Buying Anime at Good Prices

I’m a big fan of anime, and I want to increase my anime collection, but anime is expensive. It can cost $30 for 4 episodes. Does anyone have any (legal) tips to buying anime on sale? Like any trustworthy websites that sell anime at a good price.

Wait for box sets instead of buying individual volumes unless there’s a big sale. Amazon Marketplace typically has prices that match any other retailer. A lot of people seem to buy from DeepDiscount for its cheap pricing. Rightstuf has very nice sales a few times a year, but isn’t cheap outside of sales and a few people report waiting a few weeks before shipping.

Seconded - I don’t buy as many discs as I have previously, but that’s the strategy I used.
Also, some places have memberships that you can purchase in order to get discounts (like RightStuf’s Got Anime? and Suncoast’s Backstage Pass); do the math before you get something like that, since it wouldn’t be so hot to purchase a discount and end up losing money overall.

Suncoast/FYE/Sam Goody is expensive, but if you’re into preorders they tend to price them a bit cheaper than everywhere else. However, the prices kick back up once something’s released. They have some decent sales sometimes.

I used to order a bit from RightStuf - I always waited for studio sales and got my boxsets then.

There’s a retail forum at AoD (www.animeondvd.com) that tracks a lot of store sales. There’s also an ebay section where members post about things they’re selling; since the site is against bootlegs, any post from someone selling illegal releases is going to be swiftly removed.

If you go to anime cons, you can usually find some good deals at the merchant booths there. The smaller booths often have a lot of marked-down stuff. The big ones do too sometimes, if it’s older stuff and they’re trying to push something new. I got some great deals on box sets of Evangelion and Excel Saga, for example.

But don’t expect it to be cheap. I personally see nothing wrong with downloading fansubs, watching them, and deleting them. If they’re worth watching multiple times, then I’ll spring for the real thing when it gets released here.

Just remember, there’s a reason they sell these bags:
http://www.akadotretail.com/product_info.php?products_id=11050&cPath=36_56