Reponse to Fansub Post
So I told my girlfriend right before I posted on Thursday that a lot of people will be pissed off at what I had to say. I know that my website’s target audience was the fansub community, and I was flat-out telling them that they were wrong. So I got a lot of negative feedback from a lot of people, and let me just take this time to retort and clarify some things said.
First of all, of course, there is no absolute. Nothing is all bad, just as nothing is purely good either. Maybe this is where a lot of the misunderstandings came from. But anyway, to clear it up, the point of my previous post was that I believe most of the fansubbing community doesn’t support the industry the way that they should be. There’s a code out there that says when a series is licensed, you delete the fansubs and purchase the legit DVD when they come out. But from what I’ve been seeing around the community, with websites such as Baka Updates and all the a-holes asking for the latest “Samurai Champloo” torrent on internet forums, it appears to me that this code is dead. What the hell, people?
Now, that’s not to say that everyone out there is wrong. As I said, most people are screwing over the industry, but this does not mean everybody. Do I have any evidence to back that up? No, of course not. Like I would have the resources to do so! But supposedly the US anime companies have done the research and they do have the factual evidence to support it. Maybe I might try to contact them to provide me with the actual data. I do know the evidence exists because I actually brought up the question at panels at Anime Boston this year.
But all the evidence you really need is right in front of you. Look at yourself and figure out if my claims are true. If you really do delete the fansubs and buy the legit DVDs, buy the manga, or even just watch the shows on American television, then I believe you can call yourself a fan of anime. And if everyone in the fansub community was like that, then the market would be great. We would have lower DVD prices and more content available on TV. But most of the community is not like that, and instead claim that I’m full of shit instead of admitting to their own downfalls. So let me just clear up some things that some very disrespectful people have been throwing at me.
First of all, it was said that I’m hypocritical for not buying any DVDs myself. Really? That’s strange because if you look at the toolbar towards your right, I have links to my on-line cataloging of my DVD collection and manga collection. To sum it up, I have around 130 disks of Anime DVDs, 275 books of manga in English, and 80 books of manga in Japanese. Now, I would estimate that the average cost of these things would be $20 a DVD, $10 an English book, and $3 a Japanese book. If you plug in those numbers, my collection is worth over $5,500.
Am I rich? Hell no. But as long as I was gainfully employed, I could afford a DVD or a couple of manga books per week during my high school years. When I got to college, I was no longer able to afford as much, so I had to drop collecting my DVD series and some of my manga series. However, I still kept and eye out for large sales at my local bookstores and went on manga shopping sprees when they came around. For DVDs, I started my own anime club and worked out deals with companies to get their products in exchange for my cooperation in “pimping it” to my club. I still earned the DVDs in that respect.
But supporting the industry doesn’t have to be restricted to just that looking at how much money you fork over. Considering that many of you are in college, you have cable TV supplied to you as being part of your dorm room in most colleges. For others, I’m sure that your parents pay for cable at your house. Use it. Watch the great programming on Adult Swim like Ghost in the Shell or Paranoia Agent. You not spending any more money, and the ratings turn into success for the industry and interest in putting more content on TV.
Now as far as my position on fansubs are concerned, I believe it’s okay as long as you follow the code mentioned earlier. The reason I watch fansubs is because you cannot get these series in the US. The Japanese DVDs are too expensive, and you don’t have the option of seeing these shows on TV either. And besides that, the DVDs are region coded and un-translated. They intentionally make it so you can’t watch them in the US without turning to illegal methods! However, once a company picks up a series for US distribution, you can no longer justify watching bootlegged versions of these series with these reasons. If you are a fan, you are now obligated to support the series legitly now that you have the power to do so.
I do delete the series once it’s licensed. In fact, I usually delete them before they’re licensed 
. So far, there’s only five series I’ve downloaded that’s been licensed:
Girls Bravo
DearS
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Psychic Academy
Ah! My Goddess! TV
I mentioned the first two in my previous post, and mistakenly put that “Sometimes I doubt I will buy them.” That’s because at the moment I’m currently unemployed, so I will unable to do so for financial reasons. But God, I wanna get them! If I can’t pay for it, I’ll earn them in other ways. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Geneon to work out some kind of deal of promoting these two series on this site. But if that doesn’t work out, I’m about to start a new job so I’m pretty sure I will be able to afford them. But besides that, I do currently own all the DearS manga that’s out right now in the US.
As far as the other series go, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is going to start airing on Cartoon Network this fall, and you can bet your ass I’ll be watching that every day and telling all of you to watch it with me. The releases for Psychic Academy and AMG are still pretty far away, but I believe with the help of this site, my situation will be better when they do and I’ll gladly buy them with no issue.
So I hope that this cleared up exactly what I was pissed off about, as well as disprove many people’s claims at my hypocrisy. This is my blog, and so I can freely express my opinions and feelings on whatever I want. I respect your views and opinions as well, and therefore I never delete a comment from a reader unless it’s blatantly disrespectful to my other readers. However, I leave up all the comments that are blatantly disrespectful to me to show just how one should not react to something. If you don’t agree with me, then let me know so, but still be respectful to my views as I am to yours. Satoshi and Kabitzin at SeaSlugs have both done so in a very tasteful manner, and so I really commend them on that. There is a clear difference between constructive criticism and simply being an asshole. Please remember that.
So, my stance is still the same. If you rely solely on fansubs for your anime entertainment, then you are leeching off of the industry. And you don’t need facts to prove this, just take a personal look at yourselves and fansubbing friends. The industry is on the decline right now, and it’s up to us to restore it to it’s former glory and make it better then ever.
I’m doing all I can. How about you?
Holy Jesus Crap Cracker Christ! That’s a huge freakin’ collection. I feel so ashamed. Either way, you’re damn freakin’ right. Also, I just dled th first episode of Ichigo. It was alright. Since you seem to like it so much though, I’m dling the second episode. Finally, do you know of a BitTorrent site that crries the first episode of Yakitate? Thanks for kicking ass, Scott.
Comment by Brad — June 5, 2005 @ 2:42 am
Just to point out, what we are downloading is mainly from television where you can watch something when it’s on and be done with it. Most people don’t even watch their episodes twice unless they really enjoy it and then they’ll get it on dvd.. if it even gets translated. So pretty much the only difference is people can’t watch it on television so they download it to watch once and be done with it. Why would you buy hundreds of dvds when there is a good chance you aren’t even going to watch it again?
Comment by Anonymous — June 5, 2005 @ 3:01 am
I agree a lot with what Scott says here so that makes my reply short enough to fit here :p
One thing I can’t quite agree with you, Scott, is where you mention that the anime industry is “in decline”. Now, I’m in no better position than you to know that or not, but from what I’ve read it’s been described as “saturated”, which indicates that the market is holding steady.
This means that, to the distributors (ADV et al), the anime industry has become a mature market. In this phase, competition can get pretty serious because there’s no more pie being served - if you want more, you have to take it from someone else. Contrast this with a growth industry (which most everyone agreed until recently anime was), in which market size is continually increasing, new players can enter the market fairly easiliy, and competition, while agressive at times, is not as necessary to maintain growth.
Now, I personally disagree with the assessment that the market is mature. I’m not the most connected-with-NA-culture kinda guy, but it seems to me that anime distributors have been relying on fansubbers (you know who you are) and hardcore fans (we know who we are :p) to increase market share via viral marketing.
And that worked, and the market expanded, and everyone was happy.
Now the viral marketing campaign is losing steam. What do you if you’re a company whose marketing campaign hasn’t got a good ROI? You cancel it. Save your money and invest it elsewhere. One could argue this campaign isn’t costing companies anything but you can bet they’re counting estimated losses due to fansub distros as a cost.
So *that’s* why companies like ADV are suddenly proclaiming that fansubs are obsolete. They’ve treated it like its their own little jingle, and want to do away with it. From their perspective, can you blame them? Makes perfect business sense..
..except that I don’t see them bothering to grow their market it any *other* way. Sure, I see anime advertising…to people who ALREADY WATCH anime. When’s the last time someone turned on NBC or whatever you Americans watch and saw an ad for the latest romance anime?
Maybe such ads do exist. I don’t watch NA network TV, so I dunno. I’m pretty sure I’d have heard of it from my more mainstream-oriented colleagues at work, though (they all know I’m the anime guy.. :p)
As Scott points out above, the (apparently) increasing number of ‘code abusers’ isn’t helping matters, either.
The word ‘hacker’ used to mean an intelligent programmer who solved challenging problems. Then guys with no morals started using the word to make them sound better. The media picked up that word and ran with it, and now you can see script kiddies and crackers styled as ‘hackers’.
The same sort of thing seems to be happening with fansubbers, and people who watch fansubs. The whole movement is going to get a black eye at this rate.
I don’t really know why..I mean, con artists call themselves ‘honest businessmen’ but we have no problem differentiating between the two. Maybe it’s that there’s a larger degree of seperation between the general public and programmers (or fansubbers) that makes this easier…I don’t have an easy answer.
Bleah, this turned out long after all. Sorry, Scott :p Kinda got off topic but I agree with everything else you said, no problem.
A couple last comments about what ‘Anonymous’ wrote above. I’m not sure if they’re trying to justify watching anime because it’s not available in their region at all (so they have no recourse), or because it’s not available without shelling out cash (i.e. only on DVD and not on TV).
He (or she) points out that buying a DVD of something, just to treat it like a TV show, is a stupid way to spend your money. Well, I agree, but folks spend their money in stupid ways all the time. How many people have an excercise bike in their basement they used 2 or 3 times? Or bought a book they read once and stuck into storage?
A good way to see how much junk you’ve accumulated is to move. Then you see pretty quickly
Seriously, though, there’s more to buying an anime DVD than it’s watch-once value. I’ve probably watched any given DVD I have three times or so over the years, but there’s also:
(a) The ability to watch it any time you like.
(b) The ability to lend it to others to watch any time they request it of you (does promoting anime to others factor into your life at all?)
(c) The ability to use it as a reference (some may claim this is laughable - who’d refer to a TV show! - but it can come in handy).
(d) The sheer collection value of it. Some people collect stamps. Or string. Collecting art (as anime could be called) doesn’t seem too silly.
It all comes down to your priorities, of course. Different people collect different things. Some people collect money. I’m in no position to claim what *you* personally (for any value of ‘you’) should want to collect. ‘Cause you’re not me.
What really irks people like me (and from I’ve read on this site, Scott) is that people’s priorities suddenly change when they have to put something of value on the line. If you’ll only collect something if it doesn’t cost you anything..then you’re not really honestly a collector, are you? It’s still your choice (different priorities and all) but don’t be surprised if actual collectors look down on you for it.
Comment by Satoshi — June 5, 2005 @ 4:37 am
It’s a shame people had to resort to personal attacks in some of the comments, but I respect your stance. Obviously fansubbing has its downsides, but the fact remains that it is probably the best advertising that many anime companies have right now. I think that may be one of the biggest problems with the industry. I also disagree with the statement about the “former glory” because I don’t remember this period of time. Regardless of how you feel, however, I highly doubt that the industry fighting the fansubbing community will help in any way. The companies need to stop playing the blame game and start thinking of new ways to promote their product. Perhaps it’s not fair, but if you play that card for too long, someone’s going to take your market share. I find it hard to take say that fansubbing is completely bad, because I watch fansubs AND buy product, and I just want people to think through any statements they make about the issue.
BTW, Satoshi says he wanted to keep it short, but when I clicked on “comments” I mistook his comment for the actual post!!!
Comment by Kabitzin — June 5, 2005 @ 4:51 am
Sorry, Kabitzin! I have two kinds of ’short’ - where I keep things short, and where I try to but fail miserably. The latter is much more common.
Something I was just thinking about - that anime channel or whatever one of the companies (ADV?) is trying to promote. How do they promote it? They’re asking fans to bug their cable companies for it.
Umm.
Where’s Captain Obvious when we need him?
Comment by Satoshi — June 5, 2005 @ 5:11 am
Wait, you hooo
I for one, believe that theanime industry in America is uh, in what one calls a “bubble economy,” where the sum of all its parts is exaggerated relative to the worth of an individual part. What I mean to say that anime is valuable in America but each individual company’s releases are… well, ranging from good to bad and to just plain ugly…
The anime industry got a free ride from the Internet. No, really. It’s like the US and Japan in the postwar era. Japan depended on the US to maintain an international interest in its industry, just like the anime industry depends on the Internet to maintain in interest in its products. Now that they’ve had their free ride, they want to kill the competition. And instead of taking over the market with fair prices, good advertising, quality products, etc. they have put out shoddy products at high prices with little or no advertising. If a large company like ADV can’t compete with a fansub group… the American entertainment industry is doomed… not because of piracy, but because of their own sheer stupidity.
You worked out deals with companies to get their products in exchange for “pimping it” in your club? How does one do this…? Could you please advise me on how to have the Lehigh club arrange such things?Thanks!
Comment by Token Asian — June 6, 2005 @ 4:42 am
This most recent post makes you sound like since you have a very nice collection of anime goods, it makes yourself better than a good part of the fansub community. Maybe that’s not your intent, but your words “I’m doing all I can. How about you?” makes me think otherwise. I think the amout of anime DVD’s/manga you buy is irrelevant; if you’re breaking the rules even a little bit, you’re still breaking the rules and don’t have the right to tell people to do the right thing. If you indeed own every DVD for which you’ve watched fansubs, then that’s great; I have no complaints. I feel it would’ve been more constructive to say something like “let’s all do our best to support the industry” since in the end, that’s all we can do.
Basically to defend yourself, you try and make your original argument ambiguous (”Nothing is all bad, just as nothing is purely good either”), admit you have no factual proof to back up your claim (”Do I have any evidence to back that up? No, of course not.”) and try to shift the blame on your readers (”Look at yourself and figure out if my claims are true”, “There is a clear difference between constructive criticism and simply being an asshole.”). I’m glad that to defend yourself you have to bring up how much your collection is worth. I could bring up the cost of my collection, but a comparison of our e-penises isn’t exactly constructive. These are just a few of the gripes I have with your arguments.
I have nothing against your sentiments. In many ways I agree that fansub viewers aren’t doing everything they can to support the industry. But that’s life isn’t it? If every fan supported their interest whole heartedly, then there would be no casual fans, only hardcore fans. I don’t find it constructive to preach what fans should do because fans are going to do damn well what they please.
The fact of the matter is, if there is enough money to be made from the anime industry, the licensors will find a way to make a profit. If they place their inability to turn a profit on the fansub scene, that just exemplifies their inability to market or innovate. As people have stated, anime rode the fansub wave into America. Without fansubs, there would be no anime market. Now they have to deal with it.
Through everything, your posts have spurred a lot of thinking, and for that I must commend your posts and appreciate the time you took to write them. While I find some of the syntax and diction bothersome, I clearly understand your point. I think you are a great fan of anime, regardless of disagreements, and respect you for that.
I’ll offer a preemptive apology in the case you find any of my comments of the “asshole” variety.
Comment by rixot — June 6, 2005 @ 3:35 pm
Oh the continuing tragedy that is the fandom of anime.
And the answer to the “million-dollar question” is: We don’t have millions of dollars, idiot!
Some business somewhere understood what’s going on and that’s why you now have usable products that are now so cheap. (I was taught to say “inexpensive” instead of “cheap,” but…)
Some Japanese companies understood what’s going on and that’s why you have a lot of anime with its art and animation looking cheap. From the bad art and coloring of Negima to the image reuse abuse in Gundam Seed Destiny.
Media Factory went batnuts over downloading and torrenting of their shows. Why? Because they’re paying attention. But just think of how negatively the “fandom” would react if all companies decided to do what Media Factory did.
I, myself, am afraid of the “ADV syndrone:” They’re on the fansub community’s side, they’re your friends. But sometime later, they’re now your enemies because fansubbing cuts into their profits.
When it rains, it pours. Here’s the ketchup.
Comment by Tyrenol — June 7, 2005 @ 9:17 am
There’s two kinds of anime fans I hate:
Purists
Fansub worshippers
These are the people that prefer to watch their anime in Japanese, with or without English subtitles and don’t support R1 releases. Now, by saying that, I’m not referring to just anybody who watches anime that way. I’m referring to the hundreds of “elitists” who plague forums like AnimeNation, with messages saying “DUBS ARE T3H CRAP!!!!1111!!!!” or “These radio announ…. er “voice actors” are terrible. They can’t act for shit and they butcher and ruin anime. Dubs should all be destroyed because they all suck and are a plague to anime.” You know what I have to say to that?
All you purists can kiss my ass because I don’t give two shits what you think. Dubs have horrible acting, butcher the anime, and plague the industry? Yeah, maybe when you’re talking about 4Crap… er, 4Kids. They are the only distributor (at least in the US) that butchers anime by changing music, character names, removing objectionable material, and, most importantly, changing the story, making a teen-centered anime like Tokyo Mew Mew into a kids’ show (Mew Mew Power) They also release their anime on edited-only DVDs (although FUNimation is changing that somewhat) which do not feature Japanese audio. Their actors (from TAJ Productions) are terrible. There are a few exceptions, like Eric Stuart (Brock in Pokemon/Seta Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!/Narrator in One Piece) and Veronica Taylor (Ash Ketchum in Pokemon) but other than that, there aren’t many other good ones. Now, just pretend 4Satan… I mean, 4Kids doesn’t exist. Look at all the other anime companies, such as ADV, FUNimation, TOKYOPOP, Geneon and Bandai. All these companies are releasing awesome series that fans may or may not know of. These titles are all released uncut, with both dub and sub, and the dubs are usually acceptable, if not perfect. Look at such dubs as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Steve Blum and David Lucas are great as Spike and Mugen. Wendee Lee, who has been in anime dubs since Robotech, has done countless characters and given them childlike or mature, sexy voices. Take Faye Valentine or Yumi Komagata (Rurouni Kenshin: Legend of Kyoto) for example. Does Lee ruin the dub? I think not? These people know what they are doing and have been doing it for some time. They are also fans. John Ledford and Matt Greenfield (a director and voice actor) both founded ADV because of the huge expenses they had to go through to get anime. From a small anime club, into a small studio in the back of a building, they are now the biggest distributor of anime in the US and UK to date. They have hundreds of titles; in fact, they released over 150 series about 2 years ago. And that’s just ADV.
The voice actors are very popular people. If you go to any anime convention, there will be panels featuring the dub actors. Sometimes a con will invite 10 or more actors *coughcoughanimebostoncoughcough* who speak to the fans and sign autographs. Of course, all the purists stay out of those rooms, because they believe these people are complete hacks who don’t know what they’re doing.
Purists are the ones plaguing the anime industry. If you don’t like dubs, that’s fine, but you don’t have to parade around, trying to make your own opinions into facts and shutting out anyone who disagrees. And if you really love a series, you’d buy the R1 DVDs and/or watch the series on TV. By not doing this and saying “Naruto rules but I’m not watching the dub!” you are showing that you only want things done your way and you have no intent of actually supporting a product you claim to “be the biggest fan of.”
Comment by Starwind (Alex) — June 7, 2005 @ 5:57 pm
But waitaminute? If they’re purist… wouldn’t the buy R2’s and a DVD that only plays R2 and such?
But yeah. “Sub-shippers.” I had to download my favorite show raw anymore. What a mess…
Comment by Tyrenol — June 9, 2005 @ 8:54 am
I don’t want to leave a comment on the topic itself, but I wanted to say I respect your opinion and think it’s absoultley okay you post it here. This is your blog, your place, your opinion! Yours alone! Opinion!!!
It lies in the nature of opinions that everyone’s is different, why are there assholes that can’t accept people think different?
I recently had a comment on the last Jinki-Episode that I want to make look animes bad and what I think about writing it’s stupid because I didn’t understand.
It’s my opinion!I also want respect, so I can totally understand what you want to say!
Always behind you, Scott ^_~
Comment by Mina — June 9, 2005 @ 9:55 am
Those are quite a few good points and in many cases no doubt true.
However I’d like to add that for European anime fans (like myself), the situation is still somewhat different.
For starters, there’s as good as no anime at all being aired on television here (except a few series like “Pokemon”, “Yu-Gi-Oh” - which to be honest do not interest me one bit).
While Europe is Region 2 like Japan, it doesn’t really help us to purchase Japanese DVD’s if we do not master Japanese (as they lack English or other subtitles).
Hence downloading fansubs of series to me is like watching anime on television, it enables me to check out what shows I like and may buy on DVD (Region 1 US import).
Do I buy all the DVD’s of all the shows I’ve watched? Honestly, no. It’s just too expensive and there are shows I don’t deem good enough to own on DVD.
For some releases I’ll also wait the extra year or two for a wholesale somewhere or value box-set…
But if I can afford them, I’ll buy the DVD’s. (I’ve just bought DVD 10 of 10 of “Gundam Seed”, the whole lot probably set me back a good $300. Got Vol 1 of “Elfen Lied” with art box because it’s such a great show.)
If I wasn’t able to see fansubs of anime series, I wouldn’t be able to check which shows I like and I certainly wouldn’t buy any anime DVD’s. (I don’t buy DVD’s of series/movies I haven’t seen… I only buy when I know I like it and really want it.)
While I do watch fansubs now, I do purchase several series on DVD.
I’ll fully admit I have series like “Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien” that I haven’t deleted because there’s still no Region 1 release… (what the heck is Media factory waiting for?)
Comment by Smithy — June 11, 2005 @ 11:55 am
Wrong. You forget that these so-called “B” titles wouldn’t sell as well w/o the exposure that fansubbers provide. All this talk about fansubs “hurting the industry” and whatever is BS. No one bitched back in day during the vhs fansubbing era. Plus, Anime is shown for FREE on Japanese television networks… and the fans there still buy their DVD R2s when its available. Stop giving us the same bullshit excuse that these guys have been preaching for so long. These US distributors will say just about anything in order to “maximum” their profits now that anime is so god damn popular here in the states (b/c of such networks like CN and G4) … Also, a majority of American anime fans who purchase anime on dvd prefer to listen to English dubs! Fansubs don’t provide such a feature. So quit starting such childish drama just so you can increase the number of hits on your blog. I have my own anime blog as well (just started it a few weeks ago). But I would never stoop to such low levels to get people to come >_>
Good day to you sir.
Comment by SomeWhiteGuy — June 12, 2005 @ 1:28 am
Eh, I watch a lot more fansubbed anime via the internet rather than on dvd, nya. I don’t watch liscensed ones, though, nya…O_O Okay, So I did download the first ten episodes of Naruto, but that’s because…erm…I ran out of money for the japanese dvds, nya.
But, anyway…Yeah, I forgot my point, nya. Sorry for waisting space, nya.
Comment by Yume-chan — August 20, 2005 @ 10:51 pm
“it appears to me that this code is dead. What the hell, people?”
I think that this happens because of how mainstream it is. Look at movies and TV shows, they flood the bittorrent sites just as much if not more than anime. At least this community has something of a code, which I give it more credit than the true movie and tv show pirates.
Comment by tissuebubble — March 21, 2006 @ 7:26 pm
I consider myself a true anime fan even thou i don’t buy all the U.S. releases, this is mostly due to the american companies doing tons of editing and useing poor matching charcter/voice actors
I can not stand it when a good anime becomes licensed but then the dubbed releases have been dumbed down and turned into some stupid kiddy crap because alot of the violence, blood and swearing have been removed.
There are alot of american releases that i have purchased but only the well done ones.
I currently own 10 US release anime Movies and 22 complete US anime series releases but fansub wise thoes numbers are more than doubble only because the US versions were turned into crap by the american companies.
I can understand your point of view on this but at the same time a verry large part as to why the american anime industry is suffering a bit is because the companies involved put out shoddy second rate material that gets edited too much because they try to make them more acceptable for little kids, well most true anime is NOT for little kids and should not be changed to make it that way.
Comment by Agaron — May 23, 2006 @ 5:49 pm