A copy of Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (ID2241CT) is currently up to over $50.00 on the bay (item 310394109515). The OOP status of the U.S. DVD of UY2 must be having an effect on the LD value. I have fond memories related to this particular release; I purchased my first LD player new (a CLD-D606) mainly to collect anime and this disc was one of the first titles I bought new in 1997 along with the D606.

Beautiful Dreamer is an anime classic, and if any LD deserves to appreciate in value, it is this cool film. As one of the first discs in my collection, and my introduction to Urusei Yatsura, my copy is not going anywhere anytime soon...

I wonder whether, with CPM & Image both out of the picture, AnimEigo will pick up the license & release it themselves. They did all the work on it, after all.

AnimEigo lost the license on UY last year didn't they? Buuuuuut . . . since they didn't own that particular UY movie, I guess they could?

The LD scene is super hardcore, but it's also super small. Their can't be more than 20 people actually shopping for this disc at this point.

So basically I can't imagine very many US anime LDs ending up "valuable", and by "valuable" I just mean "more than original MSRP".

Honestly, I regard US releases as not much more than novelties. There are so few of them, and so many ended up being crap either because they rotted or the series was abandoned half way through (ie: Giant Robo, Eva, Nadia) that sometimes I forget about the few good ones that exist. I still need most of the Gal Force ones, for example, and a couple of Bubblegums.

From a purely "collector" standpoint the crappy packaging alone makes US anime LD not very desirable. Jackets as thin as tissue paper, no liner notes, horribly reproduced art with stupid quotes from Ebert and Manga Man on the sleeve...

In my opinion, this is the neglected factor whenever anyone talks about "value" or "rarity" of LDs. Simply put, the market is so small that items may come up for sale only rarely, & what price they go for becomes much more random than in a market with a large number & high frequency of sales.

Indeed, when I buy Jp discs I usually do not get very concerned about punch through damage during shipment, unlike domestic titles which are little more than LP sleeves. The thick sleeves are great. Animeigo did do a great job translating their releases, and in this case CPM used their translation for the UY2 LD. Animeigo put out some good releases, the gatefold Arcadia of my Youth and Dagger of Kamui are pretty nice, but that binder thing they released the UY series in seems a bad idea.

More than "seems like". Firstly, it's quite difficult to get the discs out of the vinyl binder pages. Secondly, the binder itself isn't sufficiently sturdy. The front cover finally broke off of mine, so I cut the binder up, extracted the paper inserts with the design on them, & threw the rest away. The discs are now in individual blank sleeves, which I plan on making attractive labels & possibly an outer sleeve-type box for.

There are some very solid US releases too. Lensman and Robot Carnival are nearly perfect. As you said, the Animeigo stuff is also good, although my Crusher Joe: The Movie has, what looks like, minor rot. I think later Animeigo stuff was pressed by someone different than the earlier stuff.

CPMs are decent (although the covers aren't very great). AD Vision...pretty much garbage.