John's Anime Shopping Guide Part 2

Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 17:46:05 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime.misc
Size: 7,117 bytes

Greetings and felicitations. In this, the second and concluding part I
discuss my favorite sites for obtaining m/y/ /f/i/x/ additions to my
collection.
As I mentioned in the preceding part, The Right Stuf International
(A.K.A. "TRSI") <http://www.rightstuf.com/>
maintains the most comprehensive anime catalog of the on-line anime video
retailers. Their Money Savers section is an excellent place to shop for
deeply discounted anime, and as I've noted elsewhere, they hold regular
sales of 33%--to which you can add their Got Anime? club discount of 10%.
At $6-$10, their Bargin Bin is the second best place to buy cheap VHS tapes.
(The best place I discuss below.) Also, any order initially order totaling
$99 or more gets free economy shipping in the U.S. (This is a recent
revision--the breakpoint used to be $150.00.) However, at a cumulative 20%
discount (their regular 10% off plus the Got Anime? 10%), there are cheaper
places to buy your everyday titles.
If you don't mind buying used, Half.com is the first place to look.
<http://half.ebay.com/browse/browse.cfm?
tag=vd_dom_japanese_animation_anime>
EBay is also a potentially good idea, <http://pages.ebay.com/search/items/basicsearch.html> <http://ebay.com>
but as always beware of buying something at any price just because it's
available--do your research first! Also, it is an unfortunate fact that
most of the DVDs offered on eBay (and a number on Half.com) are bootlegs.
To find the best prices on new DVDs, I use
DVD Price Search <http://www.dvdpricesearch.com/>
This site's interface is excellent--it allows you to browse titles and
compare the prices individually, or add them to a virtual cart and then
compare the prices for all selected titles--including shipping.
There is also
DVDPriceCompare.com <http://www.dvdpricecompare.com/>
The DVD Price Search has a *much* better interface, but there seems to be
little overlap in the retailers polled, so I check the DVDPriceCompare.com
as well. Another option is Google's Froogle shopping search engine: <http://froogle.google.com>
Froogle Home > Books, Music & Video > Video > Anime <http://froogle.google.com/froogle?cat=300>
although this is less precise, and many of the results tend to be bootlegs.
Anime on DVD also lists the sales of the anime specialist retailers in their
front page news, <http://www.animeondvd.com/>
and they maintain a permanent monthly "Deals and Coupons Thread" in their
Retail Forum. Shawne Kleckner, president of The Right Stuf also regularly
posts TRSI's Weekly Specials in a separate thread.
The big on-line anime retailers that I have not mentioned yet are:
AnimeNation <http://animenation.com/>
Planet Anime <http://www.planetanime.net/>
As to other individual retailers, I use:
Lasertown Video Discs (currently having a 50% off sale all domestic, in-
stock discs--both DVD and laserdiscs) <http://www.lasertown.com>
DVD Planet (formerly Ken Crane's DVD and Laserdisc) is also worth
mentioning, as they offer all discs at 25% or more off, with 30% off
preorders up to the Sunday preceding the release date. They have been in
business for over eighteen years and enjoy an excellent reputation for
customer service and title selection. <http://www.dvdplanet.com/main.asp>
I do not use, and do not recommend DiscountAnimeDVD.com because of their
extensive inventory of bootlegs.
The current best deal for VHS is at Anime Castle, which is having a
clearance sale--most titles are $4.99 each. <https://www.animecastle.com/>
If you are shopping for Japanese-only releases, there are two good stores
for used videos (DVD, VHS and LD), as well as CDs:
JIGS--Japan Internet Goods Shop <http://www.jigsco.com/index.shtml>
Anime Jungle <http://jungle-scs.co.jp/en/> <http://www.animejungle.net/>
Anime Jungle also has a yearly sale, and a store in Los Angeles (the
second address above).
For new Japanese videos, these two stores come highly recommended, though
I have not bought anything from them:
CDJapan [Tokyo] <http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/anime/anime/bestseller.html>
Mikado Music & Laser Japan [San Francisco] <http://www.mikadosf.com/index.htm>
J-List, while specializing in various Japanese adult merchandise
(inclduding bishoujo/dating sim games, doujinshi, and photo art books of
real people), also carries (in addition to their full line of Region 1
hentai DVDs) the English subtitled Region 2 Miyazaki DVDs and cheap region
free DVD players. <http://www.jlist.com>
For hentai DVDs, NuTech Entertainment is the newest and a very prolific
liscensor, and they, unlike most, sell through their own site at a
substantial discount--typically $19.95 on a $24.95 disc. They also
produce non-hentai DVDs for other companies, such as Central Park Media's
_Armored Trooper Votoms_: <http://www.nutechdvd.com>
Unfortunately, their site isn't very well laid out. In order to reach
titles whose names are later in the alphabet you have to go through each
page in order--from A-Bi to Bl to C-D+, and so on--they do not offer direct
access to the page containing T-Z, for example.
VCD1.com, in spite of their name, does sell legitimate DVDs, and most are
about 28% off ($18 for a $24.95 disc) <http://vcd1.com/>
The other discount hentai retailer is Five Star DVD <http://www.fivestardvd.com>
which offers great specials--$8.99 discs! It also has the best laid out Web
site--the title listing can be sorted by title, studio, price, release date
and sales ranking, as well as offering title and director searches, and
listing by individual company--e.g., Anime 18.
If you collect laserdiscs (as I do), I recommend Half.com, Anime
Jungle and Lasertown, plus one more:
Akadot Retail <http://www.akadotretail.com/shop/>
Look under the Vintage Blow Outs link in the side bar. Not only anime but
also AnimEigo's samurai films are on sale for $4.95-$9.95. As a
historical note, Akadot is one of the corporate descendants of the much
storied Books Nippan.
As an example of laserdisc goodness, I scored a _Spirit of Wonder: Miss
China's Ring_ LD from Half.com for $4.00 plus shipping. Both the LD and VHS
versions have been out of print for years, and the DVD has no release date.
(This is not the same as the forthcoming Bandai release, which involves
different stories.)
Lastly, if you are desperately looking for an older title, and can't find it
anywhere else, try Yahoo! Shopping: <http://shopping.yahoo.com/video/dvd.html>
or Videoflicks.com (from which I ordered _Iczer-One: The Complete_) <http://www.videoflicks.com>
That concludes my guide. Again, if you feel I've missed anything, or have
any other comments or criticism, feel free to E- mail me at: <email-address-deleted>
I am particularly interested in strengthening the last category--what
sources are *your* favorites for tracking down the long-out-of-print,
impossible-to-find video?
Happy hunting!
Ciao, John
--
John C. Watson
World Otakunization Project, Amherst Division
"Shuraku-tai--hasshin!"