Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

Those of you who've been fans of anime long enough to remember buying VHS tapes of the stuff (officially) remember that if you were lucky on the show and stock, you could pick between a cassette with subtitles or with English-language dubs.

Well, Bandai is bringing those days back with their release of the show. Come this February you can either order a Blu-Ray disc featuring Kurokami's first four episodes dubbed in English ONLY, or you can order a more typical DVD with six episodes in both the English and Japanese languages along with subtitles.

I don't know about you guys, but when I was buying those VHS tapes I would often grab the dubbed or subbed version based on what was available and what was cheaper/on sale, meaning that I would go back and forth between dubs and subs interchangeably. Because of the unusual episode numbering, that won't be possible here-- and at least for the time being, those who want it on Blu-Ray will have to put up with the English dub (or those who want the Japanese dub will have to deal with DVD).

It's a very odd release pattern. If you want my speculation, it's this: the Japanese and Korean companies are concerned that since it's such a recent show, the region-free Blu-Ray release may result in reimportation problems, especially at the (for Blu-Ray) lowish price of $24.98 for four episodes (which is, of course, ridiculously low by Japanese standards, where the 3-episode Blu-Ray's SALE price is ¥7319 (about $81.50 USD). Even with shipping, importing the US release would make sense...if it came with the Japanese dub.
 
I suppose a really interesting piece of information would be whether the Korean Blu-Ray release had Japanese audio. Their BDs are cheaper, too, I believe.

But how will that do here? It seems to me that it would make more sense to release a dub-and-sub DVD now and release a dub-and-sub Blu-Ray disc sometime later-- I'm thinking that people who want both high-res AND Japanese audio would prefer to wait than simply not have the product. And maybe a dub-and-sub Blu-Ray WILL be available later, but that would mean dividing the Blu-Ray audience into two separate products. Hmm.

Well, we'll see how it goes. Are you planning to buy one of the Kurokami releases? If so, which one?