Seen at Anime Nation with a reference to Variety:

Japanese DVD distributor Visionare has introduced its first anime DVD offering pay-per-view access. Consumers can now purchase Ashita no Joe DVDs from Visionare for 525 yen ($5.83) each, then unlock the ability to watch individual episodes on the discs for a period of one week for 105 yen ($1.12) per episode. The DVDs are targeted at Japanese consumers who only periodically watch DVDs and want to own inexpensive permanent, non-rental DVDs.

I don't know if many Japanese are dumb enough to buy into this scheme. On one hand, such schemes were failures in the past, but on the other hand the gaming industry managed to steamroll customers into online activation schemes fairly successfuly, so perhaps times change. The question, however, is: why sell these fake "DVDs" at all? Just let customers download the same "individual episodes" for 105 Yen.