![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerFor as long as there have been anime fans on this side of the Pacific, some of them have been importing original releases from Japan. When I was watching what my university's anime club showed, an "online magazine" had regular pieces about laserdiscs. When I was starting to buy DVDs, the main message board I was reading had people who imported "R2" DVDs for their region-free players (and complained about the picture quality of releases over here being lower). Nowadays, the same message board (in a continuity-of-community sense) has a vocal group of people who import lots of Blu-Rays and complain about releases over here having interlaced video, lossy sound, and subtitles that can't be turned off. I keep seeming to have to fight the feeling I'm being encouraged to consider myself a second-class citizen for suffering sticker shock whenever I convert the price and being convinced not all of the higher price goes into painstaking encoding, and then remembering the warnings about how animators in Japan scrape to make a living too. Maybe I'm just too eager to conclude there's an element of spite to the way a lot of importers talk and overemphasise the thought of them turning their up noses at domestic releases through conspicuous consumption.
For all my fancy "I liked it, but I just don't know if I liked it that much" footwork when I hear another box set is going to have English subtitles included, though, I've entertained a hypothetical case or two. Having seen Gunbuster back at university, it might have rooted itself in my consciousness to some significant degree, and it being a "compact" work did help too in my thinking I would have to put in some serious thought on the possibility of its English subtitles being included in its Blu-Ray set. They weren't, though, and I just shrugged it off and went on to the next hypothetical case.
When it comes to Macross, I do still seem to have some reluctance to embrace the usual theory hurled around by anime fans that Harmony Gold's contract to create Robotech gives it the vast and terrible power to block any attempts by any other company over here to bring any of the unreleased Macross series over without it being to do that itself, but I am conscious of the whole "hanging back" feeling. On the one long afternoon I did manage to spend on Japan on a vacation rescheduled through unfortunate events, I happened by chance on a store with a floor of models (even if this might have scuppered my chance to "see the whole picture" as I'd been thinking), and bought a little boxed Macross Frontier figure even if I've never opened it to see just what character it was. When I heard a full set of little figures of idol singer heroines would be released, I indulged myself in starting an account with an online store and ordering the set. Just as I got the notice it was shipping and I'd find out one way or another if I'd done everything correctly, though, I saw news the Macross Frontier movies would be getting English subtitles. The price still hits me hard, but I did like both movies when I tipped my karmic balance a little further against me by seeing "fansubs" of them, convinced they'd managed to commit to a resolution of the love triangle that had obsessed most other fans while still working for me, who hadn't so much cared that there be a "winner" as that the odd one out wouldn't be condemned. Maybe if I can commit to a process of "mental saving" now, I'll be able to deal with a "one-time only event" when the set comes out.
For all my fancy "I liked it, but I just don't know if I liked it that much" footwork when I hear another box set is going to have English subtitles included, though, I've entertained a hypothetical case or two. Having seen Gunbuster back at university, it might have rooted itself in my consciousness to some significant degree, and it being a "compact" work did help too in my thinking I would have to put in some serious thought on the possibility of its English subtitles being included in its Blu-Ray set. They weren't, though, and I just shrugged it off and went on to the next hypothetical case.
When it comes to Macross, I do still seem to have some reluctance to embrace the usual theory hurled around by anime fans that Harmony Gold's contract to create Robotech gives it the vast and terrible power to block any attempts by any other company over here to bring any of the unreleased Macross series over without it being to do that itself, but I am conscious of the whole "hanging back" feeling. On the one long afternoon I did manage to spend on Japan on a vacation rescheduled through unfortunate events, I happened by chance on a store with a floor of models (even if this might have scuppered my chance to "see the whole picture" as I'd been thinking), and bought a little boxed Macross Frontier figure even if I've never opened it to see just what character it was. When I heard a full set of little figures of idol singer heroines would be released, I indulged myself in starting an account with an online store and ordering the set. Just as I got the notice it was shipping and I'd find out one way or another if I'd done everything correctly, though, I saw news the Macross Frontier movies would be getting English subtitles. The price still hits me hard, but I did like both movies when I tipped my karmic balance a little further against me by seeing "fansubs" of them, convinced they'd managed to commit to a resolution of the love triangle that had obsessed most other fans while still working for me, who hadn't so much cared that there be a "winner" as that the odd one out wouldn't be condemned. Maybe if I can commit to a process of "mental saving" now, I'll be able to deal with a "one-time only event" when the set comes out.