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Best retail shop to buy anime in your area?


Optic

Are you happy with the anime selection at your local retail shop?  

127 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you happy with the anime selection at your local retail shop?

    • Yes! It's my first preference!
      7
    • Yes, though I normally watch anime by other means. It is however, a place I would recommend.
      8
    • Hit and miss. The range and price varies.
      16
    • No, they almost never stock what I want.
      7
    • No, they're WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.
      12
    • I wish! There are no nearby places that sell anime.
      77


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What is the selection of anime Blu-rays (BD) and DVDs like in your local retail shop?

 

I live in Australia and we have a retail chain here called JB Hi-Fi. They were one of the first chains to have anime DVDs around Australia and I am pretty happy with the range they offer here. But I've found their range to be hit and miss on occasions. Sometimes they may stock a certain season but completely neglect other seasons. Or fail to keep enough stock for certain titles...

 

Here in Australia, anime BDs and DVDs are also fairly expensive here. A season Blu-Ray box set will set you back at least $40-$50 AUD. In comparison to buying from Amazon which offer Multi-format (both Blu-ray and DVD version) for around $35 USD...

 

So how about you? And if you're up for it, consider sharing a photo of your local shop's anime range. :angel:

 

Here's one from my local one:

 

jb-hi-fi-anime-blurays-dvds.thumb.jpg.8f0735679dd416b778a994bd59d7ff2a.jpg

Edited by Guest
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The only anime-related shops in my area is Hot Topic in the mall. :(

Other than that there's a used video game store called Disc Replay which has about a shelf of titles, but that's it.

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The only thing I have is online shopping...

 

There IS a gaming store about an hour away from where I live called Estarland. I've only been there once, but they have a ton of Retro/Imported games and Anime Merchandise like figures. I would go there much more often if I lived just a bit closer...

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All I have local that has at least an ok selection of anime is an fye. I always look while I am in the mall but I hardly ever buy anything except something that is on sale. I can usually find dvds cheaper online.

 

I wish I was a better business person so I could open a good anime/manga store in my town. xP

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We dont look in our own retail shop lol, most of the time its Amazon or jlist. On Ebay sometimes, to get the really hard stuff to obtain. We don't like leaving our apartment, just a personal preference. The sky loves retail shops I've heard lol.

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  • 2 weeks later...

JB is the only place I can think of but I can never afford them, especially when half (sometimes a third of) a season is twice the price of a full season American show (with about 3x the episodes in the full season).

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  • 2 months later...

I'm pretty lucky with my selection. One of the few perks about living in California is the wide variety of shops that open up all over the place, including a decent number of local anime shops that carry everything if you hit one or two of them. However, I don't normally buy anime, I buy manga.

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Unfortunately, where I live there is no anime shop. In fact, we're lucky if the resale shops get even a VHS anime.

 

I do go out of town every once in a while and go to an FYE. They're overpriced, but they're usually the only ones I can get to.

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HMV 30 minutes away is the only place that sell anime and its a really small and old selection.

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HMV 30 minutes away is the only place that sell anime and its a really small and old selection.

For me, a lot of the older anime is better just because it has a better story (in most cases) though the art isn't normally the best.

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For me, a lot of the older anime is better just because it has a better story (in most cases) though the art isn't normally the best.

I always like Studio Ghibli stuff which thankfully is what they usually sell.

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HMV(s) - forty minutes in either direction (I live about roughly the same distance from two cities)!

 

As metroman008 says, HMV's selection isn't great, that said, I wouldn't have said "old selection" (although perhaps your local is different to my locals - I found an HMV where anime was in the "musical" section), that too was also forty minutes away, but by train, rather than bus), they usually have recent or popular stuff!

 

Alternatively there's also Forbidden Planet, can be a bit on the expensive side (and at one time, World's Apart (part of Forbidden Planet International) sold anime, but stopped because they couldn't nail down a supplier, or something), and That's Entertainment, although they usually deal in second hand, although when various anime distributors (due to the economic crisis) were going out of business, they did seem to have surplus of anime from those distributors!

 

Actually speaking of second hand, I've found CEX is a good place to pick up random (second hand) anime, well and current, but I got the random stuff, as the current I could get at HMV, or online!

 

I remember when the selection at HMV was more impressive, however I wasn't really into anime at that time, and we also had more places to choose from, such as Virgin Megastores, before Richard Branston sold it to the shareholders, they renamed it to Zavvi, bankrupt it, and another company bought the name, and it became an online only entity!

 

EDIT: If you want a picture, Optic, you'll be waiting a while ;), especially since I've misplaced my phone to computer connector! Plus it won't be great quality - I still use an old phone!

Edited by Guest
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I used to be able to find really good titles and anime at the nearest Best Buy and Suncoast, but Suncoast left and Best Buy has gotten awful with their selections. It's mostly DBZ (which I love) and Studio Ghibli films (which I also love) but it's disappointing if you are looking for anime that isn't released by Disney or super popular.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Also, my favorite place to shop online is rightstuf.com. They have good deals most of the time and their yearly holiday sales are awesome. They and amazon are my go to places for anime, but I try to shop more at rightstuf since they are a smaller run company.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The best place near to me that has any sought of Anime DVD's is a place called CEX. However, the selection in there is about as poor as a beggar. Literately, I would be surprised if I could even buy a half decent disk.

 

Basically, my airea is horrible for anime stuff :-/

 

(Until comicon! :D)

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Sadly I don't have anymore retailers like that. They all closed..it's a shame but I buy my stuff online. I also prefer to stay home..ahahah...

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Personally, I don't buy anime merch. Where I live, people usually go to whatever store at the mall that has anime-related things. Like Hot Topic for some reason, and Spencers. I'd rather order things from Amazon since I have Prime.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Been pre-ordering from RightStuf lately. I would pre-order from Amazon if not for one moment of a screw up combined with my brother's horror story regarding a particularly bad screw-up, in which they cancelled an order, meant to be a Christmas present for our other brother, without even bothering to ask about it.

 

It was a limited edition item, too. Basically, they assumed he got the order wrong (since he had his own copy), so they cancelled it. Since it was limited edition, it completely ruined my brother's idea for a Christmas present, since by the time he'd be able to fix it, it'd be double the price. Like I said, they didn't even bother to ask him.

 

Needless to say, they lost hundreds off him even debating whether or not he'd go back to them at all, and even when he decided to order from them again, it was with the vow to never pre-order from them ever again. He even went as far as to tell the guys at his local GameStop about the incident, and that he'd pre-order games from them from now on. People had different experiences, but my brother's had good ones there so far.

 

My own story came from a screw up regarding a graphic novel. They delayed the order, claiming the book itself was delayed...even though one look at the publisher's website showed no such thing, and even said it was already out. I cancelled the pre-order, ordered it from the publisher's site, and got it before Amazon claimed it was supposed to be released. This was before my brother told me his horror story.

 

That's not to say I don't order from Amazon; only that I only order things that have already been released there. Pre-ordering from them is not on my list of smart ideas, and hasn't been for a long while.

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  • 1 month later...

All we've got around here is HMV. It's a cool store, but they don't really have much of an anime section. About an hour and a half away there's another store stock full of movies and shows, and their anime section is much better. But I've only ever been to that one twice and it tends to be a bit more expensive.

Back home though, there's a lot more stores dedicated to anime/manga and you can find quite a lot.

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All HMVs in Ireland are being closed for the second time so nope no place to buy anime anymore

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