Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Anime Torrent Sites Disappearing?
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Narutofreak1412
 Posts: 338 |
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I prefered to watch anime offline and have them as files, so I can watch them when I'm not at places with wifi + I can work with them (for example taking screenshots and making gifs for reviews), but I still wanted to support the industry, so I usually downloaded most of my anime via torrent, but I still paid for a few services at the same time (crunchy, amazon prime ect.). I'm sure I paid a few hundreds of euros over the last 5 years.
So now with Nyaa gone I've mixed feelings. Sure, there are still lots of download alternatives regarding popular and new series and I can also always watch them on legal streams, but my problem are older and obscure anime. Those aren't available on most of the alternative sites and while some of them are at least importable (It got harder now that japan started blocking certain exports tho), there are a lot gems, which got released via VHS, laderdisc or DVD between 1960 and 1990 only in japan and now even in japan there aren't obtainable anymore. Also consider that there were a lot of small 1-3 man fansub groups subbing those old and obscure anime exclusively on nyaa without even having an own website. All of this is now forever gone. Only a few of those files survived at illegal streaming sites, but I will never ever visit one of those sites, because I really hate them for making cheap money with fansubs or crunchy rips. I've seen one of those sites asking for donations and they reached their goal of 10.000 euro in a single evening... It disgusts me so much that I would rather don't watch an anime at all than watching it there and supporting them via ads and compensation per view through some third party sites. |
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Ajc228
Posts: 265 |
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I was referring to the original Votoms show. I bought a good chunk of the series on DVD. The commentary tracks are great but the video quality is abysmal. It can't hold a candle to the Japanese remaster that was released on DVD a while ago. |
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Estelle the White Mage
 Posts: 51 |
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As long as the streaming sites can find a way to continue hosting their content, I'll be good.
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Webbmaster62
 Posts: 41 Location: Ft. Worth TX |
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Well Tokyotosho is still around which was the one everyone used before and IRC so its not gonna die. I give it a wee before someone makes a new big tracker site.
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MajinAkuma
 Posts: 1199 |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Wow, either this thread moved fast (always does when the P-word is uttered), or I got here late...
I wasn't "one of those pirate hacker kids", as we all throw the term around looking for a scapegoat, I was just one of those poor Bubble-era 00's anime fans just trying to find some way to keep up his new addiction to xxxHolic or Macross Zero before any of the mainstream had heard of it-- While the big-company ADV's and Pioneers had their own problems dealing with Best Buy's disinterest in $30 single-disks, and companies trying to get us to like Shuffle or Nerima Daikon Bros. without a clear understanding of why they'd licensed it in the first place. Back then, the digisub market had the higher aspirations of the "Gray-market" BT community, and the "good" gray-market digisub sites literally played the role that Crunchyroll does today: Fan-simulcasting the new shows as soon as they aired, for new fans to keep up with the show, or restoring a few lost classics the companies had forgotten. (I remember Liveevil keeping us up with "Queen Millennia" once every three to six months or so.) Digisubs, with its colored titles, more generous translations, multi-language subs, widescreen HiVision .MKV files and theme-song karaoke, were starting to become the high end of the discerning anime market, while we beat our heads in frustration at all the mistakes the Bubble-era companies were making: "'Coyote Ragtime Show', ADV?? We thought you said you were working on Sgt. Frog!" I remember [this is an BitTorrent anime site you like].com as being probably the largest and most respected/mainstream of the "good" Gray-market sites, but go there today?--It's a ghost town. The front page hasn't been updated since 2014. What happened? The problem was that to be a "good" Gray-market BT digisub distributor just fighting for the cause, you had to remove your torrents the moment the shows were commercially licensed, and what happened was that Crunchyroll went legit, started simulcasting, and grabbed them all: There literally WERE no more unlicensed new series anymore. And no new unlicensed series meant no new digisubs. Already by '11, long lists of the day's newest acquisitions became three or four a month, and then usually ancient titles like GeGeGe no Kitaro that a few loyal struggling niches were trying to continue. Most of us non-pirate "privateers" didn't trust BitTorrent, and worried about viruses and malware around every corner, but in the digisub days, it was a necessary evil. And now that commercial sites streamed you your new series every week--without the need to spend six hours finding a Torrent and load the whole file before watching--BT was an UN-necessary evil, and became obsolete. To all but the real hacker pirates, that is, and those angry lil' high-school kids could have it. |
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Philmister978
Posts: 308 |
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Same thing, I wouldn't mind paying if they just released their full libraries. But they don't. Being Canadian sucks. Doesn't help that Hulu's been taking down scores of series left and right from what I heard. And even then, that doesn't take into consideration all the series that'll likely never make it to either our shores or even to DVD/BD even in Japan. It's all a situational basis when you get down to the nitty gritty of it all. Is it illegal? Yes, there's no sugarcoating it, but a large part of that is also spurred upon by those unwilling to stream outside the states or release shows that have yet to see one (either American or modern JP). And even if there was a release, who's to say they're going to re-release it? Especially if it was an exceptionally poor seller? Face it, as long as companies and streaming sites do what they do. Piracy ain't going anywhere any time soon. It's a wonder Funimation's YouTube channel still allows for free streaming of some of their older output. |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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Well I mean, we pay for tickets to go see movies in theaters before we buy the home release a few months later, don't we? What's the difference with paying for a Crunchyroll subscription to watch a show then buying the DVD release when it comes out? That's not really a valid argument when it comes to torrents. If something's legally streaming in your area, you really do need to support the legal sites. 
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2460 |
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It does go down really often, though. Has been giving me an Error 522 the whole day, for instance. But yeah, there are talks of there being a replacement already. This reminds me of the situation with MangaTraders quite a bit ago: that one went down because it got hacked, iirc, but a replacement was made not too long afterwards, and it's what I use until today. |
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AksaraKishou
Posts: 1411 Location: End of the World |
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The difference is that you're giving cheap change to watch something on a giant ass screen, with a better quality and on a better environment. But yeah, i would have gotten a CR sub a long while ago if they had anything worth it. <.< |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2403 |
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TT doesn't actually have a tracker though I don't think. Everything I've ever gotten from there actually sent me elsewhere to download the torrent file. I'll miss nyaa for new music and bbt for old osts. I don't really seek out obscure series so it won't effect any of my anime viewing. I'm sure something replaces them both shortly anyway. |
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Velshtein
 Posts: 72 |
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At this point, torrent sites centered on Japanese media might as well make .onion mirrors for themselves on the deep web, and have some trustworthy people run the exit nodes.
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AksaraKishou
Posts: 1411 Location: End of the World |
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I'll miss it for the VN's...
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michaeltanzer
Posts: 168 |
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This is so wrong, I mean, why NOT make Torrenting legal instead?
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AksaraKishou
Posts: 1411 Location: End of the World |
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Depends on the country, i guess. It's 100% legal from where i'm from. Heck, up until some time ago, even MMO's used torrents to download the game Client. 
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