A new press release from Bandai Visual USA has announced that they’re delaying the releases of sola, True Tears, and Shigofumi– they want to reconsider their packaging strategy.

Having reviewed the current market conditions and expectations, Bandai Visual co., ltd. and Bandai Visual USA Inc. are now reconsidering the overall release strategy of packaged
animation media in the United States and in the global marketplace.

I wonder if that means they figured out that anime fans don’t like a release strategy that includes a single episode on a $39.99 disc? ‘Bout time!

So upon Bandai Visual USA’s announcement of True Tears and Shigofumi, I calculated the per-episode price of each 13-episode series– six 2-episode discs at $39.99 each plus one 1-episode disc at $29.99 = $269.93, divided by 13 = $20.76 per episode. I later talked about Right Stuf’s release of Emma as being more reasonable and was brought back to a per-episode price, and it came up again on IRC with Blood+.

So I started wondering: how much does an episode of anime generally cost? In search of this answer, I went through all January US anime DVD releases and calculated the price per episode of each release (excluding movies and special editions). I DID leave in a Geneon release for comparison, as well as a couple of other cancelled releases (like Hikaru no Go).

Now, keep in mind that this is really NOT enough samples to get a really solid view on all the companies. I mean, sure, ADV, FUNi, VIZ, and Bandai Entertainment each put out a good chunk of releases, but BVU only had two, Geneon only had one that I could find enough info on to include, and TRSI only had one period. Media Blasters and Manga Entertainment also both had only two each, and Manga’s were both box set re-releases (which, of course, tend to be much cheaper).

The average price of a single anime episode, though, was $5.65. The most expensive company was, of course, Bandai Visual USA (at an average of $16.66 per episode– but again, only two releases in January to work with). The cheapest was Manga Entertainment, who again only had box set re-releases that averaged to $1.99/ep; Bandai Entertainment was in second with $4.70/ep.

The cheapest anime was the Medabots box set (if I got the number of episodes right) at $1.35/ep; second place was Noein at $1.84/ep. The most expensive were, again, BVU’s releases, MS Gundam IGLOO and Super Robot Wars OG Divine Wars, both at $16.66/ep.

The average per-episode price for box sets and rereleases was $3.19/ep; for new releases it was $7.05/ep.

Let me reiterate that this is all pretty unscientific– I really should go through, say, all of 2007’s releases to provide a more accurate picture. (Maybe I’ll get to it someday.) But this is a bit of a taste, I suppose. If you want to see my spreadsheet you can grab it here.

Well, kudos to BVU on speed: they’ve licensed both Shigofumi: Letters from the Departed and True Tears, according to Anime on DVD. Both shows are currently airing in Japan, having started in early January, and their first discs are both do out in the US in May. That means they won’t be out before their runs in Japan are over (each show is 13 episodes), but that’s still pretty quick turnaround for a full DVD release– as AoD points out, the North American DVDs will come out only a couple of months after the Japanese counterpart DVDs.

However, it’s Bandai Visual USA, so each 13-ep series will come out on 7 discs. Shigofumi will have 2 eps per disc except for the final disc, which will only have one; True Tears will have 2 eps per disc except for the FIRST disc, which will only have one– I guess BVU is experimenting. 1-episode discs will cost $29.99 and 2-episode discs will cost $39.99. For those of you counting, that means each series will cost about $270, or about $20.75 per episode. Yowch.

If you want my First Date reviews for these series, Shigofumi is here and True Tears is here.

Okay, it’s a pretty unscientific manner of gauging popularity, but I dare you to come up with something better. Hashihime has one of those reports about what anime has the most completed threads (=1000 posts) on 2channel, and the winner for winter ‘08 anime so far is Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei by a longshot– 67 to 17 for second-placer True Tears. Yatterman, surprisingly, takes third with 13. Shigofumi and Spice and Wolf round out the top five with 11 and 9, respectively.

Catch the rest of the list here. Make sure you read the added notes (like the fact that Minamike ~Okawari~ is sharing threads with its predecessor, making it hard to gauge). And try to ignore things like the fact that Hatenkou Yuugi accidentally got named Hakuten Yuugi (which is kinda funny; “Hatenkou Yuugi” would = roughly “Unprecedented Games,” “Hakuten Yuugi” would = “Infectious Games.” Like, as in a disease-type infection).

Original source: Hashihime

• Title: Shigofumi
• Studio: J.C. Staff
• Genre: Fantasy

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥♥♥

• Animation: ♥♥♥
• Characters: ♥♥½
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥ (ED only)
• Overall: ♥♥♥ (The end of the first ep cinched a watch for the second ep for me, but I’m worried about our lead characters.)

Thoughts:
I’ve heard a lot of praise for Shigofumi, but I’m worried that it built up my expectations too high, because I find myself interested in continuing but not all that impressed. The animation is good, of course, and the story is interesting– if a bit emo and dramatic, at least so far –but I’m a little worried about the primary characters.

Fumika is, frankly, incredibly boring so far. She acts a little bit like Geass’s C.C., but without the sexy and without the evil. In other words, she’s kind of a blank, except that she likes pizza. I even find her character design to be completely uninteresting. Hopefully that’ll change as the series goes on, but Kanaka– her staff –is more interesting, albeit kind of obnoxious to listen to. (Something about her voice grates on me, which is a shame since she’s voiced by Yuki Matsuoka– a.k.a. Azumanga Daioh’s Osaka, one of my favorite anime characters of all time.)

For those who haven’t watched it yet: Fumika is a mail carrier for the dead. That is to say, there’s a brief period immediately following death during which the dead can send a letter to the living with their last wishes, confessions, etc. Kanaka is her companion staff, and what exactly her role is in delivering the letters is still unclear. (Her actual role so far is a perky foil to Fumika’s stoic self.)

Now, the kids whose story is told in episode 1 and presumably 2, they are interesting. Shouta is a budding rocket scientist and Asuna is his would-be lady-love, if he could ever confess to her. When a letter from Asuna’s dead father arrives via Fumika addressed to Asuna’s lover, Shouta declares that he’ll become her lover because it would be too sad for Asuna’s dad’s final words to go undelivered. (I don’t know whether he expects Fumika and Kanaka to stick around and watch, or what.)

Anyway, he gets the idea in his head that he’ll confess to Asuna once his rocket successfully launches. But before the launch happens he manages to read the letter– left behind by Kanaka, although how a staff is supposed to carry a letter I have no clue –and learns a terrible secret about Asuna, etc. I shan’t spoil, but Asuna quickly becomes the most interesting character in the piece.

It looks like the next episode will wrap up this little arc and then it’ll move on to a new story. Before the show started I think a lot of people suggested that Shigofumi would be similar to Shinigami no Ballad, so I’ll tell you right now that based on this arc, it’s really not. Shinigami no Ballad was very sweet and had a certain innocence about it; Shigofumi is, thus far, all about horrible truths revealed after death. And Fumika is nowhere near as cute as Momo.

Oh, and before I forget: I haven’t really mentioned the animation quality and whatnot because all the technical stuff is really quite good, although not amazing.

I think that if the focus stays more on the small arcs, and the effect that the shigofumi letters have, this could be a really great series. But I worry that if the focus strays more onto Fumika and Kanaka, it might just get on my nerves– though if the focus was more on them, presumably they’d expand on the characters and maybe I’d like them better. We shall see!