Forum - View topicCall to the anime comunity regarding fansubs
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radicaledward
 Posts: 776 |
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This is a call out to the anime community regarding fansubs. With the continuing growth of the anime community, the acknowledgment from corporations, and the speed at which modern titles are licensed and released outside of Japan we now are at a point were some of the old ways are no longer needed. Thus this is a call out to both the fansub groups and us, the anime fans.
For the Fansub Groups: The original propose of the groups has been fulfilled: anime has been introduced to all walks of live outside of Japan, and companies now see anime as being economically worthwhile (Let's not kid ourselves, companies exist primarily for the sole propose of making money). With the continuing growth of the anime community and the continuing acknowledgement of the community from the corporations anime is being released outside of Japan as fast as the companies can. Thus, it is now time for the groups to start to disband. You can pat yourselves on the back for helping to increase the popularity, but now it is time to hang up the proverbial hat. For the Anime Fans: As stated before we are now a large enough group that we have received recognition from the companies in the form of more of the anime that we all love. It is now longer uncommon to see shelves of anime for sale at mainstream stores such as Suncoast, and more titles are licensed and released every day. Thus, we must acknowledge that the old ways are no longer need. We no longer need to depend upon fansub distros for VHS or now for digi-subs, now within a few months of the title being licensed. We can no longer justify to ourselves downloading a digi-sub of a title that is either already licensed or just released in Japan when only a few short months later we see it on the selves at a local store. Thus, we must stop downloading the digi-subs, and continue to support the companies on both sides of the ocean that continue to produce anime for us. In closing to all, the ways of the old are no longer needed, and this is for the better of the entire community! |
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Meier
 Posts: 34 |
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Fewer fansubs = fewer DVD sales plain and simple. A large majority of the people who buy anime on dvd have seen the series already via fansub and wish to support and own their favorite series. You can claim it leads to people not buying the DVDs, but the simple fact is if they didn't buy them before, they're not going to buy them without fansubs, they'll simply wait for DVD rips to be available. You'll notice all the shows which had the biggest hoopla on the fansub scene end up doing so again when they're released, and for good reason, those people who were really excited about it before are chomping at the bit to get to buy it. Fansubs are what sell anime and anyone who says otherwise is wildly delusional. End your silly crusade before it starts, because it's just that -- silly.
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Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
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-_-;; why does this thread exist when we're having the exact same debate just one thread over?
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Emerje
 Posts: 7410 Location: Maine |
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I think you're the one with the delusions. A mojority of thep people downloading fansubs are unemployed students with no intentions of buying the licensed DVDs as they're available. There's not nearly as many people buying the DVDs after watching Fansubs as there are people watching the fansubs with no intent to buy. There's really no proof in either of our arguments, as far as I know there are no numbers people can go by. Sure, people say they buy the DVDs when they're made available, but people lie too, especially when cornered. Hmmm, maybe it's time for another ANN poll? Who watches fansubs and buys the DVDs and who watches fansubs with no intent to pay for the licensed products. Emerje |
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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The problem is that ... you're wrong. The proposition simply isn't true when we look at actual sales in the industry. There are millions of people in America who buy anime. There are, maybe 20,000 people who download a single episode (it's actually closer to twice that many, once you get into 2nd and 3rd-hand distribution, but...) Ask ADV how well Princess Nine sold.. and then go hunting to see if you can find any fansub group that even translated the first episode. I'll save you the trouble and answer this for you: NO ONE fansubbed Princess Nine.. And yet ADV has said that it's had suprisingly strong sales. Oops. I'm sure Bandai only managed to sell as many copies of Cowboy Bebop as they have (remember, they made 15k limited edition boxes, all of which sold out very quickly), and that the special Cowboy Bebop set on Amazon is only the #212 best selling DVD set thanks to fansubbers, and not that CN wanted CB on TV. Likewise Escaflowne, which had a terrible run on Fox, somehow manages to outsell plenty of other series (currently rated 2100ish) Maybe it's thanks to fansubbers that all the Ranma 1/2 TV boxed sets are selling in the top-3000 or so, since Ranma never made it to TV in any format. Oh, wait, no, that can't be true, because Ranma fansubs haven't existed for years. No, the short of it is.. people who download fansubs are a part of the minority of all fans.. TV broadcast is the greatest promotion anime can receive.. followed by big fandoms and word of mouth. You may have an argument that fansubs increase word-of-mouth, but that's a tricky thing to judge. P9 did well enough without fansubs or a TV broadcast. Fansubs didn't save Tokyopop's Saint Tail, that's for sure. Of course, I'm just using Amazon sales ranks because it's quick and easy, but they're not representative of the video sales industry as a whole. Looking elsewhere, however, the numbers don't differ a whole lot in the grand scheme of things -- Akira and Ghost in the Shell are more popular than Crest of the Stars, etc. Without exact values (which the industry currently has no plans to disclose) we can only really guess as to -exactly- how well certain anime titles are selling. |
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Shouta
Posts: 32 |
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You're mentioning the exception, not the norm Cookie. While I'm not saying that fansubbed = better sales, it doesn't hurt them either. You CAN consider fansubs as a small disutrbace that starts the giant avalanche though.
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ChickMagnet
Posts: 36 |
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Nonsense.
I will download Fansubs at my leisure. I'm the type that will ONLY watch a fansubbed series if I've read up enough on it to KNOW I will enjoy it. I also have the means to buy pretty much any series I enjoy when it is released domestically (and I do), and I've been known to buy the Japanese DVD's from time to time for the extras. 
I've never watched a series on my computer that I didn't turn around and start collecting once it hit stateside. Sure, I may be broke because of it, but I love this art form enough that I'm just happy supporting it any way I can. |
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Shouta
Posts: 32 |
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Oh and too add, the purpose people put on fansubbing (i.e. making anime much more wide spread America) is indeed right, even if it wasn't an intent for fansubbing in the first place. The OTHER purpose (which I consider the true purpose of fansubbing) is much more pertinent now. Since anime is widespread, people like us (the fansubbers) have to resolve to look harder for series that are good and unknown. I know I bust my butt trying to find series no one has ever seen or heard of. So fansubbing still has a purpose.
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GUTB
Posts: 32 |
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I would like to report that that the volume and quality of fansubs is increasing, and also that this trend will no tbe stopping any time soon.
Isn't that just too bad? Now go cry yourself to sleep over the lost revenue of US anime companies. |
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ChickMagnet
Posts: 36 |
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No need to be caustic my friend. Nobody is crying.
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Ataru
 Posts: 2327 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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If you going to feed the trolls anything, feed them your comments outside the net.
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Neilworms
 Posts: 155 Location: Chicago IL |
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I'm not arguing for fansubbers to disband, but their should defintely be more emphasis on older shows that have not and probably will not be liscensed. I think this would be far more beneficial to the anime community than getting the newest shows out as quickly as possible. Doing these shows is fighting the battle, whereas with the newer shows, the battle has already been (for the most part) won. I am still shocked that the only interest of fansubbers is the newsest shows obtained instantly the moment they air. Why don't they step back a bit and look at interesting old stuff that hasn't been liscensed? Not to mention that other countrys are beginning to produce animation that is of interest. I read an article about how South Korea is now seriously trying to fight against japanese animation, why doesn't someone try to get into fansubbing Korean animation. I have heard a lot about how serious they've been as of late and yet I see nothing out of the subbers. (Also I think native Korean Speakers are much easier to find in this country than Japanese.) Also France is starting to produce some animation that is interesting, someone could translate those films. In fact the general promotion of animation is a good thing all the way around for anime fans, for it helps animation become a more viable and respected medium (at least among a limited audience). As long as the animation falls outside of the disney norm it is worth promoting the sale of in this country. Finally I notice that TV series are the most common form of fansubbing, why doesn't anyone try to get films? I know that many of these are likely to be picked up by Big Hollywood distro's nowadays but still its intersting that digisubbers have boxed themselfs into such a narrow band on the spectrum of what they could do. |
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Digital-Kitty
Posts: 15 Location: Greenville, SC |
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Well damn, you should give me a yell sometime. I have no problems finding series that most people have ever heard of or seen. I cant even find an english webpage for one title Im on with a group right now. I just have a hard time finding groups that are willing to assist me on them sometimes. Well, considering fansubbing is no longer needed, I do find it odd that nearly all my anime collection I bought has been because of fansubs... including my PS2 and .Hack games... and nearly all of my R2 DVDs too. |
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Steventheeunuch
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It's amazing to see how the fansub people consider themselves to be a majority, when they're not.
Though I can understand fansubbers NOT liscencing shows that pretty much have easy liscencability, there's still older stuff to do. |
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Meier
Posts: 34 |
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I guess you missed the part where I said if they're not buying them now because of fansubs, they're not going to buy them if they were to stop either, they'd just download DVD rips. Fansubs dont stop people from buying DVDs, the people who buy them will buy them regardless and the cheap people who dont, aren't gonna get them. Cookie, the primary reason P9 sold well is because it was cheap as hell. I bought the first 2 discs just because they were $9.99 and I enjoyed them so I bought the rest as it came out. I think you're probably under the false impression of what 'selling well' was in regards to P9 though. I would be shocked if the entire series did even do 90k discs total, but being a shoujo sports series, selling ANYTHING would be considered having 'sold well.' Cowboy Bebop, Ranma 1/2, Escaflowne all were very popular via the VHS fansub scene as well and CB was extremely popular already prior to its CN run which has helped cement its popularity, but certainly did not play much of a role in it becoming more widestream as is evidenced by its fairly disappointing box office take (even worse than Metropolis last year). Noir, Excel Saga, RahXephon, Chobits, Berserk, Full Metal Panic (not out yet but you can bet it will sell well), Initial D (see previous), etc. all were HUGELY popular via fansubs and this has lead the word to be spread around about them and helped sales. By the way, you're misinformed if you think 'millions' of Americans are buying anime DVDs considering Spirited Away's sales of roughly 250,000 were the highest disc sales of the year (and would have stayed that way) and more than likely a major portion of those sales were not to anime fans. I'm guessing on average a popular anime disc will sell 50k copies if it's lucky, and probably a minimum of 25% of the people buying the series have already seen it via fansub. And one of the few series which has actually been able to sell outside the target anime demographic are the Transformers discs. In regards to the number of downloads, just from the TW and AonE/ANBU encodes, each episode of Naruto is being downloaded in the vicinity of 40-50k times only via bittorrent which at most would make up probably half the downloads of the show. While this is not the norm yet, it'll be the first of many shows which see in excess of 100k downloads per week. You're using perhaps 5 series in the history of the North American market, but look at ALL the popular shows nowadays released via DVD and all had succesful and large runs via fansubs. Whether or not it's the people who saw the series on fansub before, or simply heard of it on message boards and bought it based on recommendations of those who did see it, fansubs are BY FAR the largest advertisement for 99.9% of anime released in America and all the advertising comes at no cost to the distributor. As for Neilworms, the reason you do not see many fansubbed anime films is because a.) there's really not all that many of them (I'd say from glancing over the Japan box office figures on Box Office Mojo that there's no more than 25 theatrical releases each year) and because a decent raw for them are not available until a DVD or VHS is out sometime later. TV series have their raws captured and available within an hour or less of their broadcast in Japan, so it's primarily due to the ease of aquiring them. |
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