Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - Fansubs (Pt 1)
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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Redhand: Soul Eater was picked up by FUNi as part of their holiday license acquirement special.
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TheresaJayne
 Posts: 70 Location: UK Berkshire |
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I think what i am trying to say is, the fansubbers have a niche to provide to the other parts of the world the series we want to watch, If it wasnt for fansubbers I would never have heard of rabuge, or cinderella boy, or ghost hound or astro fighter sunred,
my anime collection would consist of the standard akira, legend of the overfiend, naruto, ranma, tenchi, and whatever i could get hold of (which is more and more these days) but if the japanese companies would just put softsubs on their japanese DVD releases Europe would be catered for. no real extra cost, and a huge untapped market. for the moment fansubbers have a niche and at least you know that you are not paying for cinema rips or helping terrorists or yakuza... |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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But Japanese companies have no reason to subtitle their DVDs in English, because they are selling these shows to a country whose primary language is not English. Why would a Japanese fluent in his own language need to have subtitles of a language he is uncomfortable in the knowledge of? And most subtitles are not "hard". Loading up my DVDs on my comp, when I go to the subtitles options (because for some reason the subs aren't automatic for the OPs on my PC), you can turn subtitles on or off.
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Cait
 Posts: 503 |
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Actually, Honey &Clover is a licensed manga and has been since early last year. I don't know when the fansubs for it came about, but understand that many many anime start as manga and many manga get licensed here because the manga in Japan was popular, not because the anime was fansubbed. I'm an avid manga reader and I've gotten into many manga series that did not have licensed anime available (which may or may not have had fansubs available for them, as I don't watch fansubs I wouldn't have a clue). It only costs $10 (or less) in most cases to "take a chance" on a manga series to see if you'll like it (or better yet, sample it in the store-- and by that I don't mean sit down in there and read it in the aisle). I'm glad to see responses to my question, but I'll have to get to responses to them in a later post tonight. Hopefully we won't be 5 pages further along by then. |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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On a side note, I'm really enjoying this topic, in spite of some naysayers' thoughts. It's letting us get all the dirty laundry out to air, and I know some tensions are definitely there between the camps, but at least both sides have so far been respectful to one another (with the exception of a troll or two several pages back, but that's why we have Zac).
That said, what of fansubbers and their code of ethics? Remember how the groups used to pledge that once a show was announce for a US license, they would IMMEDIATELY drop all subbing of that show? Where is that code NOW? You see people still subbing the latest shows of One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, what have you. They don't seem to care that the episodes will eventually be picked up for North American distribution, or that Crunchyroll hosts the freshest episodes of Naruto very, very soon after the Japanese airing, they still go right along with what they're doing. Or, remember GITS TV? Remember how the companies said, "Please don't fansub this, you're getting it anyway, so just be patient". And what did the groups do? They subbed every episode even though the license had already been announced and didn't care. This goes back to the idea that anime creators are a means to an end for the more selfish fans, even if the US license was announced well in advance, they still feel the sense of entitlement and want instant gratification. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Holy sweet Mother of Moses.
I know that this is going to be really off-topic, but I cannot help myself. I started to read this thread, to see what all the fuss is about, and I noticed that Unit 03.5-ish had posted a lot. And I mean a lot. Curious, I went to his profile and started counting. And counting. And counting. Page after freaking page. The final tally thus far? ......... ......... ......... Eighty-five posts in this one thread. Over nineteen percent of the thread is just him. It's crazy. It's ludicrous. It's bonkers. Bananas. I'm not saying that Unit 03.5-ish is spamming. Not at all. But I did think it notable enough to point out. Notable enough for me to do what I never - ever - do, and that is use an emoticon in a normal post: 
You just witnessed history, folks. Unit 03.5-ish, I salute you. Okay, I'm done with my heretical off-topic ways, and want to finish reading the rest of the thread. I'm gone. [dtm42 vanishes in a puff of acrid smoke.] |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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Is that a BAD thing that I've been posting like a mammalian Sega mascot that is blue in coloration on crack?
I'm very passionate about the topic, that's all. Heh. EDIT: Kudos to you, to, dtm, I rarely LOL at a post, but yours made me do just that. 
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Many players can be configured to run your subtitles and audio language of choice whenever you run a DVD. I've only found a single piece of software where this feature actually works however. (Zoom player- it can run external text subtitles automatically with a DVD, and adjust any value in the computer's registry the moment you slide the disc in.)
Pale Cocoon did that, but I'm sceptical about buying that simply because of the price I'd have to pay- including shipping charges it'd cost as much as a typical 13-episode anime bought from Amazon. Considering the OAV's running time I cannot see it being worth the money. |
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pparker
 Posts: 1185 Location: Florida |
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Just a caveat. The most likely reason they haven't done it is because of the R1 market, not the lack of interest or expertise. Those companies with no direct ownership connection to the Japanese producers would be cut right out of the financial equation for any customers who don't demand dubs. The same-time subbed streaming model does just that. When times were good, the dub business might have even survived such a practice, but not when prices are falling to below viability for producing dubbed versions. My biggest fear actually is that the response to fansubbing being a move to streaming will continue to shrink my choices of R1 DVDs and particularly dubs. I do download fansubs, and I watch streams, but I LIKE DVDs and many of the dubs, and don't want them to disappear. This goes back... oh, many pages, where I mentioned having actual data on which to make decisions. IF the very existence of fansubs are killing R1's, then fine, get rid of them. I'll deal or go somewhere else. But if we're wrong about that, and if the industry makes decisions based on unfounded assumptions, we can end up worse off. Unintended consequences... |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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But then, FUNi, Bandai, and Viz are probably three of the only companies even able to afford dubs anymore, right? That's three companies compared to at least a dozen doing dubs several years back. Again, as a strong pro-dub fan, this would cut down on my anime purchases...and since a lot of people prefer the dub, overall sales would be WORSE than they are now. So where does this leave the dub fans? If more companies have to cut costs and follow the Media Blasters/ADV route, this will leave VAs out of work AND it will cause a drastic drop in sales. Neither is a positive for the industry.
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pparker
Posts: 1185 Location: Florida |
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I won't start debating this aspect again. Is there anything that hasn't been covered to death yet? And what are we going to talk about now in part 2? But you didn't seem to reply to my point--maybe I just misunderstood. If we all went on an all-out crusade, legally, morally, technologically, and removed all fansubs from all servers everywhere with any access from the U.S., would that increase the number of R1 dubs you get to buy? Direct-from-Japan Streaming is an answer to fansubs. While it may have happened anyway due to generational changes altering entertainment distribution, the focus now is on how to provide a revenue-generating alternative, to possibly capture some money from all those downloader-poachers. I'm just concerned that in our rush to win this battle, we will lose the war. The goal is to provide more compensation to the creators of anime, so that we outside Japan ultimately have more dubbed anime to watch. Is what we are doing actually progressing toward accomplishment of that goal, or is it taking us in a direction that will eventually reduce permanently the amount of dubbed anime available to us? |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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The people who lived by that code, who sort of created it, did not change their views. Those people are now retired from fansubbing, or people like getfresh who subtitle mostly shows that really never will be licensed, or are even now working in the industry. The problem wasn't that the fansubbers broke their code, it's that new blood came in, new fansubbers were born that didn't remember the "good ole days" of VHS subbing, that didn't give a rats ass about licenses. Many of these people were from countries where almost no anime is licensed. Others were just in it for the internet fame, or the competitive aspect. Tofu is keen on calling fansubbing the first internet MMORPG. So it wasn't like we all didn't stick by our word. It's just that ones person's values don't necessarily translate to the next generation. If the original fansubbers failed, it was in that they did nothing to impart their own values on the people who were watching their subtitles. |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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Sorry, I didn't quite get your point the first time. The rewording makes it much clearer, so now I will respond.
I honestly don't know what impact the removal of all fansubs would have on the industry. I don't think it can be said for sure unless it actually happens. Yes, efforts like legal day-after streaming would, in theory, eliminate the need for fansubs. But with people being impatient and clinging to arguments like "fansub translations are always better", or that the video quality is better, etc., I don't think even legal streaming will persuade many of the leechers. Even if we, as fans, promise to buy anime whenever we can, or if the downloader-buyers promise to buy everything they saw on fansubs (with the assumption that it will be released in R1), how much impact can we REALLY make unless more people share our sentiments and sympathy for the industry? No offense to the younger crowd (though when I say that I do mean I wish to be as offensive as possible to them), but they don't seem to respect notions like intellectual property, copyrights, etc., and that's a negative factor, too. |
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pparker
Posts: 1185 Location: Florida |
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Oops, okay. I'll just end saying that we need not even consider those who will never pay for anything they can get free digitally. iTunes, Crunchyroll, etc, won't change their behavior. One marginal group is fansub watchers who will accept a low-cost alternative (leaving quality issues aside). This gets some revenue flowing back to the creators of anime. One of the variables, however, is whether or not streaming cuts into the R1 DVD business, particularly of course the sub-only DVDs, but DVDs in general. The other marginal group is downloader-buyers, and the question is how you get them buying more (not, IMHO, how you get them to stop watching fansubs, which is almost certain to reduce their buying). That's a marketing issue from my viewpoint. We will see how the various responses and factors affect the availability of R1 DVDs. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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