The only anime I can think of with good dubs are Noir, FF:U, Rune Soldier and .Hack//. As a rule, ALWAYS watch hentai with subs... the dubs suck.

Anime is way over priced in the U.K. It's around £20 for one disc of 3 - 4 episodes (around $40). So buying all the discs (+ the box to put them in) will set you back around £160 ($320-ish). Then three months later they release the thin pack which has ALL the episodes on 3 - 4 discs for £20!!!

I wound up importing my english DVDs from America in the end (only around £10 - £15 per disc then). I could probably get them cheaper from Japan, but not all Japanese websites will ship to the U.K. even though both Japan and U.K. are region 2.

I still like my Noir t-shirt that came with the box though

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Lose - Opposite of win, to misplace something/someone. e.g. To lose your way, to lose a fight.
Loose - Opposite of tight. e.g. To have a loose screw, to loosen a jar lid.

^ Not just scanlators, but also company documents are getting it wrong now!

Black Lagoon, Noir, Beck, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Gilgamesh, and the some of the Miyazaki movies from Disney. I never said there were a lot of dubs on par with the original. And yes, dvds would be cheaper if they only put subs on it. Rightstuf did it with Emma and Funimation is doing it with Gurren Lagann this July. I wouldn't mind subs only if that meant cheaper dvd's.

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

Not seeing is not absolute reality. Godannar for example has Newtype ads on every initial load and one of the "special features" are ADV previews. That's one forced ad supplemented with some optional ads on something I ****ing paid for. I suppose you could argue that this isn't being "bombarded" but to me, if I pay for it, any forced ad is complete ********.

I'm using Naruto as an example because the speed of a fan scanslation is insane. Believe me I know EXACTLY what it's like to wait a year for Hellsing because, surprise, I read it too! Regardless I don't think you have a valid point here; is it not also complete ******** that you have to wait more than a month or two for the next volume?

Honestly is there any reason why they couldn't be released simultaneously? Is it unrealistic to believe that someone could be translating the script while the art is being finished? For that matter couldn't they be working on the dub while the series is airing in Japan? There is absolutely no good reason for us to have to wait, it's simply an artificial barrier that for whatever reason various industries believe is still a valid and viable business plan in an age of free and instant exchange of information.

The only way they would be released simultaneously is if everyone involved gave the thumbs up. I think Samurai Champloo was subbed and dubbed at a pace that was only seen once before on a less popular anime. We actually saw the latter half of it before anyone in japan did. So yes, its possible, but very difficult to pull off since the companies that release anime here aren't the same ones as in Japan. With a few exceptions. Geneon being one of them. And now their gone.

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

Wow, so many good points by everyone's posts so far. I agree with the general opinions expressed so far.

I don't think anime/manga is in a decline, but the growth in popularity has certainly slowed.

I personally love Del Rey. Most of the series are great (on par with Viz), the translations are usually very good (and they try to leave a lot of the original Japanese content intact) and I love the extras in the back to explain some of the Japanese nuances. I don't like how it takes so long for manga to be released here in the states. If a group of unpaid fans can translate chapters so quickly, shouldn't a group of PAID PROFESSIONALS work just as quickly or even faster? And boo to TokyoPop. I'm not a fan of all of this Americanized manga (although I do enjoy Bizenghast because it's what I feel Alice In Wonderland SHOULD have been like).

Too bad Geneon discontinued their DVD's. To me, Geneon/Pioneer was to anime what Del Rey is to manga. Most of my DVD anime collection is comprised of Geneon series (Shakugan no Shana, Fate Stay Night, etc). And while I agree DVD's are overpriced, we shouldn't really complain about prices. Some folks in other countries pay far more than what we do in the states.

As for the flooding of the market with crappier series, I'm on the fence. Sure, some of the stuff coming out is crappy or essentially copies of other manga, but I appreciate being given the opportunity to evaluate these series myself. Better to have available and not want, then to want and not have available, right?

If an anime company ran like a subgroup, where they stream episodes (like a lot of american TV companies are doing now) subbed, putting it up around the same amount of time it takes a normal subgroup to do it, would you watch that (with ads) over downloading? And hell, maybe they could put it up at the same time as it's aired in Japan, if they are able to recieve a copy of it from the Japanese studio early.

I mean, when you consider that fansubbing is one of if not the biggest detriments to people buying licensed material, and when you consider a lot of american companies are making a lot of money streaming TV shows...put 1 and 1 togeather, fansub it yourself, and make money off ads by streaming it.

You can't really do it with manga, but that'd certainly help with the anime companies...

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I don't really do anime, so I wouldn't know much about it.

But I do feel that it's kind of sad that it takes publishing companies so long to release some manga, when scanlation groups made of bored teenagers can release ten times faster. True, most scanlation groups tend to release only a chapter at a time, but adding the days it takes for them to do one volume... It's definitely not over a couple months. But maybe I'm biased because my group has a high release frequency ;P

To tell the truth, I've never really read English manga (except when I'm bored at Borders xD) I get everything from my Chinese rental store where the manga is REALLY nice. Problem is that despite having swell Chinese, I still am not as fluent as I'd like to be (hah, and I'm a translator? But I suck at translating anyways~) and I prefer reading stuff in English. So hopefully~ English publishers will be as good as the Chinese manga (and not overlevel so much T______T)

I doubt that would ever happen..

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Lots and lots of blood!

I would go into a long debate with many good points, but everyone already said what I would have.