Ah, Okie dokie.

What do they opt for shipping? Standard Airmail? EMS? Courier? Thanks again. And an obvious question - debit\credit card payment accepted, right?

Simple, they are not licensed, but they are authorized to sell... ~ those stickers are pretty much permit for selling.

So the local company do it in two ways, I guess... *This is just an analysis though.*

1) Produce the dvds themselves. Since they are licensed and legitimate production company, the products that they produced are automaticly 'legit'. Afterwards, they only need to apply for the 'authorization' stickers for selling and do some screening and stuff and ect...

2) Import them from outside the country. Essentially they are just using the loophole for third-party importation which is pretty much what normal people (like me) who purchase DVD and BD online are doing. Pay the duti fee and the sale tax, apply for importation permit, and get the authorization stickers. Voila, they are now legit...

In reality, official or licensed release of DVDs and BDs in other country are not consider legit in our country unless authorized and acknowledged by our local government... Which is a nice loophole for turning imported pirated dvd into legit dvd...

Vice versa, all those legit, official and licensed foreign release of DVD and BD that people buy online and keep in their house could be consider not legit or even smuggled stuff, if a government officer of a related department declared as such...

Furthermore since there is no one to challege them regarding the license or copyright to their release, there's pretty much no obstacle at all and pretty much easy money.

And one will noticed that once a title is actually license locally, the previous *ahem* will be pulled from shelves and fade away. - Like when certain Kamen Riders series is picked up by Speedy (for official broadcast on TV), that title will start to disappear, not all but most. And people will find it hard to find them...

This post has been edited by thesecond: May 11 2011, 09:00 PM

Not us, but the licensor, licensee or the license holder...

Japanese series is never cheap, but there are always legit alternatives like the region 1 North American release or the region 3 Hong Kong and Taiwan release. One good thing about them is that the bonus contents are mostly intact and sometimes their boxart and gifts are pretty much the same as their original japanese counterpart(especially the taiwan version). And they can be cheap too as time passes, not as cheap as what you get here but still alot cheaper and you still get better quality stuff...

Those moon cake boxes look good, only if you have never really seen a real original release... ~ I know since I am still buying the local *ahem* product for test screening while waiting for the official release. Yeah, they are really cheap but that's because the contents are freely and availably DL'ed from internet (fansubs or even HD tv-ripped).

So you are essentially paying just for stuff that you yourselves can get for free from the internet...

This post has been edited by thesecond: May 12 2011, 02:22 PM

Currently, the best way is still getting them online but only if you are able to do so. It will take time and yeah, money, so it's best to take it slow and easy. ~ Real official stuff is few and few here, and hard to find if you don't know how.

- Since the content of those *ahem* comes from different source, the subtitles or character names will always change and change... Already got used to them for quite a long time now - auto-mind-editing...

Anyway, wasted some money on the so-called metal box local dvd release which comes in 2 DVD-9 (pricing differ according to number of episodes) and all I can say is, "Oh boy, very compressive."... Noticeable compression especially for live action or CG scenes. Slightly passable for 2-D works. ~ Wouldn't have bought them if the taiwanese weren't so slow with their release...

Yup, that company is called Innoform (Singapore\Malaysia) who also released Steamboy, Appleseed(both in vcd format), Karas(there was a limited collector's edition with a figure) and Eva 1.0.

PS: Forgot to mention that Shin-chan, Doraemon and Chibimaruko and ect (All dubbed) are officially licensed under Animation International Limited based in Hong Kong ~ a company that infact used to release and sell *ahem* item under a similar name (you can the name under a blacklist in ebay)... They have an official branch in KL now though.

This post has been edited by thesecond: May 13 2011, 06:38 PM

Mostly, sometimes they ripped official dvds too...

Original official licensed and copyrighted stuff, both censored and uncensored.

PS: Speedy is not just into retails though, they are officially one of or the only biggest stockist wholesale supplier\distributor in our country and they are also a licensing agency (- official representative of Tsuburaya for the Ultraman franchise in both Malaysia and Singapore).

They hold the copyrights\license (broadcast and maybe dvd release) for several anime series and toku series (like the individual Kamen Rider titles), they actually own GSC cinema, and they are partners for both Warner Brosand 20th Century Fox and ect locally...

It's Innoform Media. Based in Singapore, branch in Malaysia.

Yeah... The subs for Karas is supposed to be *ahem*taken*ahem* from fansubs...

Debit card is easier to apply and safer to use.