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This Week in Anime
Why You Should Just Buy the Anime Blu-rays

by Steve Jones & Monique Thomas,

It's become increasingly common for anime and other media to disappear from streaming services, be it contractual reasons or a tax write-off. Steve and Nicky go over some of the pros for buying physical releases of your favorite anime series.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

@Lossthief @BeeDubsProwl @NickyEnchilada @vestenet

Steve
Nicky, you know, it's never been easier to be an anime fan. Gone are the days of doling out multiple Hamiltons for a VHS tape stuffed with two episodes that aired a decade ago. Now, we have hundreds of complete and concurrent anime shows and films just a couple of bucks or clicks away. And the best part is that there are ZERO downsides to this arrangement, and it will ALWAYS be like this FOREVER.
Nicky
Ha ha ha ha. Yep, everything is great and wonderful in the streaming world. Paying for a streaming subscription is a low-cost way to access a plethora of titles anywhere, at all times, on all devices. Since most of our column concerns streaming, we are lucky to live in an age where we can cover the latest anime titles with little barrier or delay. However, I don't want it as the only way to view my precious anime for many reasons. Anyone who has searched for a movie or series that they wanted to watch or recommend, only to discover it's not available on any streaming services, would know what I mean.
Streaming has plenty of upsides, but they've come paired from day one with equally legitimate concerns regarding ownership, availability, and recompense for creators. And it feels like we've finally reached a tipping point where normal people are starting to see the cracks in the façade as more services remove more content or shelve entire projects before they even get a chance to be seen. That's not to say the anime industry has gone full Zaslav yet, but one has to wonder what the future might hold.
Beyond dooming about corporate meddling, there are many practical reasons why streaming isn't always the answer to everything. Paying for multiple streaming subscriptions every month sure gets expensive if you want to keep up with certain exclusives. Not every title is guaranteed to be streaming, and their licenses could run out at the drop of a hat. Even some relatively "recent" series sometimes disappear from streaming for no rhyme or reason, or different licensors or agreements might handle their different parts. Why is Shirobako: The Movie available on Crunchyroll but not the series? It's not even on HiDive! It's shocking for a series that is only almost ten years old.

Here's another for you: Right now, the only way you can legally stream the legendary Samurai Flamenco is by subscribing to Funimation. You know, that site that merged into Crunchyroll years ago but still exists and has some exclusive content that can't be accessed with a Crunchyroll subscription? I'm sure all kinds of byzantine licensing agreements are responsible for situations like these, but that only emphasizes the absurdity of the whole thing.
Even though it originally simulcasted on Crunchyroll and was supposedly licensed for a physical release stateside, that never came to be? However, it is still available at Anime Limited for people in the UK, or access to a region-free or region-2 Blu-ray player and willing to pay a little extra to import.
IIRC, this was an Aniplex of America title, and they're particularly bad about releasing their more niche shows on Blu-ray (in the U.S., anyway). I have their now-out-of-print DVD set of the similarly gonzo World Conquest Zvezda Plot that I paid way too much for because that's the best we got.
Ah yes, Aniplex is a case where they model their releases to match their Japanese counterpart, aka EXPENSIVE, as overseas releases are typically much cheaper. However, some may consider it worth it for the packaging or the extras; YYMV if you want to pay over 100 dollars for a single 12-episode series, much less do that multiple times for something longer. I still consider that better than being unavailable, though, like Netflix Exclusives (still waiting for Devilman Crybaby).

I'd much rather go through the hassle of importing the UK release despite the barrier of importing and region locks, but why go through that instead of watching on streaming? Well, what happens when you want to show something to a friend at their house? What if your smart TV or console doesn't have an app for Funimation? Maybe you lack access to stable internet. Those are all problems that can happen right now.
Streaming has exactly one big selling point: convenience. That's what it all boils down to. In the best-case scenario, it's a cheap way to quickly access a variety of anime. Therefore, that's also its biggest pain point. As soon as streaming becomes even a tad less convenient, for any reason, all of the other warts become a lot more noticeable, and you start thinking about what it is you're paying for. Because while you might have access, you don't have ownership. You don't even have ownership of the access, and powers beyond your control determine all of that.
Streaming is like fast food. You get to have your tasty anime immediately, but at the sacrifice of quality! Streaming is not only determined by our internet providers; their quality is also determined by the service bitrate and the methods by which the video is compressed and processed. Have you ever tried uploading a picture or video online only for the quality to get completely butchered? Wonder why dark scenes don't show up compared to when you saw a film in theaters? Well, technology plays a huge part in that. Even the screenshots we post here might be subject to some quality loss.
God, if I had a nickel for every Netflix anime assignment with at least one unintelligible nighttime scene. I recently read that streaming sound mixes tend to be normalized to the loudest parts, which is why you run into many movies with quiet dialogue. Admittedly, I have noticed this problem with anime streaming less (possibly because I watch everything with subtitles anyway), but again, it stresses the inflexibility of what we're being served on these sites.
Admittedly, I'm also not an audiophile, but streaming isn't likely to get the best out of your expensive speakers or headphones. Though I remain a subtitled purist, dubbed anime can be hit-or-miss on streaming. Switching audio tracks on a disc release can be simple to navigate compared to some streaming services' UI. It took me a bit to adjust to CR's re-organization once audio became selectable via a menu, as only the dub shows up when searched, and I'd typically have to switch.
We could do a whole column on how Crunchyroll's search and organization methods have evolved (or devolved) over the years, but I'll restrain myself. We've arrived at our main point: Streaming is nice, but I would hate to see it supplant all other media consumption and archiving forms. Especially archiving. We must not forget the Old Ways.
I can't demonstrate how things sound for the column, but to give a sense of scale, even one of the world's largest streaming services like Netflix only has a rate of 15 Mbps (megabits per second), while any anime or Hollywood Blu-ray is easily over 35mbps. However, how perceptible the compression is depends on the person and what equipment they're using. To some, the details of these ocean waves from the Josee, The Tiger and the Fish Blu-ray version might not look any different from its streaming counterpart. Besides, future streaming might look smoother with new technology, like the recent AV1 codec. However you can't control the streaming quality, but you can always count on the Blu-ray to look good.
Streaming technology might eventually catch up to Blu-ray fidelity, but the bigger issue is whether these services will have the incentive to implement those improvements. Like, the story of so much of the past decade's tech disruption has been saturating the market with a readily available service that people want, and then once that market is devoid of competition, letting that service become demonstrably worse. Look what Netflix just did with password sharing. If they're pinching those pennies, why would they ever care about overhauling their delivery pipeline to make their video look marginally better?
Mostly, it's believed that future codecs will be adopted because it'd save companies valuable time and storage space, with AOM Media Video 1 being almost 30% more efficient than its modern HEVC counterpart (H.265), as well as no longer having to pay any expensive royalty plans. Most streaming services haven't even adopted H.265 and are still using the old 264, so it's probably more realistically 80% smaller, better, and faster than current standards. I'm unsure how new developments could affect compatibility for older TVs and computers. And, of course, the individual nuances in video and art mean that there's no one-fits-all solution for what looks good. Especially with how diverse anime can be!
It also doesn't address the one little nagging issue: there is no guarantee that any streaming service will renew its license for any given anime. There's probably more of a guarantee that they won't! Especially for older titles. This is one main reason I like having a disc on my shelf.
You're right. Archival and preservation is a big concern for people dedicated to non-anime television and film, and it's why there's been a lot more popularity granted to boutique labels like Criterion, which specializes in releasing and restoring older films. The only label that fits that bill in the anime world is Discotek. It's astounding the work they've been able to do in the years that technology has grown. There's a reason Nick and I clamored for a Blu-ray release of the mid-00s historical ghost-horror Mononoke. You can see the textures so clearly compared to the 480p version on RetroCrush.

It can sometimes feel like scales falling from your eyes when you see a good HD transfer for the first time. However, we should note not all disc releases are created equal. Remember that first round of Sailor Moon Blu-rays that had ghosting and color problems? I think Toei eventually gave Viz better masters to work with on subsequent releases, but if you ever needed a pertinent example of the importance of that behind-the-scenes work, there you go.
Yeah, the final product depends on what's there and who's working on it, but technology has proven interesting when it comes to uprezzing something like Mononoke, which was a digital show to begin with.

However, even if it looked the same as the streaming version, I'd still feel happy putting this on my shelf.
Another thing I like about physical releases is that they usually come with bonus features you can't find anywhere on streaming services. A director's commentary, for instance, can add so much to your perspective on a work. Discotek, in particular, are forever in my good graces, not only for their stellar work preserving niche titles and securing their bonus features but also for being brave and fastidious enough to go whole hog on something as wholly reprehensible as that live-action Recently, My Sister Is Unusual movie.

It is truly a work that deserves to be enshrined for decades to come.
Yeah, I've found some stateside releases to be slim on packaging and features, but that makes me more appreciative of ones that go out of their way to include liner notes, clean openings and endings, and commentary on normal releases. Hey, I don't even go here, but I was impressed when I saw Nozomi Entertainment went through the feat to make full liner notes for their Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei S1 release. They compiled it as a physical booklet to accompany the disc and made it downloadable as a 167-page PDF to follow along.
That's one I picked up, and mad respect for them for going several extra miles doing that. I should also mention that I'm a psycho who occasionally imports Japanese releases when my funds and affection allow. I have all six volumes of the Flowers of Evil anime, for instance, just because I love it so much (and because someone had to buy it). I also most recently imported the Revue Starlight movie, largely due to the gorgeous art design on the packaging. Even our stateside collector's editions rarely live up to the aesthetics of the original versions across the Pacific, although that's not surprising considering the typically wide price gap.

Yeah, Japanese Blu-rays are a much different beast than here, so some people (like me) have gripes with companies that try to apply the same model to the West. Why pay more moolah for only a few episodes over several releases when it's easy to fit everything into one package? Part of that is Blu-ray pre-orders used to be a major way anime studios funded themselves, but now streaming is a viable direct revenue. MAPPA's CEO noted that Chainsaw Man's first season didn't sell as many discs as he hoped, even with creative packaging, including the acrylic box that lets you interchange various homages to famous movies for the cover. Note: This is a single volume that costs about 7,480 yen.

It's interesting; in the age of streaming, physical disc sales aren't the be-all-end-all metric of success they used to be. But given how streamers tend to be pretty cagey about disclosing their numbers to the public, disc sales are still the easiest quantitative metric for the layman to observe. And as a consumer, it's easier for me to ontologically connect buying a disc to supporting the people who made it—as opposed to paying a monthly subscription to a service that we assume partitions it out where it's supposed to go (and there are plenty of musicians who would say otherwise about Spotify's model).
Anime fans also spend money on merch and other products that are harder to quantify. Streaming is also international, while Chainsaw Man, in particular, hasn't had an overseas home video release. I imagine any release here might not be as fancy but more affordable and accessible to the people revved up to own it. I appreciate it when I can afford pre-orders or have enough in stock to wait for discounts. Most of what I own is through deals or savings.
That's why I typically only buy series I've seen before and know I like enough to want to own. It can be nice to blind-buy something on clearance or get a more mediocre show if it's on a heavy discount. I mean, it doesn't hurt to have it (note that I'm conveniently ignoring all the times I've had to move and thus thoroughly rue every single possession I own).
It's funny that you mention moving because shelf real estate is also an issue, but it's still less of a problem than having a bunch of books or figures. My illustration and art reference books were more of an issue on my last move. Blu-rays and games are light as a feather compared to hardcovers. I could always sell the ones I don't want anymore, too. However, you do have to take good care of discs to avoid damage. Eventually, DVDs will also age due to data rot, but many people still own DVDs that are in perfectly good condition.
I do wish it were easier to digitally archive Blu-rays, though. I'd always want to keep my physical collection because I like having stuff at the end of the day, but backups are always nice. The copy protection on pretty much every Blu-ray is not so nice. It sucks that even just playing these on my computer is barely less of a hassle than ten years ago.
Unfortunately, sometimes owning stuff also requires gaining some know-how to get the most use of them. Most computers and laptops also don't include CD or disc readers anymore, so you'll have to be like me and buy one you can slot or plug in. You'll also need software that can play them and read the keys, of which there are paid options, but finicky. I've got a setup that works using free software, elbow grease, and some magic inscribed within archaic texts (forums). I can even read menus just like a regular player.
Still, I long for the days when you could pop in a DVD and play it in VLC or what have you. Now it feels like I have to do some black-hat wizardry to tweet out funny screencaps from a Blu-ray I legally paid for and own!
CDs, by comparison, require zero DRM workarounds, most of which are considered legally grey because of how little trust companies have towards piracy, even if it feels counterintuitive to do this by punishing people who pay for a product. Digital copies have even more restrictions and DRM issues. Funimation discs came with free digital copies, but only viewable through their website or app with the option for an offline download but not as a file or anything useful.
And to get a little spicy towards the end here (Kadokawa, cover your eyes), I think many of these anti-piracy practices are more accurately anti-consumer. If anything, they help erode a lot of the arguments against piracy. If you need to jump through all these hoops to enjoy the thing you bought, why wouldn't some people download a file they can easily play in multiple programs with minimal effort? Streaming's convenience, by contrast, did a lot to abate piracy. That's fine! Good, even! However, now that we're seeing shows being erased from platforms, regardless of their creators' wishes, the moral arguments against piracy become less valid. Which collective is genuinely concerned with art preservation and appreciation in this scenario? (Kadokawa, you can open your eyes now) But that's why I'm not going to stop buying physical copies anytime soon. No matter what happens online, I know I'll have the anime I care about the most. Except for, y'know, all the stuff still trapped in the streaming ether.
There's more to it than I can rightfully mention since there are ways of backing up your physical property. Time-consuming ways. Space consuming ways. I learned the hard way from recording my own streams that video makes hard drives go "D:" when my little project added up to a whole terabyte of data. However, it's much better than when I lost some of them during the brief period I thought keeping my files was too much of a pain.
Still, it's harder to take away something I own than something I don't. There will be a time when I probably won't even be able to take screenshots from streaming anymore without getting a completely black screen. The digital age will likely continue to be turbulent and frustrating, but with physical media, even without a computer or streaming, nothing stops me from enjoying anime. I could shut off every streaming subscription and have plenty of time before I get bored looking at my entire shelf. I could watch it with my friends or family. Whether watching for the first time or revisiting, there's something priceless about that kind of freedom to curate my own experiences.
I know I definitely can't put a price on the peace of mind my copy of Yosuga no Sora gives me.
It's easy to see anime as this disposable or ephemeral medium. There are some anime I probably forget about months after they air and others where it's really like greeting an old friend. When you buy anime, you both keep and support it. It doesn't matter how old or long it's been, how we age, or what future technology develops. In fifty years, I could be in an old folks home hanging out with the cool guys from Cromartie, and that would be a pretty good future, wouldn't it?
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