Since a lot of pirated disks for old anime shows are offered for sale - not to mention the tendency of manga and artbook sellers to mark easily available tat as "rare" or in-print Japanese editions as "out of print", I thought it was time to set the record straight...

Matsumoto on DVD: It's simple - there's hardly any dubbed/subbed stuff out there in ENGLISH that's legal. The shows that are:

Harlock Saga; Space Pirate Captain Herlock: Endless Odyssey (13 episodes); Maetel Legend; Gun Frontier; Cosmo Warrior Zero; Galaxy Railways (season one only); Arcadia of my Youth.

If anyone's offering subbed copies of Space Pirate Captain Harlock (42 eps); Endless Orbit (Or Endless Road) SSX (22 eps); Queen Millennia (42 eps); Space Battleship Yamato, The "Queen Millennia" film; Galaxy Express 999 (the first 36 eps are often sold subbed); Submarine Super 99 or Space Symphony Maetel, then you're being sold a lemon. None of these shows have an official English language release.

Cheap copies of what I can only assume are the sellers' own official sets of Toei's DVD releases have also surfaced on Ebay, often with pictures of the original official set attached. So if it LOOKS like the price is too good to be true, it is. These box sets retailed in the case of QM and SPCH for over $350 - if you're being charged a good deal less than that, chances are it's a fake. If it's on VCD, you are definitely being ripped off.

Artbooks: Usually seriously overpriced on Ebay... if you can find a third-party bidder for Yahoo Auctions, your best bet for most of these is that route... many sell for only about 500yen, and even with commission and postage, are still better value. If the starting price is over £20, for any of the Harlock artbooks or the numerous Arcadia of my Youth guides and the two Harlock Roman Albums, and the seller's a dealer, wait. (What excessive amounts you're prepared to BID however are your own affair!!)

Manga: It's a fact that quite simply, most Matsumoto manga are actually still in print for ridiculously low sums on Amazon.jp. Whilst it might be worth holding out for some of the nicer older editions (some of which are furigana'd for the kanji-impaired learner...), anyone telling you that Space Pirate Captain Harlock or "Queen Emeraldas" and others are out of print is talking out of their rear end...

Out of print and rare volumes do exist... "Kaito M", "Hotel Mars", "Lightspeed Esper", "Denkou Ozma" - but be wary... I've seen these at hugely inflated prices. Wait. Bide your time. Check out Yahoo.jp... And when I get time I'll add a list of easily available manga to this notice!