>It's still this way; you can buy anime box sets in the US for an entire series that costs less than a single episode in Japan.
Clearly you have never bought anything published by Aniplex of America (not that I'd blame anyone for that). PERSONA5 the Animation Blu-ray is $300 (allegedly down from $400 retail) for 28 episodes.
Japanese animation blu-ray are often, as strange as that may sound, even more overpriced:
After a quick look, Perdona5 seems to have at least 10 boxes. Not ridiculous since they tend to contain 2-3 episodes. But each is 6600 JPY. That's more than 600 dollars.
Even in VOD, I've seen some website that make you pay 150 JpY per episode... And 4000JPY for the last one.
The US prices are high compared to France ones (we can get 100 episodes of Monogatari Séries for 90€, but that is a discount compared to the japanese price)
Wow. I had no idea. On Amazon.jp, sold by Amazon.jp, Persona5 anime is broken into volumes, each with 2-3 episodes: Volume 1 is ¥5,958 and has 2 episodes, volume 2 is ¥6,695 with 3 episodes, etc. It's priced like you're buying a limited edition movie as 3 episodes might be roughly the same length. Browsing other ANIPLEX releases on Amazon.jp, it doesn't appear to be all that unique to Persona either. SAO Alicization appears to be similarly priced and released in small 2 episode volumes. It might be somewhat unique to ANIPLEX but I do see other anime sold this way. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Season One) is only broken into two parts, ¥5,198 and ¥6,061 each on Amazon. This seems more reasonable. In Canada it retails for roughly CA$50 each part, though reviews complain that the boss fight isn't over until you watch part 2 of the season and reviewers say they prefer buying a box set with the full season rather than just one part...
>It might be somewhat unique to ANIPLEX but I do see other anime sold this way.
The unique part of Aniplex isn't its Japanese prices, but rather its attempt at exporting its Japanese pricing to the US. Compare that 28-episode $300 Aniplex of America release to something like the Sentai's Shirobako release (24 episodes), which allegedly retails for $90 and is available on Sentai's own store for $45. And that's not even counting the fact that Shirobako is the better anime of the two.
Do most japanese people actually consume these series like this or use some free broadcast / website to see it with ads like most TV is done? Or far cheaper rentals?
I imagine most Japanese people just watch it on TV / record it. I believe DVRs are still popular in Japan. The 12th most popular TV/video product on Amazon.co.jp is a 1 TB Panasonic Blu-ray recorder.
Clearly you have never bought anything published by Aniplex of America (not that I'd blame anyone for that). PERSONA5 the Animation Blu-ray is $300 (allegedly down from $400 retail) for 28 episodes.
https://www.rightstufanime.com/PERSONA5-the-Animation-Blu-ra...