I'm with fansubs. I'd pay to own, but not to watch.

Fans vs Companies
HEAVEN OR HELL

LET's ROCK!!

There are 3 big issues that need to be addressed before i'll even consider purchasing domesticated series.

1. I don't listen to english voices, and I don't want to pay $15 extra for something i'm not using.

2. Quality control. Of the few domesticated DVD's I do have. There are numerous spelling/grammar errors or worse is timing issues with subtitiles. On the last episode of one series the subtitles were off by a whole minute. Along these lines I say I think it's about time to do away with Piss yellow font italicized with black border. Is it readable? Yes Is it ugly as sin? yes.

3. Content. I like little extra notes related to the series or additives about events in the show i'm watching that Fansubbers research and put at the end of the episode or such. While many domestications have some extra features, it's generally "Here's a few image covers for the series" and "Here's some behind the scenes of the group that translated it not behind the scenes of the creators"

Oh god a civil war!

..NO CAPTAIN AMERICA, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

oh wait....wrong subject

I'm behind the industry 100%, and just because there isn't any legal means for us to watch these shows, it doesn't give us a right to pirate them. Also, the fansubbing of Lisenced shows it just disgusting, and im sure more people download naruto than any other show..

I'm with the ANN guy, I mean, a lot of anime gets licensed and put on dvd and no one ever sees what it is to buy it. and most people won't drop 20 bucks on 4 episodes of something they've never seen

This is the same issue I see across the entire entertainment industry.

The fact of the matter is these companies are here to provide entertainmnet to US, especially anime dubbing companies who don't even make the content they're selling.

As much as I hate piracy, it is clear that these distribution companies, for this is what these anime companies are, are not changing with the demands of the marketplace.

I say Adapt or Die. If people don't like the way you're doing it now, you can't force them to. They'll just head to Bittorrent. Quite simply change needs to happen.

A Joost-ike service would be a great start.


I do have to say though that I find the cyclical nature of anime consumption interesting. From bootlegs to official sources back to fan distribution

I'm trying to think of the best way to respond to this misguided, misinformed trainwreck of a post.

I don't think it's possible for me to do it without losing my temper, so I'll just address this one particular point:

"Remember American anime industry, with fansubs you are no longer needed"
Look into the financial side of anime in Japan. You'll find that the American industry very definitely is needed.

It's all very well saying "adapt or die" to ADV or FUNimation, but if you expect the Japanese to be able to keep putting this stuff out without American dollars behind it you're kidding yourself.

With the current state of affairs in Japan, Ghoti's statement is very true.

First I want to start off correcting the fansub hardliners on a few simple issues, I'll use Guardian of Chaos's post as an example:

1) Some of us actually LIKE dubs in our own language and actually like to be able to enjoy an emotional scene where we DON'T have to read text that kills the mood.

2) The "Piss yellow font" is usually the hardcoded font on your DVD player. In order to change that you'd have to make a separate video stream altogether with the font written into the video data, which would take up a LOT more data on a disc and just lead to a whole new slew of problems. Also, it's not that god awful....try reading legal papers sometime. (Oh and btw, I've seen more fansubbers make dumb spelling, grammatical, AND timing mistakes than I've EVER seen on a DVD)

3) I will agree with you here. Most companies really don't give much in terms of decent extras, and lately Funimation and ADV are putting on less than they used to. I can't complain much though since at least some of their prices are going down...


I do agree with most of you about how there should be some way to preview a series somehow before going out and buying it, however, putting it on TV on a cable network that isn't a separate channel is expensive and not to mention just plain difficult. Plus to send out something like free DVD previews to whomever wants them is equally impractical. Then there's people who say, "what about downloading them?". ADV is trying to get in on the game with downloadable episodes and every once in a while tossing out a free episode for download, but it's a little impractical to have that many preview episodes for download (ADV alone has well over 40 different shows).

Honestly I think the diehards of the fansub community need to just shut up and buy something for once instead of leeching the industry all the time and the Company Hardliners should shut up and realize this is helping them more often than hurting them. (As the article in Wired put it, they can use this as free market research and product advertising. Then after they figure out what everyone likes they can license it and (if they're cool like any company other than Viz) make a decent dub for it.

Then, everyone except those "Aww I can't watch the whole show for free?!?" people will be happy, and then we can say "God's in his heaven, All's right with the world".

(sorry for the double post)

Oh, one last note, Bandai needs to get a clue that American anime fans aren't going to pay 45 bucks for ONE DVD with only TWO episodes on it! That's a worse deal than FLCL was... (talking about MS IGLOO and some of their new titles).

Other than that, Bandai's been rather nice to the community (considering they realize they owe their Haruhi success to them)

Companies need to realize they are never going to stop stuff like this from happening. I don't download stuff my self, unless its out of print or not available, but I also refuse to pay $25/30 for a dvd that contains 4 episodes of a 24 episode series.

Release a season box set of shows from the start for a reasonable price and i'll buy it.

I myself refuse to download domestic releases and such - and just limit myself to series being currently released in Japan or series that will never get released in America.
Hell, if it wasn't for the fansubbing group a.f.k. I would have never bought The Melancholy of Suzimiya Haruhi, with the fansubber - I was able to see what the series was about and found I enjoyed and was more than happy to plunk down money for the physical domesticated product.

Nothing against dubbing. I didn't really mean it that way. I want them to go back to the VHS system. A version with Dubbing and a version with just subbing. So that rather than paying for both when you're using just one, you pay for just one. What I would like is the option to choose. It would be one thing if the dubbing only increased the price maybe $5, but $15 extra is a bit extreme when it nearly doubles the price. There are a few series that have been released over here with no dubbing whatsoever and I have all of them just to encourage the industry to give people the option.

When they start licensing literally every single anime produced in for Japan, then I'd consider supporting the industry's dislike for fansubs.

But since that will never happen and since the only way I will ever get to watch shows like Minami-ke and Kimikiss is through fansubs, I don't give a shit what they think.

I'm with Raptor Jesus.

Oh, come on people.

You refuse to buy Anime not because of the price, but because of actually having to pay for it at all. You'd rather download it free and whine about decreasing quality than pay a reasonable price and help fund studios.

I'd like to point out to you, for example, that One Piece in Japan costs around $47 a box set. These box sets have a run time of 98 minutes, which equates to 4 episodes. FUNimation are relasing their boxsets at 13 episodes a pop for $50 each.

Looking at these figures, I estimate that you are in fact paying -$100 for the dub.

It would actually work out considerably cheaper for the Japanese to import the dub and just watch it with the Japanese audio track.

Actually altogether you ARENT PAYING EXTRA FOR THE DUB PERIOD.

The average DVD over in japan costs around 40 to 50 bucks and usually has 2 - 4 episodes.

The average DVD here in the US costs 20-25 bucks and usually has 3 - 4 episodes.

MisterCow is on the right track there (though you are in actuality not really paying ANYTHING on top of the base price for a dub).

And Guardian of Chaos, if you released two separate versions (one sub one dub) you'd end up paying even MORE because of the prices of manufacturing two separate formats on TOP of the fact of price margins to account for changes in sales in each version. Basically you'd have marketing department hell and you'd probably end up paying MORE to get one that's sub than just getting them both together as they are now, not to mention the fact that your entire assumption that it's only $5 for the base price before dubbing is completely wrong anyway!

Basically it all boils down to this: Quit complaining. The DVDs are fine, they aren't the problem. The problem is advertising them and allowing people to preview or "taste" before they buy.

I think alot of fans need to take a class in economics before they try making excuses.

Heero Yuy;
That's the point I was making :) negative $100 is definitely not paying money towards the dub, it's a saving ;)

I just buy HK bootlegs. $50 for 43 episodes.

And they were fine releasing dubbing and subtitling separately when it was VHS tapes.

I didn't say 5$ was the price before dubbing. I said if the cost of the dubbing track was only 5$ that would be fine.

As for Funimation they were the ones who messed up the timing of the subtitles on the last episode of a series on DVD by a whole minute.


My only REAL valid complaint in any sense is that I don't want to pay for something I don't use. I buy DVD's when the dubbing is good because I might listen to the dub with friends who prefer it. But if i'm not using the dubbing I don't want to pay for it.

You go to a restaraunt and order a steak and baked potato for 15$. Then they give you a pumpkin that you aren't gonna eat and make you pay another 15$ for a total of 30$ all together and i'd probably not eat there again. Especially when I can go to a grocery store and get a steak and potato for less and make it myself.

I'm MORE THAN WILLING to pay for DVDs. I don't want to pay for dubbing I am not using. I have EVERY DOMESTIC DVD WITHOUT DUBBING because I am not being ripped off. And ALL the DVD's I own I have used the dubbing tracks on. It's BASIC ECONOMICS.

Whether or not fansubs are legal is irrelevant. As long as the studios continue to delay the licensing and distribution of their intellectual property outside of the primary Japanese market, the fansubing groups will continue exist. If a group of unpaid workers working entirely in their free time can translate the show not just marginally but ridiculously faster than a large corporation already heavily invested in the work, the corporation is clearly not committed enough to that market.

The simple fact is that we expect a television show to be distributed at one point or another for free. It is simply ingrained in how we take in media. We have certain preconceived prices for, say, a movie ticket, a CD, or a DVD. The price for a television show has been set at however much our attention is worth in advertising sales.

This does not mean there should be no exorbitantly priced DVDs. We have come to expect an initial viewing of the television show followed by the option to purchase it for a substantial fee. Purchasing has always been reserved for exceptional fare. But as long as there is no widely available, advertising based distribution method, I am forced to believe that the content creators either don't care about the market or it simply isn't large enough to be profitable. Either way, I'm with the fansubers.

Guardian, you totally ignored what I said about the impractical cost s in making two different versions. It'd cost you MORE in the end than just buying them together just because they'd have to pay for TWO production lines instead of one for the same show and then the management would have to be doubled to handle twice the product.
THAT'S thinking economically.

Besides, almost EVERY DVD in the US market has dubbing tracks in other languages and useless extras that half the time no one looks at. It's a fact of the industry, and it isn't just in the anime market. Besides, like MisterCow said, you're SAVING money, not losing money by getting it with both rather than JUST getting one version with only subs. (sorry I misinterpreted your earlier post Mr.Cow)

fansubbing is standing on a very thin line of proper and improper. people might say that fansubbing is what it would be like if we saw anime on our tv here. we get to preview and then buy if we like it. the thing is though, people forget that when anime is shown on tv in japan, they generate money and in turn, that profit helps those companies who produce anime.

this situation is complicated. while i can say personally that fansubbing helped me with ALL my anime purchases, i can't say the same for those who never support the companies when an anime is licensed (stop being greedy!!!).

we don't have the same luxury as those living in japan and people i guess feel robbed when they have to pay for something that the japanese audience have seen months or even years prior.

but, c'mon. stop whining and actually support these companies. i mean you can start to see it now. these companies are trying hard to bring the newest animes to our shores. just show them support and who knows, maybe in the upcoming years, we might see anime here a month or 2 after it's released in japan.

but yea, fansubbing isn't all that bad. it's really a shame when something is licensed and some subbers continue to sub said anime.
it really has to start with the community imo.

If they can start something like a Zune pass sevice where they can pay like a monthly fee to access content to use on different devcies I'd hop on that. Better the company getting something than nothing. Fansubs are one thing but f*cking sites like narutofan make the fans all look bad by literally pirating content by forcing people to pay to access content that aren't theirs.

I entirely agree with Heero Yuy and tokidoki.

A great deal of the fansubbers perversely think that because they want, they deserve. You are not ENTITLED to ANYTHING. You're simply breaking the law.

I can put things aside for the true anime fans, such as the ones who fall in love with a show via the fansub and then devotedly support the localized version, as they're the kind that is needed for the industry--one that can cooperate the fansub and localizer communities. But to all those snobby elitists who complain and defend their outright thievery: Eff off. You're not entitled to jack.

(Apologies for the double-post: redthehaze posted before I refreshed my browser.)

Something like an iTunes for anime would indeed be epic, but I doubt the possibility of success for something like that. Too many who want it for free and feel entitled to such.

In order for this to work, America needs to have the same "anime industry" as Japan does. This idea cast into a society with different views on anime will not achieve the goal intended

For years and years before the big anime boom and the popularity skyrocketed you had VHS tapes of anime on one or two shelves next to porn. In these days we had two versions of almost every VHS tape. The subbed version and the dubbed version. These cost the same price or roughly the same price. At that time it clearly wasn't too costly for production companies to have two production lines. What changed is anime suddenly became a lucrative market and the companies decided to milk it. With the advent of DVD's a little later we find them combining the two production lines to save money for the company by combining two products and selling just one product to both potential markets. This saved them a lot of money by cutting production costs and allowing them to one product for the price of two. Yes this is very profitable for them and it is a good business concept on their part. But I for one just don't like paying for what I'm not using. If Japan starts releasing their own DVD's with their own subtitles like they do with a lot of their Live Action movie releases i'll buy them. I have numerous live action movies that have subtitles from the original production studios. I like to own the product when I can. I mean I have $3400 in domestic and import manga because i'm not being charged double. If the manga released had english and then also had spanish afterwords in one book and they charged you an extra $10 I would not buy it. Sure they can hit two markets at cheaper costs to the production studios, but what about your consumers?

As for DVD's having multiple languages I guess i'm confused a bit there. I love buying my DVD's of favorite TV series and such. And there is usually tons of extra content, commentaries/whole extra tracks of audio and the like. Yet they cost half the price of an anime DVD? Maybe it's the fee they need to charge for the import. Well if that's the case then what about Manga? Why is that still relatively affordable? Or as an example look at Farscape. a non-anime New Zealand based Sci-fi show that ADV somehow had it in their right mind to license. This is one of my favorite TV shows ever and yet I don't have it on DVD boxed set because ADV deemed fit to charge double the cost of a normal DVD when the Farscape series doesn't even really have any extras on the DVD either. Something's fishy in these waters. I think a lot of it has more to do with the actual publishing companies than the concept of domestication.

In regards to anime dvd's costing more over there.

Rent for a studio apartment in Florida is $499 a month no utilities.
Rent for a one bedroom apartment water and garbage included in Pennsylvania is $320. Cost of living and salary is based on where you live. Japan's economy is not the same as ours and just doing a yen to dollar conversion doesn't mean it's a fair comparison. But you may be taking into account the average salary for various locations as well as shipping fees and other such numbers so I dunno lol

The truth is in what aninsomiac says. I'm used to watching a television show for squat, and then if its good I'm not only happy to buy it, I make sure to buy a new copy. I buy season/complete sets though, so yeah I kinda need to see the whole show before I give up $40-50 dollars. You could say that you really only need a "trial" to see if you like it, but I don't buy that. I actually liked Neon Genesis Evangelion until I got to the midpoint, then even though I finished the series I hated it soooo much. If I'd bought the series I would've been out 50 bucks, and all the people against fansubs would've just told me, "Well that's just business. Too bad."


My response to that? "Screw you."

I'm an honest guy. If I like something, I'll definitely pay for it. As it stands, fansubs for me are the equalizer, making it so I don't have to pay for anything I wouldn't have liked.

Of course, for the most part my opinion is irrelevant. I'm on a dial-up connection so what anime I do get is at such slow a pace I don't think anyone cares. Plus usually I can't afford to buy even the cheapest sets unless its some sort of special occasion (Christmas, birthday) so any outrage directed at me is utterly pointless. I'm not a lost sale because I couldn't buy the series in the first place. :)

I see a lot of anti-fansubbers haven't really provided any semblence of a solution to the problem, merely trying to justify practices that, while they SHOULD be sufficient, aren't enough to combat the problem.

It's the near complete inaction by ANYONE in the industry, either dubbers or animation companies themselves, to do anything meaningful about it that sickens me. Are they so scared of the internet to do anything with it?

"Something like an iTunes for anime would indeed be epic, but I doubt the possibility of success for something like that. Too many who want it for free and feel entitled to such".

I fail to see a difference between this and the napster era. I'm pretty sure the prevaling notion then was that people were intitled to free music. Then iTunes came and soon paid for downloads are pretty much accepted.

Swiftly released digital downloads, episode by episode, would be great. Though personally a cheap (or free ad-supported) trial of a series would be the optimal means of testing the waters without resorting to morally questionable means. I know I'd buy more anime that way.

Didn't Viz attempt this somewhat with Death Note? I'm pretty sure I read a press release somewhere.

hey all, I just uploaded a bunch of new release movies to my video blog, check it out http://www.tvokay.com :)stream and download faster with Firefox get it here http://firefirefox.com

Let's go back to the basics...GuardianOfChaos keeps alluding back to the VHS days when they'd release a subbed version VHS and a dubbed version...

What's not being mentioned is that those same VHS tapes were $40, 600x harder to come by, and of visual quality of that of stabbing yourself in the eye repeatedly with a rusty spoon...I know, I have a few original copies of many older titles from this period in time.

VHS work was prohibitive to multiple languages therefor finding dual-audio was impossible because, in actuality, it was impossible to do with the technology. Bring in that anime wasn't a very 'booming' culture and that you have companies spending thousands of dollars to obtain a license, produce a show, mass produce it, and then toss it out on the market without any real way of keeping it from being nothing more than you taking money and lighting it on fire. What stores, outside of comic shops, that would pick up anime would relegate it to either the kids section, or when they found that it was violent or contained mature subject material, they made it adults only. Tack on that each VHS had at most 2 episodes, one language track, and general video quality of a bad HK boot at a cost of $45-50 and you had a stillborn market.

Laserdisc, by all accounts, started the saving of the anime market in terms of quality. With the discs they could increase the quality of the video transfer from the masters and actually give customers a better choice in what they wanted between subs and dubs, and allow them to do it on a slightly cheaper media form, albeit the players weren't cheap.

That brings us to the CD age, VCDs started popping up in some forms and it showed just how much could be done...these were rare because it required a lot of 'rigging' to get to play properly on the technology of the day, which was basically nothing more than a smaller LD player at the exact same price.

Off to DVDs, the Holy Grail of the anime industry in terms of profit to loss margins. Mass producing a higher quality DVD was almost ten fold cheaper than that of a VHS, which allowed many companies to start experimenting with their work. Companies like ADV actually pushed more quality in their voice work and redirected a lot of their revenue to purchase higher quality hardware and more talented actors instead of the "Mr. Roboto" norm of the time.

I really do not see the huge hooplah over the anti-dub sentiments, as these have increased infinitely in quality since their VHS days on almost every front. Sure, there are ones that still have the occasional problems, but all in all, these are rare today. Anyone who complains about the overall dub quality is doing one of two things, needlessly playing the adamant Ant-dubber or they are just hopping on the most vocal bandwagon...and this is coming from someone who's been around anime longer than many have been alive.

I could get into costs but considering that many have already got into that I'll step back. Suffice to say, despite GuardianOfChaos's statements about cost of living, it doesn't hold water. Japan's anime market is 600x larger than that of ours in terms of what is released and to how it is marketed, this increases their profit levels over that of the US anime market in any sense, and they do so at $50-60 a DVD with far less on them. Cost of living has nothing to do with amenities such as this, and it is a laughable reasoning to come up with.

All in all, I support both the fansubbers and the industry...as long as they continue to support each other. Fansubbers have got to stop being pissing contests with one another and need to stop trying to be all big and bad by releasing licensed material when it becomes licensed...no more of this Naruto crap going on. And the industry needs to accept (which it is actually starting to do) other forms of media exchange outside of DVD sales and sparse TV offerings, be more aggressive in their decisions over what to be licensed and sometimes take a chance in a non-Naruto/Haruhi-level show.

hey all, I just uploaded a bunch of new release movies to my video blog, check it out http://www.tvokay.com :)stream and download faster with Firefox get it here http://firefirefox.com

hey all, I just uploaded a bunch of new release movies to my video blog, check it out http://www.tvokay.com :)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

I found a site with more links and videos at http://www.tvokay.com Enjoy! ;)

Like DrkCntry I support both the fan sub and the industry. In fact I use the fan subs to help make my purchasing decisions for what the industry will release in the US market. If I don't like the animation or story in the fun sub I am not going to waste my money on it no matter who releases it in the US domestic market. I also use the free sampler DVDs included in Newtype USA to help me decide what to purchase. Recently ADV has begun selling modestly price downloads of single episodes. Funimation is selling on iTunes, not much but something. I like the idea of free or cheap sampler material.

The one thing I do is when a fun sub I have been downloading gets licensed I stop downloading it. I much prefer purchasing legitimate product. It is the only way I know of to keep the flow of quality anime going.