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ANN and the industry's stance on fansubs (ANN official on P5

I yearn for the day when fansubs aren't needed, when professionally made, commercially released English language anime (subbed at least) is available at the same time as the Japanese TV broadcast. Unfortunately, as I've stated elsewhere, the hurdles in the way of this happening are enormous.

Professionally, and personally, I believe this would be the best resolution to the fansub debate, making it such that there would be no use/need for fansubs.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I'd like to discuss ANN's and the industry's stance on fansubs (and not their legality). Reading some of the previous Answermans, I just can't help but notice that Zac's attitude toward fansubs range from violent to lynch mob (obviously exaggerating and embellishing) even though it's rather obvious that he, along with much of ANN's staff do indeed watch fansubs, possibly all the way back to the days of the tape fansub.

Now, what makes this discussion sort of different is that watching the Haruhi viral vid episodes, they basically chastise all their current and potential fans that they specifically market to and say that fansubs are bad and that the average fan should be ashamed that they have already downloaded their product before they have released it legitimately.

Now, what I don't understand is that why both ANN and Kadokawa/Ban Dai choose to alienate their fanbase by telling them that they're basically stealing (once again, not a discussion on whether or not it is). Consider who the anime industry is largely marketed toward, the wired/wireless generation, who grew up around the internet, MySpace, Wikipedia, iPod, YouTube, etc. This generation cannot sit idly and have their product prepackaged and spoonfed to them and would rather be engaged with the product. Now, I understand that Kadokawa/Ban Dai has done that by having the marketing campaign involving voice actor polls and such, but turning around and saying that the very people they're marketing toward are thieves is quite counterproductive. I understand that ANN is sponsored by the anime industry and has to take a similar stance as an entity, but it's equally unsettling when a fellow fan is put on the podium and says that what the rest of the fandom's doing is bad. Doing so is just a lose/lose situation. Not only do you gain mistrust from fans, but you also get a lot of negative buzz, which, unlike bad publicity, actually deters people.

Now, what am I trying to say? I'm saying that ANN and the industry can have an anti-fansub stance, but to be so vocal about it would only alienate fans rather than attract them.

That's my rant. Please, discuss. And please, absolutely no discussion concerning the legality of fansubs.

My take is that companies should support fansubs. It helps to reach new markets.

nikandros wrote:

My take is that companies should support fansubs. It helps to reach new markets.

Dude, legitimate companies couldn't and shouldn't support illegal acts, even if the latter might help their business (and even that is questionable and debatable as we can't test "what ifs" in real life). They may choose to keep an eye closed but shall not promote piracy.

Regarding Zac's recent "what would it take" question, I think I kinda segue pretty well into the question above. You can be pro-fansub and still want to see a situation where you no longer download fansubs.

Regarding Zac's recent "what would it take" question, I think I kinda segue pretty well into the question above. You can be pro-fansub and still want to see a situation where you no longer download fansubs.

I think any attempt to harm fansubs before the industry is ready to step up and replace them would do the industry far more harm than good, however.

Exactly, AoD allows it too. So what was it AoD was doing to make it more "Anti-fansub" than ANN?

I don't see how how this relates to the Anti-fansub thing. AoD has a lot of focus on the actual releases (mainly DVD, but manga and books as well), but they also have an off-topic forum, a Japanese culture forum, and a video game forum. So the main site is focused on the official releases, but the forums are even more varied than ANN's.

And yet, he has no problem with people discussing fansubs on his forums.

Cost is, of course, a sticking point. Fansubs will always be cheaper, unless they figure out some alternative profit method, but I would be willing to pay a fair price for the official product, a dollar or so per episode, perhaps, maybe as much as $2 for the higher quality shows. I wouldn't want extraneous expenses like dubbing to be rolled into my purchase cost.

Actually, if anyone's interested, I was thinking of starting an "I Love The 90s anime" series of topics highlighting the best of each year, because I'd like to discuss the old stuff too, and learn from other forum members about good series I may have missed.

ANN's readership mainly seems to focus on purchasing goods only when there's some wholesale sell-off where anime titles are sold at or near the cost of manufacturing and shipping. I'm sorry, but that's just not the same thing as routinely buying anime at or around it's original release for retail or pre-order cost.

The folks at AoD just seem to be much more active supporters of the retail anime market than the folks on ANN and I'm still surprised I'm even being challenged on that.

Also, in addition to being rampant pirates and all, ANN's userbase is younger and poorer than AoD's.