t’d be interesting to see how well sales of regular editions would be if they had a massive price cut close to the American counterparts as the majority of the times it’s always the limited editions of animes that ranks on the Japanese DVD/BD sales chart.

So far it doesn’t really work. They have tried a bunch of times at this. There are times where it does, and more often than not the price cut doesn’t justify the increase in sales.

Most of the time, the usual bonuses on the Japanese releases are drama CDs, radio DJCDs and interviews with the production staff which I’m interested in and can understand (thank you Japanese study in high school). Some of them can provide good insights and character knowledge for some series, while others gives some good laughs at funny side stories. These would never be included on Western licenses however (well maybe text interviews and video interviews on the discs) which I find disappointing but understandable. Mostly since drama CDs just isn’t really a popular or common bonus looked at in Western anime licenses and the hassle of spending more money on providing script translations.

As for the reverse importation fears…I’ve wondered if the Japanese production companies have ever thought about pricing animes that have regular edition DVD/BDs at about 50-60% less than the limited edition’s RRP upon its initial release. Many of the limited editions usually cost about 1000-2000 yen more than the regular edition’s RRP, but the regular editions are still priced pretty high at around the 6000-7000 yen mark which probably turns off the casual Japanese buyers. It’d be interesting to see how well sales of regular editions would be if they had a massive price cut close to the American counterparts as the majority of the times it’s always the limited editions of animes that ranks on the Japanese DVD/BD sales chart.

Sure there are re-releases of some series at a much cheaper price later down the track, but by then interest would probably be gone from the casual buyers or they might’ve changed their mind or moved onto another series thus using funds that would’ve originally gone to that release to a different company/series. It’s all about striking while there is hype and demand and usually for late night animes, those times are often towards the end of or shortly after its airing on Japanese television.

Given how bare-bones regular editions are similar to most US anime releases these days, it could probably deter some Japanese buyers from reverse importing to actually buying their domestic release. That way it’s still gaining sales from their own local market, even if it’s not as much as the hardcore otakus that are willing to pay the limited edition prices, because just by still having a limited edition option available, there will be the devoted otakus who pay premium and get all the fancy extras while the casual ones have the option to own just the show at an overall cheaper price. Of course not all anime releases in Japan have a regular and limited edition made, but for the ones that do have it, it pleases both the casual and premium buyers.

Don’t know if this would cut into the big rental market in Japan though, but it would seem a lot better than having foreign imports eat into their own domestic market in my opinion.

Is searching for the best quality-price ratio immoral? In what way?

I think you just rephrased the main question. It’s basically the one I’m answering.

The reality of it is that nobody really cares about it, as you say, because this is an international media/copyright sort of thing where the money ultimately all goes back to Japan anyway.

The only other “moral” sort of thing would apply if you approach it with a very strong property angle regarding copyright, as in, copyright holders can do whatever the hell they want with their licensed items.

PS: I speculated on patriotism because of what I gathered about the American salesman techniques, ie “Support your country by buying American!”. I could be wrong though.

PPS: @NegativeZero: Yeah, this region system is the only thing that doesn’t make me want to import from outside of Europe. I just don’t want to spend money on three more DVD players for this.