Amazon has been running a 58% off sale on more than 200 anime titles for the past couple of weeks (this includes full series). If you haven’t had the chance to go take advantage of it yet, I highly recommend you do before the sale runs out this coming Monday (August 8th). Normally I’m not the type to go promoting one specific website to purchase anime from – but this sale means a lot to those of us who could use a little discount to help expand our media collections. Many of you already know that full anime series can get really expensive! The most prolific series – Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach, etc. – can be especially draining on the wallet!
I picked up a couple of my favorite series last week on Blu-ray. Samurai Champloo came out on Blu-ray on May 24th and I got it for only $22.99 (discounted from USD $54.98). And I just couldn’t resist getting all the Full Metal Panic incarnations – including Fumoffu – which was only $18.49. (Seriously, I can’t get enough of that series, and it looks awesome on Blu-ray.)
If you’ve had any doubt about picking up your favorite anime on Blu-ray let me assure you that the newer series do look and sound a lot sharper in that format, BUT – buyer beware – they rarely come with the special features that the Japanese Blu-ray releases get (what’s the deal with THAT, import companies?)! I’m sure the argument is that it’s not cost effective to translate the extra features, but I do wish we could occasionally see a behind the scenes segment or interviews with Japanese voice actors and creative staff. Saying “Special Features” on the back of a box should not mean, “We put three trailers on here that you would normally have to look online for!”
Great titles (many of them staples for your anime collection) included in the sale on Blu-ray are: Evangelion 2.22: You Can [not] Advance ($16.49), Summer Wars ($15.49), FLCL ($19.49), Eden of the East: The King of Eden ($13.99 Blu-ray DVD combo pack), and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete ($12.99 – If you haven’t seen Complete do yourself a favor and see the HUGE chunks of the story that were cut out from most American releases of this movie. I went back and was shocked to see how much of the story had been cut from both of the DVD versions I had purchased.).
DVD discounts in the sale include: My Neighbor Totoro ($18.99 for the two disc special edition), Trigun ($21.99 for the complete series), Dragon Ball Z Season Six: Cell Games Saga ($16.99 – along with several other seasons offered for around $16), Ponyo ($18.99), and Ouran High School Host Club ($29.99 for the complete series).