Forum - View topicPoll: Do you download fansubs? Do you buy the licensed releases? Take 3
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starfyre
Posts: 9 |
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I download after reading up through Jascii's site. Watch them with a friend, we split the series depending on who likes it more.
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Zack26
SPAMMER
 Posts: 91 |
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Well, first I download the anime. This' to see if I'm interested in getting the dub version of the anime. However, Infinite Ryvius is an exception. because the moment I saw a trailer on the U.S site of Infinite Ryvius, that was the moment that caught my attention. And of course, it's hip hop thematic songs (in the eye catch section, when they say "Infinite Ryvius"). And the opening and ending themes grew on me, and overall I was interested in this anime. But that's basically it, I wouldn't buy an anime if it didn't interest me ^^ |
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Iron Chef
 Posts: 487 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Yeah, I treat fansub anime the way I treat p2p music. D/L a couple eps to see what I think of the series, toss it if I don't like it, finish it if it's not licensed yet and buy it when it is.
I am *all* about the "try before you buy" way of thinking. There should be a magazine for anime like CMJ is for music. Have some neat trailers or eps on a DVD every month. I'd be down with that. (And my apologies if there's already something out there like that; I sit unawares.) |
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molloaggie
 Posts: 578 Location: Texas |
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Newtype USA, a montly magazine for $10, includes a disc with each issue. You get to see the first episodes of a lot of anime! Of course, which titles you get to see are decided by the companies who pay for it, not by Newtype. |
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molloaggie
Posts: 578 Location: Texas |
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Frankly, I buy everything I can afford. Once I realized the truth (got educated) on trashy bootlegs, I stopped buying them. I'm at my spending limit. There isn't another dime in my pocket for them to suck out! However, I really want more more more! I get an episode here or there... I am forced to delete each episode after I watch it. (I don't have a burner and I have a tiny hd....boohoo).
It does make me a little sick to here people brag about their 200+ cd collection of burned fansubs and how they don't own a single store-bought disc. I even had a friend that sold off his store-bought discs and just started downloading and burning anything and everything. I've also gotten laughed at by other friends for not participating in the fansub free-for-all. |
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Meson
Posts: 219 Location: Buffalo, NY |
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I have only downladed 2 episodes fansubbed, both from Sailormoon. ALl my otehr anime watchign were legit.
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Lum
 Posts: 45 Location: Lakeland, Florida |
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I try and only download fansubs of series I don't think will be licensed in the US anytime soon. Which are mostly older anime like Creamy Mami. Although sometimes I will download a couple episodes of a series and see if I should get it or not. If a show I have does happen to get licensed, I delete it right away so I can go out and buy the DVD's.
I love supporting the anime industry but I will say I always try to get my DVD's as cheap as possible. That's what Rightstuf is for. 
I personally think fansubs are a great thing. Sure, there's people who abuse it but eh.. There's always going to be people like that. I see fansubs as being ok as long as they aren't licensed. I wouldn't like the idea of the japanese companies asking fansubs to be removed if the series isn't in English yet. And there aren't too may R2 dvd's with english subs. So Unless they start putting subs on more of their R2's.. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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However, I AM in agreement that the studio's in Japan have to wake up and start beating the pirates at their own game by inserting at least English subtitles on to their domestic R2 disks. It would put pay to the lame excuse of "It's raw, we have to fansub it to understand it." I have no problem with a person fansubbing just for their own enjoyment, and the law as it stands says thats allowed, though if a person could understand the language to be able to translate it in the first place, what would be the point?  When that person then makes it available to the world, free, or not. That is just wrong and illegal theft from the authors' of those productions, full stop. No amount of self rightious frosting is going to make it any tastier, and it won't fool the magistrates either.
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Lum
Posts: 45 Location: Lakeland, Florida |
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I don't see what's the big deal if you buy the DVD's too. Your supporting the industry. I never trust reviews, I like to find out for myself. And I really am loving the Newtype disk thing. That was a really great idea. But I have this rule for me to not buy something if I can't understand it. So I usually wait for an R1 release. But not all anime get an R1 release. So.. That's where fansubs come in for me. And like I said, There's so many great anime I wouldn't have even heard of or noticed if it wasn't for fansubs.
"It's raw, we have to fansub it to understand it." That doesn't really make sense and I haven't ever heard that excuse. The only thing I hear from fansubbers is that they want to show more anime to the english speaking community. Anyways. I don't really care what other people do. They can do what they want. It's not really any of my business. If people want to do something, they're gonna do it. |
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Shorty22
 Posts: 504 |
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I've never downloaded a fansub. On my 28.8 connection, I'd have to be insane to even try. The only thing I have is one raw Japanese episode of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee and a few episodes of Samurai Pizza Cats.
I like to view the show before I risk money on them, so I limit my collection to whatever I've seen. Granted, this method limits my anime exposure, but I'm not dying for something new yet, so I think it's working pretty well so far. It's just too risky to guess on titles based off genre and summary. I never know what I'm going to like; I say I hate magical girl shows, but I like Cardcaptor Sakura & Magic Knight Rayearth. And then the summaries are always so vague... they seem to leave out everything. Based entirely on reading the backs of my disks, I would have never bought some of them. I understand why they can't have more anime on TV, but why can't they have commercials for the series? I mean, a clip-show commercial would be like a preview, gives us a taste of the animation, plus the main plot. Like that semi-recent Inuyasha commercial/advertisement; it said Inuyasha & Kagome are on a quest to gather the jewel shards with some powerful allies and are against Naraku... only if there's not a sexual harassment charge first. Main good guys, lead baddie, the basic plot and even a mention of a pervert, which either means comedic relief and/or slight romance. And that's basically what Inuyasha is all about. Sure there's other points, but the advertisement got the general gist of things across. I think some advertisements, even if they're just on during AS, for some non-TV bound series would do some good. |
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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Somewhat tangental to the issue, but...
http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/11/29/161239.shtml?tid=127&tid=186&tid=212&tid=98&tid=99 It's about how PS2 games will be significantly cheaper in China than in the US/EU.. the reason is because the market is so saturated with bootlegs that if they sold for too high a price, no one would buy them at all.. .. so if they include a few minor things extra (a box and an instruction book, for two...) and aim at a price only a bit higher, they're expecting better sales. Interesting. |
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Concrete Donkey
Posts: 17 Location: England, UK |
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As I have said in another thread I download and buy anime. I have one bootleg but not intentionally (whats the point of bootleg if you can download it ?)
I am going to be honest here. I do not buy anime out of a moral need to support the industry, although that is a nice benifit. I buy it because I want it. I like the official packaging, the cover arts, the dvds themselves. I have an instinctive need to own and collect. I understand that downloading copyrighted material (licenced or not) is wrong and is illigal. I make no pretense over this and I offer no justifications, only reasons. I download series I like to see. I buy series' I'd like to own. It's that simple. I do not distinguish between licenced and unlicenced when choosing what to download, I base my choices on what I want to see. If something sounds good enough to download I will. If something is good enough to buy I will stick it on my to buy list. (Right now, my measure for if it's good enough to buy or not is if I like it or not.) Almost all of the anime shows I own is because I downloaded some of it first. The exceptions are the two series that got me hooked on anime and Last Exile which I have yet to recieve from my importer. On a side note, with one of the two show I would have owned without fan subs I almost wish I had just downloaded it instead. I spent over $150 on Neon Genesis Evangelon box set in May, only to find out a more definitive version is being released. How many more anime shows will this happen too, and how many times. It's bad enough with films but with dvd collections over $100 ? I was downloading U.S. TV shows before I got into anime and for the same reasons. I can not wait for it to be released in my country. I also prefer subs to dubs. ( I prefer not watching it to dubs to be honest.) Last of all, is that even when I do buy offical products I am not helping the European Market as I have most of my stuff imported. Again, I can not wait for the DVD's to be released in England so I buy abroad. It is not just impatients but quality. Some dvd's such as Blue Gender only features the dubbed version in the UK. Some stuff I've even brought twice because of impatients. (I brought Spirited away last year in France on DVD and again when released in the states. The UK version has yet to be released.) |
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mbrother
Posts: 3 |
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I believe that fansubs currently play a more vital role in anime sales than most are willing to admit. I myself only discovered an interest in anime after stumbling across alt.binaries.multimedia groups in the newsgroups a little over a year ago. This is where I was able to discover that anime was more than the mindless Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc. that I see on mainstream tv in the U.S. (where I live).
The majority of anime that I have seen has been from fansubs I downloaded from the newsgroups. Some of what I’ve watched is licensed, some isn’t. While fansubs are admittedly illegal, there are a number of U.S. licensees who now have my money because I was made aware of their products due to fansubs. Otherwise, they would never have gotten a dime out of me since I would not have been aware of their products. It seems to me that in order to sell a product, one must advertise. People must be aware of the product in order to purchase it. I understand most anime licensees are unable to spend money on advertising. The anime market outside of Japan is still in its infancy. I also understand that there are some people who don’t buy anime because they downloaded a fansub (or even a DVD rip) for free. I would suspect those people would never fork over money anyways. Irrespective of legality, can anyone honestly say they know definitively whether fansubs expose more people to anime and anime titles that they eventually buy thus increasing sales or if fansubs simply steal sales away from titles by their very existence? I tend to believe that people who are going to cheat and steal, will do so irrespective of fansubs. But for honest people, fansubs are a big help, and ultimately help the industry. Why do U.S. licensees think/expect I will purchase their product sight unseen? I don’t purchase anything else without knowing something about it. And a small paragraph doesn’t cut it. A full try before I buy? You bet. I wouldn’t buy a movie just by watching the trailer. I’d want to see the whole thing and then decide. I’m willing to pay to see it, but I’m not going to spend $60 to $80 to find out after several DVDs that the plot runs out of gas or has more holes than the local golf course, or goes nowhere discernable (ie: Hellsing). Let’s face it. Anime is expensive to buy. And I do want to buy it, but I’m not playing Russian roulette with my dollars. I’m on a limited budget and anime is expensive to buy, so want my dollars to be well spent. On average, I have found that I’m paying $7 to $10 per half hour. I shop around online for the titles I buy because if I buy it at Borders or Amazon and you lose your shirt paying full retail. Discount or not, the licensee gets the same amount of money. Compare that to going to a movie at the theater, which costs about the same for at least an hour and a half of movie. In terms of cost ($/entertainment hour), Hollywood’s a much better deal. Quality is another story. So how am I supposed to find out about what is available and whether it’s something I wish to buy? Certainly not from the one or two paragraphs written by the licensee on his web site! By renting? On TV? Through Reviews? So I should rent? I can say that the local video stores in my area don’t have a lot of anime available to rent or to buy. I’ve looked. Many of the titles they do have are not the titles I would want to rent anyways. I guess I don’t like all that the video stores offer, and don’t see a lot that I have seen through fansubs which I liked. Much of what I buy is not available in my local video stores. The people at video rental stores are limited by what is available and by shelf space. They want to rent videos, not start trends. Every title that doesn’t rent is costing them money. Since demand is relatively low for anime, they’re not going to devote much precious shelf space to anime titles anyways. And so having little anime on their shelves creates little demand for anime. It’s a vicious circle. Anime hasn’t truly gone mainstream yet in the U.S., so I can’t blame them. I don’t expect the people at Blockbuster to push anime any time soon, and I wouldn’t want to trust their choices of what to push anyhow. I can see anime on television? While Cartoon network’s “Adult Swim” and the new anime channel (not available everywhere) do provide anime to the masses, the titles shown are extremely limited and not necessarily shown in their entirety. And they’ve got viewing/content standards issues to deal with. A lot of anime titles will never be seen in the America because of content (nudity, blood/graphic violence, sexual innuendo and situations), availability (in terms of dubs or even subs for that matter), or topic (the “this certainly won’t appeal to OUR viewers” attitudes of network execs who know little about what appeals to they’re viewers). I want to watch my anime uncut and unedited -- I am an adult. Also, U.S. television mostly shows dubs. While there seems to be great debate over this topic and strong feelings on both sides, MY experience is that the dubs of the titles I’m interested in (that I’ve heard/seen) are poorly done with respect to the voice acting, and akin to very bad B-movies. This is not going to motivate me to watch the anime and buy it. To me, dubs are often like hearing 4th graders performing Shakespeare (something only a parent could love). I’m sorry, but I need a more convincing performance with a little more emotion and feeling in the voice acting and a lot less 30/40-somethings trying to play 10 year olds. I know it’s hard to find 10 year olds who can act – but even the adult parts often sound like someone asked their friends to read a few lines. I can’t speak to the quality of the Japanese voice actors – I don’t speak Japanese, but it usually “sounds” acceptable to me. Perhaps ignorance is bliss in this case. There are indeed other issues about whether the dialog should be changed to match mouth movements, but I don’t watch the dubs so it’s not an issue for me. However, since I’m not going to watch the dubs, television is not a viable source to learn about titles I might want to see and purchase. Even if I were to watch dubbed anime on TV, there isn’t much of it available anyways. It’s bad enough Americans tend to have a “cartoons are for kids” attitude, poor voice acting isn’t helping with converts. I understand it is hard to read subtitles and watch the action at the same time. There are also those who simply don’t want to for whatever reason. That’s fine – it’s their choice. In a perfect world, we’d all be fluent in Japanese. How about reviews? Reviews are not a very good source of information either. First of all, anime reviews are like hens teeth. Look at all the titles listed on ANN, and then look at the titles reviewed. It’s not like finding reviews of Hollywood movies, where you get dozens of perspectives from tv, radio, magazines, and newspapers, not to mention the two or three people you know who probably already saw the movie. You get a better feel for something when there are multiple reviews. As such, a review by one person is of limited value, since all peoples tastes are different. Do you trust the reviewer? What is “intolerably annoying” to one person may be amusing to another. Reading a single review by one person requires an understanding of the reviewer’s tastes and how they compare to your own. Only then can you have faith in the review. Specifically, I do not find the reviews on ANN to be helpful to me in that they appear to be written specifically to a DVD release (ie: a few episodes on DVD 1 of 5) rather than a complete series in general. I personally would find full series reviews far more useful in deciding what is worth watching, and what I should skip. Some series start slow, and pick up. Others start well and crap out. Reviewing the first episode(s) is of limited value. Comparisons to other series would be useful as well. I find some of the ANN reviews I’ve read about titles I enjoyed rather negative and elitist. Knowing that “series A” has an excellent story, reminiscent of series “B”, and has the same pace and humor as series “C” and “D” would be helpful. Reading that series A is a poor copy of series B isn’t helpful. Everyone’s entitled to his/her opinion, but perhaps I haven’t seen series B yet, so I might enjoy A. Without knowing what a reviewer likes and dislikes, it’s hard to trust the review – especially when it appears the reviewer has only watched the first few episodes to draw his conclusions about the whole series. Reading, “well, maybe it’s worth seeing the next DVD when it comes out” doesn’t help me that much. I’m not just picking on ANN reviewers btw – I find ANN the best site overall that I know of for anime info. Finally, I find that fansubs are much easier to watch than DVD releases. (VHS? No thanks!) By easier, I mean that since I don’t speak Japanese, I have to read subtitles. Due to what appears to be (from what I have read) a serious flaw in DVD technology with respect to subtitles which seems to severely limit options for font, size, and color control over DVD subtitles, I find that the subtitle text is hard to read at times, especially when the text blends into the video image below it, due to color contrast issues with the underlying image. Fansubs typically have much better subtitling in terms of font, color, and size. They frequently use fonts with contrasting outlines. (black outline around a white letter) The good fansubbers also tend to do more translation “niceties”, such as translating more text on signs, doors or pieces of paper, which may not be essential to the viewer. They also provide more translator notes to help understand cultural differences or plays on words that would be lost in translation. Will this stop me from buying licensed DVDs? No. For those who brand me as one of those shameless fansub-watching thieves, I beg to differ. I spend what I can afford on anime, on average about $100 a month, and have bought numerous titles, all thanks to fansubs. It may not be a fortune to you, but it is to me. I buy the licensed releases, not bootlegs. I do shop around for the best price so I can stretch my dollars as far as possible. I buy anime because I genuinely want to support the industry, not out of “guilt” for watching free fansubs. I hope that the Japanese companies realize their interests would be best served going after the Hong Kong bootleggers who are making money off of their stolen products, rather than the fansubbers, who aren’t trying to make any money, and who are bringing anime to a wider audience, such as myself. I believe U.S. licensees are, for the moment, better served by the existence of fansubs than harmed by them. I’m sure some differ with that opinion. But if licensees ask fansubbers to stop distributing one of their titles, the fansubbers should. From what I understand, they usually don’t need to be told (Anime Junkies debate aside). Almost every fansub I’ve ever watched has a message asking the viewer to purchase the licensed version when it becomes available. Sound advice. I buy as much as I can. While fansubs are not the best answer to widening peoples’ exposure to anime, I think it’s the best answer currently, despite the obvious flaws. Forgive my rambling. |
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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I only had a couple of minor disagreements with you in your statments. The speaks to the idea of renting anime. There are enough online renters now where you pay a flat monthly fee that you could realistically do the rentals that way instead, and have access to a much larger variety than your usual mom and pop or even chain stores. I have a membership to Netflix, and there are quite a few others. Shop around and find something you would like.
The other deals with dubs. While I am usually known as a staunch sub supporter, and am leery of dubs, your comparison was laughable at best. The fact is, that the majority of voice actors in the U.S. also have stage/theater experience and have more talent than you give them credit for. The only way you would have any ground to stand on is if the "dubs of the titles I’m interested in" are basically all Hentai series, movies, etc. Those are usually the worst of the worst. Concerns about people playing 10 year olds? The majority of anime containing characters those young are typically shows geared towards kids, and based on your ramblings, aren't shows you are interested anyway. There are some fantastic dubs out there. Perhaps what I'm saying will fall on deaf ears when it comes to your case, but your scope (or ability to listen) is so narrow that your ability to argue that subject that I doubt you could convice me with your points. I "can" argue sub vs dub. I have seen and have argued on both sides of the fence very well. I can give legitimate points and tear apart the weak ones on either side. If you want to argue why you prefer sub, give us something more to think about instead of this mindless dogma. |
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holy eva
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I live in England the jolly old town of exeter and there is only one shop in town that sells anime and not one that rents them (to my extensive knowledge) so I have to download them of the internet if I want to watch them,it may be illegal but as long as I am not publicly viewing them or selling them I have not broken the law.I use the shop in town as a specialist order point as they will order in anything from japan or america for purchasing which is cool as I can find what I wnt to watch by downloading only a few eps and then ordering the rest for the quite good price of about £6-7 for a three week delay order shipping cost and £20-25 for the anime itself I think some of you guys who watch anime not released where you live but are available elsewhere should try to find somewhere you could order them from,though this may be difficult for some as I can speak a basic japanese and my bro is an A-level japanese language graduate who subs them up or writes me a script!
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