The pricing for the Strike Witches 2 discs has been announced, and even desperate rorikon are aghast at the pound of flesh demanded for each episode of government approved loli pantsu/nopan goodness.
The Blu-ray limited edition (and there is no normal Blu-ray edition) is to retail at ¥9,240, whilst the lowly DVD can be had at ¥7,665 limited and ¥6,090 for the peasant edition.
There are 6 discs in total, suggesting 12 episodes for the series.
DVD prices for Japanese anime releases are normally kept high on the basis that total revenues are higher from selling a small number of hideously expensive discs to a tiny niche of creepy anime watchers than from selling a slightly larger number of cheap discs to the same tiny niche of creepy anime watchers – sound business sense it would seem.
However, even by these standards Strike Witches is commanding a premium – the same season sees BD editions of Amagami and Sekirei at ¥7,140, although Railgun seems to have it beat with a single $70 episode due.
Fortunately, miserly or bankrupt American pauper fans can perhaps expect an eventual overseas release at a fraction of the price.
…you know what… this pisses me off… it pissed me off so much that I’m about to go download it via bit torrent just for them being such dumbasses on the price, it’s obviously not going to sell very much anyway so might as well : )
I’ve seen Artefact’s explanation about price elasticity before. It sounds well thought but I somehow need solid proof of whether this is true or not.
Seeing as their target market is all too willing to pay an arm and a leg, I see this ploy coming through. Should they even try to ship this as such outside Japan, they’d be boarded before they even leave shore. Actually, they’d be boarded anyway, export or no.
As I think a few other people have said, the big difference between the west and Japan is that the shows are aired on TV first. That makes a huge difference to the leap of faith us western anime fans have to make every time we buy a DVD. Then there’s the issue of release dates, my shitty country (you have one guess) didn’t get the first season of Haruhi until November 2008!
But anyways, even being a dirty gaijin who watches subbed anime and translated H-games I am, I still spent over $1k on anime merchanise/H-games/blu-rays when I was there.
The bonus materials better be good with this.