Forum

Is it just me, or did that article end kinda... suddenly? I was waiting for the history to get to the modern era of digital fansubs and discuss how Japanese and American companies view the current fansub culture, but instead it just finished up (right in the middle of a paragraph, it seems).

------RM

I wondered about that too. What are the odds ANN linked to two semi-poorly written articles on both Manga and Anime?

The Manga/Comic one was too wordy and seemed to try and draw out the info to make it very "professional." The Anime ended rather abruptly.

It felt like it missed the page talking to modern US companies and how zero-day digisubs are now a bane as well as a boost.

Its not to bad, it just lacks any real conclusion.

umm... did you guys not notice it's two pages long?

i thought made his point quite well.

Length of the article isn't the problem, it's just that it seems to end so abruptly that I wondered where the conclusion was supposed to be.

Godaistudios wrote:

Length of the article isn't the problem, it's just that it seems to end so abruptly that I wondered where the conclusion was supposed to be.

lol hahah ha funny!.. yeah but on the other hand it's a very informative article for newbie's like myself. We get to know the history of the anime fandom and how it kinda started since the 1960s and grew in the 80s and 90s. its really nice to know a bit of the history of our past anime fandom --- in a gist. This is probably, one of the top 5 articles I have read online, so far, on the history of anime. But then again I'm not much of a reader. I recommend everyone to read it.

Wow fansubs on tapes? Now that's ancient. Lol Any old times still alive?

The article conclusion seemed perfectly fine. It did seem to end a little abruptly, but I think that's because a good chunk of the article went into a chronological fashion before coming back about 3 paragraphs from the end to touch on the original point. The article came back to restate the conclusion, so it's actually complete.

That said, the post by Edward Keyes in the discussion on the article raises the concern that I have, which is that everything in reality is starting to actually go the other way. The hints from the US Anime Industry panel at Otakon are that things are starting to look a bit more bleak. The hardline stance is coming. As such, the article almost seems dated given what's down the pipe, right?

king_micah wrote:

It felt like it missed the page talking to modern US companies and how zero-day digisubs are now a bane as well as a boost.

Yeah, that's my main problem with the article.

Quote:

Japanese animation was exported into the western market as early as the 1960s, when Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Gigantor made it onto American television primarily through local syndication. By the late 1960s, however, reform efforts, such as Action for Children’s Television, had used threats of boycott and federal regulation to push back against content they saw as inappropriate for American children.

I don't see the connection here. Was Speed Racer really the kind of "inappropriate" content targeted?

Quote:

The fansubbed videos often ran an advisory urging users to “cease distribution when licensed.” The clubs were not trying to profit from anime distribution but rather to expand the market; they pulled back from circulating any title that had found a commercial distributor.

We know that doesn't happen. And what about shows like Stand Alone Complex that were licensed before they even aired in Japan?

Quote:

Anime and manga now rank at the top of these cultural exports. In Japan, manga constitute 40 percent of all books and magazines published and more than half of all movie tickets sold are to animated films.

I believe the manga numbers, but judging from the box office numbers we post on ANN, I'm not so sure about those ticket sales. Can anybody confirm this?

There's too much theory here and not enough reality. I don't buy the whole "anime clubs built the industry" thing, especially when he cites Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! as two breakthrough shows. Maybe there's an argument to be made, but I've never seen anyone draw a strong connection--it's always "fan clubs exposed people to anime, and then some fans went pro."

Also, does anybody know about Sean Leonard's history of Amierican anime fandom that this guy cites? I couldn't find it online.

jtnishi wrote:

The hints from the US Anime Industry panel at Otakon are that things are starting to look a bit more bleak.

Were you at the same panel I was at, where it looked like Matt Greenfield was about to lose his temper at the girl who kept insisting that fansubs were good for the industry? I think it was more than just "hints" :)

Cookie wrote:

Were you at the same panel I was at, where it looked like Matt Greenfield was about to lose his temper at the girl who kept insisting that fansubs were good for the industry? I think it was more than just "hints" :)

I wasn't there, so I'm curious--were either of them making legitimate points, or was it just a shouting match?

It should be apparent I wasn't Razz

Actually, I took the assumption of how the panel went off of reading A Fan's View. Didn't realize it was _that_ vocal, though. Yikes.

Miagi wrote:

Quote:

Japanese animation was exported into the western market as early as the 1960s, when Astro Boy, Speed Racer, and Gigantor made it onto American television primarily through local syndication. By the late 1960s, however, reform efforts, such as Action for Children’s Television, had used threats of boycott and federal regulation to push back against content they saw as inappropriate for American children.

I don't see the connection here. Was Speed Racer really the kind of "inappropriate" content targeted?

A bit of the article seemed to have been written in some sort of alternate universe where adult-oriented anime did air for a while on primetime network television in the 1960s and attracted enough attention to cause a backlash against it. Nothing like that ever happened as far as I know.

I know one of the specific cartoons that particularly raised the ire of the ACT types wasn't even Japanese (though it did have one supporting character with a helmet and scarf suspiciously similar to Go/Speed's helmet and scarf); it was Hot Wheels, which the activists hated not so much for content than because it was directly tied-in to Mattel's toy line and children's television should be immune from capitalism, apparently. ACT sucked up television cartoonery in general for over a decade until Ronaldus Maximus (a.k.a. Ronald Reagan) used his awesome powers of deregulation on the children's television industry and let toy companies sponsor cartoons based directly on their toy lines again, leading to the über-kickassness of the 1980s G.I. Joe cartoon, with the stipulation that the cartoons had to be educational (hence the infamous "Knowing is half the battle" segments right at the end of the episodes; best egregious exploitation of a loophole ever).

Quote:

I don't see the connection here. Was Speed Racer really the kind of "inappropriate" content targeted?

If you've seen the original, you'd know they had to cut quite a bit. Not that it was overly violent, but let me put it this way, the blades on the car are NOT just used on trees

Miagi wrote:

I wasn't there, so I'm curious--were either of them making legitimate points, or was it just a shouting match?

It wasn't quite to the level of raised voices, but there was definite tension in the air.

The girl was arguing that fansubs generate an 'instant' fanbase (a la the sheer number of FMA cosplayers here) and Greenfield was arguing that fansubs were killing the Asian market beacuse bootleggers snatch them up and then repackage them and sell'em on the street corners.

IMO, it's obvious that FMA is "popular", but that doesn't necessarily predict future sales (as few to none of the cosplayers have purchased the R2s, and there's no guarantee that any of them will buy the R1s)... and on the other hand, Princess Nine was a success without any fansubs at all. You don't see many P9 cosplayers, but it still sold in the stores, and that's what's important, business-wise.

Forum - View topic
NEWS: When Piracy Becomes Promotion

Dahlia in Bloom Staff, Ekachi Epilka Studio Respond to Report Claiming N. Korean Animators Worked on Anime

The Grimm Variations Anime Series Review

Anime to Watch if You Liked Shogun

The Quintessential Quintuplets Manga Gets New Honeymoon Anime

BLUELOCK THE MOVIE -EPISODE NAGI- Anime Film Review

Interview: Author Akihiro Nishino on Bottle George, His New Stop-Motion Animated Film

The Spring 2024 Light Novel Guide

SAND LAND Video Game Review

Forum - View topicNEWS: When Piracy Becomes Promotion

Forum

Forum - View topic
NEWS: When Piracy Becomes Promotion