What's the best country to be an anime fan?

[Sumeragi13]

What country (aside from Japan) is the best place for having anime shows on T.V., manga brought over and general acceptence of it as a form of entertainment? Just curious.

[Tama Chan]

Probably not a general acceptence of anime, but over here in the United States, we get treated with many anime programs on tv, and most of the best Japanese anime comes out on vhs/dvd here, along with a slew of other products.

[GimpyBoy]

We also get Anime on DVD cheaper than Japan. But they get it on the TV and stuff.

[Ofanim]

Hmm. I believe that my country, the Philippines, houses masses of anime fans. Go to bookstores and you can find locally made manga. Most of my friends in school draw in anime style. Cancel an anime show and people protest at the gates of TV broadcasting stations. But the problem about this "anime craze" is that people lose their originality. They become japanese in a sense and forget about the traditions and ways of our country. But even if there are a lot of anime fans, a vast majority of them are amateurs because of 1. TV Networks air so little anime, 2. many people cant afford cable where the good animes are aired, and 3. they dont have internet and cant afford to purchase from it. That's also the reason why piracy is so rampant in our country. You can buy original CDs for $25 and up, or pirated CDs fof $1. Piracy makes me sick!:bawling:

[lobato]

Originally posted by Sumeragi13
What country (aside from Japan) is the best place for having anime shows on T.V., manga brought over and general acceptence of it as a form of entertainment? Just curious.

From a financial standpoint, the US is a much better place to be a fan than Japan. DVDs are prohibitively expensive and lack some of the features that their American counterparts have. The DVDs are sometimes 2x to 4x more expensive. On a related note, America gets to see some titles come out on DVD first, like DBZ...

(^_^)/

[John]

Mexico gets way, way more anime on television than America does.

[Aibou]

Probably the best source in Europe..
Germany
- mostly uncut and straight from Japan.
- good voiceactors
- lots of anime..
- stores

[.skg|bn]

Definately not Australia.

Australia has 5 Free to Air channels, which 2 show Anime. One is a commercial channel that regularly shows more juvenile show's such as Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, DBZ, Card Captors, Beyblades, Zoids. The other channel is a channel that prides itself in showing international, uncut and undubbed shows.

Occasionally they'll show a series like Neon Genesis: Evangelion, Bubblegum Crisis or Guyver, but it's most often (and not often enough) movies/OAV's like Castle of Cagliostro, Patlabour, Armitage, Record of Lodoss War etc.

I recently wrote them a letter requesting they show more new Anime, rather than continually repeating what they have already shown. No reply as of yet, here's hoping :).

As for DVD's, we have a reasonable Region 4 selection/price range. It really depends where you buy, but most DVD's fall in around the $30-35 mark (that's $17.50-20 for you Americans). I'm a little dissapointed with the ammount of new Region 4 releases being made. Last year, Madman Entertainment (http://www.madman.com.au/news.php) came through with roughly half of Anime that was promised. The list of planned releases this year is impressive, but I hope they have a better record of actual releases this time.

[Kiyone]

I don't know about anime, but Montreal's a great city in which to live if you like manga, since we get both the American stuff, and most of the French-translated stuff, since there's a lot of stuff you can get in French that isn't available in English, like Kimagure Orange Road and a lot of the more obscure CLAMP stuff like Suki Dakara Suki, plus a lot of the stuff that's also published in English is much further along in French since everything in French goes straight to paperback rather than being sold in comic book form first; Ah! My Goddess (they use the "Ah!" instead of the "Oh _ _!" in French) is already up to volume 24 and is just a volume behind the Japanese.

Also, we get the occassional world premiere of anime films like Perfect Blue or Millenium Actress at the FantAsia festival.

But we can't watch Cartoon Network and YTV and Teletoon don't show any of the Adult Swim anime, so it evens out.

[Stelok]

That's an interesting question. I dunno which is the best but I believe Philippines is better country to be an anime fan than America or the other countries in Western hemisphere.

[Ironfrost]

In response to Kiyone, although France is a lot better than English-speaking countries for manga, the selection of anime isn't actually that great. If you're looking for anime series on DVD, most things come out in the USA before they do in France.

The exception is full length anime movies, which are very popular. Big releases like Ghibli always get a proper cinema release, and pretty soon after the Japanese get them too (Miyazaki's latest, "Howl's Moving Castle", has already been out for a while).

[sfried]

In my experience, The Phillipines.

Ofanim brings up a nice dilema.

[Siendra]

For DVD releases, Canada. It's kind of strange to say, but the market has completely truned around in the last year. I can find brand new official releases for under $20, usually $15 ($12-$17 USD) at stores like HMV, Music World, etc...

[Mahodo]

I will confirm what ironfrost is saying about France for anime and manga.

There is a big boom in the number and variety of manga, actually i wonder if there are not too much published. (Well, at least we can easily choose what we want).

Now, since in France, "cartoon are for child" (and it will take time to change that state of mind), some title that were not for suited for a younger andience like "fist of the north star" were broadcasted in kid show a few years ago. This resulted in a very bad press for both manga and anime (and all the censoring that was inflicted to tone down the violence in these anime only worsened the matter by making them look dumb). You could say that in France fandom is still trying to recover from that blow. Wich was especially harsh since a good dozen of show could be watched at that time, think of title like creamy, dragon ball, sailor moon, captain tsubasa….

Actually, the public channel don't want to broadcast anime and when they do it's their americanized version (yes the 4kid one) .There were a few notable exceptions like Card Captor Sakura, Ojamajo Doremi (completely aired on fox kid but only 20 ep on our 5ht channel), Mirmo de Pon and Ashita no Nadja (wich is is beign aired every sunday morning on M6).

On a more positive note Canal + (wich is our 4ht channel and is special because part of their program are public and part not) has made a move in favor of more mature anime recently, they started a special program in september (called la kaz’) and has alrealdy aired GTO, Excel saga and Noir. Now it’s Full Metal Achemist turn.

You can add that some pay to view channel also air more mature show from time to time (hellsing, the soul taker, wolf’s rain and witch hunter robin) but not everyone has actually access to these.

I admit that for anime movie the situation is surprisingly not bad (especially for ghibli movie) so i won’t complain.

And on the topic of DVD, more and more title are licensed but i don’t think we will match the availability of the american market before a while. But at least we are starting to get nice range of anime to buy. (though it can be costly at time)

Ps : I apologise if my english is not very goob since i’m french and i’m not used to post in foreign board. Though i hope I’ve been informative.

[Kiyone]

Well, that's weird, opening a thread and seeing that I already replied two years ago. :P

France is good for manga, but the TV anime, like Sailor Moon, are often just as edited as the American kiddy TV versions, like how the French TV dub of Sailor Moon pretends that "Frederick" (Haruka/Uranus) and "Michelle" (Michiru/Neptune) are just pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend to infiltrate Mugen Academy, there is no same-sex romantic aspect to their friendship. (And Hotaru Tomoe is called, for whatever weird reason, "Olivia Williams", like the actress who played Miss Cross in Rushmore.)

For legitimate licensed anime on DVD, America is still the best game in town outside of Japan.

[Carl]

Definately not Australia.
You have it better than us across the ditch mate. I'd kill to have a station like SBS over here...



To answer the question, in my opinion it's the Philipines. The combination of huge fan community and large supply of media is really unmatched outside of Japan.

[Hybrid Shock]

Definately not Australia.

could be worse...


Australia has 5 Free to Air channels, which 2 show Anime. One is a commercial channel that regularly shows more juvenile show's such as Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, DBZ, Card Captors, Beyblades, Zoids.

they also show that in the early morning timeslot.. Besides, Ten is a commercial station and this appeals to the kids that are watching it at the time.

Though i'd pick 7's Sunrise over them...

The other channel is a channel that prides itself in showing international, uncut and undubbed shows.

Occasionally they'll show a series like Neon Genesis: Evangelion, Bubblegum Crisis or Guyver, but it's most often (and not often enough) movies/OAV's like Castle of Cagliostro, Patlabour, Armitage, Record of Lodoss War etc.

all dubbed, at least the anime i've seen...

I recently wrote them a letter requesting they show more new Anime, rather than continually repeating what they have already shown. No reply as of yet, here's hoping :).

you're not alone. AusAnime's done that too..

doesn't help that Des Mangan doesn't like Anime....

As for DVD's, we have a reasonable Region 4 selection/price range. It really depends where you buy, but most DVD's fall in around the $30-35 mark (that's $17.50-20 for you Americans). I'm a little dissapointed with the ammount of new Region 4 releases being made. Last year, Madman Entertainment (http://www.madman.com.au/news.php) came through with roughly half of Anime that was promised. The list of planned releases this year is impressive, but I hope they have a better record of actual releases this time.

there's also a fair few shops selling R1 titles. In Sydney, it's Cartoon Gallery. In Melbourne, it's AnimeZone and Minotaur


One thing i like about Australia is that the quotient of "OMG!! you watch those stupid japanese cartoon porn!!" people is drastically lower than which has been indicated by out fellow US based posers. I think SBS had something to do with that. anime shops are within reach (there's a good 3-4 anime shops within walking distance of Box Hill Central in Victoria) and we have our own fairly big anime convention (Manifest (www.manifest.org.au)) and a pop culture convention that has a lot of stuff about anime (Supernova)

SO while it's not the best country (could be better once Telstra get's off their arse and makes ADSL2/ADSL2+ a better proposition...), i'm happy to be an anime fan here

I do agree with Carl though... the Philippine market is possibly the best market for Anime... though it's weird listening to a filipino Inuyahsa...

[Kakura]

The TV market I would say philipines. Though the DVD home market I'll say U.S.A/Canada.

[Levon]

According to some recent news from AnimeNewNetwork:

"The report suggests that, over time, the North American market may grow to twice the size of the Japanese market.

According to the report, over 100,000 people visited the various anime conventions across the United States in 2004 (Otakon and Anime Expo alone account for close to 50,000 attendees)."

[Starchild]

The American bases in Japan.

[Cere]

Probably the best source in Europe..
Germany
- mostly uncut and straight from Japan.
- good voiceactors
- lots of anime..
- stores

You must be kidding???

Uncut???
Most violence in TV is cut out, you have difficulties to understand the story after that.
Good Voiceactors???
Where? Didn't hear one...in Germany Anime is supposed to be for children, and that's how the Voiceactors sound...it's horrible!!!
Lots of Anime???
*cough*...nope...
Pokemon, Dragonball on TV, sure...some Anime on DVD...but lots...never...

Sorry to dissapoint you.

If you want Anime in Europe: Go to France or Spain...Germany's not the best choice at all.

Bye,
Cere

[Burbster]

France is a good country for anime, and especially manga.

[sailornyanko]

Mexico gets way, way more anime on television than America does.

Well, I'll agree with you there, but only if you're a mexican anime fan with cable tv (which as a matter of fact is far cheaper and carries more and much better channels than american cable tv companies). If you don't have cable tv, it must suck. Hehehe, good thing I have cable and a special digital package on my mom's tv.

Well, my cable service (Cablevisión) is a very good service, it carries all of the anime showing stations except an Argentinan station called Magic Kids which you'd need the Sky satellite service to see.

We do get a lot of anime on tv (now you guys know my secret as to how can an anime fan without too much money see so many titles), but lately the anime stations aren't showing a lot of new stuff. Happily Latin-American Cartoon Network (as annoyed as I am that they censored Inuyasha) will premiere a new anime tomorrow at 4 pm: Mirmo Zibang. I have a feeling it's going to be another Chilean dub.
I'm still hoping this station will start to premiere the Adult Swim anime from American CN. Despite showing Rurouni Kenshin with relatively few cuts (which is amazing since anime down here is almost never ever censored unless it's an anime dubbed over an american butchered dub like Yu-Gi-Oh), LA CN still has this idea that kids will actually stay up till 1 am to see Pokémon. I'm sorry, but what's the point of having an anime run at midnight if most of the anime your channel shows is too kiddy to even bother watching?! If only CN would premiere Outlaw Star.. even if it is censored... :(

Hrm... I think everyone's choice for best joint to see anime in Latin-america is Locomotion. At least one channel dedicated to showing mature and violent anime without censoring. They even showed Sakura Diaires uncut (which caused a bit of anger from the morale of Paty Chapoy during her crappy entertainment show... but nobody cared about what she thought about that anime. I hate her, she criticized Those who hunt elves for being inmorale while at the same time she keeps on yapping about how nude la cuban stripper Niurka was at yesterday's show. Hypocrite.). What I don't like about Locomotion is that they only really care about getting serious Sci Fi anime and not enough Comedy. Heck, I think the only two Shoujo anime this channel has ever gotten were Cyberteam in Akihabara and Saber Marionette.

A really ignored channel, but I personally like to watch is Unicable. They got some time ago Ojamajo Doremi season 2, but they gave it the worst schedule ever! 6 am weekends! No way am I getting up THAT early! However, I do watch this channel for the Hell Teacher Nube reruns. That anime rocks.

As for national TV, well, if you haven't heard of the TV Azteca incident, well... That stupid channel (which is precisely the channel that Paty Chapoy works for) got into a legal feud with japanese companies because they poorly managed the publicity of anime merchandise and they got banned from showing most anime. I think the ban was removed by now because they do every now and then show an episode or two of Remi, but they are so much in love with Disney that they prefer to show Disney cartoons. Ugh. Oh and idiotic publicity shows with Home Depot guys making do it yourself crafts with products of certain publicizzed brands. Stupid TV Azteca and how they sell themselves.) To a point I'm happy they don't show anime anymore since they never treated it with respect anyways. They would constantly change schedules without notice, not show complete the ED song sequences despite complaints from anime fans that wanted to see them and not even bother to show all of the episodes of a dozen shows (Detective Conan, Yat and Yaiba instantly come in mind...).

Televisa (Or sometimes punned Telerisa) isn't much better, but they do still show a few anime. They never show their anime at the right schedule, but they do show Zoids Fuzors at 6 am weekdays and Gundam Wing Sundays at random hours (it's supposed to be on at 11:30 am, but time doesn't mean much to national tv).

Canal Once, a sort of PBS like channel sometimes shows a really good anime movie called Nemos. I always bump into the channel right at the middle of that anime and never get to record it. ¬¬

But *sigh* that's national tv. Serious anime fans get cable just to see anime on the good channels.

Mexico isn't a bad country either to get manga. Editorial VID has been very nice into massively selling tons of less commercial titles with almost the same paper quality as the american mangas, but 50% cheaper. I recently bought the first and second issues of X for the equivalent of 10 dollars instead of 20.
For people that don't live in Mexico City, Editorial VID offers mail in orders from most of the important cities in the country. Their mangas are so easy to get, in Mexico City they even sell them at the magaine joint on the corner of the street. No really, there's one magazine joint that sells those mangas at just 1 minute walking distance from my house!!

However, as good as anime is on tv and manga in Mexico, it sucks big time when it comes to anime on DVD. Let's just say that virtually no anime is legally available in DVD. Legit DVD's here are just way too expensive, it's almost a joke. One imported from the US anime DVD that AN sells for like 26 dollars can cost up to 60 dollars in a legit comic store over here. And R4 DVD's, as sad as it is, the anime I see on TV will probably never come to DVD.

That's a lot of why bootlegs are the big thing over here. A lot of people buy bootleg VCD's (and now with the better technology bootleggers have, they now almost exclusively sell on dvd format) and DVD's of the anime dubbed to spanish shown on tv. A lot of bootleg series that run over 100 episodes cost just 40 dollars on VCD format.
Plus bootlegs are really easy to get, you have to really hunt hard if you want the legits. Stores do sometimes get a few copies of a specific anime, the anime runs out fast because there's just so many people that want the anime, and then they don't restock like in stores in the US.

I have several bootlegs of anime that will never get proper releases in Mexico and I don't regret having bootlegs, I regret there's no anime to dvd companies like the ones in the US over here.

That's why I'm constantly nagging that I wished companies like ADVfilms and Geneon would try to release as many of their DVD titles with the dub track in spanish as possible. Hollywood movie dvd's in the US usually have spanish dub tracks and subs, but anime DVD's don't. That's also why I'm so stingy about buying American anime DVD's when a mexican dub exists but isn't included in the american release. Actually I don't buy american DVD's of anime already shown in Mexico unless they have the track.
I think Sailor Moon S will be one of my only DVD titles I'll own since I know they will never get a mexican DVD boxset down here because of TOEI's feud.

If companies don't start thinking about the Latin-american anime market of fans that really like watching anime in spanish, we will just turn to bootlegs. I might go downtown in a few weeks to buy some bootlegs.

It's also sad that Disney who has the mexican dub track on the American DVD of Kiki's Delivery Service doesn't want to make an R4 release of this movie. God, does anyone think about the fans? Then everyone blames us for ruining the industry because we bootleg when nobody offers legit DVD's for a decent price and easy accesability.

Believe me, your average anime fan will rather buy an excellent bootleg of Spirited Away on the subway for 8 bucks than hunting for it in every little store in the city just to end up paying 30 bucks for it.

[Levon]

I'm still hoping this station will start to premiere the Adult Swim anime from American CN. Despite showing Rurouni Kenshin with relatively few cuts (which is amazing since anime down here is almost never ever censored unless it's an anime dubbed over an american butchered dub like Yu-Gi-Oh)



Actually Kenshin was never shown on Adult Swim, it was shown on Toonami. I think there would be very little if any edits at all if it was to air on Adult Swim.

But I remember reading an interview from someone at CN saying how much is a mistake it was to have Kenshin as a Toonami show & it should have been on Adult Swim.

[Crazy Penguin]

Definately not Australia.

Australia has 5 Free to Air channels, which 2 show Anime. One is a commercial channel that regularly shows more juvenile show's such as Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, DBZ, Card Captors, Beyblades, Zoids. The other channel is a channel that prides itself in showing international, uncut and undubbed shows.

Occasionally they'll show a series like Neon Genesis: Evangelion, Bubblegum Crisis or Guyver, but it's most often (and not often enough) movies/OAV's like Castle of Cagliostro, Patlabour, Armitage, Record of Lodoss War etc.

I recently wrote them a letter requesting they show more new Anime, rather than continually repeating what they have already shown. No reply as of yet, here's hoping :).

As for DVD's, we have a reasonable Region 4 selection/price range. It really depends where you buy, but most DVD's fall in around the $30-35 mark (that's $17.50-20 for you Americans). I'm a little dissapointed with the ammount of new Region 4 releases being made. Last year, Madman Entertainment (http://www.madman.com.au/news.php) came through with roughly half of Anime that was promised. The list of planned releases this year is impressive, but I hope they have a better record of actual releases this time.

Yeah, but Madman usually have the best DVD releases, so it evens out.

[Pepperidge]

Well, that's weird, opening a thread and seeing that I already replied two years ago. :P

France is good for manga, but the TV anime, like Sailor Moon, are often just as edited as the American kiddy TV versions, like how the French TV dub of Sailor Moon pretends that "Frederick" (Haruka/Uranus) and "Michelle" (Michiru/Neptune) are just pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend to infiltrate Mugen Academy, there is no same-sex romantic aspect to their friendship. (And Hotaru Tomoe is called, for whatever weird reason, "Olivia Williams", like the actress who played Miss Cross in Rushmore.)

For legitimate licensed anime on DVD, America is still the best game in town outside of Japan.

That was nearly a decade ago, though, when they were still going through their major growth period. Lots of shows still air in French TV and are mostly uncut now. Fullmetal Alchemist currently airs uncut on Canal+ at 6:00pm, as did Noir before it. Also, France's video distribution tops the US and even Japan in many ways since a large number of series' are released in affordable boxsets like television shows generally are in the US.

However, I would argue that Canada is the biggest potential market. Since the market focus in this country is placed almost entirely on several major cities, all of which have huge anime fanbases situated within them (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and to an extent Calgary), virtually any show that airs on television has the potential to become more popular than it ever could in the US. Sailor Moon, Escaflowne, Gundam SEED, Witch Hunter Robin, and even Inuyasha all managed to find significantly larger television audiences up here than they ever did in the US.

Now if only companies would get off their butts and actually get video distribution working efficiently up here.

[GP04]

Taiwan is pretty good too.

Although the offical DVD market were not big, due to BAD publishing company and bootleg. However, a lot of manga were translated and released there. Plus, if you live in bigger cities like Taipei, there are tons of place to get your anime need.

[Lemina]

I agree with pretty much everything sailornyanko said about anime in Mexico. It's great on Television with such channels a MagicKids, Locomotion, XHGC, TV Azteca, and even Televisa, but it's not so good Anime DVD wise as there's just no dominent DVD company that will mass produce these releases, let alone make it when VHS tape is way more popular. That's the problem, the DVD format just isn't as popular in Mexico as it is in the US. People are so used to the VHS tape, and they could easily find a way to bootleg an anime series by copying it on tape or even on a DVD-R if they have a player. Just about every store you go to in Mexico has some kind of bootleg too. Region 4 DVD's in Mexico are something like would be considered really expensive, and because many people are not very rich, they find VHS tapes to be a way cheaper way to invest money on too. Not everywhere of course, but in the smaller villages, it's really apparent. It's always been like this, and it seems like it will stay like this for quite some time to come.

[ablo]

I would say the United States. Most anime from Japan is brought over here because besides Japan, this is where the market is.

[Etchd]

Philippines! or anywhere near Japan...

:lol:

Although there are a few legit goods (but I think the legit industry is going up, they slash off prices to all-time lows) and you can get US licenced manga at a much more cheaper price, and Japanese imports for a much much more cheaper price.

This place is a cheap country! In terms of anime fandom that is.

[Sterling]

-Germany..

[Little-Q]

Well, Norway's not the greatest country to be an anime-fan in. The only shows I've seen on tv is pokémon and digimon (both with really great voiceacting...:shuddersviolently: ), which are usually shown at 8-9 am (which is a great time to watch'em, especially if you've stayed awake all night).

I've seen three movies (Spirited away, metropolis and the cowboy bebop movie) run at the cinemas, and the latter two air on television.

As for manga? Well, we're very proud of having no less than 3 different mangas translated into Norwegian (Great detective conan, ranma and blade of the immortal). We also have our very own manga magazine, MangaMania, which features all these series which I don't really enjoy. Actually, I don't enjoy the Norwegian-translated manga at all, since it tends to be crappy and have some Swedish words thrown in at times.

As for prizes, a mangabook costs about 100 kroners, or about 16 us dollars. A DVD costs us about 300 kroners, or about 50 dollars.


All I can say is, thank the higher powers for imports...<_<

[Shinjuku]

Outside of Japan the US is probably the best country to be an anime fan. I mean come on we have Animenation here :P But seriously the best manga and dvd selections I have seen or heard of are Chinatown in Sanfrancisco and Seattle. Not only can you get all the US licensed manga, dvd's and merchandise but we get a lot more of the Japanese and Korean stuff too. I bet South Korea is a pretty good place as well. For dvd and manga Vancouver BC is also pretty good. If it weren't some laws preventing foreign culture from overunning theirs, Canada would be a lot better for an anime fan. Wherever the best place is its pretty much garaunteed that it lies somewhere on the Pacific.

[Gerald]

In Brazil, specially São Paulo, is a very good place to be an anime fan. There was an event in July that joined 50.000 people. Also, in Liberdade (Liberty) in São Paulo, you feel like you are in Japan.

[Matsu'o Tsurayaba]

I know its been said before,but ill say it.Besides Japan,the United States would be the best place.Since nearly all anime made in Japan,eventually is brought to the USA.But sometimes Europe can be the best,or non speaking english countries.Since anime that is brought to the USA can be edited or censored from its original format.

[Daishikaze]

Italy gets alot of great classics that the US will never get. Yamato, Harlock, Go Nagai's many series, Tiger Mask, and quite abit more all in Japanese with Italian subtitles. I wish I could understand Italian, just so I could grab these shows.

[Suiko Eiji]

Italy gets alot of great classics that the US will never get. Yamato, Harlock, Go Nagai's many series, Tiger Mask, and quite abit more all in Japanese with Italian subtitles. I wish I could understand Italian, just so I could grab these shows.

We've got all of those except Tiger Mask. Sure, the viewer has to make a few sacrifices such as putting up with Tranzor Z's unintelligible English, the very existance of Star Blazers and the dub with Harlock sounding like John Wayne with a disco soundtrack. :P

I really cannot say which is the best place outside of Japan for anime; I've lived in the US for pretty much my life as an anime fan and have only briefly experienced markets in the UK and Germany. I'm afraid I am unqualified to answer, only to make the above joke.

[VacantEyes]

I don't watch much TV. Period. I do watch a lot of DVD's though, and for that I think the US is a great place to be an anime fan. I have a netflix account and a local anime rental store two blocks from my house that both carry just about every non-hentai anime DVD ever released stateside, which numbers in the thousands at this point. I can't think of any other country outside of Japan that has a similar selection of fully legitimate anime DVD's. We have it very good. When buying DVD's we generally pay from one half to one third what the Japanese pay for the same shows on DVD and we seem to get most of what Japan produces these days. It's true that there are still several important titles that have fallen through the cracks over the years, but for DVD-focused anime fans the US is possibly the best country in the world for watching and collecting anime when you factor in the cost and selection.

I know I certainly feel lucky to be here.