I’m not immune to the holiday season and like many others have found myself wondering across different online stores looking for those illusive Christmas sales. The Right Stuf! is one of my favorites among those stores, and since it had a “12 days of savings” event in which each day brought a slew of new discounted products I’ve visited it frequently in the last few days. It was during one of these visits in which I encountered a strange sight. As I was scrolling down my web page, which was filled to the brim with discounted goods (some of which sold for less than 10$) I found myself looking at a link to the preorder page for Fate/Zero. This preorder held a hefty $379.98 price tag for non-U.S. costumers which, due to me being accustomed to the low price tags the holiday season brought forth, put me at a loss for words. I did expect Type Moon and Aniplex to make this collectible pack an exclusive expensive product. But this must be a record in greediness.

Let me explain just how this release is different than all those other expensive Japanese market Blu-ray and DVD releases. I’m not a novice when it comes to Japanese market prices. I’ve bought my fair share of Japanese Blu-rays, some of which cost me up to 300$ for a box set of a whole series. But here lies the catch – this upcoming Fate/Zero box set contains only half of the series’ episodes. The second half will cost you another $379.98, which comes to a total of 760$ (tax and shipping expenses for anyone living outside the U.S. not included). To be honest with you, there have been more expensive releases in Japan, the most famous of which being the Card Captor Sakura Blu-ray release. This remastered Blu-ray edition was split into two collections (the Clow Cards act and the Sakura Cards act) each bearing the price tag of 90,000? for a whooping combined price of 180,000?! (This translates to about 2,304$).

So Fate/Zero is not the most expensive piece out there, but I can’t help feeling that all those who buy both Fate/Zero Blu-ray sets will still essentially be missing half a series. Fate/Zero is the prequel to Fate/Stay Night, which was released on Blu-ray in Japan but was never released on Blu-ray in the U.S., and probably never will. Even if it was, will you be willing to pay another 760$ for it? Will you end up paying 120,000? to own a complete set of both Zero and Stay Night?

Fate/Zero is an anomaly – It’s only half a series and is split further into two 1/4 collections. I’m a Fate/Stay fan, but I’m also a conscious consumer, and I call bogus. Price is usually not an issue when it comes to buying a physical copy of your beloved masterpieces. But the sky does have its limits, and most of us aren’t astronaut.