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NEWS: Nozomi Licenses Rental Magica TV Anime

This is funny because I just got done watching Innocence on Blu-ray(looks awesome btw), and yes I own the earlier version as well.

I still hope a company over in the jolly UK picks up Emma and dubs it. And if it takes 10 years, I'll buy it again.

I had thought we had a good chance of it getting a dub due to Kadokawa, but this Nozomi thing obviously kills that chance entirely. I really don't want them to get Spice and Wolf (it sounds like Funimation has that, but I haven't heard that anywhere official yet? )

Boils down to rights that can hold up an anime's licensing.

Best example would be to think of anime like land, where the person who owned it separated into lots. like show music, opening/ending music and animation, and voice work and so on. Because of our demands the anime licensor must have all of them (or most of them in the case of Speed Grapher although that didn't turn out to well.... at least for some) to release it, one person thinks his piece of the "land" is worth "x" and your only willing to pay "y" as in one case where the person who did the show music wants more than both animation and voice work combined for example. And also add time to track down the rights holders.

What I believe needs to happen is that the Japanese companies need to either open up a US branch or they can purchase an existing US company. It would probably be a more viable business model.

[EDIT: Learn how to use the Edit button instead of triple posting. -TK]

(although doesn't Bandai do Ben 10?....)

Zalis116 wrote:

At least for this series, I'm not seeing any complete fansub releases at resolutions beyond 704x400, so 853x480 on DVD is better to start with.

Isn't 720x480 the maximum resolution on NTSC DVDs?

I always point this out. It's not theft. Anime doesn't begin it's airing in a theatre (most of the time). It's the same as me taping a show that I like and watching it later. If you want me to buy that show when you release it on DVD, you need to offer me something substantial. Slightly better resolution and a paid translator isn't substantial.

And the majority of fansubs I see have perfectly legible fansubs. And the only difference between a fansubber and a company translator is that one is paid and the other isn't.

Besides, a manor that would satisfy Haruhi's expectations...
It would probably look like some gaudy building designed after three straight all-nighters...and during an alcohol-induced stupor while periodically dozing off.

If it's a mansion she's expecting, it's probably really strange...what an alcoholic Gaudi would design after being up 72 hours.

As for the video quality, the DVD quality doesn't make much difference with animated video. At least, not enough for me to shell out 20-30 bucks for 3-6 episodes. Plus most anime these days is being broadcast in HD, so DVD quality video makes even less of a difference.

Legibility: Take Aria the Animation, another sub-only Nozomi release. Nozomi's subs are in the standard yellow and white styles. Easily readable, all the time. On the other hand, the fansub release, which is pretty good overall, decided it would be wise to "fit" the anime by using blue subtitles...in a series overflowing with sky and water scenery! Yeah, quite a few fansubs are legible. But the many that aren't leave me longing for good-ol DVD-yellow

I don't mean to pick on Strato here; I wanted an example from a top-of-the-line fansub. If I'd used some old AnimeJunkies stuff, the response would've been, "well those guys suck, they're not representative of fansubs as a whole."

I for one dislike fansubs and prefer R1s for the same reason you stated - I find the subtitles used to be overly gimmicky, distracting, and irritating. Really, I just want to read what's being said, I don't want to see flowery script, changing colours, and constant translation notes of stuff that could have just been translated in the script. One of the worst offenders of this was a Higurashi fansub that insisted on using different coloured subtitles for each character, according to hair colour - eg, Rika had blue subs, Mion had green, etc. There just isn't a need for it, and for me, it distracts from the show.

But as others have mentioned, buying a DVD gives money back to the studios and creators.

And they're not asking you to shell out 20-30 bucks for 3-6 episodes, they're asking you to shell out 35-50 bucks for 12 episodes. On a per episode basis, you're looking at a difference of $3.33 - $10 per episode vs. $2.92 - $4.17.

Zalis116 wrote:

But as others have mentioned, buying a DVD gives money back to the studios and creators.

common assumption but.. this is not true.. at all.

But you know full well that some fansub fan is going to wander in here saying "Yeah, but the yellow subtitles are so ugly, therefore, I refuse to buy the DVD" which is an argument that I can not wrap my head around. Legible, easy to read, clear subtitles are ugly. Right.

I for one dislike fansubs and prefer R1s for the same reason you stated - I find the subtitles used to be overly gimmicky, distracting, and irritating. Really, I just want to read what's being said, I don't want to see flowery script, changing colours, and constant translation notes of stuff that could have just been translated in the script.

configspace wrote:

Zalis116 wrote: But as others have mentioned, buying a DVD gives money back to the studios and creators. common assumption but.. this is not true.. at all.

Really? I'd like to see this explained.

One is the lack of copyrights attributed to production agencies — copyrights are divvied up among sponsors, a system widely criticized for robbing the actual creators of any secondary-use benefits, not to mention motivation.