How to Spot a Bootleg

hypes · Post by **hypes** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:59 pm

HELP! Thanks to this thread, I've learned to identify probably boot legs, and have found a bunch in my area, but it would seem all my friends, who are no longer ignorant due to my teachings of this post, do not care! Everyone around me is turning into a freegin' pirate! A store at a mall near here sold my friend a definate (I'm pretty sure) bootleg of Samurai7. It's got about a dozen diffrent company labels on it, Funimation is nowhere to be seen, it has both languages, and it's all on like three disks! Now I can't say how many DVDs Samurai7 has but it also came in one of those fold boxes with no plastic showing. I've only seen one elgit anime sold like that over here, Metropolis. This fiend is a moron and argues since he bought it at a store and not online its legit. Another friend of mine took a buch of DVDs I told him were bootleg to a pawn shop guy and he said that they were Asian legit, but they had English dub, an e-mail that was at yahoo.com, and, well, it's Trigun on three disks. Also its region 0! It screams boot leg but because the pawn shop game store guy said it's legit, he won't listen. Also, a third friend is the most dubious yet. He's a high schooler and has bit torrent. He's toying with the idea of downloading all of Alchemist and then burning them on CDs and selling them. He's said he's been offered 30 bucks. Thats MASSIVLY illegal, but he says its an easy way to get money and he doesnt want to get a job and kids at this school are too poor for Funi's 70 dollar set because they're all coke heads. Lame excuses, but he just won't listen! If your going to dl a show, watch it once, then delete it. If it was good, go out and buy it, and if your friends want it, tell them to go buy it too. Sadly, no one listens to me.
The world is turning pirate and even though Funi's not my fav anime fouse, they still deserve their cash.

GreenT · Post by **GreenT** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:58 am

Well, to start off, when I ordered my Love Hina Perfect Collection. When I finally got my movies in the mail, instead of 9, I got 3 disks. I'm like, "wtf?" I can't tell if it's bootlegged. It HAS an english track, all the menus and sutch are like the ones from the 6 disk eps and 3 movies, and the subtitles seem just fine to me. Here are some pics of what I got:

Sorry for crappy shots, but I only had my cellphone available, and I'm to lazy to turn on my lights....

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:23 am

Onimura wrote:Well, to start off, when I ordered my Love Hina Perfect Collection. When I finally got my movies in the mail, instead of 9, I got 3 disks. I'm like, "wtf?" I can't tell if it's bootlegged. It HAS an english track, all the menus and sutch are like the ones from the 6 disk eps and 3 movies, and the subtitles seem just fine to me. Here are some pics of what I got:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/ ... 6_0252.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/ ... 6_0251.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/ ... 6_0250.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/ ... 6_0249.jpg

Sorry for crappy shots, but I only had my cellphone available, and I'm to lazy to turn on my lights....

Those are bootlegs. The dead giveaway is the fx logo on the package. Also, I've seen a great deal of bootlegs like the left one that use that type of folding disc case. The one on the right doesn't use the correct logo for a US/english language release. I'll bet dimes to dollars that the video quality is noticably poorer compared to the legit thing since they are cramming 9 discs into 3.

stickmangrit · Post by **stickmangrit** » Mon May 15, 2006 9:17 pm

hypes wrote: Sadly, no one listens to me.
The world is turning pirate and even though Funi's not my fav anime fouse, they still deserve their cash.

whilst i do not personally endorse piracy, i can certainly take a guess at why you're friends are so apathetic to the issue. have you looked at the price of NA anime lately? i mean communist christ on a pogo stick, it's gotten ridiculous. my dad's a big fan of InuYasha, but just cannot bring himself to morgage his home for the DVD's. and the three thirty minute episodes to a disc trend is royally pissing me off (or in the case of FLCL, TWO thirty minute eps so they could justify charging people for a three-disc set). and don't give me some BS line about video quality. my Firefly boxed set contains fourteen hours of show on only four discs, and looks just fine. same for my Batman: The Animated Series season 1 box. so why does Cowboy Bebop, which has less than thirteen hours of show, require SIX F***ING DISCS?!?!?!? why can the three hour run of FLCL not be fit on one disc, or a two disc/single package setup like the Clerks animated series? because the people selling this are having far too much fun raping our wallets.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Tue May 16, 2006 6:34 am

stickmangrit wrote:
hypes wrote: Sadly, no one listens to me.
The world is turning pirate and even though Funi's not my fav anime fouse, they still deserve their cash.
whilst i do not personally endorse piracy, i can certainly take a guess at why you're friends are so apathetic to the issue. have you looked at the price of NA anime lately? i mean communist christ on a pogo stick, it's gotten ridiculous. my dad's a big fan of InuYasha, but just cannot bring himself to morgage his home for the DVD's. and the three thirty minute episodes to a disc trend is royally pissing me off (or in the case of FLCL, TWO thirty minute eps so they could justify charging people for a three-disc set). and don't give me some BS line about video quality. my Firefly boxed set contains fourteen hours of show on only four discs, and looks just fine. same for my Batman: The Animated Series season 1 box. so why does Cowboy Bebop, which has less than thirteen hours of show, require SIX F***ING DISCS?!?!?!? why can the three hour run of FLCL not be fit on one disc, or a two disc/single package setup like the Clerks animated series? because the people selling this are having far too much fun raping our wallets.

Unless I really love a show (Planetes, AMG TV), I usually wait for a thinpak or box set to go on sale. Bandai and ADV have recently repacked many older series into collections priced pretty reasonably, and you can get them fairly cheap from places like DeepDiscountDVD or Right Stuf when there is a sale on. Plus, if you have issues with the DVDs (*cough*Escaflowne*cough*), you can get a fixed disc exchange from the companies.

Lord_dracon · Post by **Lord_dracon** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:30 am

I normally try to buy official dvds but I do have some that I suspect are bootlegs. It is very tempting to get these dvds when you look in the shops and find that to get the whole series of metal panic you have to pay over £100 (double that for $). The shops must easily be making %200 profit on there sales. Probably alot more. Sales of piracy would be alot less if shops would lower there prices. I would rather get the official release where I can afford it

Gods Dark Angel · Post by **Gods Dark Angel** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 8:19 pm

QUICKLY SOMEONE!!! Boot Leg or not? Should I buy or no?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Azumanga-Daioh-Comp ... dZViewItem

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:59 pm

bootleg, no doubt.
Azumanga Daioh does have an english box set (thinpack) (and has 6 disks in the english release), but it has more than 3 disks...and is region 1 (as opposed to region 0/region free)
as a general guideline, anything that sells for that cheap is a bootleg.
the cover art looks pretty fishy too, you should compare it to official releases to determine if it is similar, or vastly different

Gods Dark Angel · Post by **Gods Dark Angel** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:26 am

and i heard something about an fx logo on boxes means is bootleg??? Is that true? Because my friend has...

Trigun
Berserk
Kenshin
Naruto
.//hack
S-cry-ed
Witch Hunter Robin
and
Love Hina

box sets with that on it. Are they ALL bootleg? b/c I he gets em from this place in the mall round my way and they sell a lot of boxsets like that. I've even bought 2 discs of witch hunter robin there... (real deal 4 eps on a disc official bandai logo) So they are selling bootlegged stuff? Should I like report it tell somone?

Malificus · Post by **Malificus** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:36 am

FX are bootlegs. That site may sell legit anime, but all the FX stuff are bootlegs.