Alternative to AMV Guide?

[Oiam]

Hello my fellow editers,

i´ll get straight to the point: Isn´t there an easier way to prepare the footage (in my case an AKIRA Blue-Ray) in order to edit it without having too much of quality loss?
Please keep in mind, i really tried obeying the AMV guide several times, following it step by step VERY closely, yet either i get dozens of errors or the footage looks like sh*t anyway at the end. I´ve listened to a lot of possible solutions, though none could provide any help. These programs (especially devilish avisynth) must hate me, lol.
This is a big problem for me since i think that i´m not too bad at editing itself, but if the AMV looks just plain ugly after days of hard work my motivation fades away in no time.
(a great example would be my older AKIRA AMV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEH2u5q1vZk ; You may lose your eyesight, so bei prepared lol)

So, my key questions are the following:

1. How to get HD footage if no one licences anime in your country?

2. In which format should i rip/copy the Blue-Ray/DVD to edit it later on? .mkv? .avi? (etc.)

3. Which export options? Does it make sense to export AKIRA in a higher resolution than it actually is? Which format is the best? MP4? flv? (etc.)

I honestly hope that someone can answer these questions because editing is my favorite hobby right now.

...and not preparing.

[exkcal]

1. There are many ways, many are not legal. There are sites that that you should be able to find with a simple search that host torrent links of 1080 anime footage.

2. Most blurays I see are converted to mkv but it mostly matters on what video editing software you use. Most editing softwares are unable to use mkvs (sony vegas for example). So I tend to stick with mp4s (rendered 720p for youtube, 1080p for DL's).

3. I am kinda iffy on this but I would say render the bluray in its native resolution unless you want it to be lower.