So, this is the end, my friend?

[PlatinumHawke]

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.

[Rocketlex]

Fansubs are also illegal, right? For me, that's the first and last nail. I know it limits my choices, but I don't care (I guess it's because I don't know what I'm missing. Ignorence is bliss. ) I'm not putting down fansubs. It's not my place to decide the right and wrong of this issue, all I'm saying is that they've never been my thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is....um...there's always Toonami. No no, what I'm saying is that you're now in the same boat as myself, and I know that I'm happy with what I have.

[kalad1]

I say death to whatever stupid law bans fansubbing, Most people will siphon off the bad subs and keep the good ones, its a self cleaning process! I also say this, most dubs stink, a lot of them butcher names*cough*Rini*cough *cough*Teknoman*cough* and a lot of times, the japanese just sounds WAY cooler.

[AKA Pokemon Fan]

Originally posted by kalad1
I say death to whatever stupid law bans fansubbing, Most people will siphon off the bad subs and keep the good ones, its a self cleaning process! I also say this, most dubs stink, a lot of them butcher names*cough*Rini*cough *cough*Teknoman*cough* and a lot of times, the japanese just sounds WAY cooler.

I partially disagree as its partly a matter of perception (some people just find themselves more comfortable hearing a show in their own language rather than reading subtitles), and dubs in general are getting better and better (Ah! My Goddess! Evangelion, Cowboy [I've actually heard it said that many consider the dub to be SUPERIOR to the original]).

I myself have never downloaded anime episodes off the net, partially for moral reasons and partially because (a) I don't know how, and (b) I lack the right software, and the only subtitled series I have is the Sailor Moon Stars season on VHS.

Up until fairly recently I owned rather little anime, but that's changed a lot and is continuing to. In addition to about every non TV Pokemon related shows I now have:

The full Oh! My Goddess! OAV on DVD and one DVD of the Mini Goddess series.

Ah! My Goddess the movie DVD.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: the complete boxed DVD set.

Death and Rebirth, and End of Eva on DVD.

Outlaw Star: the complete boxed DVD set.

Cowboy Bebop: the complete boxed DVD set (its in the mail as I speak).

The Oh! My Goddess singles CD.

Most of the Sailor Moon manga (don't have the Super S season yet).

All of the english released Oh! My Goddess manga and the Japanese version all the way up to the recently released volume 25.

All six anime guides to the Cowboy Bebop series (the last three are in the mail as well).

Various anime figures and toys (Evangelion, Big O, Outlaw Star).

Various Ah! My Goddess! books (in Japanese [which doesn't matter since I mostly want the pictures] and in the mail too).

So I think I can say I've contributed quite a bit to the anime enterprise.

[Red Angel]

<claps for PlatinumHawke>

Wow.

That was just an awesome, well thought-out, well-written post...

Anyways, what I was actually going to say was that fansubs aren't going away... they're going to become rarer, perhaps, but they'll still be there... look ar ROMs... they didn't go away... after 5+ years, they're still with us...

I myself own 1 anime series (Vandread), and that's fansubbed (Elite Fansubs)... I've also watched fansubbed Evangelion... the reason? I don't have money to buy the real thing... if I had money to do so, I'd rush out and buy the entire Eva box set, because it's just so awesome that I feel guilty cheating it's creators like that... but I can't buy it... I don't even have a DVD player, and my monthly income is barely enough to buy 1 anime DVD (2-3 eps)... it just isn't possible for me to watch the real versions... yet...

[EngiMatikul]

Originally posted by Rocketlex
Fansubs are also illegal, right? For me, that's the first and last nail. I know it limits my choices, but I don't care (I guess it's because I don't know what I'm missing. Ignorence is bliss. ) I'm not putting down fansubs. It's not my place to decide the right and wrong of this issue, all I'm saying is that they've never been my thing.

As stated by BBP in their chat, Unlicensed fansubs are NOT illegal. And as for me, I only download unlicensed fansubs as soon as I got mIRC, because that's when I found out what all this licensed and unlicensed stuff is. Sure, in the beginning, I made a slight rant on how some things get licensed so quickly that I can't download them all anymore, but I learned to deal with it and guess what, Chobits comes out in March! Yipee!

[Doomykins]

Yeah, I don't like haveing to download the digimon movies, but they haven't come out in english and it doesn't look like they will. I've heard a lot of dumping on the dubs of digimon, but I don't know how the people can stand listening to the originol.

Sure, it's the originol and unedited, but even with subtitles I prefer hearing things in my own tounge, just like AKA said.

Though in at least one of the downloads, that I've noticed anyways, it says in the opening credits that when it's legaly out in english, to stop distributing. So at least there are some good people out there.

As for episodes, it stinks that I don't even know where to buy any anime around where I live.

[Little_Pikachu]

Fansubs immoral?

Megatokyo: I've originally read it free on the internet, yet even though it remains available for free I still bought the first manga book. I bought it BECAUSE I knew in advance that it was worth buying, and I probably would not have bought it if Fred had not allowed me to read Megatokyo for free first. I don't have enough money to gamble on manga that I don't know in advance will be worth buying. Because I could see Megatokyo for free, Fred now has some of my money and will shortly get more.

Martian Successor Nadesico: I originally saw it on fansub. It was licensed but not yet released. It is now my second-favorite series, and I own the boxed set. I would never have even heard of it at this point in time, had I not watched the fansub, and consequently it really wouldn't even be a choice I could make whether to buy it or not. Because I saw the fansub, the company who made the series now has my money. They would have never gotten my money if I hadn't seen the fansub first, since Nadesico would have remained firmly beneath my level of awareness.

Shoujo Kakumei Utena: I originally saw it on fansub. It was licensed but is still not entirely released. It is now my favorite series, but I would probably never have heard of it if not for seeing the fansub. It will be completely out probably around the next New Years' Day, and the body of anybody who gets in my way (as I rush to fork over my money to the people who are selling Utena) will never be found.

Fruits Basket: I am currently watching a fansub of this now. It is currently licensed and the first two or three DVDs are out. When the boxed set comes out, it is highly likely that I will buy it. However, no mere description of the series would have convinced me that I would want to buy a shoujo chick flick, barring actually seeing it. Unless I see the end of the series, I will probably never be motivated to pay my money. If I do see the end of the series, I will probably go to pay my money the very day the boxed set is released in the United States.

I can't say for sure whether fansubs are moral or immoral, and I certainly can't speak for anyone else... But it is a fact that a number of people and companies made and will make very real money off of supplying their stuff to me for free. The DVDs and actual manga books I have are much better quality than the fansub versions, and I can easily whip out the dubs for when I have company (you can't do that with fansubs, now can you?). Additionally, I actually WANT people like Fred, and even shadowy people like whoever owns the company that produced Nadesico and Utena, to have my money. If the DVDs and whatnot didn't come out, I'd probably just send them money in a box.

People who like getting fansubs because they like screwing over the writers, though... Something does not quite sit right with me here.