<In my attempt to collect all FMA DVD threads into one sub-forum, I'm moving this thread from FMA Anime forum section front to FMA Anime Japanese Audience sub-forum. 02/19/07 ~Tombow>

Not to sound miserly or anything, but I feel the prices for FMA DVDs to be startlingly high...at least by comparison, anyway. $35 will buy you the complete 2nd Season of, say, The Pretender, a total of 21 episodes, but $40 would only buy you 8 FMA episodes, 4 per $20 disk. Continuing with the comparison, a standard Pretender episode is about 45 minutes, whereas a FMA episode is aprox. 25 minutes. Excuse me, but I find that a tad expensive. Now, 4 episodes for $10 or something would be far more reasonable.

Or is it?

The only thing I know of one the DVDs are the episodes. What I want to know is, what else is there? What bonus features justify the price tag?

Is it worth it, or should I sit back and weight for when the prices go down a year or so from now?

Whether or not you should wait is entirely based on how much you want them. If you don't want them badly enough to spend 20 dollars on them every 8 weeks (or was it seven....) then you can probably wait. But don't get your hopes up, DVD's tend to take a very long time to go down in price. I mean, the most I've ever seen a Popular Anime DVD drop in price over the course of a year is 3 dollars.

Is it worth it? Who knows. It varies from DVD to DVD. You can always check what special features it has by going to a store and looking at the back of the DVD case. Volume 5 seems to have a decent amount of extras that might justify the price. Some Volumes are a bit dry when it comes to features. I felt that Volume 4 didn't have much that impressed... (Okay so yes it did have the complete first episode of a another anime for promotional reasons but... ah... whatever)

I think it's worth it since the DVD's come out reasonably far apart. You can earn back that 20 dollars within that time. Never really any profit or loss that way.

Anime dvds have always been more expensive than American crap dvds. I've been dealing with it for the past five years, so I'm used to it now. Actually, lots of stores *coughsuncoastcough* sell the FMA dvds for $30 each, not $20 each. Anime is an expensive hobby. That's just the way it is.

If I were you I'd just wait til the box set comes out. It comes out to be a lot cheaper. I highly doubt the prices will go down either. I just checked some anime right now on Bestbuy.com and Neon Genesis Evangelion, made in 1995, is still priced at around $25 per volume while the box set is only $70.

eh, the pretender is a crappy show anyway.

i think we've talked about this before, in another thread...

Well, I only pay 20 bucks at Best Buy... and yeah, also, I have a job... and yeah ._. I really have no problems with anime now since there's this gift called Best Buy and now McDonald's has that BestBuy buck deal with the large value meals and I usually get three best buy bucks all the time so I go out and buy anime for 17 instead of 20. lol ._.

*Kills.*

I was only using it as price comparison.

Well, it's not exactly a fair price comparison. While Anime DVD's tend to never go down in price, the ones that do not sell well at all, tend to be the kind of product stores want to get out of their stock, so they dropt he price hoping someone will buy them. If it's good or not isn't a factor, if it's popular or not is.

it's not fair to compair american sitcoms/dramas and anime, since the us shows sell by seasons, while animes start selling in volumes containing, as you said, a couple of episodes.

eventually they'll make box sets of all the episodes and it'll be cheaper. they have the japanese ver in two season sets.

it's not too fair though. cowboy bebop dvds are like 30 a pop with only a few episodes...

I had this same problem when I first started watching FMA about a year ago. "TheVileOne" and I got into a bit of an argument about it too.
Here are some things to consider:
-A movie will run you between $15 to $20 for about 1.5 hours of film. That's about the same an anime DVD.
-A lot less people watch anime than other shows/movies. For that reason, the companies that license anime in the U.S. need to make more money per disc to turn a profit.
-The prices will not go down. If you go into Best Buy nearly every anime DVD is $20 no matter how long it has been on the shelf.

Personally I don't have a problem with the prices anymore.

you could always buy used on ebay, i guess.

Yeah, I think I'll end up buying them in sets. In the mean time, I'll tape all the new ones on Saturday.

Speaking of Cowboy Bebop, a friend of mine had the first season or whatever, but all in one set, including english translations. It had over 20 episodes or something.

No one's forcing you to buy them. And you can probably get them cheaper on deep discount DVD or anime discount DVD or whatever.

And here's the thing:

Fullmetal Alchemist = best anime series of all time

The Pretender = umm what's the Pretender?

I rest my case .

My tips on how to save money on anime DVDS:

Buy them on sales (like the big storewide sales cause you're wasting your time waiting for them to go down in price by themselves)

Get them used at game stores or something

If you want more than 1 series to watch, make a big thing with your friends. Each one buys a different series and let's the others borrow it (I save hundreds of dollars that way)

google the series there's gotta be a site out there to download a lot of animes

record it from TV

get membership cards from Barnes and Noble or Waldenbook etc. and buy DVDS there. You always get a discount.

go to anime cons. You could bargen and sometimes they actually play anime as a show thing.

that's all I can recall right now. My friend's and I made this big list with all sorts of money saving tips.

20 bucks for a DVD isn't alot considering movies are only 2 hours and 4 episodes of an anime is around 2 hours. Its a fair trade.

Anyone who shells out $20-25 a pop for that hatchet job of a dub is a born-again sucker.

so you've accomplished to offend three types of people in that statement.

wow. and they made you a moderator?

Even though the dubs include all the original openings and endings not shown on TV, the Japanese language tracks, AND English subtitles. Did you think SOME people might be paying for those as well slappy?

Yes. Suckers who don't know how to find fansubs.

Fan subs are rarely of what one would call high video quality.

More than good enough for anime.

I know how to find fansubs and I still bought the DVD's. Why? I want to own the series on DVD. I want to show my support to the great folks who made this anime possible. For a show like FMA, I'm a completist and I want the official DVD's.

You can call me a sucker if you want, but I see people wasting money on stupider things.

Then you should've bought the Japanese dvds, because Bones won't be getting a red cent of the proceeds from FUNi's dvd sales.

Yeah I've been trying to find a good place to buy the Japanese DVD's..... So far I can only find a retailer at toysnjoys.com and I'm a bit untrusting on the ones on eBay. Anyone know a good place to import the DVD's?

To quote Milk-Chan "Its always money, money, money, money, money, money!"

Funimation probably pays Bones to license the series...so whatever.

I think that my buying of the DVD's in the US shows that I'm a fan and that Americans love the show. I feel that I'm giving North American FMA fans representation and a voice. I want to prove to the Japanese that their work can be successful here and that's a great thing.

I see no point in shelling out a crap load money for imported Japanese DVD's since the American ones have EVERYTHING I need...and in English.

Isn't that just a cop-out? If you feel so strongly about supporting the people who made the anime, you should go directly to the source, not some half-assed surrogate.

As I understand it, most dubbing companies pay a single lump sum to obtain the rights to a show. There's no way I'm gonna support a company like FUNi if they intend to continue making subpar dubs, as they have since the dawn of time.

Well this might be news to you, but once again...I don't believe Funimation is a HALF-ASSED surrogate. So maybe if you saw it from my perspective you'd understand a little better. They've shown nothing but the utmost reverance and respect to Alchemist. They didn't even dub the opening songs into English as they did with some of their other series.

They are giving us the DVD's uncut, unedited, with the original covers. The same amount of volumes as the Japanese released, the OST's, among other things. I don't see how they are half-assing the series. Yeah you don't like the dub, it sucks, I get it. I just don't subscribe to your POV.



I mean, do you read any of the posts in here? A great deal of us think they are doing a good job with the dub. And you know, have you seen Blue Gender? Fruits Basket? Kiddy Grade? Their dubs for those shows were exceptional. But I bet to you, just would continue generalizing and say they are subpar and that they could NEVER make anything above a subpar dub.

There's good acting, and there's bad acting. Good casting and bad casting. These can actually be quantified, unlike most instances of 'good' and 'bad' dichotomies.
From what I've seen of FUNi, rather than finding the best, most appropriate actors for any given role, they instead just take whoever's available, and tailor the character to them, instead of the other way around. That's lazy and irresponsible, and it produces results that are mediocre at best.
And their ADR scripting is just crap. They focus way too much on making the lines sync with the lip flaps, and way too little on trying to make the dialogue feel genuine and realistic. Because of this, all their dubs sound awkward, like the VAs don't really feel the lines as they speak them.
If I want to hear a quality dub, I'll look to Pioneer, or Bandai, or even ADV [they've improved by leaps and bounds in the last 3 or 4 years]. FUNi represents the bottom, or near-bottom rung for dubbing companies. They produce sloppy translations, and they cast poorly. This is fact, not opinion.

And for the record, I have bought anime dvds in the past, and will continue to do so if I feel that it's worth the investment. However, FUNimation will never see a dime from me.

for that one person who asked for a place to buy jap ver dvds: try visiting local anime specialty shops in your area. i know there is one where i live that only sells the imports.

and about "buying from the source": bones doesn't expect american audiences to buy the dvds from them. they licenced fma to funimation for that very reason, so americans can enjoy the show. they get plenty of money from just that.

i think it's foolish to slam the dubbed versions. i've seen a lot of crappy american dubbed anime, but fma is one of the best i've seen. it was that version that got me hooked on fma. i know i wouldn't have watched it if it was only in japanese. also, fansubs are very poor translation, plus it puts you at the mercy of the translators. you wouldn't have an episode if some person out there translated it.

and that's not to say whether or not downloading fansubs are legal, since you get a copy of the show with NO money going to bones or funimation. the only "legal" way an english speaking audience can see fma is through the dubbs. not to mention what vileone said about the jap translation being on the dvds.

bottom line: get a life everyone. it's just a show. a great show.

I'm not sure I know what you are talking about. Could you give some examples?

And you do know for their shows, Fullmetal Alchemist in particular they have to get approval of the English voice actors from the Japanese producers? Just saying, they have culpability for this as well. So you shouldn't just blame Funimation.



I'm not going to deny this, because I'm not a fan of their DBZ dubs. But most recently I think they've made major improvements and are doing a great job with shows like Samurai 7, FMA, Fruits Basket, and Blue Gender. Blue Gender itself which pretty much seemed like an exact translation of the Japanese and was more than competent. Though I don't think the series itself is all that great, just a great English dub.



Pioneer doesn't dub anything. And they are Geneon now. Bandai does NOT produce or create the English dubs. They hire other companies that do that for them. These companies are companies such as Animaze, ZRO Limit, and the Ocean Group. These are the guys that translate, produce, record the English dubs for anime that companies that Bandai or Geneon license.

Funimation does not cast poorly either. They use a lot of the same EXCEPTIONAL VA talent that ADV does. This is true of Fullmetal Alchemist especially. A great deal of the Fullmetal Alchemist cast are ADV regulars, especially for lead and significant characters.



Man, you are very bleak . I'm not asking you to buy anything, but you ARE being pretty close-minded, extreme, and not to mention over-generalizing about all this.

Do you speak Japanese? If not, how do you know this?

How else would you explain casting Colleen Clinkenbeard as Winry? Her voice 'talents' could not be more inappropriate for that role. Same goes for Vic Mignona: decent actor, but a terrible Ed. He just doesn't have that mean streak in his voice that Paku Romi did... and why the hell does he sound exactly the same at age 16 as he did at age 10? They could not have botched that any more.
And while I appreciate the fact that rather than finding some actress who could do a 10-year-old boy's voice for Al, they went and got an actual 12-year-old, but let's face facts here, Aaron Dismuke just isn't that good at what he does. He sounds like he's READING all the time, rather than ACTING. With the job he does, it's easy to see why some would make the mistake of believing that Al is a robot.

And having the Japanese creative body approve of your choices of VAs before making the dub is a red herring. I don't know if you've noticed this, but most Japanese people have no sense of how English conversation is supposed to flow. They speak a language with completely different grammatical rules and idioms. It's like asking a chef who specializes in Japanese food for help making a pizza.


I haven't seen S7 or Fruits Basket, but if BG was a direct translation of the Japanese script, that doesn't really help. Like I said, Japanese and English are so vastly different that you have to discard the notion that simply doing a direct translation of the original script will be enough to make a satisfactory dub. It won't. Purists will disagree with me on this, but the reason most dubs sound so stiff and forced is because the ADR editors do a lousy job of infusing them with the idiosyncrasies of English speech. They have a terrible sense of how to properly paraphrase dialogue in Japanese so it sounds good in English. That's really my #1 problem with the FMA dub, and dubs in general. As I watch it, I can't stop thinking to myself, 'this isn't how people actually talk.' It's bad writing, and the bad acting does nothing to mitigate it.

I've seen plenty of ADV dubs, and I'd never heard of any of the VAs for Ed, Al, Winry, Mustang, Hughes or most of the other key characters... primarily because most of them had never BEEN in any ADV dubs [which is wrong, because ADV also uses 3rd party dubbing, namely Industrial Smoke & Mirrors.] And it doesn't matter to me if Pioneer is Geneon now. Most of the anime they've licensed have had dubs that are far superior to anything FUNi has ever done. Same goes for the others I've mentioned. Right now the gold standard in dub production, from what I've seen, is shared by Wolf's Rain, and the Xenosaga games. FMA falls far, far short of that.

I agree that dubbed Fma anime on TV is doing a great service of introducing Fma to new fans.
AND, I'm also greatful for those who do subbing. There are some who, in my opinion, do very good sub works, and many of us are indebted to their dedicated efforts, and as long as they are willing to put out subs, I'll enjoy them.

And, back to the DVD prices, it's all relative, IMO. I know in some city that's just a lunch money ($8.50 for one bagle, and another $8.50 for a cup of soup, in a PAPER CUP!! plus few more stuff, and you could have gotton the DVD instead.) So, it's all depending on individual values, I think. Personally, I don't mind buying DVD for a good series, so that it will stay with me for a long time.

You don't explain the casting of Colleen Clinkenbeard as Winry. You know why? SHE DOES NOT PLAY WINRY! Clinkenbeard who is one of the English ADR directors for Fullmetal Alchemist is the voice of Riza Hawkeye and Rose. WINRY's English voice is CAITLIN GLASS. Caitlin Glass and Colleen Clinkenbeard are two different people, NOT aliases.

I think Mignogna's voice as Ed is great, and I also think it did sound differently when he played the character at younger ages. The change was subtle but it was there.



I disagree. Al's always an ultra-polite, rather vanilla, and a bit stiff of a personality. And he seems to capture the emotional moments beautifully like in episode 3.



Does it not go both ways then? What makes you so sure the Japanese voices flow better? Can you speak it fluently?

Also, how do you know none of the people that give approval to the voices do not know English? How do you know that even though they can't speak it, they can't recognize an interesting sounding or engaging voice like American fans who like the Japanese voices obviously do?



Fruits Basket and Blue Gender were not stiffed or forced at all. And once again, you haven't seen them so you are generalizing based on a marginal amount of work.



Ok now you are pissing me off What, no bacon. Vic Mignogna has done a TON of ADV dubs. These include the following: Full Metal Panic, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, Excel Saga, Gravion, EVANGELION, Rahxephon, Goemon: Legend Of The Mystical Ninja, Peacemaker Kurogane, Saint Seiya, Saiyuki, Wandaba Style. The majority of his credits are FREAKING ADV DUBS! Do you have any more BS?

Luci Christian? The voice of Wrath and Psiren, she is yet another ADV regular. Don't believe me? Look at this link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycloped...le.php?id=12493

Monica Rial as Lyra (yes THAT Lyra): http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycloped...ple.php?id=2074

Chris Patton as Greed: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycloped...ple.php?id=6336

Christine Auten as Izumi: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycloped...ple.php?id=2491

Tiffany Grant as Marta: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycloped...ople.php?id=902

FMA is only Aaron Dismuke's second VA job for Funimation. Other than that, FMA has been using a TON of crossover talent with ADV because everyone wants to be a part of this show. And I think that the main character is played by an ADV regular goes against your point pretty strongly.

a) I got the names of Clinkenbeard and Glass mixed up. Sorry about that. But there's no reason to give me the third degree about it, since either way, the voice is completely inappropriate for the character.

There is NO CHANGE between Ed's voice at age 10 and at age 16. NONE. You might think you hear it because you want to, but it's not there. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise.

c) Aaron Dismuke is not a good actor. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise in that regard, either. His reading is stiff, he always sounds depressed/on the verge of crying, and his intonation is crap. He's young, so he can improve, but by then it'll be too late to salvage the job he did with Al's voice.

d) I can claim that the Japanese voices flow better because I'm familiar enough with the language to know this to be true.
Have you ever tried to converse with a Japanese person who learned English past a certain age? No matter how skilled they are in the language, there are certain aspects of casual English conversation that they simply can't hack, because they're too used to hearing and speaking in a certain way. That's why the judgment of the ADR director is more important than anything in making sure that the best and most appropriate available talent is used for a dub. And it's clear to me that whoever did the casting for FMA failed in this respect.

e) I did see at least a portion of Blue Gender [lost interest midway through, because it was a boring series], but the dub didn't really impress me. It wasn't as bad as FMA, but it wasn't anything to write home about. Of course, I never saw the Japanese version, so I can't really comment on the quality of casting, but the acting was average.
I have no interest in seeing FB or S7, so you've got me by the balls on that one.

e) And I'm well aware that at least SOME of FUNi's VAs overlap with ADV's, but MOST of the voices of the major characters haven't worked for ISM in any major capacity. Not that this is an especially important point, because whatever their credentials, the VAs that have worked on the FMA dub have combined their talents to produce a mediocre-at-best product.

CD Japan is a really good place to buy import CDs and DVDs.

Even though the majority of the voice actor for FMA's MAIN CHARACTER is mainly an ADV guy.

I just gave you a list of ADV people that do play major characters.

Ed's voice did change. He used a higher pitch when Ed was younger.

The voice casting. The ADR directors do pick who the VA's are and they cast them well. Its just a matter of getting them approved by the Japanese producers. And once again, if Americans can recognize and come to enjoy the Japanese voices of characters despite not understanding the language, why can it not go the same way for Japanese? Yoko Kanno herself said, "Our Spike (Koichi Yamadera), good. Your Spike (Steven Jay Blum), sexy."

I'm not seeing this poor casting you are talking about. I think everyone they've picked so far has done a bang-up job and brought their A-game. Christopher Sabat's Armstrong sounds exactly nearly the same as the Japanese VA, just in English. Totally appropriate to me.

I think Caitlin Glass's Winry is adorable.

You're either delusional, or on CN's payroll.

You don't have proof for either .

I don't, but I have reason to suspect that at least one is true, since you go so far out of your way to defend the dub, making claims about its quality which fly in the face of empirical and easily observable evidence.

I get the strangest feeling this topic has become little more than a war of attrition. Maybe it's just me.



Thanks!

A boxset that was once 120 is now 70.
A DVD that was once 29.99 is now 19.99

Its anime heaven.

That was returning to the original topic, but since the topic has switched gears:

I have no problems with the English dub. Seriously, I have no problems. I feel that the Ed for the English dub is better than the Japanese Dub... as well as for the English Al. Only problem I have with the English dub is the VA for Envy. To me, it just... doesn't... flow....

Sometimes these Sub/Dub wars grate on me. I mean, that's why anime is avalible on DVD only now. So that you guys can press that little audio button on your remote and switch it from English 5.0 to Japanese 2.0. All this moaning and groaning isn't going to change the dub or make it better.

All I hear is the hate on the Ft. Worth/Houston VA team and I'm like, get over it. Its not as bad as it was 6 years ago when FUNimation used their own local VAs for the new season of DBZ or how ADV recycled the same VAs for about all their animes between the years of like 1993 - 2000.

I besides, meeting these VAs at cons makes me look at them beyond the personality they produce in the booth. God, Chris Sabat is hilarious.

I mean, anyone who can do Mama Said Knock You Out as Vegeta has won my attention and sole alligance. XD

Anyway, yeah.

No....no....it's not just you. Why can't we all just...get along??

Scars is right cause I have seen anime dvds for $30 and only have 2 30-minute episodes.

I think 4 episodes for $19.99 is a pretty good deal seeing as to how anime can be priced at Best Buy or elsewhere. I'm talking $24.99 and $29.99 for even less than 4 episodes. I think we got it pretty good this way.

I also believe that What, No bacon is ridiculously over-generalizing about Funimation and their VA's. And I think that's a little unfair.

I'm looking at it like this: a movie costs around $15-$25.00 at Best Buy...and I really HATE half of the crap that they have out now; furthermore, a movie's running time is about 1.5-2hrs. If you put this in the context of the FMA dvd's, you can get an FMA dvd, which has a running time of approx 1.5hrs, for $19.99 at Best Buy...and it's much more entertaining and will make me happier than any of that Hollywood bs that they sell. And concidering that the FMA dvds are coming out once every 2 months...I'm sure I can put aside $10/month for a dvd Also, I found that my local Target had seasons 1 and 2 for $9.99...I have them already so it really doesn't do me any good, but the point is that there are reasonable prices if you are willing to look for them...and if they run as long as a movie and cost as much (or less than--depending on where you go) than a movie, I really see no problem with it. Anime is an expensive hobbie, there's no denying that

I think I made a similar point about someone comparing the value of a DVD set for The Pretender and Fullmetal Alchemist. Mainly in that the Pretender sucks and Fullmetal Alchemist rocks and is worth the money .

I happened to get FMA: The Fall ofIshbal for free, just today. Of course I want the other DVDs (so I'm not such a newbie x_x) but they're too expensive, and I chose the one I knew had lots of Angsty War! Roy. I got it for free because I returned most of my old DVDs and got a lot of money back. But under normal circumstances, $26 for 4 episodes? NO WAY. O.o

As someone who buys FMA DvD's, I think that the price isn't too high, because if your really into the show, and your following the story line, it wouldn't matter, but I want to bring up something, does anyone know why it takes so long to come out with new volumes, at the rate they are going it's going to take a while to complete the collection, but it's well worth the wait

Man, too many pre-conseived haters around here.