Ok.. I am taking a little bit of a survey on how people get their anime... bootleg anime only. Are you the robin hood of fansubs that never downloads licensed material? Are tech ignorant and rely on your friends to download it for you and burn it to CD? Will you buy it on eBay after someone else downloads it? Purchase a Hong Kong engRish translation that blows?

Here is what I do: First, I check to see if someone already uploaded it to my Stremload account. If it is there, then I pick it up. If it is an old series that has been subbed for a while I go to Anime Horizons (yeah yeah) and request it be sent to me. That usually results in one of the mods informing me that "we don't have that her" which is a lie about 80% of the time and someone sends it to me anyway. If it is new, however, I will Bit Torrent it using the ABC client because the resume feature rocks. Now sometimes that is hella slow or nobody is seeding (damn leeches) so I go to my ultimate weapon: mIRC. Nothing like getting 180kb/s transfer rates.

I don't buy fansubbs.. never.. and screw HK releases. I do swap CDs with friends who already have stuff that I want. If I love a series, like I loved Hand Maid May, I buy it. If I already have it downloaded and burned before they release it in the US, I keep the CD. If they beat me to a US release, I'll erase it. That's the way it is... so help me if they stop showing Naruto, FullMetal Panic, or Gunslinger Girls I will still keep it.

Bit Torrent and Direct Connect :D . I never buy fansubbed material, and sometimes I will buy the dvds of anime when they come out. I have Hellsing on dvd and stuff. Most of the time, I dont have any money....so I dont buy dvds. All I have on dvd is Gundam 08th ms team, and Hellsing. I know of some friends that I have that leech off of me.....I'm always burning cds for them XD.

I dont know the difference between licensed and unlicensed, as I never check....heh.

Anyways, yeah....I'll keep downloading cause I love anime.

Me, I used to by the HK all region sets. It's not like I bought anything licensed, well, save for Saiyuki, but it hadn't been dubbed at that point, ADV had just announced the acquisition. Since then, I've given all of my bootlegs away. Now I download unlicensed anime (in the US, anyway). I'm still not big on downloading stuff, but I do it when my funds are running low. Right now I am watching Mezzo DSA and Sakigake!! Cromartie High.

Kazza, Bittorrent, and HTTP sites (yes, they still exist ;) ) I'm still currently to poor for a streamload account sadly, but the other methods work like a charm :D.

I am about to break my rule of not DLing copyrighted material.. it is all because of VIZ Video and their mismanagement of Inuyasha. $25-30 per disc, 3 eps per disc? They can lick my balls and swallow the load. That is like over $100 per season and there are next to no extra features. They get away with it too, because it is such a popular series even beyond the normal anime fanbase... sort of like DBZ... geez.. i fear for the eventual release of Naruto to the US. I can only hope that ADV gets it.

I get my anime through streamload, mostly. Though I've recently been dling off people in the DC++ hub XD.

Also get anime mailed to me (either burnt on CD or a VCD) from friends, which comes in handy ^^

Occationally I'll actually go out and buy anime. For example, I refuse to DL ghibli films - cause there's so much extra on every DVD and the quality is better. And I do collect an anime if it's good. Like when Tenchi OVA 3 comes out on dvd, I'll buy it. Some anime is horribly coded on .mpeg files - so I'll go out and find those on DVD or tape somewhere as well. Same with what Issue said on InuYasha-long series, btw. I'll NEVER go out and waste my cash on a series that's 150+ eps if the dvd's are 30 bucks a pop and there are only 3 eps per dvd. It's a complete unjust ripoff..

I'll also refuse to buy anime on dvd's when it's beyond expensive and will look for other means to get. Like I'm not going to buy Jin-Roh on dvd cause Suncoast is selling the anime for 50 bucks. 50 BUCKS! Flying ****** I'm not going to waste my money on something when I could just as easily buy 2 dvds in place of it.

Recently - ie, in the last 5 years - I've seen anime dvds also go up in price. From 20 bucks to 25 to 30... I don't know what these guys are thinking, but that's the sorta crap that makes me either frequent EBGames (where they open the stuff and take out hte cd's to prevent theft - then bring down the price by 5 to 10 bucks) or dl it off the net.

It depends. I used to buy fansubbed VHS tapes sometimes (I did this with Utena before they decided to bring out the rest of the series, also got some early Sailor Moon and some of Sailor Stars)... But stopped because it was just to much to go through, besides good fanubber "ethics" (at the time) sometimes meant a series
was licensed -far- before I'd have a chance to send for and get the tapes.
I am a collector of anime, manga and sometimes film, so I like to buy commercial DVDs when I can. Great example, as already mentioned, InuYasha, a series that will probably be 200+ episodes, yet Viz releases DVDs with 3 eps per DVD.
Look at Kenshin a 95 episode series or so, I think, Media Blasters had 4-5
eps per DVD usually and that was pretty good, I think. IY is much longer
and Viz is really screwing people over here. In Japan they might have 3 eps a DVD
but that seems pretty standard (at least last I checked).. here 4-5 is probably becoming a norm. Three per DVD for long series especially is just crazy and greedy. Naruto is another mentioned example it's already over 70 episodes
and is obviously popular. I don't know if anyone has the anime licensed yet or not, let's hope it's a decent company. I mean if that kinda thing happens I'll either DL the series or wait for cheaper compilations. Like Inuyasha I just bought probably 10 VHS tapes from a Japanese market of raw Inuyasha (commercials and all, whee! (I like them, so sue me =P)), which is what...40 episodes.. -Plus- five Naruto tapes (20 eps) for less than it costs to get one three-four episode DVD here in the US..

Anyway as far as d/ling.. I have no money to spare for something like SL.
I mainly use WinMX/Kazaa and BitTorrent.. And even if I do d/l something
I will probably buy it later on DVD. But I have a slow as molases connection/downloading speed so it'd probably take a month or so just to get 20 eps or so (where as some can get 6 episodes in one evening.. :blink: ).

I more of a streamloader myself. I use it to test out stuff that is licensed since I am too lazy to go to the store. Then I have friends that send me anime and stuff. One uses bittorrent to get the anime. It takes such a long time for him to do but I can't complain. I don't trust ebay at all . I try to get hte real deal stuff. I don't usually buy fansub takes unless it's an old one from anime club or something.