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Wings of Honneamise Blu-Ray Hell
August 19th, 2007 by jp received 2 Comments »
I love the Wings of Honneamise. An early work of anime studio Gainax, it is one of the few anime films that transcends its medium and stands as a film in its own right. In this fact, it holds up to Akira and Ghost in the Shell as the only anime films that have operated on that level for me.
With such effusive praise, you can figure I was elated when Wings was announced for blu-ray release in Japan.
But it comes packed with a DVD. For 10,200 yen. Even with a discount, it will take 8000 plus yen (a little less than $70) to get in your pocket. So I figure, hold out for the US release, they couldn’t be nearly stupid enough to pack in a DVD with a blu-ray in the US.
Boy was I wrong.
With a list price of $79.99, the US release of Wings of Honneamise is nearly as expensive as its Japanese cousin, and that is only with Amazon’s 30% pre-order discount.
Shame on Geneon and Pioneer for taking the piss out of their audience and basically extorting them into paying full price for a DVD and full price for a Blu-ray in one set.
UPDATE: Ferricide points out in my livejournal comments for this post that this may well be the evil doing of Bandai Visual and that Geneon/Pioneer are hapless pawns in a game to extort money from the masses.
I’m wondering if this pricing is due to the region-free nature of Blu-Ray — Pioneer demanding the ripoff price be the same for all regions to avoid Japanese people importing the American one for cheap.
It is entirely possible, but it is such a stupid tactic. A combo HD-DVD/DVD disc may have a point in that one disc plays in any player in your home; however, there is only a $5 premium for the priviledge. With the DVD version still be region locked to 1 and 2 as opposed to the single Region A blu-ray, it seems more like a money grab than a strong arm move. The Amazon.jp ratings for the Pioneer/Bandai Visual sets are rightfully taking a beating from all the people saying they have no need for an omake DVD.