Okay, I'm trying to build up my library of Japanese materials, and I happen to like J-dramas (who doesn't). But, as many of you probably know, EVERY SINGLE J-DRAMA EVER is ridiculously expensive. Seriously, why are they all like 200-350$ for 12 flipping episodes? GARSH!

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=...Categories

http://www.d-addicts.com
jdramas for FREE

With Tsutaya being such a common rental chain that has a well stocked library of almost every Japanese series, I'm guessing there's been no need to sell series like in the states. Maybe it's a collusion between video and rental agencies to keep prices high so one rents and is willing to watch it on tv.

I'm not one to suggest torrents publicly, but if you're not from Japan, there's little harm in my opinion from going that route.

bodhisamaya Wrote:http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=...Categories

Something tells me these are just professionally pirated discs. Could be that Japanese audio, chinese sub-title thing.

The dramas I bought off Ebay I assume are pirated as the quality is not as good as the other DVDs I have purchased and they have Chinese subtitles.

The rest of the DVDs I purchased on Ebay (variety, music, documentary, etc.) have the same sleeves I used to get when I bought used DVDs from Video Japan rental store in Las Vegas.

I take back what I said. Not just every J-DRAMA is expensive. Every TV Show/TV Drama is ridiculously expensive. Example, even shows like Seinfeld are ridiculously expensive in Japanese. The Japanese must worship TV dramas or something.
Yeah, I'm not really a torrents person either though so...
There's no problem getting these shows in Japanese. But if I want them in Japanese with the Japanese subtitles, yeah, I'd have to pay up the wazooooooo...
Maybe I'll just stick with normal movies.

Yeah, anything on DVD is ridiculous here. $30 for a single episode of anime or $45 for one episode of ガキのつかいやらへんで. Etc. etc. etc.

If you are wanting to be a collector that is one thing. It is an expensive hobby. The information is the most important thing if it is just for learning Japanese. Most of the discs seem to come from Japanese video stores in the US. Japan and the US do not honor each others copy write laws from what I have heard so those stores can record and then rent the discs legally. I bid on lots of 10-20 at $1 each. I win about 25% at that price. It comes to about the same as what I would pay per month for premium cable with Japanese channels.

Less than 20singapore dollars for a full season here in Singapore.
Maybe you could order them from here?

http://www.mysoju.com

Pretty big listing and it is also free!!!
They also have Korean, Taiwanese, and Mainland movies and dramas.

You have to be online though.

Wisher

Great find Wisher!

Ughtz, subtitles.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Ughtz, subtitles.

Exactly.
It's easy to gain access to Japanese stuff, even without English subs. But, if you want Japanese subs, it seems like you're doomed to pay 563 bujillion dollars.
Maybe I'll just watch the stuff online with english subtitles but then put stickynotes over the bottom.

igordesu Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Ughtz, subtitles.

Maybe I'll just watch the stuff online with english subtitles but then put stickynotes over the bottom.

LoL, That's what I do now!

http://jdrama.cc for closed captioning subs for currently airing dramas

Nukemarine Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=...Categories

Something tells me these are just professionally pirated discs. Could be that Japanese audio, chinese sub-title thing.

You know, it's really funny. I recently found a Japanese market called "fujiya" near where I live. They have a wall of dvds you can rent and a lot have Japanese subs, which makes me happy. But all the discs are burned discs... Seriously, it's like the owner is just loaning out his pirated movie collection.

you can find some J drama's on amazon sold through different vendors for like $20 bucks and they come in descent packaging and casing with crappy English subtitles that can be turned on or off. I say crappy cause they get the point across but they use weird English words here and there. The audio is good and the picture is good Im just super poor so $20 buck is still expensive for me but I get one every once in a while.

alyks Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:

bodhisamaya Wrote:http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=...Categories

Something tells me these are just professionally pirated discs. Could be that Japanese audio, chinese sub-title thing.

You know, it's really funny. I recently found a Japanese market called "fujiya" near where I live. They have a wall of dvds you can rent and a lot have Japanese subs, which makes me happy. But all the discs are burned discs... Seriously, it's like the owner is just loaning out his pirated movie collection.

They might not be pirated.

Shop owners don't want to lend out the original DVD discs. Once you scratch the original disc, they'll have to buy another one, which is pretty expensive. Instead, it's
better to pass out copies and only use to original discs for burning new copies. If
a copy is scratched, you can always make another one.

It's actually a smart move.

i have the same issue as the orgininal poster of this topic.

i want to watch star trek with japanese dubs becouse i like star trek very much.
i checked yahoo.jp but the prices there are absurd, like 300 dollars for one season, while if i go to a local store its maybe 70 dollar(50 euro) now i doubt normal japanese people who buy videos second hand or even new are willing to pay such prices, so i wonder where do they go to buy stuff online?

mmh... I recently asked a Japanese about that topic, and he replied that people only rarely buy DVDs in Japan. Most of them lend them somewhere, thus they are so expensive.


If you want to watch shows with Japanese subs online, I'd recommend http://www.viikii.net/ . It's still pretty new but i reeeeally like this site :D
(Everyone can add captions and subtitles there, and since you're basically just linking videos which have already been uploaded onto other streaming sites, I also wouldn't see much of a problem with it's legality.
And besides that, they've recently added a kind of "save for later" feature for language learners so that you can save single sentences from a sub for later review. )

Aside from that... http://crunchyroll.com/ is apparently going to be completely legal soon. It seems that they're going to broadcast soft subbed anime directly after it has aired in Japan for a monthly fee, and even completely free a week after. The same for dramas is going to come.

----

but for Japanese dubbed American shows.. no idea :/
I sometimes order some single discounted DVDs from yesasia, but no idea about whole seasons.

I figured they price things aimed at collector types. There are some people that will buy something because they are big fans regardless of the price.

Rent them at Tsutaya it's a lot cheaper! I just burn them onto my harddrive if I want to use them later for study.