敗家…しない！

As noted before, neither Aniplex USA and NIS America have distribution channels in Canada, so us [real blue] Canadians need to order from our neighbour down south.

I was able to get the Arakawa Under the Bridge season 1 and part 1 of Katanagatari at AX this year (both were BD+DVD combo), but was out of luck for part 2 of Katanagatari and part 1 of Kimi ni Todoke since they were not released yet. There is also Ao no Exorcist and maybe Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Star Driver is hard to say, as Bandai releases most products to Canada as well, but not every product (e.g. Gundam Unicorn blu-ray).

While there's no word on the release date and format for Madoka and Star Driver yet, pre-orders for the other four have been up on RightStuf, and I've been tempted to plunge in numerous times.

But I decided today that I will not do it, as least for the time being, as much as I'd like to. And here's why.

KimiTodo is a really good high school romance series, but half of the series doesn't warrant $44 when it's just DVD, and the animation and art aren't spectacular enough to make me want the art book included in the premium edition. I will wait for the standard edition.

(On the other hand, $60 at the AX for each of the BD+DVD premium edition of Arakawa and Katanagatari part 1 was well worth it. The Arakawa's book contains all the characters' profiles and the seiyuu casts' autograph and message as the character, and the art book for Katanagatari is simply beautiful. Not to mention the extras they gave me for purchase over certain amount, including a really beautiful postcard collection for Katanagatari, character art book for Trinity Universe, OST for a Nippon Ichi game, and a ticket for Shirosawa Miyuki's autograph!)

Ao no Exorcist will be released in Region 1 DVD only, but has Region 2 blu-ray. Right now it seems to be order-only for blu-ray in Japan so I'm not sure what the chance is for a standard blu-ray release in the future. I'll likely wait and see. Hopefully there will be blu-ray eventually, but if Japan isn't getting blu-ray as standard treatment, I won't mind settling for DVD.

Katanagatari part 2 is the only one I will get for sure, but that alone isn't enough to clear the free shipping threshold so I'll need to wait until there are other items. I can always grab it at the AX next time as a last resort as well.

Of course, there's also Durarara which I'd like to acquire, but that's $130 for a 25-episode series. That's essentially how much I paid for Zeta Gundam back in the single-case-release days, and that's a 50-episode series. So I'm still waiting for the price to drop a couple years down the road, or if Aniplex USA comes out with a collection set for it.

Aniplex USA really is the most expensive distributor... orz


*gremz* エコアクション