No Blu-ray in the US?

[N3IWVC]

The dvd release of Trilogy is supposed to be the 18th but what about blu-ray? Does anyone know if there is a subbed blu-ray release in the US?

[d5t]

There will be no Blu-ray release in the U.S. in addition to there being no English voice overs on the DVD release.

[N3IWVC]

That's what I thought. Much appreciated.

[Kuukai]

Bandai Entertainment explained why at the New York Anime Festival. In Japan, anime retails for something like three times what it does in America. Back in the days of DVD, the US and Japan were in different regions, so if an American company sold the show at normal American prices, it wouldn't hurt Japanese sales. But for Blu-ray, the two countries are in the same region, so releasing a cheaper version here would allow swarms of Japanese consumers to buy it off of Amazon, hurting sales for the original company. Getting around this issue involves intense negotiations with the licensor, and possibly removing the Japanese track. Bandai stated that for most shows they want, these negotiations are still going on, and I'm sure it's the same deal for other companies in the industry. This is why very few shows have made it to Blu-ray over here, and why even less of them seem to be at an appropriate price point.

[_Tri-edge_]

Bandai Entertainment explained why at the New York Anime Festival. In Japan, anime retails for something like three times what it does in America. Back in the days of DVD, the US and Japan were in different regions, so if an American company sold the show at normal American prices, it wouldn't hurt Japanese sales. But for Blu-ray, the two countries are in the same region, so releasing a cheaper version here would allow swarms of Japanese consumers to buy it off of Amazon, hurting sales for the original company. Getting around this issue involves intense negotiations with the licensor, and possibly removing the Japanese track. Bandai stated that for most shows they want, these negotiations are still going on, and I'm sure it's the same deal for other companies in the industry. This is why very few shows have made it to Blu-ray over here, and why even less of them seem to be at an appropriate price point.

Quick question. Between Bandai, Funanimation and VIZ media, which company benefits the most from these distinct negotiations?

[Kuukai]

None of them do. They'd all like to be able to just sell Blu-rays with both language tracks at the U.S. going rate. Compared to the usual system, these negotiations only help the Japanese companies. I guess it hurts Bandai Entertainment less, since they're part of the Bandai Group and connected by stock to Bandai Visual, but after listening to them for an hour I'm pretty sure that's not how they think of it. They're looking at their own sales figures, not Japan's...