I have no love at all for FMA:Brotherhood, I feel that it shouldn't exist, but I chanced on some news on interest to me. Things do not look good for UK anime Blu-ray releases.

Uk Anime Network News wrote:

QUOTE:
We've quickly become huge fans of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood during the course of this year, as this reboot of the popular franchise which closely follows the manga it is adapted from has seen its first two volumes hit our shores so far, with more to come in 2011.

However, if you've been collecting the series on Blu-Ray thus far, prepare to be disappointed - Manga Entertainment has announced that future volumes of this series will be released on DVD only, dropping the Blu-Ray releases that have previously been made available simultaneously while citing poor sales of the show on Blu-Ray - Part 1 has sold just 750 copies thus far on the format compared to strong DVD sales figures.

So, evidentialy, the UK isn't ready for a blu-ray anime series, that's a bit annoying. However, it gets better.

Uk Anime Network News wrote:

QUOTE:
After yesterday's press release from Manga Entertainment announcing that the UK won't be seeing the remainder of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood released on Blu-Ray, with the company sticking to DVD releases for the rest of the series, the minds of those fans who did purchase the first two parts of the show on Blu-Ray invariably turned towards importing the remaining volumes from the US given that FUNimation's releases of this series to date have been free from region locking.

However, we have to bring you a word of caution directly from a representative of Australian distributor Madman Entertainment, via a post on the Anime News Network forum. The post in question states that as of part three of the series, both FUNimation in the US and Madman in Australia will be region locking their Blu-Ray releases of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Effectively, this means that UK anime fans wanting the entirety of this series on Blu-Ray won't be able to import the US releases, as their Region A doesn't match our own Region B. However, that does mean that Madman's releases will be compatible with UK Blu-Ray players, giving you one avenue of completing the series.

If nothing else, this sudden change in region coding coupled with Manga Entertainment dropping their Blu-Ray releases of this show paints a confusing picture in terms of licensing agreements and conditions for the series - one can only wonder if the sales picture in the UK might have been different had Blu-Ray region locks been in place from the very start...

Weeelllll, what we can conclude from this? Three factors seem to have been at work here. The first is that the dedicated fans didn't wait for a UK release, the second is that Blu-rays are still expensive as format, and the third is that we only got the original few years back. All this adds up to small sales.

What do you think?

It's simple. If the series were to have seen a full Blu-Ray release, you'd be likely to pay around £100+ to collect all five sets (seeing as the release format was identical to the DVD's). Not only that, but the UK anime fanbase isn't exactly gigantic, and when you consider how many people could afford to buy the whole series, that number shrinks. THEN, you have to consider that many people still aren't that bothered about Blu-Ray, as you can take some more numbers off that.

So really, 750 sold copies isn't all that surprising, and I wouldn't be shocked if the USA version wasn't exactly selling-out either.

Oh, and fansubbers who claim to be fans of shows they never financially support. Harsh, but true.

that sucks, cus Brotherhood is a series i definitely woulda paid to buy on blu-ray for. Maybe eventually they will do a small boxset for it.

But also

wat the hell o.0 you DONT like Brotherhood!? It's AWESOME and follows the manga really closely and the original series is a pile of manure in comparison to Brotherhood

Squall, firstly, don't swear, its against the forum rules.

Secondly, chill, I'm sure Brotherhood is worthy of the name Full Metal Alchemist, not that I have seen it. The reason I dislike Brotherhood is one of principle. There was nothing wrong whatsoever with the original series, and there was no need for a remake so soon. The fact that it follows the source closely means little to me, if I wanted the manga, I would read the manga. FMA was not the first anime to differ from its source manga, hell, they even had encouragement from the author to go a different direction. The only reason why I can see for the brotherhood anime exists is money, and I don't feel like rewarding anime companies for that. That doesn't stop it from being a good anime, but I won't watch it.

This is just my opinion by the way, feel free to ignore it. I only mentioned it in the first place to make my bias clear. I have no axe to grind on this issue.

squalllionheart16 wrote:

QUOTE:
wat the hell o.0 you DONT like Brotherhood!? It's AWESOME

Your opinion is fine, and I'm not going to fault it. However, not everyone feels the same way. I didn't like the first series or film, so I wasn't going to watch the second when it started screening at EMAG. Since then, EMAG have dropped the series through lack of interest. I'll just leave that here so that you can draw up comparisons to Manga's actions.