Is beautiful cover art an essential part of an anime DVD?

S

Sue Quinn W

New member
From reading the DRAGONBALL cover thread, I had a thought, so I ask this question, Do you think beautifully designed cover art is a vital part of enjoying an anime DVD?

I think so

And also I think we need more anime merchandise
 
If the contents of the dvd are good enough it can easily overshadow the box art, even if its some of the most boring or ugly box art ever.

But if the show isnt that great and the box art is horrible, it doesnt help the situation, only makes it worse.
 
I would say so, yes. Cover design and general... err... prettiness, I suppose, are very important to me as a collector of sorts. Now, if I'm hell-bent on buying a series, the artwork and such is moot. For example, FUNi could have put a picture of a rock on the One Piece DVRAB, and I still would have pre-ordered them months in advance.

But for small releases, a well-designed cover will make or break the deal. If I'm shopping around, part of the equation is how good the casing looks. Say I'm looking at buying one of two shows. Show quality, unless the difference is lightyears apart, is probably second to "Hmm, how good will this look on my shelf?"

But that's just me. I'm kinda weird.
 
What the others said. If your like of a show is swayed by whether the cover art is good or not, then obviously you're not much of a fan of the show in the first place.:P
 
While it doesn't hurt, I don't think it's essential. Certain series I'm going to collect no matter what is on the cover. However, I think it shows that the company cares about the title if the art looks good and it just leaves a better taste in my mouth overall if the packaging is good.

But at the same time, it can be important when you're browsing shelves and come across something that looks interesting. I don't make a lot of blind purchases, but when I do, I only get something that looks appealing on top of sounding like something I'd enjoy.
 
I don't think it's overly necessary to have great cover art but it is nice to see dvRAB with great cover art and shows the time and effort put into the franchise. Take the Dragon Box singles for example. It gained a lot of attention because of the beautiful cover art.
 
Bad cover art generally drives people away (Unless the anime is Pokemon, at that point stock images from 10 years ago is a-ok) I know when I was working at a Best Buy a few years back, an anime was released called Eden's Bowy. The boxart was so bland and uninteresting I swore off the series sight unseen.

Eventually I caught a trailer ona DVD and realized I wasn't missing much.
 
Having good-looking cover art is nice,but it really doesn't matter that much to me....I'll still buy series I like on DVD,regardless of what the covers look like,but if I'm just buying blind (which I rarely do,unless I have the extra money),having an eye-catching cover can make the difference when I'm selecting a series...
 
While I can see how good cover art can attract more buyers, I also don't see it as an essential part of selling DVRAB either. What matters more is the series itself and the quality of that series. For example, I wouldn't really care too much about the art for the One Piece covers since I'm still going to buy them anyway. I also don't mind the clip-art for Pokemon box sets since I kind of like that and most of the cases, it looks good enough to me too. Though, at the same time, I think that it would be good choice for companies to at least put some effort into the cover so that people aren't turned away automatically. That doesn't necessiarly translate into good cover art, but just showing that you actually worked on it.
 
While its always nice to have good cover art, its definitely not essential for me when I'm deciding what I want to buy. I care about the quality of the actual show, or movie, first and foremost.

Having really awesome cover art, though, can tend to make a DVD even more tempting for me to buy, if its something that I was already intrested in purchasing. For example, the cover art designs on those One Piece sets look really awesome, and do sort of make want to buy them. But, at $40-$50 a set, I still will not buy them, until a complete season 1 set comes out, or until they come down in price, since I honestly cannot afford them with my current budget.

Still, that cover art almost tempted my into buying one of them, when I was at a local Best Buy store, the other day.

The Yu Yu Hakusho sets, on the other hand, have extremely good prices for my liking, and I already have 1 of them, and will get the rest, no matter what they put on the cover (just as soon as I earn some more money, anyways). Of course, everyone's known what each cover looks like since before any of the sets were even released.
 
Sorta agree that it is about contents inside. But I would feel a bit better about quality as well.

I am not a huge fan of a gimmic cover though. I thought the foil covers that were holographic, or something along those lines, were a tad bit overdone for a while there.
 
If it's too ugly, I won't buy it unless it's something that I know that I want. I won't even buy DVRAB from the dollar store of half-decent looking movies and shows because of the horrendous packaging.
 
None of y'all are artists are ya?

Yes, good cover art is EXTREMELY important. It doesn't matter as much to people who have already seen the show, but it's oftentimes the first introduction to potential viewers. People are much more likely to inspect a DVD that is eye-catching than something with poorly deisgned packaging.
 
I can see where you're coming from. Looking at something like FUNi's "Orange Brick" for DBZ, it looks unappealing for the casual consumer really.

I think a good cover art can appeal to many "Non-Fans" and make them broaden their horizons.
 
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