Ophi's personal guide to bootlegs

[Ophiuchus]

Sargonarhes

I can tell you the most important reason to forget the bootlegs.
When Bandai released Zeta Gundam boxed set collection last year, dics #4 had a flaw on it around episode 19. And there was a large number of them, Bandai replaced the flawed disc. You get that on a bootleg and you're out the money you spent on it and don't have a good copy of it to boot.

And yes, flawed discs can happen more than you know. The licenses copy is an insurance to to know it's garentted.

tell me, what would the flaw be?  

[Vivio1412]

I found a fake DVD box set for V Gundam...
how did I know?
In front of the box, there was Strike Gundam...
I laughed...


It's a sweet picture, but is this a real copy?  

[Xeon Sempai]

Barsona

I found a fake DVD box set for V Gundam...
how did I know?
In front of the box, there was Strike Gundam...
I laughed...

There is no "real" Region 1 or north american DVD(or anything, really) release of Victory, so anything you see is bootleg.

There are, infact, three ways to see Victory in north america/europe:
1)import the DVDs and play them on a proper region/regionless DVD player
2)download the fansubs
3)buy HK/bootleg DVDs

The real Zeta boxset looks like this:
http://www.bandai-ent.com/products/product_details.cfm?id=385  

[Garrod Ran]

lol my sister picked up a few of the unreleased gundam series on dvd from hong kong. and i have to agree some of the subtitles are hilarious.
though a couple , like Victory and Gundam x were subbed really well.  

[Oranjekorfbalpizza!]

Gotta hate bootlegs. I don't mind people selling them, but people saying they are real DVDs and then sell them, are just scammers... I myself once bought a Mononoke DVD, which, looked completely real. (No odd subtitles, same cover etc) but was indeed, a bootleg sad They're getting harder and harder to distinguise from actual DVDs...  

[Cagalli Yura Attha]

You just gotta be street-smart.  

[sybilus]

um.... just entered the guild today and saw this post...
About the models sold online and in hongkong, plz make sure that they are from japan, and the real ones are never going to be super duper cheap. it's a standard price, since it's made by the same company after all. if you see some that's really cheap, it's probably fake. If you are going to a store and buying it yourself, you can easily identify it, since the printing and the box itself is probably worse in quality. Also, as said above, check the bandai logo. don't buy it, if it miss even one single letter. I believe that you will be able to buy a real one, if you can spell properly, that is. XD I bet you can.
DVDs.... it is definitely some problems for those who can't read chinese when they receive those "fake" dvds. I don't suggest people ebay them, because the best way to know whether it's fake or not is by looking at them personally. I have seen some that look really real, even when you are examining it personally. the only way that I could identify them was to read what's on the box. it is quite possible to find chinese language at the edge of the box. If you don't know how to classify Chinese from Japanese, you can still try to find, as what the above said, the logos. If you are buying them in Hong Kong or even in china town (if it's available), it is recommanded that you go to a "proper" store, such as best buy or HMV. Although it's more expensive, it's guarenteed that the quality is good and it's not some "bootlegs" or whatever you call it.
Since I have been playing with gundam models and stuff like that for a while, I hope these will help you guys out a bit. and I wish it's not outdated or something.... sweatdrop  

[Ayashita]

hay ppl  

[Ophiuchus]

updated the guide with a short bit on European releases of Gundam DVD.  

[Okagesama]

I got incredibly lucky with my copy of Zeta on eBay. It was the legit edition with the set of mini pencil sharpeners and the reflective box and everything, and it was only like $45 or something like that. Any other place it's gonna be between $80 and $200... especially anime conventions!

However, I did get the bootleg of 0083. It worked fine for the most part, but occasionally the discs will skip or fail to read on my player. I plan on getting the legit copies soon.  

[RX-78-2 Pilot]

When I bought my Original, 8th Ms Team, 0080, 0083, and Zeta DVDs, I only used Overstock and Discountanimedvd.com. Got the Real DVDs there for very little.