Anime has officially landed in the iTunes Store today, courtesy of Funimation Entertainment, with newly available series for purchase including Samurai 7, Speed Grapher, and Desert Punk. Each episode from all three franchises are available for $1.99 each, and season passes can be purchased for $38.99. Notably, the videos are only offered with the option of an English dub, and knowing how particular many fans are about strictly watching shows with the original Japanese language tracks and subtitles, this might be a serious deal breaker. Other than this issue, I guess this is not such a horrible deal considering most shows would cost you anywhere from $4-6+ per episode on DVD. (Of course, that's if you don't mind the limited viewing options, DRM, and lower quality.) But, yeaaa. There you go. Anime. In the iTunes Store. Today.Anime lands in the iTunes Store via Funimation
Anime has officially landed in the iTunes Store today, courtesy of Funimation Entertainment, with newly available series for purchase including Samurai 7, Speed Grapher, and Desert Punk. Each episode from all three franchises are available for $1.99 each, and season passes can be purchased for $38.99. Notably, the videos are only offered with the option of an English dub, and knowing how particular many fans are about strictly watching shows with the original Japanese language tracks and subtitles, this might be a serious deal breaker. Other than this issue, I guess this is not such a horrible deal considering most shows would cost you anywhere from $4-6+ per episode on DVD. (Of course, that's if you don't mind the limited viewing options, DRM, and lower quality.) But, yeaaa. There you go. Anime. In the iTunes Store. Today.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2007 @ 10:42PM
Tanner Godarzi said...
Why, why is there no Dragon Ball Z.
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2-14-2007 @ 1:51AM
Shunnabunich said...
The problem anime fans have with English dubs isn't that it's not in The Original Japanese (although I'm sure some like it better subtitled for that reason); the problem is that these companies go *out of their way* to find the worst voice actors possible to do the dubs.
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2-14-2007 @ 8:35AM
fanguad said...
In order to set straight some misconceptions, most sales of anime are for English language versions (DVDs contain both subs and dubs, but it's really the dubs that people use). It's certainly true that the "hard-core" anime fans prefer subs, but just like in video-gaming, the hard-core fans actually only make up a small portion of the total sales. In particular, Funimation has always targeted the mass market much more than other companies.
That being said, I'm a hard-core fan, and I won't be buying these off the iTunes store, but more power to Funimation for this move.
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2-14-2007 @ 10:57AM
IanC said...
Shunnabunich - no they dont. Do you actully watch anime dubbed?
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2-14-2007 @ 2:25PM
The Jeremy said...
What about...
*Cowboy Bebop
*Battle of the Planets
*StarBlazers (Battleship Yamato)
and
*Tranzor Z (Manzinger Z)
Those are the essentials...
Add Voltron (Lionbot!) to the mix too...
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2-14-2007 @ 3:18PM
Noah Ramon said...
IanC - good to see you here!
I'd merely think that Shunnabunich is stuck in the mid-90's.
As for me, I don't know if I'll be picking up any of these specifically, but as an anime fan I think it's a valuable first step that isn't into a pit trap. (The Bandai episodes in Unbox and ADV's own WMV service - well, I can't say that I regard these as WORKING steps for digital anime sales.)
(And as for subtitles... Those can be a PITA to read on the iPod. I'd prefer the option of which to buy, but if it's gonna be just one it's gonna have to be the English track.)
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2-14-2007 @ 3:27PM
Mike Schleifstein said...
ok, now think about what a subtitled anime would look like on your iPod... and now you know why they aren't... course i'd love the option for viewing them on an apple tv, so i guess i see the point
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2-15-2007 @ 1:31AM
samfish said...
This is kind of part of the reason I'll be taking a pass on the AppleTV. Quicktime/itunes doesn't allow for multiple audio tracks.
I have TONS of movies on my hard drive, almost every single one of them either has directors commentary or a (usually Japanese) language track.
VLC Player, which I find FAR superior to Quciktime in general has this. Why on Earth Qt/iTunes doesn't is beyond me.
...and if it does exist (which someone once told me it does), then Apple apparently went out of their way to make it so difficult to find that it's completely non-functional.
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2-16-2007 @ 1:50PM
Nohbdy said...
Why, why would you want something so unbelievably stupid as Dragonball Z?
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