We're here to talk about the bane of every anime fan in most Western countries. Anyone who's ever gotten into anime can easily name the greatest problem with the hobby, and it all comes down to the almighty dollar, or the pound, or rocks, or whatever people buy things with.

Some of the causes for our problem can be identified quite easily:

• Lots of anime are in the television series or OVA format
• Anime is licensed when it is released domestically in countries
• Anime is not a mass market good at this point
• Companies are greedy as hell

Now looking at the above, the first reason is quite self-evident: television series are usually quite long; most single season series run in the twenty-five to twenty-six episode range. Many popular ones go three seasons or more, ending up at 90+ episodes. Simple math shows that more episodes mean more media formats to buy, unfortunately.
The second reason is also quite self-explanatory, but most people don't realize it. The domestic distributors are paying nice fees for these anime, and these days they are competing for the more popular series. Unfortunately, they will of course pass these expenses on to the consumer.

OK, anime is getting to be a larger market these days (see my lecture: Theory of Fanboy Evolution), however it is still not popular enough for prices such as those for music CDs or even mainstream movies. This will be further looked at later.

As to the fact that companies are greedy, well, that's quite obvious. If you look you can clearly see that most companies put out far too few episodes per media format. Every company committed this crime with VHS. In the new DVD generation things have gotten better but some companies like Viz and Pioneer are still not giving great amounts of anime for our money. Example: eight DVDs of Trigun and what is looking to be three DVDs for Hand Maid May.

Now that we've seen the reasons anime is highly priced lets look at the primary run-arounds us resourceful fans have found:

• Fansubs of yet unlicensed anime
• Not-quite-Kosher Hong Kong DVDs, much like the fake (i.e. Son May) anime music CDs
• Clubs to view and share anime, thus reducing the amount actually needed to be purchased
• Finally, as a last resort, the small amount available on television. Like Cinemax or Cartoon Network

OK, so the first one is quite easy to see. There's no other way to get the anime, and they are usually cheap or free. Modern technology is allowing great quality, and this is cheapest way to see good anime.

Now the second way has some problems associated with it. The goal, although some call it a dream, of most anime fans would be to have totally uncut and well- subbed or dubbed (good dubs are possible, just very rare) anime available on television. This will only happen if the fans prove it would make the company enough money for a television release. Purchasing will reinforce this and get companies to bring more anime over. However, that dream is so far off at this point.

The clubs are a good way to gain exposure to a variety of anime, but of course present two problems: 1) you will not own the anime, and 2) cannot watch it whenever you want. These clubs are also few and far between; your best bet is to find them on a college campus.

Unfortunately, the last resort is usually television. The places where you could see anime uncut (HBO, Cinemax, etc. etc...) are rare and they tend to only play popular movies that you've seen a million times already. However, the main purveyors of anime on regular cable and the networks target children. Even the recently adult-targeted "Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network has suffered numerous cuts, including whole episodes being left out of rotation. The real unfortunate situation is that this should be the option that is most readily available for us. Why? Because that's how many anime are released in Japan: on television.

So, students, learn well, and my suggestion: learn Japanese. I know I'm trying.