On Robs urging, for those of you who haven't seen it I'll put up this news post, as it's fairly important:

AUKN reports:

Gonzo pave the way for new era of anime distribution Fri, 21 Mar 2008

In a surprise turn of events, one of the most prominent Japanese animation companies - Gonzo Digimation - have made the first step - with respect to Japanese companies reaching out to non Japanese fans - into the online distribution of anime with the help of various online streaming services.

Youtube, CrunchyRoll and BOST TV have been chosen by Gonzo to stream the two upcoming series "The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk" and "Blassreiter" via various streaming and non-streaming routes to be announced at a later date, including a fee-based system to download high-resolution files, while all other routes are free.

With the relatively recent open letter to the industry summing up a culmination of problems facing the anime industry, and Gonzo's reply; anime fans have been waiting for such an opportunity as to be able to watch anime as it airs in Japan for many years, and after all the recent and not so recent problems that have struck various American anime distributors and even UK distributors, the development of this simultaneous release of anime in Japan and the rest of the world could not come any sooner.


On a personal note, I'll also point to the rather interesting posts here of an insider in the UK anime industry. Well worth a read.

So basically you can pay to watch it as soon as it comes out in japan which cant be a bad thing.

Seems everything has gone down the download way.

I still don't like the download way. Burglaries and house fires occur less than hard drive, or other hardware failures. It's best to keep a hard copy. Anyway, how are you going to take streaming media to your mates house to watch it? I just hope if everything goes 'download', that companies will have the decency to do 'to order' DVD's/BluRay's for those who don't want to download.

I'm surprised people haven't jumped on this thread...

I also prefer buying the physical product the only reason why i watch fansubs is to see if the show is any good or not (black lagoon being a recent example if namsoc hadn't have shown this i would not have heard of this and thus probebly would not have brought the first 2 volumes so far.)

My 16 year old younger cousin came to visit me a few months ago and he noticed the dvds on my shelf and asked me if it was any good, and i said yes i have allready seen the whole series to which he replied wht is the point of buying it when you have allready watched it for free. I couldent answer him very well other than there is a big diffence to going out buying it and having it stored on your shelf......... There seems to be a younger genertion of people who are growing up in a download age and dont know what its like to go out and buy there first music cd (its not there fault.)

As for the question will they still realease dvds.....probebly not if there is not enough people buying them. Other exaples include woolworths recently stopping the sales of single music cds, Gamestation stopeed there retro collection due to the fact you can now get these games off xbox live, and Richard Branson selling his virgin megastores which people suspect he is getting out now before everything goes on to internet downloads and falling sales.

Having said that if the download way does generate income for the distos and makers of anime then im all for it.

I hope that all makes sense

ADV and media blasters titles on crunchyroll now (not that I like the DL way the only place I watch fansubs is at namsoc and some of the shows I have watched ive gone out and brought)
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-08-09/crunchyroll-to-add-new-gonzo-titles-12-adv-titles


Personally I must say knowing what crunchyroll really is and how its got here I dont really like it and well there seems very little justice. But hey if it makes the industery money to make quality titles then so be it.