Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion anime question, procuring esoteric content

my ds15 is interested in esoteric and hard to find anime -- he wants to be an animator, but also just loves the shows. current interest: gundam, which has several iterations.

he is now talking about downloading some anime from torrent sites, claiming that from everything he's read it is really very safe.
I imagine this is probably true, however just the essential illegality of it is still an issue for me.
He feels the cost for getting the bluray is too high. I am even willing to pay, but a lot of things he's interested aren't necessarily even available that way.

I have looked at crunchyroll.com - however it doesn't seem to have a lot of the shows he is interested in. also, I think he would complain about the 'compression' of the streamed shows. Yikes. I hardly know what he's talking about anymore. Darn internet.

Anyway, so, just wondering if anyone, or anyone's kids are interested in these types of shows, what avenues do they use to get them ( the higher quality, the better). Possible a site where one could pay to legally download high def anime..?

sorry this is the ultimate dork parent question.

thanks in advance.

funimation, maybe? there's a 14-day free trial...

http://www.funimation.com/home

Netflix has a lot of anime, both streaming and on DVD.

It depends a lot on where you are-- but-- as long as you're willing to put up with ads, the only legal way that I know of to get this kind of content in N. America is.... YouTube. Obviously-- that comes with some grey area, too, and the copyright issues mean that anything that appears may be transient (a.k.a. taken down without warning), but the alternative, as you've said, is to torrent.

MOST of DD's college friends see little problem with torrent as a means of obtaining content that isn't available other ways, and not a few of them justify high costs even as a good enough reason to do it-- but she (and we) are pretty uptight about it. Most ISP's have pretty harsh responses to suspected torrent users when it rises beyond "occasional" as well-- and they WILL tag you for it if your usage is high.

So all of that to note that I'd object, as well. It is possible to save YouTube clips, though it isn't necessarily easy to save them in HD, and obviously it requires a ton of external storage space- but an external drive might be an easy solution to that.

The other thing that I'd caution you about is that if your child is young-- heck, even up to mid-teens, I'd say-- you should probably be CAREFULLY vetting Anime content. Some of it is fine, but there is a subculture of very, er, unwholesome content there, and even the sort-of-okay-ish Anime content often portrays relationships, female characters, and other stuff in ways that are downright distressing and toxic. Hentai isn't far behind-- and that IS, unfortunately, the underpinnings of much Anime culture.

I know that you didn't ask-- but Anime often turns into a gateway to pretty sick porn, and parents don't see it coming because they don't understand that link. Asynchronous kids are obviously at even greater risk than most children there because of their mix of sophistication/savvy and naivete borne of a lack of life experience.



ETA: The other thing that we've had success with (not for Anime, but other video content from overseas) is cultivating a sort of, er.. cultural exchange. We have friends all over the world-- and those that I've known for years, have exchanged holiday cards with, that kind of thing? They are often more than willing to burn to a DVD and send them to us.

Obviously-- that violates (probably) the number one rule of internet safety on some level-- so it really needs to directly involve parents. But if you have friends in Japan, they might be willing to send material to you in exchange for something else that you can send to them. It seems more legal than torrent, anyway, and it's the only other way that I know of to get some of the more obscure media that is out there in full-length versions. (This used to be our only option for Doctor Who Christmas Specials, in fact.)


HTH.

used DVDs of Japanese anime on eBay? I bought a collection of Ghibli DVD's for a few bucks each there.

And in my area, Japantown has DVD rental libraries where all the kind of shows that your son might be interested in are available for weekly rental of 50 cents each (that used to be the cost a few years ago when I went there with a Japanese friend to get original episodes of Dragon BallZ videos, but I am sure that the prices have not gone up much). These sources are easier to find when you have a local Japanese contact person because they advertise in Japanese language media and are located in hard to find places. A lot of them sell the DVDs as well.

And if your son is interested in trying out animation software, Studio Ghibli's animation software was just recently open sourced by them, so your son can work on it, join user groups etc. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2016-03/21/toonz-animation-software-studio-ghibli-free-download

Thanks all! I think funimation and netflix are limited to newer things, as far as we've delved.
Howler -- yes, I have seen some definite b.s. in regards to treatment of women, and portrayals. luckily ds is so far extremely eager to share whatever he's watching and so far I've enjoyed most of it enormously. His fav's (and mine) recently are: Ping Pong the animation (absolutely fabulous series) and Tokyo Godfathers - that is a bit older, and does have some portrayals of what some might call slightly 'deviant' behavior...( but I found it nicely inclusive).
I will keep being there to support or explain what he is checking out, thanks for the warning.

I like the idea of getting dvds from Japanese acquaintances, though not super convenient...
and Ashley, checking ebay and around japantown ...but we don't really have a japantown. I might try chinatown, see if some vendor/shop is selling japanese items as well. and investigate some of the less centralized japanese groceries and other shops. they are just sort of sprinkled throughout our area.

Also,
I will let him know about the ghibli software, that sounds great.
thanks!