Buy anime at discounted prices and save money to buy even more anime!

Let’s face it, for us otaku, buying anime can become very expensive at times. However, there are ways to buy the anime you want and still save money. I will help provide you with some helpful tips on how to search for deals on anime, as well as provide you with my list of the places where I buy my anime for discounted prices far below retail. Just because we’re in a tough economic time, who says you can’t enjoy some discounted Japanese anime goodness?

Tips for Savings:

• Newsletters
  One of the best ways to be kept informed of sales is to sign up for newsletters on the sites that you shop at. Almost every website that you can buy stuff from will have a newsletter to help promote sales and products. A great example is the Right Stuf newsletter, which informs its readers about sales on tons of anime every month.

• Google
  A great way to find deals on anime is by simply searching for it on Google. Sometimes you may come across a site that is selling anime at a very reasonable price. You can also utilize Google’s Product Search to help find places that are selling the anime your looking for and also compare the prices. Just be extremely careful when using Google; You will almost always run into bootlegs when searching for anime, so be sure to read the article: How to Recognize Bootleg Anime.

• Buy the Cheaper Box Sets
  You can get anime box sets around $20 to $40 cheaper by simply buying the cheaper versions of the series if it’s available. Bandai’s Anime Legends and Funimation’s Viridian Collection are both great ways to save money when buying anime. Just because it’s the cheaper version doesn’t mean it has less content or quality, it’s the same as the more expensive version.

Where to Shop:

• Right Stuf
  Right Stuf is by far my favorite place to shop for anime and other “otaku-goods”, their prices are below retail price and they have a bargain bin filled with cheap goods. Best of all, Right Stuf has amazing sales each month which can help you buy those last two box sets that you need to complete your collection for a discounted price. I highly recommend shopping at Right Stuf for all your anime & otaku needs, their staff is extremely friendly and they take pride in selling anime. Sign up for their Got Anime? membership to get even more additional discounts.

• eBay
  You can find lots of anime for sell on eBay that is well below retail price (I bought seasons 1 through 6 of Inuyasha slightly used on eBay for only $120), however, eBay does come with some risks. You could be lied to by the seller, or even buy a bootleg anime for the price that you could have bought the legit versions for. Be sure to read our article on How to Recognize Bootleg Anime to protect yourself from such things. One cool thing about eBay is that you can earn ‘eBay Bucks’ with each purchase which you can then use in place of real money to help you save more.

• Amazon
  Much like eBay, you can actually find many good deals on Amazon, just without the larger risks of getting ripped off. Amazon will also have a sale on anime or on dvds in general from time to time, so it’s always good to watch out for those sales. The only downside to Amazon? Processing and shipping sometimes takes forever.

I hope that these tips and suggestions will help save you some money while still making your anime collection grow. It’s always a good feeling to look over at a large anime collection that you created over the years, but it’s an even greater feeling knowing just how little you spent on all of it.

Tags: advice