Sentai Filmworks has announced that its upcoming Blu-ray Disc release of the Persona 4 The Animation television anime series will include an English language dub but will not include the original Japanese language track. The company noted that the Japanese licensor required the change. The DVD release will still contain both English and Japanese audio tracks, and it will also include Japanese episode commentaries.
Sentai Filmworks has repriced the Blu-ray Disc release of Persona 4 Collection 1 to US$59.98 from the original price of US$69.98 to reflect the change. The price for the DVD release is unchanged.
Sentai Filmworks also noted that its release of the series is licensed for sale and use in the United States and Canada only; exportation of the release is prohibited. The company is using the original English voice cast from the Persona 4 PlayStation 2 video game for the English dub of the anime.
So in exchange for losing the Japanese track, the BD was reduced in price by $10 bucks and is now the same price as the DVD version which will still have both language tracks. ~sigh~
We have reduced our regular pre-order price of the BD to $39.98, and all existing pre-orders will automatically reflect this price reduction. If you already have this title on pre-order and want to make a change, just let us know.
4 comments:
While this is an incredibly stupid move on their part, I have to admit that it's good news for me personally. As it brought the price down of the set, and I never had any intention of watching it subtitled in the first place.
Their kind of attitude is just pushing more and more people to seek a high quality version from another source, one that does allow for original Japanese with subtitles in English.
Now slapping export restrictions on the products as well, so even if we did want to buy it we can't
There are countries outside the USA/Canada you know.
Are they trying to sell a product people want to buy?
Just about all R1 DVD's and BD's published have export restrictions and are only supposed to be sold inside the US and Canada. They just have the reiterate that in the press release for the benefit of the Japanese license holders. If retailers 'accidentally' sell them to international customers, well, it's really really hard to keep track of that - isn't it? :-) HEH.
My money's on Aniplex being the ones behind such a decision. In fact, they've had a bit of a history placing locked subtitles on Blu-Rays released in North America:
http://www.fandompost.com/oldforums/showthread.php?9024-You-re-locked-out!-The-locked-subtitle-thread
This also wouldn't be the first instance of an anime Blu-Ray getting a dub-only release. (Remember Kurokami? Back in 2009? Anyone?)
Post a Comment