Why is physical media still big in Japan?

Culture of self oppression won't allow them to torrent

Not everyone owns a computer. It may come as a shock because Japan is such an advanced country and they tend to make/have the coolest electronics, but PCs are not as ubiquitous as they are in the US. They also don't buy many game consoles anymore, to use that for streaming and whatnot.

Physical merch still sells well enough in the west, anyway. If it didn't they wouldn't be publishing manga physically and there wouldn't be people crying about digital-only video games.

One weird thing is that Japanese media still seems to believe people buy porn magazines. I'm certain even the Japanese are resourceful enough to find porn websites on their smartphones, so that's an odd archaism.

>>147288902
You might not know this because you never go outside and you torrent all your movies, but physical merchandise is still pretty big in the West.

Maybe they aren't willing to pay for digital, I know I'm not.

Same reason I still go physical for anything reasonably priced and available, collecting.

I still prefer to buy CDs and BDs that I actually really like and want for the rest of my life. I will usually get a digital copy too but all my favourite music in my archive is ripped from the CD after I bought them. Likewise with movies, if it's a 10/10 for me I will usually buy it, and anything I'm really looking forward to I might skip torrenting altogether and just wait to get it on BD.

Anime and manga are slightly different because a lot of it is stuff that you can't get physically, not to mention the fact that the fansubbed or scanlated digital version is often superior to what's commercially released in your language. Blade of the Immortal is a good example, Dark Horse ruined it with their mirroring shit so although it's one of my favourite mango I could never buy it in English.

man, that jin-roh BD looks awesome

>>147288902
torrent edonkey p2p aka piracy wasnt a thing before

>>147288902
Physical media in the EU is expensive as fuck. Shit like 3 episodes of starwars in blue ray would coast €50-100 or a season of family guy for €40

>>147288902
It's cool to physically own something.
I'd have a shelf full of stuff too if it wasn't so damn expensive to buy.