The Difference in Price for Japanese DVD's & Blu-rays
Some anime is cheap, but we all know the good stuff isn't. Anime and its various forms of merchandise are so expensive that you could probably never afford all of the shows you're a fan of. Still, many otaku try to complete their collections, and have built up some amazing displays.
Despite how expensive anime may appear to be to foreigners, it's actually nothing compared to Japan. Of course it depends on the series and what edition it is, plus whether it is a DVD or Blu-ray... The complete Blu-ray set of Bunny Drop costs around $55 while a single Blu-ray of Gurren Lagann costs around $50, and a DVD of Chrono Crusade goes for $4. Typically, bigger hits and newer anime go for more while less popular and older shows go for less, which makes sense.
It's not like that in Japan.
In Japan, every new anime gets a high price, and you get less of the show than if you had bought the Western version. For example, The Heroic Legend of Arslan has just been announced to get a DVD/BD release on July 23rd in Japan. The first DVD will go for 6,800 yen ($57 US) while the Blu-ray is 7,800 yen ($65 US). There are 8 volumes like this planned, and the anime has 13 episodes scheduled. That means that each DVD/Blu-ray will contain 1-2 episodes, unless they release more episodes.
Can you imagine how much Japanese otaku pay to have an entire shelf of these DVD's/Blu-rays? I don't even know how any otaku can stand to be a NEET.
Not only that, but inforcement of copyright laws are far more strict in Japan. You can easily go to jail for uploading one episode of anime to the Internet. Japan doesn't have so many legal Web sites dedicated to anime streaming either, and they're only recently getting Netflix. In a way, it's a lot easier to be an otaku in the West than it is in Japan. At the very least, it's more affordable.
