Almost all of my Region B BD's I buy from Zavvi and Amazon UK are region free, not sure about this Space Dandy set, any info on this from anyone?


http://www.amazon.com/Space-Dandy-Co...ectors+edition

A lot of times you can find the region info on the listing page for the title at blu-ray DOT com. I checked this particular one and it says Region A and C untested. You might be able to get an answer in the forums there.

Personally I've had a region free mod in my Oppo for years and I love it - I just order what I want from wherever.

I can't really tell the country of origin for that Space Dandy set. If it's the UK release there is almost no chance it is region free. Anime releases are almost always locked because Japanese rights' holders demand it.

Funimation released Space Dandy in the United States:

http://www.rightstufanime.com/Space-...imited-Edition

I got a region-free UK BD not a week ago. What's the deciding factor? Do some releases deliberately have no region-coding so they can be sold in multiple territories, whereas others made by more specific companies (MOC, Criterion) which sub-license movies legally have to? Japan has the most insular market I've ever seen, do they have strict anti-import laws?

The physical media market is extremely expensive in Japan. Since Japan and North America share Region A, Japanese companies fear domestic customers will import Blu-rays from America. Yes, the Japanese like having a domestic monopoly.

Region coding is up to each company that owns the property. For studios like WB and Universal, they almost always distribute their own films across the globe so they don't really care which division you buy the movie from. Smaller productions made outside of Hollywood often have dozens of different distributors, which necessitated region coding. Of course, it was far easier to wall international markets off before the rise of a global shopping system called the Internet.

The two places I check for the "real" regions a Blu-ray is coded for (since the packaging may be incorrect) are:

Blu-Ray Region Code Info
http://bluray.liesinc.net/

Also, Blu-ray.com will list region codes users have tested a disc on. See the region coding tab on the disc details, like this one for Season 1 of Rick and Morty:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Rick-a.../#RegionCoding