There’s an odd paradox to anime in Japan.

There’s no easier place to watch anime completely free, as just about every series of note airs on regular broadcast television.

At the same time, fans pay far more for anime TV series’ subsequent Blu-ray releases in Japan than any other market, with prices of 5,000 yen (US$42) and up for individual discs containing just two episodes.

So what’s convincing Japanese fans to shell out so much cash for something they already have access to without spending anything at all?

For some it’s a patron-of-the-arts-like sense of pride that comes from financially supporting the cultural works they love.

But for others, it’s the shockingly wide gap that’s sometimes present between the artwork in the broadcast and home video versions of the same anime.

On the left is what viewers saw on TV during the Fall 2014 season, and on the right is how the same scenes looked on the Blu-ray release.

The facial features of the top character might not look so different in the two images, but a closer look at the costume shows that the TV version omits much of the detail and shading of the touched-up artwork.

みんなが一番気になってるであろう俺ツイ10話 １，３枚目がTV、２，４枚目がDVDです。 pic.twitter.com/R5fx8SqEbr

For the bottom character, the changes are much more striking, making it look like the two versions were created by different character designers.

Pictured below are the TV and Blu-ray versions of Act 9 of Mekakucity Actors, and not only do they in no way resemble each other, neither is an exact match for the characters’ in-show appearances either.

Some production houses claim the decision isn’t really theirs at all. But regardless of the reasons behind these quality discrepancies, plenty of fans aren’t happy about them, judging from online comments.

“This is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e.”
“The TV version looks unfinished.”
“They look like totally different anime.”

For the hardest of the hardcore fans, these days anime on TV is little more than a free preview, with the home video release being the real deal.