Bandai goes Blu-ray with Ghost in the Shell 2 as anime industry climate cools

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 10th 2008 at 11:48PM

First announced back at Kawaii Kon, former HD DVD pioneer Bandai is making Ghost in the Shell: Innocence its first Blu-ray release. Bandai took the high road in finishing out its HD DVD/DVD Twin release schedule of Freedom even after the format's demise, and we look forward to some next gen features on the company's Blu-ray discs. There's certainly enough incentive, Home Media Magazine notes from last weekend's Anime Expo that output for the whole industry is down and is look for Blu-ray and downloads to help out the bottom line.

Filed under: Blu-ray

Tags: anime, bandai, batou, blu-ray, ghost in the shell 2 innocence, GhostInTheShell2Innocence

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highly Ranked

madgamer @ Jul 11th 2008 12:14AM

They ought to price boxed sets of the TV shows at prices that people could afford. The Ghost in the shell TV series would be a good exception to that rule, as you can get each season (26 episodes each) for about 70-100$ on amazon, but for most anime stuff, that would hardly get you half a season. When people look at 30$ for 3-4 episodes (or for 1 with the freedom HD-DVDs) versus something like 30-40$ for an entire season of a lot of American shows (animated or live action) I think they just balk at it and buy something else. There are a lot of series I would buy if they were 50-100$ a season rather than what they cost now.

Neutral

bigwhitebear18 @ Jul 11th 2008 1:03AM

you must be buying them individually b/c there are a lot of places that sell them much cheaper if you wait for the complete seasons.
anime corner store
amazon - buy it used for even less (if you can trust them)
buy . com
OR... you can be smart like me and rent them through netflix or rentanime
all good choices and i'm sure there's plenty more

Neutral

bigwhitebear18 @ Jul 11th 2008 12:48AM

WHEN?
must have
I've been looking forward to the USA finally getting blu-ray anime. There are a few out now but nothing worth getting too excited over. not like this anyway.

Highly Ranked

eugene @ Jul 11th 2008 1:12AM

While gits 2 was a decent movie, I'm most interested in the first GitS getting a proper release. The current DVD is a horrible transfer and it looks like they just hit the record button while watching it on VHS.

I'm hoping that the SE version of GitS will mean a high quality BD release as well.

Neutral

J.Goodwin @ Jul 11th 2008 7:04AM

Prices went way down from when I was collecting anime hardcore.

The problem for me was that the number of releases went totally insane. The shelves were just full of things I'd never heard of, and my sense was that I couldn't even get a handle on what the quality was going to be anymore. Plus, things were so crowded, you rarely were able to see a complete series on the shelves anymore unless it was in a box, and then there was a massive proliferation of boxes that didn't even have seasons in them, they were just like, the first disc and a tshirt or something. Ridiculous.

I think the last straw was Brain Powerd.

Maybe now that the release schedules are slowing down, I'll get back into it.

Neutral

Chris Beveridge @ Jul 11th 2008 8:00AM

Once again, this kind of story is done wrong.

Bandai Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA have been two different companies up until very, very recently.

Bandai Visual has been doing Blu-ray from the start, and dropped HD DVD quickly outside of their release of Freedom.

Bandai Entertainment has never released any HD DVD and only made the announcement or Ghost in the Shell 2 some months after the format war ended.

Bandai Visual did NOT finish out Freedom; the seventh and final episode will NOT be put out on HD DVD. It will be included in the new blu-ray box due out this fall and on DVD sometime next year.

Neutral

The Mallrat @ Jul 13th 2008 5:24PM

Where did you get the info that they aren't releasing vol 7 on HD-DVD? Last I heard, they still had it planned to be released in August.

Neutral

David S @ Jul 11th 2008 8:12AM

I really can't justify paying even $70-$100 (much less the $100 - $150 seasons I'm used to paying for back in the day) for a SD DVD release of a show that I could have downloaded illegally for free 6 months earlier in HD. Talk about failed distribution model. Technology has just passed them by. And let's be real, the blu-ray version of these shows will be even more expensive than the regular DVD releases. If these jokers think Blu-ray will save them from free, well...

Neutral

Evan @ Jul 11th 2008 8:35AM

The anime industry is taking a beating in North America from PIRACY! Fan-subbed shows are available on bittorrent within days of being broadcast or released in Japan. What fan is going to deny themselves from watching a show while they wait around for an official North American DVD release?

Some of the distributors responded by releasing more DVDs, sooner, which just made things worst for them. They were licensing shows before observing the fan-reaction, and flooded the shelves with mediocre or unpopular series (as J.Goodwin described above). As a result they lost money on some licenses.

I'd really hate to be an Anime distributor executive. Their target audience is far too tech savvy, and know how to get what they want for free. Companies like Bandai are learning that they can only sell to consumers who WANT to pay for a higher quality product. But even that opportunity is fading as the pirates are starting to release 1080P high-definition rips.

I think the Anime industry is a sign of things to come for mainstream media. Right now the average middle-aged consumer is not tech-savvy enough to pirate all their media, but their children are! In twenty years, this pirate-everything generation of youth will become the average consumer.

Highly Ranked

h0mi @ Jul 11th 2008 12:43PM

Anime is heavily pirated for a number of reasons:

1- Availability. In the B&M world, Anime is almost totally invisible at Walmart and Circuit City. Best Buy has a number of titles. Fry's has a lot of content. The stores with the most content are FYE/Suncoast.

In spite of that though, a lot of titles don't have a lot of availability. I own part of the perfect cell and saiyaman sagas... where can I get the rest of those discs? None of the stores I mentioned have them. Bleach beyond episode 30something isn't available in the US AFAIK.

2- Quality of Dubs. I've been happy with the dubs of the anime I've seen but not everyone is so fond of Funimation's butchery.

3- Price. This is a huge obstacle for me. There is no reason to charge $20 for a dvd with as few as 3 episodes. For series like Champloo, the entire series should not cost $180. Release box sets of the assorted sagas (if you can't do seasons) and charge no more than $40 for each set.

Neutral

jedimaster787 @ Jul 12th 2008 2:22AM

I have the BD release of the live-action movie based on Initial D. Now I just need Avex Mode to make a BD version of Initial D 3rd Stage and Funimation to distribute it in USA. So far, 3rd Stage doesn't exist in USA English dub.

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