While I do spend a lot of time discussing anime, I am also a fan of Western animation. There is no doubt in my mind that there have been many amazing animated series created in the West that put much of anime to shame. However, living in Ireland where much of our DVDs and Blu-Rays are released by UK based distributors, I have found it very hard to collect Western animated TV series.
Let’s start off by saying that there are certain animated series that are widely available over here. From series such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Spongebob Squarepants and more, these are a few examples of shows that are easy enough to find on DVD (notice I’m leaving out Blu-Ray).
However, there are plenty of cases where this is not the case. In “Why I Prefer Physical Media“, I mentioned that it took Rick and Morty nearly 5 years to arrive on DVD and Blu-Ray over here. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (a controversial hit) took around 3 years to be licensed and released here.
If delays were the only problem, it might not be so bad. However, there are problems that go further than that. Using My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic again as an example, reviews on Amazon for season 4 note that 1-2 episodes are missing from the set. This reminded me of when Adventure Time season 2 was released and it was discovered that episodes were missing. I do not know why this occurs but, as you might imagine, this is off-putting to a collector like me.
Of course, this is only an issue if the show is released at all. I have wanted to see Gargoyles, Spawn: The Animated Series, The Critic and more but they have so far seen no release here. I used to collect Robot Chicken on DVD before their releases conspicuously stopped. I picked up season 1 of The Regular Show, loved it and waited for season 2 to come out (it didn’t).
While all of these issues continue to exist, a sign of hope (and which seemingly no one is talking about) is that Manga Entertainment announced that they would release several Cartoon Network series including Steven Universe, Samurai Jack and Adventure Time. The other day, I was pleased to see Manga Entertainment announce that Over the Garden Wall was being added to this lineup.
I can only hope that the market grows for Western animated series on DVD and Blu-Ray over here and, by writing about this, I hope that more people will become aware of the issues. I also wanted to bring attention to the Manga Entertainment titles which I’m really excited about.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk, amazon.com or bookdepository.com for all of your needs!