Today I received a package containing a DVD I’m set to screen for the next five Wednesdays from Operation Anime, Funimation’s anime club program. I had to bike to the former club president’s apartment to pick it up because there was some error after I changed the shipping address to mine and it apparently didn’t take. (That issue has been sorted out, though, and future stuff should be sent to me.) Minor problems aside, this post is meant to show what kind of stuff you get in a typical shipment. Pictures after the jump.
Funimation shipped the package through UPS using a nice padded envelope.
The above spread includes a survey sheet, the return envelope for the surveys, a lot of promo cards, a booklet from the second Trinity Blood volume, and the requested DVD (Moon Phase 1). Extras in the past have varied from Basilisk cards to Baki the Grappler cardboard punchouts to Negima stickers.
The promo cards that come with the DVD usually total 20 (five each of four designs). Shown above is how they stack up next to a DVD case.
The case is basically the same as if one had bought it at retail. That means there is no holepunch or slash through the barcode, for those of you who care about such things.
The club may be getting the show free of cost but it is not entirely free from obligation. Funimation asks that questionnaires be filled out after the DVD is screened and sent back to them using the provided postage-paid envelope. I wonder how many people would honestly answer “MiniDVD” to question 10…
Now, usually the officers filled out the questionnaires themselves, although we once polled those in attendance and put those numbers down. Well, I guess the club isn’t supposed to do that anymore according to the letter that was included. The bad part is that I’ll have to make copies but the good part is that I won’t have to do it until a month from now.
For the past couple months, I’ve been considering trying out a similar program that ADV offers called Anime ADVocates. However, I have this fear that some of the episodes on their monthly samplers might be dub-only and that would not be looked upon favorably in our sub-only crowd. Besides I like being able to pick a DVD of the same series that allows an audience to get a good handle on an anime’s flow and story and can also be auctioned off at the end of the year to supplement club funds.
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work ahead or else u might end up doing more work D:
The anime club that I’m a member of uses Anime ADVicates, and the samplers include both subs and dubs.
I’m not too fond of ADV’s club material. They have a watermark on the video itself with something along the lines of ‘Promotional Video Only - Do Not Copy”
And it’s not the actual DVD you’d buy. So yeah, can’t really auction it off, either.
I’m quite happy with Operation Anime (even though my club has only recieved one package). They answered my questions relatively fast and having an actual DVD is nice. Wish other licensing companies would do more with clubs.
Crystallized: Cool! Thanks for the info! Now I’ll seriously consider it if our fall lineup needs some bolstering. Overall Operation Anime has been a nice experiment for our club (although tonight there were some dissenters to my selection on Moon Phase), but I’m willing to drop it in the fall if we manage to fill out our schedule with unlicensed anime.
Sabas: I’ve seen the watermark appear on practically every Newtype USA pack-in DVD although it only pops up every 4 minutes or so. Still, it is annoying if you’re intending to rip it.
The oddest thing I saw about Mini-DVDs is how dumb ADV was about their Azumanga release. ADV was, I think, one of the first shops to try to spread the minis as samplers. But it is hugely retarded if you consider their market as a part of the release. Azumanga has VSM and Web Daioh, outstanding extra material which would sell on minis for $15 or more. But they packed VSM into volume 6 of thickpack instead.
Seriously, people, who wants to buy mini as a preview? Everyone gets their preview for free, if not from torrents, then from magazine DVDs or broadcast. But putting some extra material on them would be awesome.
The question itself just makes no sense, frankly. Why would anyone “prefer” a mini-DVD format? Most consumer DVD players can’t even play it (actually, they can play it, but they use caddyless loaders and can’t center the mini on the spindle). If Gamecube or PSP could play minis, then I could see why someone might’ve preffered them. But neither does.
Pete: Yeah, I remember they were selling Ani-Minis back in 2004. Had to look up the details on pricing - According to press releases from back then, they cost $7 for that one episode and had a $10 off coupon that could be used when buying a volume of the same series from ADV’s online store.
I never personally bought any of those and I think one reason why the company has moved to making free first episodes streaming from IGN or downloadable from ADV Universe is that most people don’t want to pay to sample something. The pack-ins with Newtype are an extra to the actual content of the magazine but many people (myself included) buy issues for the episodes as well as for the featured articles.
I once got a mini-CD thing from Hertz at a career fair but haven’t seen mini-DVD (80mm) used for anything other than camcorders and the variant for Gamecube games.