I decided to cancel my order for now. I'll wait and see if a Complete Collection later will have both languages.

If English-only blurays are what they have to do to get past the "reverse-importation" fears brought about by the "backwards" business strategy of the Japanese, then I'm all for it. I'd rather have a blu-ray with only a dub than a dual-language DVD and only a possibility of a blu-ray at some undisclosed date in the future. I've been wondering if there would ever be a company that would take this route, and I honestly thought if a company were to employ this strategy, it would be Funimation. As such, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I guess I'm not alone in liking this, as Sentai repeatedly says that there isn't enough interest for sub-only blu-rays, but yet they apparently think that the market will be more receptive to dub-only blu-rays.

My only reservation about this is that it is a Bang/Zoom dub, but I think that I'll enjoy the dub more than the sub (As with Fate UBW, I personally disliked the sub of this).

I wonder if the dub-only blu-ray will still come with English subtitles, preferably Ghost Stories-esque "dubtitles" (IMHO all releases should come with dubtitles as I sometimes have difficulty catching some of the words).

Oh, and why wasn't this announced at the Sentai panel??! The possible nerdrage couldn't have been worse than Funimation's speech in 2010 about how they killed OneManga, were proud of doing it, and took great pleasure in it. If that didn't start a fan riot, I can't imagine that a dub-only bluray won't. Seriously, Otakon has reminded me that too many anime fans still want to be "Luffy, King of the Anime Pirates" even though it is 2012 and they'll just find some pirate group that has taken the blu-ray video and added both audio tracks to it. Honestly, even if the blu-ray had been bilingual, I'd bet serious cash that those people would still pirate and not buy.

Bandai tried this with Kurokami: The Animation and we know how that turned out. Funimation has decided to hold off on Blu-ray if they can't include both languages for all but one title the one something mirror . It is why Funimation has been doing some shows DVD only even though they have a HD master. If this continues then the end is nigh . Nigh I say . If you think otherwise then fool you be . A fool say I !

I guess this isn't too surprising, given that this is Aniplex and that there were also region issues with the recent game release. As to why they didn't announce it at Otakon, they may not have had everything finalized or were deciding how to proceed. At least they dropped the MSRP, which is more than Bandai did for Kurokami. You will probably be able to preorder the half season sets for about $30 in the near future.

This does raise an interesting question. Is it better to significantly delay the bluray release altogether, or release a dub-only bluray quicker and then one with both audio tracks later? It seems like the delay for the Japanese audio track on bluray would be similar.

My bank account is very happy about this

I'm thinking on waiting for a complete collection instead of getting the 2 parts. I don't know why. I'm mostly a english dub watcher, but this does not feel right IMO. Its great that the DVD does not get affected, sales for DVD might skyrocket. Which I'm glad that it won't affect much on Sentai since sales for DVD always beat Blu-Ray for them except for HOTD.

But all in all, I'm not pissed off on sentai. Japanese companies are to blame on feeling nervous to change that they should control how an anime is released in a different country to keep there consumers in there country like a flock of sheep . Sure its nice to have some great extra's, but is the show worth it to have to pay so much cash? Clannad was an amazing show IMO, but I find it not to cost around 700 dollars for 2 japanese boxset's that have practically no worthwhile extra's. Around 80 dollars is much worth it for a single season, and with rightstuf you get it cheaper. Fate/Zero is not worth 2 400 dollar japanese boxsets subbed only.

Get your head out of your butt's Japanese companies. I was a foolish weeaboo for ya in the past but looking back on it now. It feels like a nightmare that took physical form and took control over me. NO MORE!!!

Actually, the Sentai panel at Otakon stated that DVD sales for HSotD eventually came back and exceeded bluray sales.

I can't say that I have been impressed with any extras on an imported release. Kara no Kyoukai was a letdown, and even had some quality control issues iirc. Ooooh, 400 bucks for a suede-covered plastic box with a few undubbed blurays and a booklet. Color me unimpressed, and that was supposed to be the definitive extra-laden import release of our time.

I could see the case for waiting for a bluray release with both audio tracks if I actually cared for the Japanese voices and, more importantly, hadn't heard David Williams repeatedly state that a "great" release for them sells 3000 copies and that they're only pressing a few hundred discs at a time. The numbers are so pathetically low that, like in the senior citizen curfew vote episode on The Simpsons, one purchase really does matter.

Japanese have always had this fear of reverse importation . DVD even not being in the same region it was bad enough when they'd give iffy masters and gimp some of the extra's. It's gotten worse since the people in charge of Blu-ray put us in the same region as Japan. It was done for Hollywood type movies with out considering the Anime side. You know what is sort of odd Persona 4 Arena is the first region locked PS3 game because of reverse importation fears. It was announced a little over month before the release of the game. Now a little over month before the release of the first set we get a forced dub only Blu-ray for the Animation.