I've never liked region-encoding on DVDs, but then I'm kind of old-school -- I cut my home-video teeth back when Betamaxes were cool and there were only two Star Wars movies.
In particular, I'm peeved because I'm also a longtime anime fan. The reason so many of us were able to discover anime back in the mid-'80s was because Japan and North America shared the NTSC video system. Your pal in Kobe recorded Doraemon episodes, mailed you the tape, and you were in business.
The same scenario wouldn't work quite the same now; while pretty much everyone outside of North America has a multi-region, multi-format DVD player, we're hard-pressed to find them here. So if I want to show a friend the inspired lunacy of Mind Game, we both have to work a little harder.
I've been hoping that next-gen DVD would be free of region encoding. While an unofficial comment has left some hope for HD DVD, the Blu-Ray Disc Association is moving ahead with the idea -- but this time around, East Asia (excluding China) and North America will be in the same region, according to Ars Technica. So that's something to look forward to.
Pass the Ramune!
