Saturday, September 6, 2008

Buying anime digitally?

So I wanted to see Gurren Lagann's dubbed episodes and wondered where I could possibly find it. Seeing how my cable company doesn't provide the sci-fi channel I had to resort to downloading it from somewhere or buy the DVD. Now the DVD isn't expected to be out until sometime in NOVEMBER so that would mean I would have to download it somewhere.

Where could I look? oh I know the itunes store! perfect! So I do a search and I got no results for 'gurren' eventually figured out that I was searching in the CANADIAN itunes store! So I switched it over to the US store and searched once again.

I found it!GURREN LAGANN SEASON PASS For 50.99!!! or 2bucks an episode. So excited I went through all the steps to create an account.

From Random


then after typing all that registration ... i get this

"This recipient requires that you have a valid funding source from United States in order to complete this transaction."

WHAT THE HELL!? I can't even buy it if I wanted to! So I got to wait for the DVD.
I live in Canada and we should be able to access the same kind of things that US can but no, we can't. The only reason I would want to digitally buy something is that I want to follow the series as it airs and support the show!!!. Is that so much to ask? In my opinion, this is the kind of shit that forces people to end up downloading it illegally because its sometimes impossible to get it legally.

I'm sure its like this for the rest of the world too so what are your thoughts on this?


-- oh and if anyone knows of a good place to buy anime digitally with a decent resolution hook me up~

2 comments:

ClearTranquil said...

Well, the only way I get anime is mininova.org. Usually takes the torrent 1-2 days to download a series. If I want to buy anime I get it on DVD from a wholesaler.

Unknown said...

While I support a better business model, I have to advise you against buying digital anime with DRM like that. Who knows what kind of screwup they may have or if you even get to watch it unlimited times.

Companies will have to region lock like this, unfortunately, since there are international media treaties that have to be observed etc.

If you are looking for good quality anime, go to www.tokyotosho.com, it's literally a library of jp-media links from games, series, music, drama, ost, etc.

A wonderful place. D:

Peace~

Len-Vesper
www.finetoo.org