Forum - View topicNEWS: DramaFever Streaming Service Shuts Down
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Felicity dash
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I’m thankful I still have Viki. But this is still saddening Absolue Boyfriend was one of my favorites on there.
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Raebo101
 Posts: 814 |
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I'm still able to watch Coffee Prince on VRV, so I'll be okay. Still, I feel for the people that got layed off because of this.
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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This is kinda disappoint to see that DramaFever to see its asian drama legacy behind, but at least we have Viki that has to offer asian dramas on it.
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SheRrIs
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I've never heard of that service.
 The only legal platforms I know of that stream dramas are Viki and Crunchyroll.
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Hinotoumei
Posts: 100 |
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I remember thinking to myself, randomly, that I should probably finish watching Hyde Jekyll and I in case something happened. That was Monday morning. I had no knowledge of a shut down at that time. I laughed it off figuring there would be no problem.
Now it is Wednesday morning and the whole site is shut down. WHAT A JOKE. Drama fever was basically the only source of sub titled asian dramas for many people across the world. And people wonder why piracy is a big thing. The prices of drama dvd (which have no subs typically) on sites like yesasia are ridiculous. what a joke. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2686 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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The problem with Viki is that it's translations are entirely crowd-produced, i.e. if no one cares about a show then it gets no subtitles. Personally, I only ever saw a single show over at DramaFever, which was Team Astro, the 2005 adaptation of an over-the-top baseball manga that ran in Shonen Jump during the 70sl. It was the single Japanese J-Drama/tokusatsu that the site ever translated from scratch (the others it had were all previously translated by other companies)... And it showed. Names were mangled (they infamously named all of the main characters by their jersey # [Astro 1, Astro 2, etc.], instead of their actual names [Kyuichi, Kyuji, etc.]), an American who spoke perfect English was subtitled incorrectly, and special moves weren't translated well. It's obvious that translating from Japanese wasn't DramaFever's forté. Still, the show was absolute insanity & immediately memorable, but since it was only on DramaFever no one really knew of it, and in 2015 the show was taken off the site, due to an expired license. Sure, the show also wound up on Viki, but because no one there gave a crap about Team Astro, the most that show ever got in terms of translation was the first episode, and even that only saw 80% completion. I'd love for Team Astro to be given a (proper) chance on a site like CrunchyRoll of Hidive, but I highly doubt that will ever happen, and the chances of it ever being given a home video release over here are so low that they're negative. So thank you for giving Team Astro a chance, DramaFever, but that show really deserved better. |
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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When i look at the Viki there about: South Korea: 308 China: 214 Taiwan: 61 Japan: 40 That's the only drama we had it on our show. At least South Korea and China offers a lots of catalouge of Drama here than the Taiwanese and Japanese drama there. Did Viki ever considered licensing Tokusatsu Drama on it? (sorry for my poor English) |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2686 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Aca Vuksa, I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're trying to illustrate with your response. All I said was that Team Astro was the only Japanese drama/toku show DramaFever ever translated (roughly) from scratch, & that while Viki did also eventually get the show, it's crowd-sourced translation went effectively no where. I know that Viki has more Japanese shows in general, but DramaFever tended to focus on Chinese, Taiwanese, & Korean shows; the Japanese catalog it had never even hit 10 in total.
All I was saying was that I'm grateful DramaFever took a chance with Team Astro, but considering how few people even knew of DramaFever in the first place, followed by the show's lack of support over at Viki (which has more Japanese support in general), I feel that the show deserved better, like streaming over at a more well known site, like CrunchyRoll or Hidive. |
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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@Lord Geo
So Team Astro was the only Tokutatsu drama to be licensed, am i right? Okay then, i know this is very well. DramaFever has been focusing too much on Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese dramas a lot more right now. But i haven't seen J-Drama getting licensed, wonder what's wrong with J-Drama companies today, why they aren't giving us a more j-drama? I heard this about complaining about no j-dramas for 3 years on CR right here: http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-1023703/no-new-dramas-in-3-years |
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1674 |
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https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/warnermedia-direct-to-consumer-streaming-service-john-stankey-1202975598/
Looks like this was due to consolidation, they got rid of the more niche service. Weird, because it was assumed on that article that Warner Bros would be adding it to their service bundle... |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2686 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Okay, I see. Unfortunately, J-Dramas & toku are just that much of a niche outside of Japan. CrunchyRoll tried giving them a big push for a number of years, even simulcasting stuff like the live-action Death Note & Akagi adaptations and even the new Ultraman productions, but it seems like few (if any) really brought in solid streaming numbers. Most anime fans don't tend to be as interested in J-Dramas or toku, & J-Drama fandom is definitely a smaller market (hence why home video companies tend to avoid them). Finally, toku fandom in general is very segmented, so Kamen Rider fans don't tend to care about new Ultraman productions, for example. There are exceptions, of course. Shout! Factory's Super Sentai DVD sets seem to be selling consistently, especially since we're now gotten a pre-Power Rangers series with Jetman, but that has the benefit of not just attracting Sentai fans, but also Power Rangers fans who are curious about the original shows. Maiden Japan's Garo releases must be doing well enough, because they keep coming out, but that series has the benefit of having a potential fanbase already, due to the anime spin-offs being released beforehand. Sadly, though, those are likely outliers amongst a sea of failures. BCI Eclipse tried releasing a bunch of older toku series, like Ultraman, Iron King, & Red Baron, but those all infamously bombed & the company went out of business. Shout! Factory did give the Ultra Series a try with Ultra Q & Ultra Seven a few years back, but considering that we never received anything else from that company, it's likely those undersold. Finally, it's generally believed that Kamen Rider is super expensive to license, which is why we've only ever received two productions (V3 & The First) in their original Japanese form, and there's word that the V3 release only happened because the company that did it effectively had to consistently badger Toei to let them do it, even though they're a super-small company, & even then the set is absurdly priced (possibly a Toei demand), so very few have actually bought it. |
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Aca Vuksa
Posts: 643 Location: Nis, Serbia |
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@Lord Geo
Yeah, at least J-Drama still remains niche into this day. We are getting a lot of demands of Korean, Chinese and other asian drama today. I know one thing is for sure that J-Drama is known for its low-budget production and they don't produce J-Drama quality very well comparted to Asian dramas. |
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Hinotoumei
Posts: 100 |
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Team medical dragon
Deathnote Liar game (Japanese version) Future diary Not many good jdramas tbh. Most of the good ones are Chinese or Korean. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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This is a shame, but they are keeping some of their staff, which makes me wonder if they are holding on as a company in some way. Are they continuing to license and/or translate shows for other services like Hulu? Or is the remaining staff only staying on temporarily to close up shop, so to speak?
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Risami
Posts: 20 |
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I even re subbed last month i guess i am lucky to cancel it since I used it through app. But I was planning to watch all those new kdramas as I thought they finally got some good dramas.
Who is going to obtain these dramas now? Viki? I have viki but i really want to see 17 to 30, beauty inside, sketch, and whatever new ones the had 
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