Japanese publisher Avex Pictures enacts export ban on physical media from Japan

We're used to seeing Japanese licensors make decisions or stipulations to prevent or deter reverse importation of anime - for example, enforcing a long holdback on a home video release (or for a specific format of that release) to deter Japanese fans from importing a cheaper western edition of a series or movie rather than buying the more expensive domestic release.

However, something we don't see so much of is Japanese companies trying to prevent exports to other countries, which makes a recent decision from publisher Avex Pictures all the more notable.

Online retailer CD Japan confirmed in a message to customers yesterday that they - as part of a blanket restriction across all retailers - would no longer be able to ship CDs, DVDs or Blu-rays from the publisher outside of Japan from today:

Unfortunately, Avex Pictures, the publisher of popular anime titles such as “Yuri!!! on Ice” and “Osomatsu-san” and others is restricting exports of Blu-ray, DVD, and CD titles.

This restriction has been applied to all online shops within Japan, including CDJapan.

In accordance to the restriction, majority of titles published by Avex Pictures will become unavailable for shipment outside of Japan as of the following time.

Restriction begins to apply at:
6:00PM (Japan Time UTC+9) on February 15, 2017

After the above indicated time, it will no longer be available for any order to be shipped outside of Japan.

As a publisher of music and anime pertaining to a number of notable series as references above, this is a disappointing turn of events for western fans, particularly given the difficulties in legally acquiring music from a lot of anime series outside of importing discs from Japan.

Ironically, western fans most likely aren't even the direct target of this restriction, which is more likely to be aimed to stem exports into other Asian territories that Avex Pictures are looking to penetrate.

It also isn't a restriction that is likely to put off determined fans, with proxy services and the like which will allow for goods to be shipped to a Japanese address before being sent elsewhere providing a way to workaround such restrictions.

All we can hope is that ultimately some good comes from this situation in the form of serving as a precursor to making anime music in particular more readily available in the west, if only in digital form on the likes of iTunes.