YES! YES! YES!

So here I was contemplating whether to take the plunge into the world of R2 purchases with True Tears volume 1. I don’t think many Singaporeans, or even other anime fans, know this, but anime DVDs are luxury goods in Japan going for as much as 100 SGD for a 3 episode limited edition release. True Tears vol.1 seemed like a good 1st choice to make as it contains only one episode and thus is cheaper at 3800 yen (SGD$50). And yes I’ve always wanted to own a few R2 (Japan region) DVDs even if they are horribly expensive like Bj0rn over here.

Yes, his photography skills may suck, but I don’t think there is anything that can beat owning a few R2 DVDs. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to procure one as they are really damn expensive. And no, I have no intention of owning a full set of R2s.. just one or 2 are enough. And True Tears seemed like a good choice because I didn’t expect it to be licensed.

Other reasons to buy R2 releases are the DVD extras. CLANNAD limited edition volume 2 comes with an exact replica of Ryou’s cards used to tell Tomoya’s fortune in episode 1. That’s also a big reason that motivates Japanese customers to buy DVDs: the extras.

But now that Bandai visual has licensed it, the price has been whittled down a bit to USD$29.99 (SGD$42.55) for the first DVD release that contains one episode. Many critics are already complaining that this is too expensive, but I feel that its a good push to test whether USA can accept 1 episode DVD releases. I know I myself have no problem with it, as that means I’ll have more original DVD cover art to savour. I do love True Tears a lot anyway, plus I get subtitles to boot. Stuffing more episodes in one disc will not only reduce animation quality, it will also lessen the usage of licensed original cover art which isn’t cheap. I will not accept anything more than 4 episodes on one disc.

Usual R1 licenses will reduce DVD prices by a lot by releasing 4 episode discs at USD$29.99 each, so Bandai Visual is using a new pricing strategy to see how receptive US customers are. The same critics have argued that True Tears isn’t that good a show, but I disagree. You can see from this episode 4 editorial that there are so many things are going on making it a really good romance series, and the animation quality has constantly been gobsmacking. The soundtrack doesn’t disappoint either.

Now that its licensed, I really can’t wait for it to be released as I believe many fansubbers will be dropping it. So that’s one less anime to blog about this season I guess, unless some rogue subber picks it up. Anime on the computer can never beat DVD quality anime on my 42-inch plasma, so lets hope the release does not get delayed.

Congratulations to P.A. Works for securing this business deal even though they were relatively unknown in the anime world until they shocked me with True Tears. I’ll be keeping an eye on their releases in the future