Importing Anime DVD's from the US to Germany?

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 6:54 am

So this is a question mostly to the German audience. Did anyone order anime DVD's online in the US and imported them to Germany? If yes, I'd appreciate some helpful hints what to care about.

Kai Stromler · Post by **Kai Stromler** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 7:44 am

Another expat? Service or private sector?

ontopic:
I had to do this for a current project, and because speed was of the essence I ordered from Amazon with the maximum-speed international shipping option. I got them three days after the order was shipped, no customs interference and only about $20 added to the order.

In general, European laws will not lead to importation problems with anime. There is practically nothing that is both commercially available in the US and in violation of the anti-Nazi Gesetze, and if you're ordering online, you're old enough that you should be allowed to get FSK-18 materials anyways (FSK-18 is the German equivalent of NC-17, with stricter controls on violence and looser controls on sex). And you're probably not going to import enough to get flagged as someone intending to distribute without proper licensing or business structure.

I asked Warheart the same question over PM a few weeks ago, because as you've probably discovered, German retail is pretty anime-poor. His answer was that he mostly imports R1 stuff, and presumably without problems; other German editors may have different perspectives or correct me about the legal situation.

hth,

--K

Kasuga Ayumu · Post by **Kasuga Ayumu** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 8:48 am

I wouldn't recommend Amazon, they're more expensive then most and don't offer anything others don't. I usually compare prices between <a href="http://www.dvdboxoffice.com/">DVDboxoffice</a> and <a href="http://www.dvdpacific.com/">DVD Pacific</a>. Note that the prices at Boxoffice are CAD, <i>not</i> USD.
In the past Boxoffice had some way of getting <i>anything</i> through customs but lately that changed.

If it's not pre order they're also slow as hell. So now it's usually DVD Pacific. Don't get confused by their stupid "Price - Members price" double tagging, it's basicly the same as Amazon's "List Price - Our Price" thing, just cheaper.

And it's usually a bad idea to order more than one DVD at a time to safe shipping costs. The price for one DVD is below 25€ so it's garantueed comstoms free. Two DVDs aren't. The bigger the package the more likly it is you'll have to pay customs. If you have to do this it's about 20% of the package's price.

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:01 am

Kai Stromler wrote:Another expat? Service or private sector?

Of course privat sector. Should have used another term than importing.

Thanks for the answers, they helped a lot. I was surprised how much money you can save, especially if you buy box sets, even if you have to pay shipping and costums. The series for which I spent around 180 Euro I can get for less than 80 Euro, including costums.