Jul 02 2008
Stop creating your own anti-fansub cult.
The entire point of this post is to completely refute and break down the argument of Scott’s post. Despite what he wants to think, he’s a Greg fanboy and I think nearly all the arguments Greg brings up are a ridiculous pile of shit. What makes it worse is while I do think the idea of “100% pirating is bad”, he acts like some religious cult leader that will make you jump off a cliff if you dare download a fansub (and of a show that isn’t even licensed in the US.) There are better ways to present his topic and better ways to support the industry but he’s stuck in his stupid DVD-buying era like a horse withblinders on its head. Flames ahead, proceed with caution.
First and foremost a disclaimer: I only watch raws, so I don’t even watch or download fansubs. I quit fansubbing just when the industry was getting “hot” and licensing things one by one. At that point the only shows I subbed were shows that aired in 2001-2002 and they did get licensed but AFTER I had subbed them. So no I never fansubbed a show that was “already licensed but not yet released.” In addition while I blog all these shows, I watch raws, I blog and that’s it. I don’t download and burn on a CD. If anime raws aired on my TV set, I’d watch them that way too. The point is, anime to me is no different than watching some dumb Fox reality show. You watch it and forget about it. Please stop treating anime like it’s some special medium. If we all lived in Japan, we’d be watching this on TV like we watch TV in the US. And what about dubs? Dubs cost MORE MONEY to produce in the US, so why is it ok to watch Death Note on Cartoon Network but not ok to watch a streaming raw on Nico or Veoh?
Anyway I’ll break this down by quotes:
“No, it’s not my final panel for this convention,” he announces to the audience, “but it’s the only one I think is important.”
Notice how he acts as if every panel at a con is garbage while his is god’s gift to the fans. Please stfu and GTFO.
As expected, the actor is dissected, taunted, and harshly mocked by his critics on the internet in the days that follow this panel.
You act like an ass, and you will be treated like one. Stop acting like an asshole and maybe we’d stop flaming you.
And when it’s all over, most of them leave the room vowing never to download illegally again.
LOL LIES. 
In attending these panels and talking to the participants, I learned just why his message has such a huge impact on the community all together, in both positive and negative ways.
Hey Scott, why don’t you come talk to me, I dare you. All I’ve seen you do is leave a nasty remark on my post and then run away back to your blog.
Because the options were limit prior to the internet, pirated VHS tapes were traded among the small otaku community.
That’s funny cause I could walk into my local Sam Goody and Suncoast Video and purchase fansubbed Sailor Moon movie VHS tapes that I still have to this day. I also have my officially licensed ADV Nuku Nuku OAV VHS tapes. And this was when I was back on dialup back in 1999.
Ayres took a huge step back from his career as an IT professional to get into voice acting. He went from a stable $60k/year job to making less money than a woman who greets customers as Wal Mart - “and at least she’s got health insurance!”
So it all boils down to him being miserable that his job pays shit and taking it out on fans who don’t give him his 2 cents. Alright, that’s cool man, I know our economy sucks right now.
But while he still has an inside view of how the business is running, he uses his current position to spread his message on the dangers of fansubbing and illegal downloading to the current generation of otaku while he still can.
Ok Jesus of anti-fansubs. You go try to spread your message to yaoi paddling, pocky chomping, rabid glomping teenagers.
He does acknowledge that poor executive decisions do attribute to poor DVD sales, such as the long time it takes to release a show, or a poor choice to go with one series over another. However, these issues are not the major reason why the industry has gone into a slump, as Ayres has witnessed first-hand.
YES IT IS YOU DUMBASS. You know why no one gives a crap about buying DVDs? Because the show came out 2 years before the first DVD is out. Why should people wait until 2009 to buy a DVD of a show that finished airing in 2007? You know who else realized this? Gonzo, albeit a tad too late with their Druaga and Strike Witches releases.
And they’d start getting into other things, like J-rock and putting in all this money into importing Miyavi CDs, but not a single new anime title.
So it’s ok to pirate Miyavi CDs but NOT ok to pirate anime? Alrighty then!
Fans could now just get their fix for free so easily on the internet. And after they stole one series, there’s no incentive to purchase the DVD and no punishment for stealing, which makes the viewer ready to just steal something else.
How is it stealing when the show is unsubbed and unlicensed? And if it gets licensed 2 years later how are we supposed to see the future? (Ok so like in 2010 all of us who watched Kanokon and downloaded the fansubs are official anime pirates OHNOEZ!)
This community of online file sharing has even overstepped the boundaries of unlicensed material to blatantly rip official American DVD release and post that online, dubs and all.
Ok that’s one thing I’ll agree with. It’s a good point and it’s true. To me, that’s REAL pirating; putting actual licensed work online for people to download free. That should definitely be something that should be “stopped”. Maybe if he actually worked off this point and not be a jackass his panel would actually be more interesting.
“American fans, very specifically, have a very strange sense of entitlement to anime. You’re not entitled to anything in this life, except for maybe the air you breath.”
WELL EXCUSE ME FOR BREATHING. 
“And even after he did it, people still said, ‘F*** the Japanese! Screw Watanabe! I never liked his shows anyway.’ I never thought I would live to see the day that an anime fan would say, ‘F*** the Japanese!’ I mean, what kind of anime fan is that?”
Well that’s anime fans for ya. Hence why I said, who are you trying to preach to here?
if you enjoy the work that someone has created for you, then you have to be sure that you compensate the artist for it.
But what if I didn’t enjoy the work? Does he realize that we have to “watch” something before we can “enjoy” it? I saw ep 1 of Kanokon, I didn’t enjoy it, am I supposed to buy it anyway to “support” the idiots who made a show about asslicking and shota rape? 
Obviously when I enjoy a work I buy it. I purchased Sumomomomomo vol 10 at Kinokuniya today because I enjoy that manga.
If you can’t afford to buy it, then turn to alternative legal solutions, such as libraries, convention screening, legal streaming series (like Adult Swim video and Gonzo’s newest initiative), or just borrow shows from your friends.
But if we borrow from our friends, rip and post on the internet isn’t that also stealing? I doubt half of the people who rip DVDs and post them online bought them in the first place. Also libraries? LOL who hasn’t taken VHS tapes and copied them on blank VHS tapes back in the day? Come on Greg you were in the VHS era.
Thanks to copy protection and the DMCA, it is illegal to watch any unlicensed show in the USA, even if one purchases it with his or her own money.
HUH? So if I buy an R2 DVD of Soul Eater and pay all the crazy $$ for it from Amazon.JP it makes it illegal? What if I buy a Japanese DVD from Kinokuniya in NY? Is that also illegal? What the fuck?
“But it’s not legal!” I interrupt him.
“Then it’s the only ethical way to watch these shows,” he fires back. “Look, I don’t have a problem about being above-the-law. You can take a look at me and you can tell that I’ve probably broken a number of laws in my day. It’s about doing what helps this industry out.”
LOL I feel like this is a teapot calling the kettle black here.
According to Ayres, it’s all in education, which is why he goes to these convention and insists on hosting these panels on the subject.
Except rather than educating, he mocks and shuns fellow fans.
With his otaku upbringing, brightly colored hair dye, childish voice, and overall crazy attitude, the young convention attendees identify themselves with the voice actor.
Cause nothing says mature adult like bright red hair, cartman voice and an asswipe immature attitude.
He has already recognized that many of his biggest critics, the ones we tend to find blogging in the fansub community, are already lost causes in his campaign and makes no effort to persuade them otherwise.
In case you forgot Scott, I don’t watch fansubs.
These folks are already so close minded about the world around them that they cannot sympathize with the industry and community behind it. He can see their introverted personality being so blatantly displayed when he goes to anime cons.
Yes we are closed minded because we think there are better alternatives to support the industry besides “BUY DVDS11!11!!!”
He believes that fansubbers should be using their talents to actually get a paying gig, instead of just doing it for 15 minutes of fame on Youtube. “If you’re so good at what you do, why don’t you get a job at Viz and get paid to do translation? Why don’t you prove yourself in the professional world?”
Does he realized that half of the fansub groups are people who don’t even LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES. Is Viz gonna just hand a work permit for some guy in Singapore? Uh no.
Fortunately for him and the audience at the panel, these type of fans save their complaining and insults to the safe harbor of the internet later in the day. “The biggest wussies will always draw their swords on the internet,” he warns, and sure enough, they keep quiet during those two hours.
That’s cause you never let anyone talk you ass. JP and I both had a shitload of things to say but the moment we realized it was like talking to a wall we gave up. I’d love to have a fucking one on one with him if I got the chance in person or online. He’s the fucking wussy because when people state an argument he can’t refute he just shoves it aside and moves on.
They call Ayres all kinds of obscenities, and accuse everyone (including myself) of being nothing more than ass-kissers to him.
ASS KISSER SCOTT YOU’RE AN ASSKISSER if you’d like I’ll tell it to you in person at New York Anime Festival.
It’s a respect that Ayres had as a teenage boy to the folks who created the “dirty cartoons” that he enjoyed so much with his buddies.
Cause you know there’s nothing I respect more than creators of anime about tentacle raping school girls.
I will not be a hypocrite anymore. From this point on, this anime blogger is going 100% legit and legal.
I better not see a single summer or fall 08 show on your blog Scott or Greg will come haunt you in your dreams.
~~~~~~
I’m done. Seriously this is so ridiculous. You know what other industry no one’s buying discs in? Yea the music industry and what did they do? They created itunes and other means of getting music and movies legally. The anime industry doesn’t seem to get this through their thick skulls. The era of disks is dying. It’s nothing to do with anime, it’s the fact that the internet is exploding with potential and rather than trying to “beat it” the companies need to “join it” and use it to its full potential to help make anime more profitable. If they continue trying to drill an old mentality into people’s heads, it’s not hard to predict where the “industry” will be in a couple of years.
Tags: fangirl rage, rant, うるせっ！
If you buy a DVD you own it and can watch it or do whatever the fuck you want with it as long as you aren’t violating copyright as in showing it in a movie theater, ripping it for distribution, or other obvious things like that. This is called “First-sale doctrine” and asshats shouldn’t talk about laws they know nothing about.
Oh noes! Unlicensed stuff is illegal! Well doesn’t that suck since most of the stuff I like is unlicensed.
@JohnG
But you’ve also got the DMCA, which has a ton of retarded restrictions in it. It’s against the law to decrypt a DVD, for example even if you don’t actually violate the copyright on the material on the DVD.
Here’s another one: What if I Tivo an episode of Code Geass? That cuts out the commercials, which I’m supposed to be watching since Cartoon Network is an ad-supported channel, and I don’t have a Nielsen box so my viewing patterns aren’t being recorded in any way. But that’s considered OK. So then am I or am I not allowed to watch a fansub of the show?
And I’m not being pedantic by saying this. While the public thinks that it’s OK to do this (hell, it’s a big reason why people buy Tivos), TV networks and advertisers have been trying to figure out what to do about this, because advertisers aren’t getting the viewers that they were paying for and therefore want to change their rates.
The american comment screamed bollocks to me (well most points did). Surely it’s just a case of relative populations, British people probably buy (relatively) less anime than americans due to there being barely any releases. (yes japan is region 2 as well but I don’t speak japanese)
Also despite its growing popularity, anime is still a fairly niche market and places that sell it are all in large cities. What are people who don’t live near a shop that sells anime going to do.
If you’ll be the Grand Poobah, I’ll join your anti-anti-fansubbing cult.
Breaking news: Funimation is going to start posting anime episodes in YouTube.
I think this is ridiculous. I mean, I’m currently taking a management crash course in order to avoid it during the coming semester (
), and while I’m not learning a lot, one of the basic principles of it all is that if your strategy is not working because there’re new ways to sell your stuff, you should CHANGE YOUR DAMN STRATEGY, like, RIGHT NOW. Just sitting and crying about how nobody is doing business the way you used to do it anymore is a guarantee to see your company crash and burn. “Oh, but they’re not doing it ILLEGALLY!”… well, look at crunchyroll. The fact that Gonzo is working with them despite the fact that they still have illegal stuff in their site means that as long as new ways to sell your products actually actract people, you must not try to shut them down, but to make them work in your favor!
*sigh* it’s just… there’re more complex problems with this than just the usual DVD vs. fansub thing. I don’t see anybody talking about the new disc formats, or about the fact that a big part of the people that download anime is people from a lot of other countries besides the US… there’s a lot of, erm, “developing” countries with young people interested in anime, and as much as we might not be as “important” as the US market, I think the internet is a great way to reach us. These problems are more important, interesting and challenging than… uh, preaching about stuff that’s going to become obsolete in a few years.
OH GOD AMERICANS ARE SO FAT THE EARTH’S GRAVITY IS OVERLOADING.
In other news, anime is shit. Funny how the “industry” feels entitled to have people support their failure of a business model. If I sold ice cubes to Eskimos, people would rightfully laugh. But of course in this case, I would have had to invent ice cubes in the first place and be the sole producer of ice cubes and have many Eskimos copying my icecubes and distributing them free.
Americans lol. “We are the world!”
Great post–all the drama reminds me of when the first Betamax and VHS players came out and Hollywood sued to try to stop them from being sold, claiming they’d “kill the movie industry”. Funny, they ended up making a fortune off VHS and then selling people the same movies again on DVD a few years later. Someday the anime industry will realize I’ll gladly buy episodes over the internet like I did for Druaga, and like everyone else can already do off iTunes and such for most US network television–and when they do, they’ll get a lot more of my money than what I spend on DVDs today.
LOL you guys are great
Aroduc> ISSHOUNI IKOUZE!
tj> LOL, its sad but true, all the sizes have like gone up twice, so our current size 8 in womens is actually a size 12
lametastic> yes, he totally ignores the fact that theres a ton of anime fans OUTSIDE of America (especially Asia and Canada! I mean my 2nd and 3rd top reader countries are Singapore and Canada!!)
Marmosette> They uh…buy online? LOL
microlm> Ditto LOL
This Scott guy isn’t very clear about the part involving R2 DVDs (not surprising as it appears to be the only point he disagreed with Greg on). Greg appears to support buying R2 DVDs, since you have to go through “all that effort”. And, yeah, thanks to regional licensing, I believe it might actually be illegal, stupid as that may be.
I’m pretty sure I actually worked with Greg Ayres before he got into his voice acting gig, as, if he’s the same guy I remember (this had to have been close to 10 years ago), I remember when he left CompUSA (he was a commercial sales rep, I was a cashier, later a tech) to work the IT position mentioned in the post. If so, that must have been before he got into anime, because as a commerical rep, he sure didn’t have the bright [insert color] hair… ^_^
Personally, I have a pretty flexible opinion on fansubs. If I think the show looks somewhat interesting, I’ll DL it, and if I like it, will continue to. If I don’t, into the Recycle Bin it goes. And the shows I like, once they get licenced, I have no problem buying the DVDs when I have the money. Since I can afford to buy the DVDs, fansubbing is effectively a marketing ploy for me, albeit one that the American licensors didn’t have to directly pay for… (so they should be happy, right? ^_^)
I do, however, think that ripping dubbed R1 DVDs and sticking them on TT is a load of crap, even when the excuse of “Well, this is for the English speakers in regions that don’t have this show licensed yet” is bandied about, since 99.999% of the people downloading it are going to be in an area where it is licensed. And don’t even get me started on the multiple groups subbing Aegis of Uruk and the other Gonzo series that can be watched streaming for free or downloaded for the same price as an iTunes show. And I do have to agree with the opinion on the rabid sense of entitlement abounding in anime fandom, although I hardly think it’s limited to there. I think that’s more of an internet thing. When you can get anything you want with very little effort, you start thinking you deserve anything you want.
anime dvds r bare markup x_x like the pricers never heard of markdown >.>
holy big post @_@
(17h right now LOL)
i`ll read it later on. just woke up here
btw, nice pic for the post =p
I’m not familiar at all with this issue so I don’t know Greg Ayers; who IS he, and why is he seemingly taking the frontrunning position against fansubs? Somehow in the other post I get the general gist that Ayers is only against fansubs not for media legality in general but more of it’s not a big industry so he doesn’t get paid kind of grudge.
Oro> He’s a dub voice actor, that’s about all I know too. But other than a dub actor I now also think of him as a self righteous asshole. He’s created a grand image for himself!
Great post.
Hinano fights the losers!
Yeah, total disregard for those of us who live outside the USA. We actually have to download fansubbed videos to know if the show is good. Then, many months later, find a DVD of our region with subtitles.
Everyone should take Gonzo’s example, but in a larger scale. Not just limited to crunchyroll/youtube. I wonder how much money they made with the Tower of Druaga episodes…
ah crap dumb moment by me, ah well theres still nothing recent to buy so bring on the entitlement!
I’m not helping anyone am i…
you had to beat me to it, didn’t you?
I’m going to nitpick this post later today (as I promised Scott), but it’s funny how “supporting the anime industry” somehow comes down to “buy region 1 dvds” last time I checked anime industry was located a bit further east ^_^. Heck, untill recently i didn’t even know who Greg Ayers was ^^;
enjoyable rant to read.
*thumbs his nose at the general direction of dubs*
If it is good I’ll buy it if it sucks I won’t. And I could care less if stuff had dubs or not.
Hate to say it but fansubs usually are better quality then the stuff I get on DVD. Take recent Lucky Star releases as an example.. though I give Bandai a huge dose of credit for including linear notes on that and trying to get a lot of the quirks of the series across to the viewer.
Meows> Double your pleasure, double your fun, that’s the statement of the greatblog of bloggermint gum.
Drill him a new one my friend! 
PS I had no idea you were russian! Woohoo more Russian anime bloggers!
I have a better idea: let’s all go blindfolded to our local anime store and randomly pick one of the many series on display in the hopes that I won’t end up wasting my money on some kind of old bad quality loli hentai show.
But if it turns out to be one of these, who cares? My fifty bucks have already been directly sent to a respectable man in Japan who thought it’d be a good idea to earn his living by drawing little girls getting raped!
Hinano…. kowai…..
Greg and Scott had better watch out in the face of your tsuntsun fangirl rage…
I pretty much have quigonkenny’s perspective on fansubs.
I do think that both sides (anti-fansubs and anti-anti-fansubs) need to find a way to communicate more. And in a more “respectful” manner - not like sitting down and Kumbaya-ing and stuff, but hearing out other people’s viewpoints, agreeing to disagree with what you do disagree on, and making it more about the issue and less about the people promoting the issues.
Or something like that.
I don’t think it’s fair to bring up iTunes as an example of what the music industry has done given it’s an Apple product which is positioned as a vertical component of iPod. If you’re more referring to products like Hulu and Last.fm, you should note that they’re both back my major consortiums that have money to burn.
Hulu is backed by NBC Universal and News Corp, costing about $15 million for its first year in R&D alone. It’s estimated they spend just under a million every month on bandwidth. To give you an idea of how much money is backing Hulu, Providence Equity Partners bought a 10% stake in Hulu for $100 million.
Last.fm didn’t offer any significant streaming content until it was bought and funded by CBS Interactive for $280 million. It was under development for almost 5 years before it managed any significant content and pretty much only because of CBS backing.
You seem to be suggesting that online distribution is the wave of the future, of which I don’t disagree, and that the anime industry should adopt online distribution because it will yield superior sales hence will be better. I don’t think this is quite right.
As I noted above, it costs a lot to field one of these systems. At least tens of millions, and in the long run hundreds of millions. In 2005, JETRO estimated the anime market to be approximately 207 billion yen, or $1.89 billion. Ghibli takes on approximately 15% on the entire market themselves, or about $300 million. Given this is a measure of sales and not revenue, who exactly is going to be able to field a $50 - 100 million dollar digital distribution system?
The typical adoption rate of a new media is about 4 - 5 years until 50% and 7 - 10 years until near full adoption. Online distribution is currently lagging far behind DVD and even Bluray in profits, which is estimated to overtake DVD by 2012 with full adoption years behind that. It is still uncertain what the final cost of hosting a full scale digital movie distribution system due to ISPs having difficulty providing even today’s bandwidth levels (you’ll note that every ISP is looking at hard enforced bandwidth caps and throttling because their networks have rapidly become saturated in the last few years). Remember Bluray averages around 30Mbps total which is an order of magnitude higher than the average North American bandwidth. Given all of this, it will be years until online distribution overtakes hard media.
Companies like Vudu, Apple, and Microsoft are not stupid. They know all of this and are willing to take a significant loss for years for the possible return in the future. Vudu itself has been working on the problem for around 4 years now and Microsoft even longer. But the problem is you need to be able to sink significant money into development without profits for years to field this kind of system. The anime industry cannot hope to spend that kind of time or money.
The best the anime industry can hope for is either to piggy back off someone else’s system, where it will take an extremely low priority over getting the far more popular back catalog of movies and television online, or field some crummy system like they are today. If they do go the route of distributing on someone else’s system, you can expect to see delays on getting their catalog online comparable to DVD releases today until all the money making titles infront of them are online.
I think that’s one of the major reasons you see animation companies like Gonzo resorting to these cobbled together download systems today. The entire worldwide animation market is dwarfed by it’s live action counter parts and hence it takes a back seat in all these new ventures funded by non-animation money. It will be years until anime can be reasonable distributed in a timely fashion on an online system.
All that is fine, except that the Japanese animation industry really needs a way to make money now as opposed to later. Online distribution today is no magic bullet.
One thing to note is that an issue here is the amazing increase in quality of fansubs. We have reached a point where shows are ripped from broadcast in full digitial, encoded in 720P under Blu-ray’s H264, and then torrented out. This is a real issue for fansubbing in general. I think it was tolerated and ok when the fansub had lower quality than the purchased product, but now there is little to no difference. I would not be surprised if the sources of raws in Japan get cracked down on hard in the coming year or two.
Not that I’m taking this idiot’s side, just that I think its an important point to consider in the matter.
am I supposed to buy it anyway to “support” the idiots who made a show about asslicking and shota rape?
YES, because Kanokon was awesome
You know what other industry no one’s buying discs in? Yea the music industry and what did they do? They created itunes and other means of getting music and movies legally. The anime industry doesn’t seem to get this through their thick skulls. The era of disks is dying. It’s nothing to do with anime, it’s the fact that the internet is exploding with potential and rather than trying to “beat it” the companies need to “join it” and use it to its full potential to help make anime more profitable.
This reminds me of another funny argument, that as fans of the material in general we have an obligation to “support” the industry, as if they are some sort of charity. In our free market system business who fail because they don’t adapt to changing business decisions are not worthy of our dollars. Why would we want to encourage companies to rely on consumer support rather than innovate? Find ways to monetize new technology or face going out of business, that’s what capitalism is all about.
On a side note, I know where I’d be if I was going to Anime Expo- the keynote panel entitled “Fansubs: The Death of Anime.” Sounds like a fun time…
[...] has a good roast going on over this post. I figured the issue can always use more attention. And as usual I’m [...]
Despite the whole tsuntsun wild rage factor, Hinano, that post actually made me think about this whole issue.
I mean, before I was very neutral about this whole Greg Ayres thing… but you just tore his arguments apart 
Awesome post, and please keep making me laugh this hard. 
How much money from Americans do these Japanese companies expect t to make anyway? Are we even in the picture? I always assumed that companies made anime for Japanese viewers- hence the really hard-to-get-unless-you-are-in-Japan stuff out there.
Are they really losing that much money? It seems to me that they’re upset at all the money they “could be making” not the money they “should be making.”
The problem with marketing anime is that anime is a niche media that is, business-wise, controlled by the people who feel strongly enough about it to make it their business. So I’m not surprised that the biggest talkers are the “niche”/deviant/fringe/marginalized people who really don’t need to pander to a mainstream audience or may not even like doing so. If a person doesn’t see a need to behave in a Freudin’ civilized manner, it’s pretty damn difficult to carry on a productive and intelligent conversation with them. Which is a shame for anime in America.
Anyway, a secret part of me would like to see this whole anime/fansub shebang come up in the Supreme Court, just to see how The People react. XD Nice post, Hinano; I enjoy your input and commentary a lot.
I won’t deny that fansubbing is part of the problem but as a consumer, I also have first-hand experience to see how ridiculous the industry can be. I mentioned on Scott’s blog about the Hamtaro DVDs…back in the day, you got 3 episodes for something like $20. That was certainly a cut down from $30, but at least you got 4-5 with that. To me, that doesn’t encourage the buying of DVDs (even though I made it through all of Ranma 1/2 and Kenshin and considerably poorer).
The difference in purchasing knowledge is that the US-based movies and DVDs I buy I’ve had the chance to watch in the theater or on TV before. It’s a lot different and we’re able to make a more informed choice with this previous knowledge.
As a veteran of this War on Drugs I have to say the anti-piracy techniques seem rather paltry and toothless scarcely winnable than our fight with drug traffickers (and we have guns). I suspect that they will have to adopt tactics of companies who do business in Asia i.e. add a bunch of junk and call them limited edition or something like that. They could start a series of dakimakuras to make a buck…
I can’t say I’m a big supporter of the anti-fansubbing argument. I see what their point is, but the fact is that they’re not meeting my needs. Leaving aside the arguments about the shows being very delayed and the scam that is region-coding, there’s the issue of what I’m getting.
When I get a fansub of an anime or a scanlation of a manga, I’m getting a product were the people translating it do their best to convey the authentic story into a language I speak. While doing this, they also put some effort into explaining cultural references I might otherwise miss. That’s something I don’t get from the officially licensed products in many cases.
When I buy one of the licensed products I often get a work who’s dialogue and storyline have been ‘adjusted to suit American audiences’. They make alterations that change the inherent qualities of a story take away ‘objectionable content’ and make it more ‘marketable’. The thing is, if I was interested in the ’soft serve’ style of U.S. stories I probably wouldn’t be reading manga in the first place.
My current solution for this is to both download fansubs/scanlations and to buy the licensed products when they’re released. If I get something before it is licensed, I buy the licensed product whenever they get around to releasing it. And after buying a licensed product I’ll often look for the translations done by the fans to allow me to get a more complete grasp of the original story and the author’s intent. (I also get my translations from multiple sources to enable me to try to get a better feel for what the original storyline was trying to convey.)
Because I only have 1 minute to read and reply to this and I saw a comment I liked…
If you become the grand poobah of the anti-anti-fansubbing cult, I will be your Chief Tactical Operations and Surgical Strike Manager. >_>
Why is it that whenever a really interesting issue comes up, anything I was planning to say has already been covered? And then the discussion goes out on them yonder hills, the ones I ain’t got the stamina to climb.
Bah!
This is why I can’t ever seem to bring myself to comment on JP’s blog. Except, you know, that one time.
Seems like Scott should read my avatar
[...] Hinano (Is that all?) Scott (The way i see it, the hypocrite is you.) omo (I am hungry) That other guy (Not unless you kill them) zaitcev (You dick.) [...]
You know why no one gives a crap about buying DVDs? Because the show came out 2 years before the first DVD is out. Why should people wait until 2009 to buy a DVD of a show that finished airing in 2007?
Not to mention that they’re stupidly expensive, released disc-by-disc over a 6-14 month period depending on the number of discs in the set, and often are poorly mastered. I was a regular DVD purchaser, importing several discs a month, until I got a rude awakening as to how poorly some of the companies regard their customers. Also doesn’t help that a lot of the shows I actually wanted to buy were Geneon licensed. Still stuck with only two Saiunkoku Monogatari discs.
How is it stealing when the show is unsubbed and unlicensed?
COPYING IS NOT STEALING. As much as big media and their sock puppets try to tell us that it is, it isn’t, and we should resist their attempts to pervert the language to favour them.
Ok that’s one thing I’ll agree with. It’s a good point and it’s true. To me, that’s REAL pirating; putting actual licensed work online for people to download free. That should definitely be something that should be “stopped”.
Except for BVUSA titles because those asshats deserve it.
Obviously when I enjoy a work I buy it.
Personally, for me it’s more that I’ll buy something if I enjoyed it enough that I think it’s worth the money. There are a lot of shows that I have enjoyed as fansubs which I would never buy unless we were talking $20-30 for a box set, if that.
HUH? So if I buy an R2 DVD of Soul Eater and pay all the crazy $$ for it from Amazon.JP it makes it illegal? What if I buy a Japanese DVD from Kinokuniya in NY? Is that also illegal? What the fuck?
That’s not how the DMCA works at all. It makes it illegal to break copy protection. Because the DVD consortium are evil dickholes, decided to make regioning part of the copy protection scheme. But if your DVD player’s unregioned or all-regioned then you’re not actually breaking the copy protection at all. And to be honest no sane court would ever try and convict you even if it was illegal, because the law is very clearly wrong (just because something is against the law doesn’t mean that it’s wrong) and contravenes fair use.
Yes we are closed minded because we think there are better alternatives to support the industry besides “BUY DVDS11!11!!!”
The industry doesn’t really make that much off DVD sales anyway, does it? I was under the impression that a huge chunk of their income comes from merchandising.
Does he realized that half of the fansub groups are people who don’t even LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES.
And I’d guess that the US is making up less than half of the people that are actually downloading them, too.
You know what other industry no one’s buying discs in? Yea the music industry and what did they do? They created itunes and other means of getting music and movies legally.
No they didn’t. The music industry and the film industry are fucking dinosaurs. Innovation and adapting their business models to cope with the massive paradigm shift that the free, borderless exchange of data the internet ushers in is about as far from their minds as possible. These are the guys who go around suing people to try and prop up their outdated business models and who are in very real danger of becoming extinct or irrelevant in the next decade. And they deserve it, too. The innovation has come from tech companies and people with good ideas and big media has been dragged along for the ride, kicking and screaming every step of the way. iPod and iTunes was Apple seeing a huge potential market. Youtube was a few guys seeing a huge potential market. Napster too, though we know how that ended.
The era of disks is dying. It’s nothing to do with anime, it’s the fact that the internet is exploding with potential and rather than trying to “beat it” the companies need to “join it” and use it to its full potential to help make anime more profitable. If they continue trying to drill an old mentality into people’s heads, it’s not hard to predict where the “industry” will be in a couple of years.
Nail. Head. Hit. Also the industry needs to think globally. Gonzo really were getting it right, which is ironic since they’ve got one foot in the grave themselves. If you want to compete against fansubs, then you need to get them out within the same sort of timeframes, keep them cheap, and above all make them available to anyone online who is willing to fork over the cash for them. The old days of regional lockout are over, the internet has seen to that. If people aren’t able to get the product quickly in a useable and flexible format via legitimate means, then they won’t just forget about it, they’ll pirate it.
NegativeZero> Holy shit I just saw your post on Bandai, wow what a bunch of fucks I hope they burn too!
I read everyone’s comments and I’ve concluded that this topic CAN be a approached in a civilized and mature way but Greg fails to do so by being a complete jackass. The multitude of views seen in the comments by you guys are awesome and really gives a good take on what the “fans” feel - but yea the “industry” seems to ignore all that and instead sends an idiot to preach for them about a lost cause.
Listening to Greg Ayers talk about this crap is like getting Rickrolled, every time he starts talking your like “GOD DAMN IT AGAIN”?!
Interestingly, I was planning to do a panel about the state of the industry from the perspective of a frustrated fan - basically you’ve summed up half of my panel in your post! (the other half deals with what needs to change and how to actually do it.)
you go girl!
WTF
OMGZ bloggerz are ruining the anime industry!!1!1!!! down to fansub-watching bloggerzzz 
I know there are still a number of people out there who watch fansubs and support the industry, by buying either the DVDs or the mangas instead (the cheaper option). And really, I thought we’re already in this age where fansubs (and also blogging) are considered to be a viral marketing tool, because unlike Japanese people we don’t have the luxury of watching all animes on TV, not like many of us will understand them anyways. Blogging about a show, preaching and raving about it, tantamount to [free] advertising, regardless of whether these bloggers used “legal” and “illegal” means to watch them =/
Yeah I ended up breaking my no-Bandai stance and got the first Gurren Lagann double-disc release because I think that they actually got the message recently and are trying to find a new release model that works.
jen> I totally agree with you, we’re like promoting these shows for free!!
NZ> Too bad other companies didn’t wanna “figure out a new approach” and were left in the dust (I.e. Geneon lol)
Shizuka> You should do it at a con where he does his ANTI fansub panel, that way you can be the the Lelouch to his Suzaku!
Pdash> LOL! Never gonna GIVE DVDS UP Never gonna LET THE INDUSTRY DOWN…
I’ll gladly pay for a DVD of JPMeyer-san and Hinano-sama going face-to-face with the Greg guy any day.
Hinano> You totally should create a Gregroll!
My LiveJournal Post:
http://tyrenol.livejournal.com/113095.html
Ascaloth> Kinky.
Re: Bandai - I’m actually very pro Bandai Visual/Honneamise. In fact I just pulled the trigger on Jin Roh BRD today… go go 20% off sale on Rightstuf. But I’m more a fan first, reasonable economic activity second kind of guy. I’d pay for quality if I can justify it.
Head hurts @_@ megahurts. So much crap all over the place. Now regret actually have more than one minute to read/reply/etc2
Voice acting pays pittances. Yes, even in Japan. That is why Sakikabara Yui does H-game voicing. It pays more than regular non-H. It’s only when you start making singles that it gets slightly better. I realised that the entire Happiness! cast was from the game. :3
I think I’ll cut the rant short since what I’ll rant has been covered by every other post above.
Needless to suffice, people buy what they like only and only if they intend to rewatch it. Like why I bought Kamichama R2s and Hinano won’t. >_> (yes, it’s a replacement for when I didn’t have money to buy pitaten dvds)
[ID Sojourner]
w00ts. More reasons why I am looking forward to going to America.
[...] - - Thanks to blog posts here, here, here, here, and here) for prompting me to waste 2+ hours of my life to typing all this nonesense [...]
[...] an exceptionally satisfying lambasting, head to Hinano. For meatier reads, head to omo and Paul. For rage, head to this dude. For a good laugh, head here. [...]
How could downloading subbed episodes be so bad even if its unlicensed yet? This is my way of practicing my nihonggo dammit! Not all people are born speaking Japanese, mind you…
Hinano-san… kowaiiiii…. Remind me not to mess with you…
Digi> But Kamichama Karin DVDs were awful even after they “fixed” the bug eyed animation
You prefer Kojika DVDs then?
why should people wait for 1,2 years or even forever for a dvd of the anime they like to watch and if by some luck they do release they dvd it might cost to much and we will have to wait even more for the next vol to came out. most people will just go on the next watch it, leave a reply saying if it was good or not and then move on to the next show. as i live in the uk there is very little anime on tv. plus i rather watch it online as there is more to choose from then going to a shop and buying a dvd that iv all ready seen. plus watching an anime dub is just a nightmare id rather watch it subbed or raw (if i knew japanese) as it got more emotion to it.
greg ayres… i heard about him in a forum site i’m part of half a year ago. didn’t he give that exact same “evul fansubs are ruining the industry” speech at one anime con (i think) there in the US a little before or after geneon closed???
and anyway, is there anything wrong with blogging about the shows may they have been raws or fansubs? i mean, those who blog fansubs can always fake it and claim to be raw watchers by putting raw screencaps rather than subbed ones?
aren’t the industry people the first to admit that they look at anime blogs and anime forum sites to know the popular anime to license? (i read that somewhere.) but they take too long to release it that by the time they do, no one really cares anymore then they will cry foul at the subbers who are done and over with that title like two years before. i think they’re barking at the wrong tree by that time because they should have done something when the hype is up, not when it’s dead and make feable attempts to revive it and get a response from less than half of what they expected.
You know, I’ve been waiting more than 20 YEARS for somebody to license the Dirty Pair TV series, but nobody wants to touch it. So fuck’em, I’m downloading the fansubs!
そのファンサブをキレってる人はめっちゃ嫌じゃない？
自分でも知らない人だけれど会ったら苦手そうっすよ。
考えてとなんとなくイライラするみたそうで、
あなたのポストを見ると心が落ち着いたようになりましたっすけど…
後で言いたいのは一つしか入ませんでした
「ひなのさんの怖いところには魅力がかなりあるっすよね」って
Well, hey, ANYONE who works in the Dubbing industry want to get paid. I’m sure my dad would say the same to me, “Go buy the DVDs I’m in, I can get more jobs that way”. Dur. Real shocker there.
And I can understand fully if he wants to say “Please buy the DVDs of series so that we can bring MORE series to the US!”, because A: He wants to get paid for more hours in that darned booth, and B: No more money coming in, no more company. I can FULLY understand that. But to preach to the little brats that are (unfortunatly) my peers, is NOT going to work. They ARE just going to watch more subs, they ARE NOT going to give a flying frick what you say. Their opinion is “You just want us to so you get paid”, and things of the like. I know because I DEAL with these morons on a regular basis. They’re asshats and I hate the majority of my Anime-Fan peers, and it sucks horribly that I’m lumped in with them.
They won’t listen to what anyone says and feel they know better. No matter who or what you are. Even if you’re the frikkin’ god of Yaoi and Twilight, they don’t give a damn.
And yeah, let’s all listen to the Hentai lover.
Cause that’s SUCH a decent thing to watch as a kid. But hey, did you forget SPEED RACER? The, like, first few animes in the US? Yeah, the one that wasn’t about Tenticle Rape. Yeah I know, shocking, no tencticale rape in an anime. So suprising. 
And in reality, he shouldn’t be caring if you watch an unlicensed series fansubbed. Wanna know why? Because then if you like it and go to some Anime DVD store or whatever and go “Hey, I know this series! Let’s buy it!”, looky thar, MONIES. Cause they KNOW that they like it. Le gasp.
If they know they like something, then they’ll buy it when it’s released… so long as it doesn’t take AGES to release. Oh wait, it does. But as we know, the majority of anime fans now are in my age group, and unfortunatly care not for spending money as they have none. And such, they go on with downloads because they have no money and find nothing wrong with it. No matter what the hell he says, not one of the idiots downloading will give a damn about it. Even if they claim they do. 
I actually had a one on one…okay one on two talk with Mr. Ayres myself back when I cared for conventions enough to volunteer and got assigned to manage the “VIP Room” aka room where voice actors bitch about their fans. At first his anti-fansub arguments were reasonable and honestly not hard to respect. But then he started ranted on how fansubbers were evil pirates killing the industry. When I told him about how I’ve watched unlicensed fansubs he immediately treated me differently.
He started speaking down on me and honestly started ignoring my own opinions and my defenses. I swear to god I was scared he was gonna pull out a Death Note and “delete” me. 
Thanks so much for finally exposing out the pretentiousness of anti-fansubbers. Really, thank you!
[...] was going to focus on Scott’s article on Greg Ayres’ panel, but it got torn apart By Hinano and various other people, so there really is no need for me to nitpick on it. So I will focus on [...]
宇佐美＞ほほ～魅力か ＸＤ ありがとう
Kawada> LOL what an asshole!!
Nyachan> Yea he’s totally delusional of who his audience REALLY is
Except that one annoying fat kid and Scott.
[...] add my torch to the fire, since I had enough of a wall of text over on Hinano’s rant. So to set the scene, basically we got another case of FanSub VS. Dub sort of thing [...]
Will a dead bunny make you happy?
Funny how American media giants don’t care Australia exists. Even when Rupert Murdoch is an Australian.
I buy DVDs not because I don’t like fansubs altogether (fansubs do their job of getting Anime out there) but because I feel like adding some classic, established in the Anime Canon of Awesomeness, Anime to my collection. I would legally download Anime if there was the option, but there isn’t, sadly. At least there is a homegrown company called Madman that releases Anime in Australia, which is more than what British people have, and what’s interesting is that the same home grown company releases independent live action films as well. What I like about Madman is that they don’t put those annoying anti-piracy messages on their DVDs, and I respect them for that.
That kind of trust with their customers is a trust other companies like Lionsgate doesn’t have with people who buy their Speed Racer box sets. 
If this Greg Whatever bozo showed up to