First I would like to say that I watch japanese anime from various

sources, youtube, official dvd release, fan subs, and cartoon network

etc. The craze of japanese anime has been taken advantage of by greedy

counterfeiters and scammers who ripoff fan subbed series or subtitle the

episodes themselves which is poorly done and even poorly

translated. So how can you safeguard yourself against purchasing one of these

low quality dvd boxsets?

• Do not buy the dvds or dvd

  boxsets from sellers in China, Singapore, or Thailand. Where do you

  think most of these bootlegs originate from? Am I discouraging people

  from purchasing anything from these asian countries, yes! because the

  government of these countries are doing little if anything to stop the

  rampant bootlegging and distribution for a profit of illegally copied material. EBay seems to encourage this type

  of activity when they don’t punish these counterfeiters, or a better word would be criminals.

Example: Many homemade bootleggers use images from the anime
and not the actual picture of the DVDs he/she is selling