individual volumes made sense back in the vhs days, and even with regular tv shows these days, you never see singles any more, just box sets.

If single volumes were much cheaper than what it is right now, then I'd buy them one by one, but the price isn't ideal unless you intend to watch it right away. I use to watch those single volumes right away, but I don't have much time anymore. So because of that I do tend to wait on boxes nowadays.

@Link1987 $30-$35 for 4 Eps is bad but not that bad you gotta know what goes into it before you complain. In Japan they only get 2 EPs a disk and it cost waaayyyy more. We have it rather good.

As a collector I like disk by disk because of the artwork and then you get an art box and it looks all pretty as a college student it sucks and box sets are a lot nicer to my wallet. In the long run tho I don't mind and I am willing to buy disk by disk. As a fan I gotta help out as much as I can right? -_-