When you go to a museum or an art exhibit you tend to see proud works displayed everywhere. While anime might not be in a museum—unless you count the Ghibli Museum—you can show friends and anime fans your own collection of anime anytime with physical anime. What do you think looks cooler personally? Some guy showing off a list of names on a phone saying this is his anime collection or a guy showing off tons of Blu Ray/DVD boxes of their favorite series on a nice shelf or movie rack? We think many of you will say the latter option.

One of the best arguments against someone who loves digital anime collections is to show them a box set of your favorite series. Collector’s editions only tend to truly exist in the physical landscape and usually come jam packed with cool extra stuff like art books, soundtracks, posters, key chains and collectible boxes with art from the series. Digital collector editions might offer some similar goodies, but you’ll rarely find someone showing off an art book in a digital format. A collector edition is the bread and butter of a physical anime collector and truly is one of the shining examples of why physical anime is sometimes cooler than digital.

Many anime collectors have rooms dedicated to their favorite medium and we here at Honey’s Anime aren’t any different. However, some people don’t have the ability to store thousands of anime like Parasyte, Gurren Lagann, the numerous alliterations of Gundam and so forth without losing much needed space in smaller environments like apartments or personal bedrooms. There are some of us here at Honey’s Anime that buy a new show and then try to figure out where to put it so it won’t cause a shelf to collapse or be in the way of our movement in a room. Digital anime collections solve this dilemma by being on a phone or laptop and can only be stopped by the amount of memory you have.

While physical copies of anime can be watched if you have a portable Blu Ray player and or DVD player, the price of these devices can sometimes be expensive and are often hard to carry around on places like a train or in a plane. The beauty of having digital anime is that you can download a show and watch it from your cell phone of choice anywhere and anytime. A cell phone screen might be small but the convenience of having the ability to enjoy a show no matter where you are is just a small price to pay for a bit of eye strain. Plus, you could always use a laptop if your staying maybe at a hotel or trying to sneak in an episode of Shokugeki no Soma while at work…which we really don’t advise doing as a boss might not be too happy to see work being pushed aside for anime viewing.