[JP] Tari Tari

[something]

Originally Posted by webkid94

(just slightly o/t, I apologize) For those who are veterans with importing: I've heard a lot of negative stories about Amazon Japan, is HMV any good or others like CDJapan and Animate?

If you care about money you kinda need to buy from Amazon. Unless this is the only show you're buying at the moment, in which case you're hosed on S&H no matter where you go. because one disc import orders are painfully S&H-inefficient. No real way around it though.

HMV may be a bit better for 1-2 disc orders because Amazon has an up-front per-order ¥1700 fee on top of the ¥300/item cost. That scales decently well if you have 10+ items but is a big pain at one.

Also, people that only like one show in a season confuse me so. I'm currently planning on importing six this season (this not being one of them, though) and am tempted to do more, and that wouldn't even cover all the shows I'm enjoying. Not that I'd ever want to enjoy less shows, but at the same time it would save me a whole lot of money....

[HitokiriShadow]

Originally Posted by webkid94

(just slightly o/t, I apologize) For those who are veterans with importing: I've heard a lot of negative stories about Amazon Japan, is HMV any good or others like CDJapan and Animate?

Amazon.jp is generally fine, you just need to order a good number of disc (say, 4+) to make their shipping costs tolerable to decent and they no longer partial ship. Er, well, they do, but its weird and not really predictable or reliable. Other than that, the problem is that DHL likes to play office sports with their cargo so some people have had horribly dinged up packages on arrival. Actual damage to the items is uncommon to rare though, and your experience will vary based on location as some areas seem less terrible than others. My experience has been fairly good.

HMV is your next best bet, since their discounts are only slightly lower than Amazon's. They ship by weight. They're better if you're only importing one or two shows and don't want to wait until the whole series is out to get any of your discs.

CDJ charges full MSRP and ships by weight, but you'll probably end up paying higher shipping there than at other places with the same shipping method. They have a lot of options though and their cheapest one (which will take ~2 weeks to arrive) isn't bad. But again, full MSRP is a problem so only use them if you want to pay more to get a store bonus they have, which are pretty much never worth it.

Oh, and as for Animate, as far as I know, they don't ship internationally, so you'll need to use a forwarding service like Tenso or a proxy. They charge full MSRP plus you'll have extra fees for the proxy/forwarding service. Only worth using if you have no problem paying $100+ per volume and really want their store bonus (though unlike CDJ, they actually get good ones like artboxes).

[webkid94]

Originally Posted by something

Also, people that only like one show in a season confuse me so. I'm currently planning on importing six this season (this not being one of them, though) and am tempted to do more, and that wouldn't even cover all the shows I'm enjoying. Not that I'd ever want to enjoy less shows, but at the same time it would save me a whole lot of money....

Believe me, if I know of a really good show that doesn't seem to get a license, I'd buy it. I'll probably import Tsuritama, only because it's a pretty good price, the extras look great and I really really loved this show despite being licensed. Heck right now I'm definitly going for Chihayafuru: 9 volumes around ~3,800 yen on Amazon Japan AND probably 0% chance of license = Instant buy.

Nothing really stands out summer wise, so for me I'm going with Tsuritama, Chihayafuru and maybe Tari Tari, but the ones with english subtitle tend to be shows I'm not interested in (well maybe Gundam AGE..but 50 episodes=$$$). MAYBE Kuroko no Basuke as there's a 0% chance of a NA license, and yet the only Bandai Visual release without subtitles..even AGE and Horizon have them.

Other than that, the problem is that DHL likes to play office sports with their cargo so some people have had horribly dinged up packages on arrival. Actual damage to the items is uncommon to rare though, and your experience will vary based on location as some areas seem less terrible than others. My experience has been fairly good.

I was afraid that the contents shipped from Amazon Japan would be dinged but if it's only the outside, I'm not concerned about it at all.


Anyways, thanks something and Hitokiri for the responses, I'm sticking with Amazon and HMV as my second choice.

[Draneor]

Originally Posted by something

Also, people that only like one show in a season confuse me so. I'm currently planning on importing six this season (this not being one of them, though) and am tempted to do more, and that wouldn't even cover all the shows I'm enjoying. Not that I'd ever want to enjoy less shows, but at the same time it would save me a whole lot of money....

Well, there's "like" and there's "R2 like." The most I ever "R2 liked" in a season was four. I try to put in some sort of limitation so that I don't end up bankrupt. ^^;

[something]

Originally Posted by Draneor

Well, there's "like" and there's "R2 like." The most I ever "R2 liked" in a season was four. I try to put in some sort of limitation so that I don't end up bankrupt. ^^;

There is certainly that distinction, but it was specifically the "everything else is pretty bad or didn't meet expectations" (emphasis added) comment. Not that fact that someone is importing "just" one show... importing at all is obviously quite rare. Well, it doesn't matter, but I just personally don't think I've ever had less than 6 shows I liked in a (slow winter or summer) season, and usually it's more like 10+. As far as "R2 like", I guess that's ranged between 3 and 8, with actual purchases between 3 and 7 since I started seriously importing. Though Summer'10 was just 1 import. Probably the weakest season I can remember, much as I love Strike Witches... That Spring was also the first time I did 4, so I was holding back.

[Nico87]

My problem with this series (without having watched any of it yet) is the JP artbox. It's friggin' beatiful. Now that itself is obviously not the problem, the problem is the forthcoming Sentai release which is gonna be ultra barebone BD set or ultra barebone DVD only set.

It's just that once I started importing (Haruhi & Lucky Star), stuff won't be the same again. I mean, they both had great LE's in the US, but Bandai is no more and it's a barebone world we're living in.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by Nico87

My problem with this series (without having watched any of it yet) is the JP artbox. It's friggin' beatiful. Now that itself is obviously not the problem, the problem is the forthcoming Sentai release which is gonna be ultra barebone BD set or ultra barebone DVD only set.

It's just that once I started importing (Haruhi & Lucky Star), stuff won't be the same again. I mean, they both had great LE's, but Bandai is no more and it's a barebone world we're living in.

If you don't want to import everything, you can always import only volume 2 for the box and then buy the Sentai release. (well, there is the problem that we don't know if Sentai will have the BD though).

[Nico87]

Yeah, I know, but I don't really like buying a big box and only have one little case in there. I've done this before with Kino's Journey, I bought the cheap release but then bought the box later on plus the singles. Did the same with Haruhi and Lucky Star LE's aswell, I already had the Anime Legends releases of those, but I still bought the singles + box.

I'm doing what you said with K-On! though as there won't be that much left-over space with the four season 1 volumes, two season 2 collections + the movie. I can't have 6 or 7 BD cases from the same franchise without a box!

[Nico87]

Better pics of the box -

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ScAnX3K7L.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hHoRQ.jpg

I tried doing the usual img/img stuff to have the picture displayed but no luck.

[ultimatemegax]

Volume 3 was just solicited on the official website. This volume covers episodes 5 and 6. The LE will have a cover art of Konatsu and Sawa dancing while the RE (and back art of the LE) will have a cover art of Wakana looking at the sea.

This volume contains the second textless ED, character commentary by the three girls over episode episode 6 and staff commentary on episode 5 by Supervisor Hashimoto, Scriptwriter for episode 5 Rika Satou, and Producer Nagatani. Included with the LE is the special cover art, two postcards, and the third The Heart's Melody.