8,000 Blu-rays of Suisei no Gargantia Episodes 1 & 2 To Be Distributed Free at ACE2013

by dtshyk
Mar 15, 2013 6:11 AM | 55 Comments

According to the official website, Bandai Visual announced that they will distribute Blu-rays containing the first two episodes of Suisei no Gargantia at Anime Contents Expo (ACE) 2013 to be held on March 30th and 31st. A total of 8,000 copies will be distributed free to the visitors.

Trailer

The first episode of the anime will be aired on April 7th on Tokyo MX TV.

Source: Gargantia official website

20 of 55 Comments Recent Comments

^ Jmal mentioned "marketing" not "altruism", no? I don't think he ever denies that blu-rays cost money to make, but that does not mean your conspiracy theory of there is something "sinister" rings any truer.

Apr 18, 2013 8:04 AM by symbv

jmal said:

TheIMF said:
I don't want to to be that guy, but has anyone considered that there might be something sinister about this and that perhaps these blu-rays might be tracked or something? This could all be an experiment to collect data on pirating and whatnot. It sounds really out there and farfetched, but don't any of you find it suspicious they're giving away 8000 free copies, on blu-ray no less? It's suspicious.

So the options are "marketing, duh" or "conspiracy theories!", in which case I'll go with "marketing". The volume they give away only has 2 episodes compared to 5 on the commercial release, so it's not a replacement for it, meaning they have nothing to lose.

I doubt they even made note of who got each free copy. There were just handed out to attendees, not sent to a specific pre-selected list of known individuals.

I don't appreciate your shortsighted snark.

Blu-rays are rather pricy to produce. Distributing 8000 free copies containing the first two episodes of a one cour anime is, to my knowledge, entirely unprecedented. From an business stand point, that has to take a chunk out of their profits. So what would they get in return?

I pity you if you think altruism runs high in the business world. It has happened before in the past where corporations have made attempts at tracking piracy of their own products. The anime industry is huge but also heavily pirated. It would make sense they'd do this.

Apr 18, 2013 7:59 AM by faderunner

oh wow, so that makes me wonder how long we have to wait for episode 3?
:(

Apr 15, 2013 10:00 AM by zombiepika

bippo said:
They're selling the Box-sets of the show in ACE today. Basically what they're planning to do is 1 volume consisting of 4 episodes. 3 volumes in total plus an OVA. I'll assume the Box contains the three volumes plus some extras. People who got these two blurays got ripped off.

Lantis...this company..wtf

You can't consider this rip off if they got discs for free...

Apr 10, 2013 8:41 AM by Antanaru

I suppose that the people who are concerned about the cost of the BDs also think that music albuns cost what they do because of the price of pressing CDs, right?

Apr 9, 2013 4:37 PM by llefvoid

Are you kidding? Those free discs will read your hue, man! LOL

Apr 4, 2013 7:13 AM by hpulley

I don't want to to be that guy, but has anyone considered that there might be something sinister about this and that perhaps these blu-rays might be tracked or something? This could all be an experiment to collect data on pirating and whatnot. It sounds really out there and farfetched, but don't any of you find it suspicious they're giving away 8000 free copies, on blu-ray no less? It's suspicious.

Apr 4, 2013 3:55 AM by faderunner

http://gargantia.jp/blog/?p=179

BD-Box 1 (eps 1-4 + OVA): 16800yen, 7/26

I will be very interested in seeing how this sells... doing 3 box sets where each one costs 175 dollars seems risky. 525 for the full series, and its not even 2 cour.

Mar 30, 2013 10:05 AM by RyanSaotome

They are already selling the BD box-sets? Are you sure? What I heard is that they only announced the format of the BD release, which is 3 box-sets, each of which has 4 TV episodes plus 1 OVA. I don't think they are actually selling any box sets there...

Anyway, it is kind of to be expected. What I was sure is that they will not sell the BD in the simple standard format of 1 disc containing 2 episodes. I thought it will be one volume holding 3 episodes with lots of extra, so what we see now is just pushing it up to another level - 4 episodes with lots of extra including even an OVA.

Mar 30, 2013 9:08 AM by symbv

They're selling the Box-sets of the show in ACE today. Basically what they're planning to do is 1 volume consisting of 4 episodes. 3 volumes in total plus an OVA. I'll assume the Box contains the three volumes plus some extras. People who got these two blurays got ripped off.

Lantis...this company..wtf

Mar 30, 2013 2:18 AM by bippo

Well, if people are talking about it, it's working. Looking forward to seeing it.

Mar 22, 2013 11:09 AM by Entravity

BDs themselves are relatively cheap compared to their selling price.
And those BDs will probably contain TV versions of the episodes. People will be able to see them on TV just a week later anyway.
The packaging is simple as well, so no damage to the sales of the actual BD release will be done.
So I don't think it's an act of desperation.

Mar 22, 2013 12:43 AM by mado_2ki

Besides better packaging and enticing bundles of extra, there is also one way to boost BD vol.1 sales - by packaging THREE episodes in that volume. Since this freebie has only 2 episodes, people who want to collect for the series have no choice but to buy vol.1 as well. They can even get a trade-in system by offering discount to those who trade in the freebie if they buy the actual vol.1 This should help the final sales of vol.1 to quite some extent.

Mar 16, 2013 7:31 PM by symbv

/random Naruko Hanaharu fan walks by
"Oh look new anime with Naruko Hanaharu orignal character design!? I didn't know!"
/watches
Not a single fuck given.

On a serious note, I'm guessing this just means we'll have two episode a week earlier.

Mar 16, 2013 4:43 PM by Paul

Meruru_Arls said:
Damn... that sounds like a bad marketing move... 8,000 BDs which could have been made part of their profit just go up in smoke... damn guys... just damn.

They'll just bundle some sort of event ticket with the first BD volume to get people who already have a free copy interested.

Mar 16, 2013 1:12 PM by totoum

They must be confident about this.

Mar 16, 2013 6:51 AM by MillaMaxwell

Damn... that sounds like a bad marketing move... 8,000 BDs which could have been made part of their profit just go up in smoke... damn guys... just damn.

Mar 16, 2013 3:05 AM by Meruru_Arls

BASED UROBUTCHER.

Production IG. Don't shit up

Mar 16, 2013 12:13 AM by Gatchum_Bye-Bye

jmal said:

hpulley said:
I wonder, will these 8000 pressings come in a plain sleeve or something fancy? I expect plain in which case the value would be much lower. I expect that the box and artwork of a limited edition first pressing of anime cost more than the actual BD these days.

Yeah, definitely. I'm expecting something like a little cardboard CD/DVD/BD sleeve and that's it.

No no no, if you check the official blog of the anime, you can see the sleeve is no cardboard sleeve but a proper jacket. Of course it will not have any extra bundle like in a Limited Edition but it is not no-frills packaging either.

Check http://gargantia.jp/blog/?p=138

Mar 15, 2013 8:42 PM by symbv

wtf? Never heard of this. The story sounds somewhat like full metal panic.Which sounds interesting lol

Mar 15, 2013 7:04 PM by hewhodoesnotcare

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