Sympathy-Based Purchases
Sep. 28th, 2014 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerSolicitations for anime discs that'll be on sale next year usually catch my attention right about now, provoking a few mixed feelings about time's endless rush. Beyond that, though, one of Sentai Filmworks's "we'll surprise you by only saying we've licensed this title right when you can start ordering it" announcements did get my attention. I only watched a few episodes of the mecha anime series Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse when it was streaming; everyone else seemed to get annoyed pretty fast with it (some even for the specific reason that it didn't measure up the "visual novel" computer games it was based on), and that seemed to sap my desire to keep watching it until, when I went on vacation for several weeks, I came up with what seemed a clever explanation for why I was about to drop it and didn't return to it after getting back. That should have been the end of it with stacks and stacks of other stuff to watch, but I suppose I got to feeling sorry for the series for not being what other people wanted to see (even as that might have added to a persecution complex built on the thought of "modern mecha" series getting squeezed between people who aren't interested in the genre to begin with and people whose tastes were set with series made two to three decades ago and can't accept more "modern" touches folded in), and now that a second, altogether unexpected chance stands open I'm toying with the thought of taking it.
The obvious objection there does seem to be there was always a "second chance open" in that the streaming video was still available... but I suppose that in this, and in a few other cases, there's a difference between buying and watching. There are certainly some series I feel sorry for but haven't bothered to buy, in any case. For example, while I feel sorry for the unpopularity of Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3 Club for ending up something different from what it started as but struggling to wrap everything up and I'm contemplating buying it (although there's a contrary opinion or two out there), I feel sorry for Fractale for starting with grand promises but not managing to deliver just about anything such that its director wound up a figure of derision, but never got around to buying it.
All of this does mean discs piling up, though. Perhaps I'm beginning to grow more level-headed at the thought of more Japanese companies directly entering the North American market and "harmonizing" their disc prices with those in Japan to help protect their home market from "reverse importation" because I'm starting to think it won't be all bad to just save the money to buy an exceptional standout every year or so and otherwise make do with the streaming video that seems there to increase the pool of potential "cost is no object" purchasers as much as possible. If, on the other hand, streaming video also passes away for some unimaginable reason, I suppose I'll start watching old movies or reading more books.
The obvious objection there does seem to be there was always a "second chance open" in that the streaming video was still available... but I suppose that in this, and in a few other cases, there's a difference between buying and watching. There are certainly some series I feel sorry for but haven't bothered to buy, in any case. For example, while I feel sorry for the unpopularity of Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3 Club for ending up something different from what it started as but struggling to wrap everything up and I'm contemplating buying it (although there's a contrary opinion or two out there), I feel sorry for Fractale for starting with grand promises but not managing to deliver just about anything such that its director wound up a figure of derision, but never got around to buying it.
All of this does mean discs piling up, though. Perhaps I'm beginning to grow more level-headed at the thought of more Japanese companies directly entering the North American market and "harmonizing" their disc prices with those in Japan to help protect their home market from "reverse importation" because I'm starting to think it won't be all bad to just save the money to buy an exceptional standout every year or so and otherwise make do with the streaming video that seems there to increase the pool of potential "cost is no object" purchasers as much as possible. If, on the other hand, streaming video also passes away for some unimaginable reason, I suppose I'll start watching old movies or reading more books.