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The Asian Blu-ray GuideA Sad Story: Japan, Subtitles and Blu-ray Disc
On the occasion of the ongoing Japanese Cinema Blogathon I decided to extract a list with all Japanese film available on Blu-ray Disc that include English subtitles from the Asian Blu-ray Guide database.
To be honest, I was a bit shocked when I saw the result of the query even though I added these titles to the DB myself. At first I only wanted to show you the list below, but with (currently) only 29 of 117 Japanese films having English subtitles and only 10 of these releases being from Japanese distributors, I just had to write something more about this sad situation.
I always ask myself why the Japanese rights owners and distributors just can’t pull themselves together and release their films with English subtitles to please the growing (especially after this blogathon) group of Asian film lovers who are (in most cases) willing to pay good money to see their favorite films in best quality.
Especially now, in a time where the local sales figures for are declining, the distributors should take the chance and make their products more attractive for a larger market and potential buyers. With the Blu-ray Disc format they can’t even blame the region codes as Japan and the US market now share the same region code A!
You just can’t expect people to shell out money for an expensive imported Japanese release and force them download subtitles from shady internet sources that they have convert with different (often illegal) tools (which is a real pain with Blu-ray Discs) before they can actually enjoy the film on their TV!
Just take a look at our friends in Hong Kong and South Korea. Most of their DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases come with English subtitles (and decent prices) and they still manage to sell the rights for many of their films to international distributors, so why can’t you?
Studio
Tags: affengrantelei, Blu-ray, Japan, subtitles
Rasierklingenesser
killerspieler | @droppingpenny
Cratefruit
John
Ulrik | @aht_blog
Well, they could at least make some money which is better than no money, right? Of course there will always be people who want everything for free and will just download everything, but what about those who are willing to pay for the stuff they love? They should at least give those an alternative to pirating!
As for making their business deal more difficult, how come almost every Korean and Hong Kong release has English subtitles and yet these films get picked up by international distributors?
Maybe it’s because non-Japanese films are more accessible (=sellable) to the Western audience but maybe it’s just the Japanese rights owner’s attitude towards foreign distributors, I heard they’re a real pain to negotiate with.
Gwin
Tobias
firewalkwithme
Ard Vijn
All regionfree, all with English subs (and all from Honneamise).
Or doesn’t cinema anime count?
Ulrik | @aht_blog
It does in my book, but I was only referring to live-action films with this article. Also this list was only supposed to be a snapshot of the current situation, not some kind of reference for the future. That’s what I created the Asian Blu-ray Guide for.
Kakahara
ich mir z.B. sehr gern Goemon auf Blu-ray zugelegt, auch kann ich es kaum erwarten, bis ich mir Casshern auf Blu-ray zulegen kann. aber leider muß ich ja auf die gnade anderer länder hoffen und dann noch bangen, ob die qualität überhaupt einer blu-ray veröffentlichung gerecht wird.