Official vs. Bootleg
(*Ahem* Just quickly, I added my icon archive, accessible from my goodies page. Not many, but I like making them in my spare time ^^)
Now if you’ve been Twitter stalking me lately, you would have noticed that I’ve been maniacally searching for the Sailor Moon manga/DVDs. Yes, I am that obsessed. I recently bought bootlegs of the entire series (I was well aware they were bootlegs, seller informed me), and I bought half the manga. *Yay me*
In my research, I found that there are a lot of bootleg versions of the anime. I mean, I would have bought the official versions, but they’re about $200/season, and there are 4 seasons with subtitles (they never dubbed the 5th season, so if you want subs you HAVE to get a bootleg, or learn Japanese. I’d actually love to do that)… so that in itself runs $800. Too bad I don’t have that kind of money. >.> At least the one I got was of good quality.
So the point of this post is to tell you how to differentiate between official DVDs and bootlegs, regardless of series/movie. Now, I don’t hate bootlegs, and I see why people are against them, but I wasn’t planning on spending $800 on my favorite anime.
If you’re just getting a movie, don’t get a bootleg. The majority of bootleg movies are bad quality. I know this because a few years back I unknowingly bought some bootleg movies of extremely crappy quality. Just don’t do it. 
Research
You generally find bootlegs online, in other countries, or at Chinatown (if they even sell DVDs?). I did a lot of research in looking for this series. First, familiarize yourself with the official DVD/s. Look at the disc box, the paper slip in cover, and the prices. If possible, look at the actual disc – I bet you could find photos some online. These don’t vary much in movies, so it may be harder to define a bootleg. In boxsets and series, however, bootlegs seem to be more prominent.
R1 & R2 vs. R0/Region Free
R1 stands for region 1, which plays in North America. R2 stands for Region 2, which plays in Asia. There is no such thing as R0 (region zero) or Region Free DVDs. Those are “supposed” to play anywhere around the world. If you find a DVD that says R0 or Region Free, it is a bootleg. You can find where it says this on the back of the disc box at the bottom, where all the names and credits are. I managed to snag a few pictures of some R1 labels (because I live in North America! )
Yay! Sailor Moon (my last official DVD, back when they were on the market and still cheap -.-), Spongebob, and Harry Potter!
Number of discs
This applies to boxsets only. Sailor Moon has 200 episodes. One bootleg had the entire series on 9 discs. That’s about 22 episodes/disc! The official versions have 3-4 episodes per disc. But… 22? Imagine the horrid quality!
Prices
Last but not least, the prices. The price range of a boxset should vary minimally, if any at all. As I said earlier, the price of an average boxset of Sailor Moon is about $175-$200. When a seller has a boxset up for $20-$40, a bell should go off in your head. More importantly, when a seller sells the entire series for $40-$200, an even bigger bell should go off.
Seller feedback
If you’re looking on eBay, check the seller’s feedback. If you’re looking at a bootleg set, odds are they’ve already sold one, so check the feedback and see what other people say of its quality. And make sure the seller has relatively high feedback. I don’t buy from anybody with lower than 98.5%. It’s a weird thing I have.
In conclusion…
There are many more ways to define a bootleg, such as difference in cover slips or the look of the disc, but these are the basic but most important details.
Now, I am all for the official releases. If I could, I would buy the entire run of the anime officially. But they’re really expensive. I heard there might be a re-release (supposedly Funimation may have the rights to SM now? Ah, totally different subject), and if there is, you bet I’m getting it. But I’m going to have to deal with bootlegs for now. ^-^;;
… And there you have it. Don’t get ripped off. ^^
Tags: anime, bootleg, dvd, eBay, sailor moon, sailormoon
You’re so random.
It’s wonderful.
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Interesting….
I’m too scared to buy rip off DVDs in case they’re bad quality. I just can’t do it. And Ebay scares the crap out of me – I have no idea how to use it!
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Haha, eBay isn’t so scary. It’s great for cheap things that cost a lot more in stores
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Buying bootlegs is such a Chinese thing to do as well. My mum loves going to china and buying like 100 chinese series for the price of 1. She goes to these stands or stores that sell bootlegs and buys from there. They generally have the entire series on 2-4 disc with 5-7 eps a disc. Some stores even have a dvd player so you can test the disc before buying which is really good.
I think Chinese series isn’t worth the price for official dvds because fakes are much cheaper and we normally only ever watch them once. Chinese series aren’t really something you’ll watch twice. It’s nothing like the American series when you can rewatch them again and again. Also Chinese series are generally only 20-30 ep long and they’re aired Mon – Fri, so in another words a few series every 4-6 weeks. There’s normally two-three channels airing different series. So it’s 2-3 new series every 4-6 weeks. We’ll go poor buying them at full price.
I’ve bought crappy quality movies before, but sometimes you can get good one. If the movie isn’t even out on DVD then it’s usually crap, but once they’re out then you can buy really good quality bootlegs. The sellers just make copies of the actual DVDs.
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I like the idea of having the DVD player so you can see the quality. I’ve yet to come across a shop that does that!
I haven’t actually watched many Chinese series. The only one I can recall is The Seven Swords, if that’s even Chinese? I think it is. Unfortunately we didn’t get to finish it because we didn’t have the whole thing.
That’s a lot of new stuff to watch in a 4-6 week period! Although, I’d probably watch them all because I prefer Asian shows over American. The only American TV shows I watch are sitcoms, anyway, and those don’t really a plot.
I didn’t even know they sold bootleg DVDs before it was actually released on DVD o.O Yeah, I’m sure there are some good quality DVD bootlegs, but I find it really hard to distinguish them. The one we got was Finding Nemo and something else, and it was just complete crap. I’ll have to look into those.
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omg im dying to get my hands on some sailor moon manga and dvds myself =/ lovely site btw emily
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I loveee your layout!
I’ve always been a hopeless romantic although I don’t blame anything for it, it’s just how I am.
I just want to be appreciated, but I’m a hopeless romantic because I’m willing to go all out for someone I love so I’d expect the same..but I guess I’m learning that expecting my output of love is like expecting a crown of gold & diamonds..especially because I’m just …well, you watched my video, right? You know how I’d just pretty much do anything to see my boyfriend/spend time with him/make him feel loved. So yeah it’d be nice to get that in return, but I guess it could also be smothering. Although I wouldn’t effin’ mind it since I effin’ love him so it’d be effin’ nice to get some sort of lovin’ back. ahaha.
BOOOTLEGZZ. My boyfriend sells these actually..hahaha, not manga or anime stuff though. Just the top sellers out there. I agree with you about that though..hahah the whole bad quality crap. Although most of the bootlegs I’ve gotten from him are decent..although the covers are complete failures. There are so many misspellings & grammatical errors that it cracks me up. I love Sailor Moon! I have a few movies, but I don’t have the series. I can’t believe they’re so damn expensive..wtf? What kind of people would pay $800 for a damn series of animations of girls in sailor outfits? fck..people are crazy.
Great post though. This is pretty useful as I had no idea what R1 & R2 were before reading your blog. But what about the DVDs that are sold in Europe & the other side of the world that do not include Asia?
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Haha. It’s hard to keep track of both Lunabelle and Ekaya but I’ll manage.
I have the same opinions towards eBay sellers with low(ish) feedback. haha, I was trying to hunt down an N97 mini over eBay and found this person from Italy (not saying that italians are dodgey, honest) who were selling them for extremely low prices ($250AUD)… They had 12 of the phones in stock and insisted it was the “real thing. Not china version.” didn’t look promising so I gave it a miss. Ended up winning an auction for the mini at a higher, buy believable price ( I didn’t have to pay shipping also because yhu agreed that we could meet somewhere and make the transaction).
…
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I have many Sailor Moon bootlegs myself! I’m Thai, so I’m mostly used to Thai dub and since I was little, I always bought as many Sailor Moon VCDs I could find in the street markeds. I’ve given up on the manga, though.
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Sailor Moon! I haven’t watched that since the Toonami days. I like subtitles way better than dubs. Meh @ bootlegs.
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Haha the idea of going to a place, like physically going, that sells bootlegs is hilarious and so strange to me. I don’t think we actually have places like that around here.. you just gotta get pirated copies offline.
Never watched the series butt hen again I don’t really like anime either. You made great points though, thank you!
Also, not sure where youre from but here’s a link to sailor moon stuff at a store I work at:
http://www.gohastings.com/catalog/search_all.cmd?form_state=siteSearchForm&query=sailor+moon&productType=0&department=AllSearch&departmentName=AllSearch&keywords=sailor+moon&search=true&source=global&condition=0
I don’t know if that’s anything you were looking for or anything like that.
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