Well I'm really not sure. The thing is it's not just one company making and selling bootleg DVDs so the quality of your bootleg could vary depending on which one you bought.

From my experience with bootlegs almost always the subtitles are shoddy if not downright, laughably, bad and while it's possible to get okay picture quality it probably won't be as good as the original official release due to them packing way too many episodes on a disk (i.e. compression).

Another thing worth considering is the packaging. If you like to display your box sets you might be a bit shocked when you see the quality, or lack thereof, in packaging design for bootleg boxes and single disk covers.

The biggest difference between bootleg and official is the fact that one is legal and one could get you in trouble with the law.

Thanks to Jon for asking this question via email. Here's his original email

"What is the quality difference between the bootleg Sailor Stars box sets versus the genuine R2 Japanese releases? I own the bootleg box set (I didn't know it was bootleg until after I got it and did research...^_^;; impulse buying on ebay XD) and I am just curious."

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