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Hey, Answerman! [2006-08-25]


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roxybudgy



Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 129
Location: Western Australia
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:49 am Reply with quote
While some people dilly dally and attempt to convince themselves that they watch fansubs for previewing purposes, or because they are poor, etc. I know exactly why I watch fansubs, for entertainment, and having a choice between paying or getting it for free, I wonder which one I would pick? Yes, it's illegal, licenced or not, but I'm unlikely to be fined or prosecuted for it.

It's like jumping the fence to a closed tennis court that you're supposed to pay money to enter (I remember my high school had one of these, where you were supposed to donate money each time you used the court, but hardly anyone did donate). No-one will notice, so hop over the fence, play tennis have fun.
Technically it's wrong to do that, and the people who own the tennis court aren't getting the money they would have charged for you to use it. So if the owners of the tennis court decided that they were losing money and started taking a tough stance on tresspassing, would I start paying to go there?
Of course not, I'd be like, whatever, I'll just find something else to do.

I don't buy DVDs as often as I would like to because of money matters (both a lack of money, and control freak parents who monitor my bank statements), but when I do, fansubs or other free means of watching have been a major contributor to my decision to purchase something. I don't trust reviews, too often I watch something that I found very entertaining, and then read several reviews saying it was the shit. Same reason why I hardly trust word of mouth.

My point is, would companies be getting more money out of me sooner if I hadn't watched anime for free? Short answer, no. In fact, they would probably get no money from me at all, for I wouldn't have become an anime fan. I don't know of many. or rather, any fans who became fans because they saw a DVD on a shellf or a review of something, purchased it an got hooked.

I think the solution is to have more anime freely available in a legal way. To watch anime for free, or sort of free (besides illegal fansubs), there's libraries, screenings at conventions, television, etc.
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joel_s95387



Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 1804
Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:08 am Reply with quote
Deltakiral wrote:
Zac wrote:
That said, I pitched a sequel called ".zac//" to Bandai and they just laughed and escorted me out of the building. Jerks.
If makes ya feel any better I would watch your show Very Happy, could be interesting. You shaking your head at the different questions you receive each week, and how you plan to answer them with your witty humor.....I would buy that. It couldn't be worse then the Legend of the twilight anime.
Till next time,
Delta Kiral

And at the end of each episode, there is a segment with a flake. Someone asks a really stupid question... example: can you call up the creator of Naruto and tell him to stop animating fillers and go back to the original manga story?... then .zac beats them to death in a way that can only be depicted in anime... maybe throw in a giant robot or two.

roxybudgy wrote:
I don't know of many. or rather, any fans who became fans because they saw a DVD on a shellf or a review of something, purchased it an got hooked.

With only DBZ under my belt and not knowing the definition of anime yet, I saw Akira on the shelf of one of my local stores. I remember friends saying they had seen it and it was "cool". I picked it up, I remember it was $14.99, saw it when I got home, decided to look up wallpaper online because I loved that movie so much and somehow found out what anime was, looked up many sites, somehow ended up researching Evangelion to see if it was good, read good reviews, picked up the "Perfect Collection"... I became an anime fan without a fansub in sight.
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geishageek



Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 571
Location: Pleasant Valley, NY
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:34 am Reply with quote
roxybudgy wrote:
I don't know of many. or rather, any fans who became fans because they saw a DVD on a shellf or a review of something, purchased it an got hooked.


I have picked up a few titles that I saw on the shelf, read the little description on the back and bought it because it sounded cool. Saiyuki being the first. ( I also liked the way they had blood on the cover haha). A lot of times, I will see something that looks cool so I buy the first disc to preveiew the show. If I like it, I'll buy the rest. If I do not like it, I normally pass it off to someone else. It may have been a crappy show, but at least the industry made money off of that purchase and can maybe, just maybe put it back in the pot and create something that I would like. If you don't take chances in life, you'll end up very boring, very fast. Rolling Eyes

I have been an anime fan for about 10 years now (I'm 23). I've heard the fansub rant over and over again but it is not going to stop people from making them and ultimately not stop people from downloading shows. It's a fact of life.
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hideFan



Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:37 am Reply with quote
I think in order to like FF:U you would have to view it as being not part of Final Fantasy. In order to love it you would have to be extremely stupid.

I did buy all the disks, but it turned out in the end to be a moderate series in my opinion.
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sabriyahm



Joined: 24 May 2005
Posts: 291
Location: Georgia
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:38 am Reply with quote
joel_s95387 wrote:
I became an anime fan without a fansub in sight.


Much as I hate to say this (I really did agree with the rant) I too became an anime fan without ever knowing about fansubs. And I think most people do. Fansubs are something I recently discovered with my new high powered computer. It has only been about a 1.5 years since I downloaded my first fansub (Naruto) but I have been a paying anime fan for 15 years or so. Though I don't buy much anime anymore (I had Netflix long before my first fansub). All fansubs have really done for me is guilt me into buying the Naruto DVD uncut boxset even though in the normal course I would have just rented them.
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Ai no Kareshi



Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 561
Location: South Africa
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:56 am Reply with quote
hideFan wrote:
I think in order to like FF:U you would have to view it as being not part of Final Fantasy.

Or you could just remind yourself that the story of every Final Fantasy is unrelated to that of the others. Confused

hideFan wrote:
In order to love it you would have to be extremely stupid.

Really? I've found that all you need is a little patience and a soft spot for pink-haired girls with bad tempers (or elusive bishies).

hideFan wrote:
I did buy all the disks, but it turned out in the end to be a moderate series in my opinion.

The best part of the story is published in the media that were released after the cancelling of the series. Sadly, these were never available to most Western FF:U fans.
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Strategos



Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 91
Location: Ohio
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:24 am Reply with quote
Just what we needed! A counter-rant! Come on down 200+ replies!

Seriously though, every possible angle was discussed in the other thread, let's just leave it at that.
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biliano



Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 956
Location: Cleveland, OH
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:37 am Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
First of all, congratulations on making it all the way through .hack//SIGN. I had to shut it off somewhere around episode 10 since I just couldn't take another slow pan across a fantasy landscape while the same Yuki Kajiura song plays for the 10,000th time. I mean, the show had its good points and all, but yeesh.


Personally I liked .hack//SIGN, but I do agree that the very slow pacing of the plot severely hampered this series. I also didn't like the fact that for being a fantasy series, there wasn't a whole lot of action scenes in it. However, I thought that the characters were very strong, and despite the slow pacing of the plot, it was pretty solid. I gave this series a "Very Good" rating on my personal My Anime account: Solid characters and plotlines, but very slow pacing and little fantasy action.

energydan wrote:
I've found Netflix to be great when it comes to anime rentals, but maybe that's just me. I live near Cleveland and get them in one day, and rarely have the DVDs shipped from anywhere other than the Cleveland netflix place or been on a wait.


Same here. Most of the Netflix rentals that I receive come from their distribution center in downtown Cleveland, although in the past I did received rentals that originated from distribution centers in California and Arizona. The DVDs usually take 1-2 days after I receive the shipping confirmation e-mail. I found Netflix much more convenient than RentAnime.com, which are very slow in sending their DVDs. I used to rent from RentAnime.com, but I stopped because the DVDs were arriving 1-2 weeks after I received the shipping confirmation, instead of the 2-5 days shipping time as they claim to honor. Plus, a lot of their DVDs got lost in the mail, and I had to send several lost DVD reports after the two-week grace period passed, which annoyed the hell out of me. Part of the problem might had to do with the rash of hurricanes that hurt Florida over the last couple of years, but it gotten to a point that it was too inconvenient for me to continue renting from them.


Last edited by biliano on Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:54 am; edited 1 time in total
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alifemde



Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:47 am Reply with quote
I forget where I read it, but somebody had a blog o' the day where they talked about fansubs. (and more specifically Bandai telling fansubbers to not even think about subbing GitS:SSS)
They mentioned that the fansubs of GOOD shows made for incredible free publicity for the eventual American distributor, but its really only the BAD shows that are fansubbed that hurt the distributor since people know ahead of time that the show is terrible. Good shows, despite how many people download them, go on to healthy and happy lives on TV and on DVD (like for instance NARUTO).
Shows that are good and have a great fanbase when they come out have support. The fans who liked it ahead of time still buy the DVDs in order to have better quality stuff than a 200MB digisub, and they still watch it if its broadcast on TV. Yeah, some people will watch the fansub and not buy it on DVD when it's available... but what was the chance that they ever would have bought it? Though if they liked the show, you know they'll at least spread the word that they liked it... Advertising.

Not necessarily MY views, just what I read Wink
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Cyborg 009



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 214
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:51 am Reply with quote
I agree with Zac's comment on the bunnies against that flake of the week. The only time I saw an evil rabbit was in Monty Python, when Sir Bors lost his head.
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Keonyn
Subscriber



Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Coon Rapids, MN
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:57 am Reply with quote
I don't know, that rabbit did look a little evil or off to me, heh. For some reason it looked like its body was a miniaturized bear that somebody slapped a rabbits head on.

Anyways, about the FF issue. I must admit I enjoyed Spirits Within, there, I said it. I didn't think it was spectacular, but I liked it and liked it enough to purchase it. As a Final Fantasy movie it sucked, because aside from some character names it really had no resemblence to the franchise despite the fact the franchise revolves around seperate stories, there's still always common factors. But as a movie, disregarding the FF association, I thought it was decent to good and did enjoy it, actually more than the train wreck called Advent Children.

I will agree on FF:U though, that series was awful and the dub was completely intolerable and I'm an advocate of dubs. While some of the actors were okay, the main male kids actor was the worst I've heard and that alone was enough to make me want to stop watching.
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SalarymanJoe



Joined: 03 Feb 2005
Posts: 468
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:56 am Reply with quote
Ah, the same song and dance. Granted, there are times I like to hear myself talk, but over this issue, this isn't one of them. What can I say that hasn't been said before? I think I might have an angle.

Let's remove morals and ethics (or the lack there of) out of this for a second.

Is the Industry losing sales? Yeah, I think at one point or another, they are losing sales. But, how much are they losing sales? As far as I know, there have been Industry folks who will talk about sales loss but they don't name specifics. Meanwhile, I look at our corporate sales folks at work; they say they're losing sales and they name specifics. I don't want to say the Industry is hoisting up a scapegoat or anything, but I think the sales they are losing are more minor than they're making it sound. I think there are a wider number of people whom view fansubs and purchase licensed material than the folks who either avoid or horde fansubs.

I'm also inclined to believe, and this is my own personal opinion, that the problem of lost sales may be two-fold. BEI has experienced poor sales with both Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY, as well as poor CN ratings for SEED, and have blamed them on fansub proliferation. I'm a huge Gundam fan and you know why I've never purchased them? It's a subpar product. I dropped $300.00 on their "horrible" Zeta box set and was mildly displeased with it, but I never looked back. Love Hina was the same way; I had friend who were nuts about it, I watched fansubs via them, and began picking up the series on DVD and then realized the quality of the show - meh. I went from putting the series on a purchase hold to now looking to get rid of them.

Someone suggested Netflix - I think it's a great tool. The problem is, it's a great tool to preview licensed material. I've been a fan for a long time, around nine or ten years (with the majority of that bordering on what could be closely described to the Japanese version of otaku). In that time, I've also become more jaded towards a lot of modern animation techniques, stories, and marketing. Simply put, I like the classics and despise the current trends of Moe Moe Paradise. Most classics aren't licensed because the costs outweigh the benefits for the Industry. A handful of these classics aren't even available in Japan on DVD; not to mention that Netflix doesn't carry Japanese DVDs. My best bet for finding good, classic anime is hunting them down at a couple local Japanese video stores. Not everyone has taken the inititive to learn Japanese to understand their anime, which this solution poses some real logistics problems.

But the Netflix counter is still a good scenario, so let's inject morals and ethics back into this argument. People like to talk about the fansub viewers who download everything and don't drop a dime on anything. After all, for those of us who do watch fansubs and drop thousands of dollars annually on DVD and other Merch, such as myself, it makes us feel holier than thou. However, Netflix poses the same problem that videostores first found in the seventies and eighties. People would use their service as a "legal reach-around" benefit the Industry in such a minor way, but were it not for something like Netflix, would they just not torrent it instead?

I say all of this as both an Industry and Fansub supporter. Sadly, I think a lot of fansubbing, while used to be central to spreading word of mouth and develop a base for a license, has fallen into the horrid depths of the BS, whiney, Entitlement Culture. And I don't mean to paint a wide brush and picture that fansubbers of yore were always better than the kids that run the show are now. Each bunch has good and bad apples. But, becuase someone is looking to save a few bucks (and don't use "I'm poor"; poverty is no excuse for theft), I would hate to see the Industry die off because of that. The Industry, as a whole, has come a very long way in only the past twenty-five years from the likes of Sandy Frank, Carl Macek, and probably others whom first garnered attention to anime to being able to get it in fairly unedited and well designed content.

-Drew "Suiko" Sutton
-http://akibaren.blogspot.com
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:13 am Reply with quote
Thank you for answering one of my questions Zac.

I bought a .hack/sign DVD at Fry's some time ago for seven dollars, and when I watched it, I found out why I was getting it for such a cheap price. I haven't played the game yet, but I'm betting the game is better.
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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 1252
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:21 am Reply with quote
Dude, .hack//SIGN is one of my top five or so anime. Evar. Evangelion is top, but .hack//SIGN is so freaking close.

Anyway, this talk about rabbits reminds me of last night's Shin-chan episode on Adult Swim. ^^
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jgreen



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 1325
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:04 am Reply with quote
My 2 cents re: the rant....

Quote:
On a side note, I have to wonder what the reaction would have been if there had been no fansubs of Miyazaki’s movies, just the announcement that Disney was releasing some anime movies that were supposedly by a master? I would have been extremely skeptical, if only because of the library of non-anime releases Disney has put out.


Not really a fair comparison, as there were several Miyazaki movies available already, stateside:

- My Neighbor Totoro (distributed by Fox)
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (butchered into Warriors of the Wind, but Miyazaki's skill was still readily apparent)
- Castle of Cogliostro

That was all I had seen when Princess Mononoke was released, and that was all I needed to see to know I wanted to see more from this Miyazaki guy.

Quote:
The people who download it, by and large, are not simply looking to get a show for free, but to find out if the show is good.


A very good point, and the only reason I would even entertain the notion of downloading a fansub. However, you must admit that there are plenty of people who download fansubs not to find out if a show is good but simply to get it for free; that's the nature of the beast.

Still, back in my younger days, I did track down a few fansubbed video cassettes (X: The Movie, Shadow Skill, Kimagure Orange Road) that made me eager to catch those series when they were released stateside. Fansubbing is a double-edged sword. Is it, overall, a good or bad influence on the US anime industry? I don't think we'll EVER be able to come to a definitive conclusion.
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