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Otakon 2008 Fansubs and Industry Panel

Aren't you refering to Bandai Visual? The same Bandai that's now being liquidated and its assets moved under Bandai Entertainment Inc.? That sola release has been "delayed." But just to say something relevant here, at Otakon someone asked Bandai Ent. on their panel if continuing limited edition versions (alongside regular edition versions) is a good idea, and they responded it's good business. Just to keep in mind that "affordable price" is an arbitrary term.

Regardless, my main issue is the continued lack of support in the outside of Japan market for non-collectors. Inside of Japan non-collectors can get the TV channels they wish, and watch the anime or even tape and collect it directly off TV if they wish. Outside of Japan our ONLY option that seems to be available is DVD. Yes, the same issue is there if you want to watch shows from other countries (outside of England usually that you often can get in the US) but no other country outside of the US creates the same volume of shows. Because of the amount produced it's often very hard to know which shows are good and which shows are crap, because reviewers often have different tastes so you can't always rely on that.

Ultenth wrote:

Regardless, my main issue is the continued lack of support in the outside of Japan market for non-collectors. Inside of Japan non-collectors can get the TV channels they wish, and watch the anime or even tape and collect it directly off TV if they wish. Outside of Japan our ONLY option that seems to be available is DVD. Yes, the same issue is there if you want to watch shows from other countries (outside of England usually that you often can get in the US) but no other country outside of the US creates the same volume of shows. Because of the amount produced it's often very hard to know which shows are good and which shows are crap, because reviewers often have different tastes so you can't always rely on that.

While I do agree with you, you missed one important detail. Using England as an example, we have had free access to British productions for quite a while in the form of most PBS stations, and now you can watch them on BBC America, if you have digital cable. This is one of the reasons for the general success of British shows in America; I can watch them for free (or as part of my cable package). That way, I know that I like "Monty Python", "Red Dwarf" and "Are You Being Served" enough to buy the DVD's, and that, no matter how cool "Torchwood" sounds, I'd rather set fire to a pile of bills that pay for it. Similar access to anime (other than shounen titles written for twelve-year-olds) would do wonders for increasing sales. And, yes, I realize that the modern TV rating system might make it difficult to reach a show's target audience (as our two societies differ on what is acceptable to what age group), but that is the joy of cable TV.

Americanization was a minor issue in my arguement, but since that seems to be the focus at the moment that's what I'll address. Many comedies in Japan use puns based on the language or use of Kanji quite regularly, and often when these are translated into english the pun is removed completely and the comedy is removed as well. There are also many circumstances where shows are very heavily Japanese, and have lots of elements of history and religion and other, such as Rental Magica. Often the fansubbers for these series will add notations in order to fully explain the historical, religious or cultural referances, and sometimes even add note pages before or after the show as well. 9/10 times when these shows are brought over the US companies do not do the same, and so a lot of the culture shown in the episodes is lost because they dumb it down or ignore them altogether.

Well, I understand this myself, but I would assume most of us here in America don't really "get" Japanese humor or puns, so the comedy wouldn't be there for us anyway. Also, I can't really enjoy a show or it's humor if I have to stop the footage and read notations or read notes at the end of the episode to understand what's suppose to be funny.

Veoryn87 wrote:

Well, I understand this myself, but I would assume most of us here in America don't really "get" Japanese humor or puns, so the comedy wouldn't be there for us anyway. Also, I can't really enjoy a show or it's humor if I have to stop the footage and read notations or read notes at the end of the episode to understand what's suppose to be funny.

My favorite subbed anime with no English release in sight: Oruchuban Ebichu is full of Japanese humor. All explanations are in the beginning of each episode, with screencaps so you know when those situations come up.

enurtsol wrote:

BTW, just a quick thought on this (don't have time to read it thoroughly right now): Back on the debate days of Neil Nadelman and Trish Ledoux - can a fansubber be a professional translator at the same time, or is that like serving two masters?

(So I've been lurking for some time, mostly the news section; trying to avoid the forums but I guess I'd like to chime in now so someone else can provide more details if available, because I'm curious too)

From what I understand, DB is like that, though their client list is kept confidential for obvious reasons. You may notice they are a real LLC offering translation services.

Likewise Media Blasters has hired fansubbers before and brought over Rurouni Kenshin after John Sirabella watched the fansubs. I've also read that the founder of BOST were also involved with fansubbing (although I think their business model is flawed.. but that's beside the point).

.. and I think tofusensei here is also a real translator (?)

When BD players reach the sub-$100 mark and BD disc reach the sub-$15 mark, then it will be popular. Until then, dream on. The largest core set of current anime fans are under 21 and live on an allowance and do not buy their own AV equipment. They are the ones that absolutely will not pay for anime and download and view the most anime.

This may possibly be one of the most overlooked points in the whole "fansub is taking $$ away from the legitimate anime industry" debate. I've not seen any concrete figures, but my gut feeling is that the vast majority of anime fans these days are in the teens to mid-twenties age group. Basically people with bugger-all disposable income.
BUT, five or ten years down the track, most of them WILL start to have money to spend, and that's when a fair portion of those fansub-downloaders will start thinking about buying a collector box set of their favourite anime to keep. Ok, maybe not all - there will always be that 30% (or whatever) who will never buy anything - but many will.

Having them at the beginning of the episode would be more helpful actually. My humble self still wouldn't find the humor funny, but that's just me. In some ways I'm glad anime humor is slightely Americanized so I can at least laugh at it, but it doesn't need to be completely rewritten or anything.

Okay, what I don't get is this: fansubbers always bring up "Americanization", "censorship", and "editing" of US anime as one of their chief arguments... and yet, maybe this is just me, but I seriously can't recall a single anime to come out in the last 5 years that was not given a fully uncut, bilingual DVD release. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places, but it seems to me like people who make this argument are stuck in the past.