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Dattebayo to Stop Fansubbing Naruto on January 15
posted on by Egan Loo
The fan group Dattebayo has announced that it will stop subtitling and distributing the Naruto anime franchise "permanently" on January 15. That date is when the Naruto.com, Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Joost websites will officially begin streaming the latest episodes of the Naruto Shippūden sequel series one week after their Japanese broadcast — for free. A Dattebayo organizer who uses the alias "Interactii" says that an episode of Naruto Shippūden would get 450,000 downloads from Dattebayo in its first week. According to Dattebayo, the group accumulated 976,405 downloads for episode 20 in 489 days.
"Interactii" notes that Viz Media, the North American distributor of the Naruto anime and manga, had never asked Dattebayo to stop subtitling and had never sent a cease-and-desist letter to the group. He continues, "But like any symbiosis, you have to know when its time to move on. That time has come. Viz and Crunchyroll have gotten their acts together and are trying something new, with one of the most popular shows in anime today. I, and the rest of the staff, know that if we continue to subtitle it, they will have to ask us to stop. That's something they probably don't want to have to do, because it will most likely make all of you very mad at them. That's something they really don't deserve."
"Interactii" adds that Dattebayo will continue to subtitle another series.
Image © 2002 Masashi Kishimoto / 2007 Shippuden
