The U.S. unit of the Japanese company
Bandai Visual. Bandai Visual produces anime for the Japanese market. While some of the titles that Bandai Visual USA has brought over are classics (e.g.
Gunbuster, The Wings Of Honneamise), they greatly overcharge for their products. Their pricing scheme assumes that American customers and Japanese customers will spend the same amount of money on anime. However, while Japanese customers are used to paying $50 for 2 episodes of anime (from a TV series;
OVA's are even more expensive), American customers are used to paying $25-$30 for 4-5 episodes of anime (and even less than that for box sets). In addition, their DVD's are sub-only (no English dubs), and very little or no extra features. Finally, while some of their DVD's are
high-definition (Blu-Ray/
HD-DVD), they charge even more for those.
Some properties licensed by Bandai Visual USA include:
Freedom (OVA)
Gunbuster & Gunbuster 2
Super Robot Wars OG
The Wings Of Honneamise (movie)
Otaku 1: I just bought the first DVD of Freedom for $40 and a
HD-DVD of the Wings of Honneamise for $80!
Otaku 2: Do you realize how stupid you are?!? The DVD for Freedom contains only ONE 25-minute episode, and you shouldn't be paying more than $40 for an HD-DVD movie! Baka! (Japanese for idiot)
Otaku 2: (hits Otaku 1 on the head with a giant stick)
