PlatinumHawke
13th February 2003, 12:30 AM
So, what's with the post you say? It's nothing really, just kinda reflects the way I've been feeling as of lately. Now, I'm not leaving the boards, nor am I repenting my love for anime. It's more like, reaffirming it... I had an AIM convo with a rather good friend of mine, BBP, and well, here's what went on...
HakkinTaka: wow... I never though this day would come around... I'm giving up on downloading fansubs...
DamianSilverblad: LOL
DamianSilverblad: Why?
HakkinTaka: I dunno really
HakkinTaka: just doesn't feel right to me anymore
DamianSilverblad: Weird
HakkinTaka: tell me about it man
HakkinTaka: I don't know what it is really... maybe I've developed morals or something to that extent...
DamianSilverblad: XD
DamianSilverblad: Hey, fansubs of not-available/licensed-in-here stuff is perfectly moral (if not exactly legal)
HakkinTaka: but the thing is, alot more anime is being liecenced, ALOT more
HakkinTaka: hint hint, Gravitation?
DamianSilverblad: True
DamianSilverblad: Heh
DamianSilverblad: What's that?
HakkinTaka: it's shounenai, you figure it out
HakkinTaka: I mean, if that can be liecenced, and Initial D can be ported over, just about anything can be
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: and this article kinda made the last push... http://www.mayday-anime.com/feature.php?id=15
DamianSilverblad: fansubs-hunting?
HakkinTaka: that hurt alot too...
HakkinTaka: trying to nimble around bad fansubs... gets draining fast
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: I mean, look at Chobits, Full Metal Panic, Gundam Seed, Mahoromatic, etc etc...
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: all have their fair share of bad sub groups
HakkinTaka: I dispise AJ worse than Funimation or the WB, and that's saying something
DamianSilverblad: Heh
HakkinTaka: another thing is, back in whenever of last year, when I first started downloading subs, I had no official anime, nothing
HakkinTaka: now, if you ever look at my room, I got a growing collection of manga (quickly growing bigger than my burned anime collection) and a pair of DVDs
DamianSilverblad: *howls* that comment about canadian translators deserves some murdering of article author *picks up "rail gun"*
DamianSilverblad: "But instead, Bandai decided to try to save money by asking Canadian translators to translate Japanese into English. This isn't too bad you say? What's the next step? Asking Chinese translators to translate Japanese into English? "
DamianSilverblad: DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE
HakkinTaka: heh, I disagree with that, but
HakkinTaka: I kinda do agree with just about everything else in that article
HakkinTaka: and, I think the very last nail in the fansub coffin... is the fact that I hardly have the time to wait around to download this stuff... let alone watch it...
HakkinTaka: I got 60+ CDs of pure anime, how much have I watched, maybe 8 or so...
DamianSilverblad: Ouch
And so, that's it. I've given up almost entirely on downloading anime off the web. Whatever series I have going right now, I'll complete for the sake of completion, but I've already deleted the partial episodes, stuff like Juuni Kokki, and Shaman King. I only did that a few minutes ago, and really, it seems sort of surreal to me. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I've been doing it for such along time, downloading a fansub came as a basic instinct to myself, almost as natural as breathing. I know I'm rambling, and I'm gonna ramble on for a while, but, y'know, I wanna say this to everyone.
But, why would a person like myself, suddenly drop a habit so fast? Well, I can't say that this wasn't coming. It was bound to occur sooner or later, and that sooner came in a hurry. Have I developed morals, unlike alot of leechers? Yes, I've refered to myself as a petty leecher, because, right now, that's what I feel like. I didn't feel like that before, since I was in the "ooh new anime" phase. Sure, I enjoyed every series I got my hands on. I never paid a bit lot of attention to the issue of money. I just ignored it. Enter MegaTokyo.
Now where does a webcomic slot in here? In the beginning, MegaTokyo was free for all to see, just like a fansub. It was just a few people doing it for the fun of it, just like a fansub (err, well, I'll get to that later). Fred, MegaTokyo's creator, anounced that there was going to be a MegaTokyo graphic novel. I was like, oh, and continued reading. Then something happened, which I never expected. Fred got laid off. Instead of trying to find another job (he's an architech), he decided to go out on a limb, and become a manga-ka, and support himself on just the sales his series. I should note, that at this point and time, I had become attached to MegaTokyo, very attached. I went from having just about no intentions of getting the novel (can you blame me, I had read every strip for free), to almost becoming obsessive over buying the novel. I was like that for close onto three months. The second I saw the first MegaTokyo, the wallet appeared in the hand, and out came the cash.
See where that whole tangent fits in? I whole-heartily supported Fred in his endevours, but what about all the other manga-kas, seiyuus, directors, musicians, etc etc, that had enriched my life? To support one, and forget about the others, that just doesn't sit right with me. And that's what I was doing with fansubs. DVD-encodes? Why bother get the actual Region-1 DVDs? Nail one in the coffin.
The second nail in coffin, is the sheer popularity of anime in the States and Canada. Back in the mid-90's, who knew what was anime, outside of DBZ, and Sailor Moon? It's ironic to look at it now, but fansubs are the main reason for obseletness of fansubs. Back in the day, anime existed as only the two formentioned animes, or as fansubs. An underground thing. A few guys and gals sharing a hobby with others. And those friends showed other friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool my friend. Soon, this small hobby of a few grew, to a point were companies could enter a viable market. Sure, those days were shaky, but there were people that were willing to pay good money for a small slice of Japanese culture. Then, enter in the P2P. Just like the introduction of MP3 rocked the audio world, the introduction of the digital fansub rocked the anime world, only in a less noticed way, well, to the public anyway. Instead of having to wait for a company to get something popular from Japan (average time, usually three years), you could jump on KaZaA, winMX, whatever, and a few keystrokes later, bang, you were lined up with just about anything you wanted. Now, more people were into this. It was freer and quicker, what wasn't to like? The companies took notice. They weren't like the RIAA though, in shutting down fansub groups. They licenced titles faster. Look at FLCL? How long did that take to get announced? Not very. P2P blew open the market kids. The average turn around time for a series is sometimes under a year. Back in 2001, this would have been unheard of outside of Pokemon or Digimon.
Yes, fansub groups still sub away, but that leads into my third point. With a huge market opening up, wanting more anime, the obvious started to happen. Knock-offs sprang up like weeds. The group, "AnimeJunkies" comes directly to mind. What a perfectly suiting name too, "junk." Unlike the fansub groups of old, AJ and the like don't care about the quality of what they put out. Hey, is it popular? Yes. Say, do lots people what to see this in english? Yea. Are we gonna put out episodes faster than anybody else and say we were the first, so that we can take all the glory for our egos? Damn straight. Do we care about licences? **** no. It's mentallities like that, I can't stand. I complain about poor dubbings enough as is, now I'm starting to complain about fansubbings? Give me a break. Atleast with companies, my complaints mean something (think bad word of mouth). These guys? HAH. They don't care. There's plenty of people willing to accept what's offered out of sheer ignorance. Don't believe me? Go on winMX, type in "Gundam Seed." The ration of AnimeJunkie encodes to that of SI/AG/AO is staggering. I don't have time to wait for a decent encode to finish downloading, let alone actually watching it.
Enter point four. Back in April month of last year, I had no manga (or anything else for that matter). It never even interested me in the least. I had a rental shop within 15 minutes walk. I could see a full series for around 30 bucks. One trade for 20 or a DVD for 40? No thanks. But that was the old mentality of mine. A friend told me about some of the differences between the anime and manga versions of CCS. Intrigued, I bought one, and got the first trade for Shoujo Kakumei Utena, a series that had been discontinued at the time. From then on, I started getting more manga, mostly for series I had already send and loved. The fact is though, I was spending more money on anime, more than I had ever. Sure, I still downloaded at a fever pace, but I still bought licenced items. Call it a 'n00b phase' if you may. That stayed there, slowly eroding away that phase. I never really noticed.
Until that article, the one I sent to B, pretty much well shattered what feelings I had to fansubs. Yea, guilt brought this all on. After I read it, I never brushed it off like I normally would have. It stuck, and it stuck damn well too. The writer seemed to care totally about what he was saying. Odd that I found the site from Elite-Fansubs homepage...
There, I think I've said just about all can say about this matter. If you're still reading this, then I applaud you for getting this far. I know alot of you are going to agree with much of what I had to say. But don't just say, "Yea, I totally agree." and then go off into the normal daily routine. Do something, go out, buy anime, get that Kare Kano #1 your best friend gave glowing recommendations to, write letters (actual letters) to companies, saying you want such & such, and that you have friends that do as well. Do whatever you can to support this unique artform.
HakkinTaka: wow... I never though this day would come around... I'm giving up on downloading fansubs...
DamianSilverblad: LOL
DamianSilverblad: Why?
HakkinTaka: I dunno really
HakkinTaka: just doesn't feel right to me anymore
DamianSilverblad: Weird
HakkinTaka: tell me about it man
HakkinTaka: I don't know what it is really... maybe I've developed morals or something to that extent...
DamianSilverblad: XD
DamianSilverblad: Hey, fansubs of not-available/licensed-in-here stuff is perfectly moral (if not exactly legal)
HakkinTaka: but the thing is, alot more anime is being liecenced, ALOT more
HakkinTaka: hint hint, Gravitation?
DamianSilverblad: True
DamianSilverblad: Heh
DamianSilverblad: What's that?
HakkinTaka: it's shounenai, you figure it out
HakkinTaka: I mean, if that can be liecenced, and Initial D can be ported over, just about anything can be
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: and this article kinda made the last push... http://www.mayday-anime.com/feature.php?id=15
DamianSilverblad: fansubs-hunting?
HakkinTaka: that hurt alot too...
HakkinTaka: trying to nimble around bad fansubs... gets draining fast
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: I mean, look at Chobits, Full Metal Panic, Gundam Seed, Mahoromatic, etc etc...
DamianSilverblad: heh
HakkinTaka: all have their fair share of bad sub groups
HakkinTaka: I dispise AJ worse than Funimation or the WB, and that's saying something
DamianSilverblad: Heh
HakkinTaka: another thing is, back in whenever of last year, when I first started downloading subs, I had no official anime, nothing
HakkinTaka: now, if you ever look at my room, I got a growing collection of manga (quickly growing bigger than my burned anime collection) and a pair of DVDs
DamianSilverblad: *howls* that comment about canadian translators deserves some murdering of article author *picks up "rail gun"*
DamianSilverblad: "But instead, Bandai decided to try to save money by asking Canadian translators to translate Japanese into English. This isn't too bad you say? What's the next step? Asking Chinese translators to translate Japanese into English? "
DamianSilverblad: DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE
HakkinTaka: heh, I disagree with that, but
HakkinTaka: I kinda do agree with just about everything else in that article
HakkinTaka: and, I think the very last nail in the fansub coffin... is the fact that I hardly have the time to wait around to download this stuff... let alone watch it...
HakkinTaka: I got 60+ CDs of pure anime, how much have I watched, maybe 8 or so...
DamianSilverblad: Ouch
And so, that's it. I've given up almost entirely on downloading anime off the web. Whatever series I have going right now, I'll complete for the sake of completion, but I've already deleted the partial episodes, stuff like Juuni Kokki, and Shaman King. I only did that a few minutes ago, and really, it seems sort of surreal to me. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I've been doing it for such along time, downloading a fansub came as a basic instinct to myself, almost as natural as breathing. I know I'm rambling, and I'm gonna ramble on for a while, but, y'know, I wanna say this to everyone.
But, why would a person like myself, suddenly drop a habit so fast? Well, I can't say that this wasn't coming. It was bound to occur sooner or later, and that sooner came in a hurry. Have I developed morals, unlike alot of leechers? Yes, I've refered to myself as a petty leecher, because, right now, that's what I feel like. I didn't feel like that before, since I was in the "ooh new anime" phase. Sure, I enjoyed every series I got my hands on. I never paid a bit lot of attention to the issue of money. I just ignored it. Enter MegaTokyo.
Now where does a webcomic slot in here? In the beginning, MegaTokyo was free for all to see, just like a fansub. It was just a few people doing it for the fun of it, just like a fansub (err, well, I'll get to that later). Fred, MegaTokyo's creator, anounced that there was going to be a MegaTokyo graphic novel. I was like, oh, and continued reading. Then something happened, which I never expected. Fred got laid off. Instead of trying to find another job (he's an architech), he decided to go out on a limb, and become a manga-ka, and support himself on just the sales his series. I should note, that at this point and time, I had become attached to MegaTokyo, very attached. I went from having just about no intentions of getting the novel (can you blame me, I had read every strip for free), to almost becoming obsessive over buying the novel. I was like that for close onto three months. The second I saw the first MegaTokyo, the wallet appeared in the hand, and out came the cash.
See where that whole tangent fits in? I whole-heartily supported Fred in his endevours, but what about all the other manga-kas, seiyuus, directors, musicians, etc etc, that had enriched my life? To support one, and forget about the others, that just doesn't sit right with me. And that's what I was doing with fansubs. DVD-encodes? Why bother get the actual Region-1 DVDs? Nail one in the coffin.
The second nail in coffin, is the sheer popularity of anime in the States and Canada. Back in the mid-90's, who knew what was anime, outside of DBZ, and Sailor Moon? It's ironic to look at it now, but fansubs are the main reason for obseletness of fansubs. Back in the day, anime existed as only the two formentioned animes, or as fansubs. An underground thing. A few guys and gals sharing a hobby with others. And those friends showed other friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool my friend. Soon, this small hobby of a few grew, to a point were companies could enter a viable market. Sure, those days were shaky, but there were people that were willing to pay good money for a small slice of Japanese culture. Then, enter in the P2P. Just like the introduction of MP3 rocked the audio world, the introduction of the digital fansub rocked the anime world, only in a less noticed way, well, to the public anyway. Instead of having to wait for a company to get something popular from Japan (average time, usually three years), you could jump on KaZaA, winMX, whatever, and a few keystrokes later, bang, you were lined up with just about anything you wanted. Now, more people were into this. It was freer and quicker, what wasn't to like? The companies took notice. They weren't like the RIAA though, in shutting down fansub groups. They licenced titles faster. Look at FLCL? How long did that take to get announced? Not very. P2P blew open the market kids. The average turn around time for a series is sometimes under a year. Back in 2001, this would have been unheard of outside of Pokemon or Digimon.
Yes, fansub groups still sub away, but that leads into my third point. With a huge market opening up, wanting more anime, the obvious started to happen. Knock-offs sprang up like weeds. The group, "AnimeJunkies" comes directly to mind. What a perfectly suiting name too, "junk." Unlike the fansub groups of old, AJ and the like don't care about the quality of what they put out. Hey, is it popular? Yes. Say, do lots people what to see this in english? Yea. Are we gonna put out episodes faster than anybody else and say we were the first, so that we can take all the glory for our egos? Damn straight. Do we care about licences? **** no. It's mentallities like that, I can't stand. I complain about poor dubbings enough as is, now I'm starting to complain about fansubbings? Give me a break. Atleast with companies, my complaints mean something (think bad word of mouth). These guys? HAH. They don't care. There's plenty of people willing to accept what's offered out of sheer ignorance. Don't believe me? Go on winMX, type in "Gundam Seed." The ration of AnimeJunkie encodes to that of SI/AG/AO is staggering. I don't have time to wait for a decent encode to finish downloading, let alone actually watching it.
Enter point four. Back in April month of last year, I had no manga (or anything else for that matter). It never even interested me in the least. I had a rental shop within 15 minutes walk. I could see a full series for around 30 bucks. One trade for 20 or a DVD for 40? No thanks. But that was the old mentality of mine. A friend told me about some of the differences between the anime and manga versions of CCS. Intrigued, I bought one, and got the first trade for Shoujo Kakumei Utena, a series that had been discontinued at the time. From then on, I started getting more manga, mostly for series I had already send and loved. The fact is though, I was spending more money on anime, more than I had ever. Sure, I still downloaded at a fever pace, but I still bought licenced items. Call it a 'n00b phase' if you may. That stayed there, slowly eroding away that phase. I never really noticed.
Until that article, the one I sent to B, pretty much well shattered what feelings I had to fansubs. Yea, guilt brought this all on. After I read it, I never brushed it off like I normally would have. It stuck, and it stuck damn well too. The writer seemed to care totally about what he was saying. Odd that I found the site from Elite-Fansubs homepage...
There, I think I've said just about all can say about this matter. If you're still reading this, then I applaud you for getting this far. I know alot of you are going to agree with much of what I had to say. But don't just say, "Yea, I totally agree." and then go off into the normal daily routine. Do something, go out, buy anime, get that Kare Kano #1 your best friend gave glowing recommendations to, write letters (actual letters) to companies, saying you want such & such, and that you have friends that do as well. Do whatever you can to support this unique artform.