does a fansub lead faster to a licenced release??
 

I was wondering whether or not you believe that a anime which is being fansubbed will be more likely quicklier licenced ?

In this day and age where most new season anime is licensed in the production phase (months/years before it ever hits air), the answer is no.

Fansubbing might draw attention to older titles that were seemlingly skipped over, but at this point there's very little that hits air that really needs to be fansubbed in order for a US company to notice it.

I'm pretty sure fansubs helped in the licensing of Hajime no Ippo. It was immensely popular in the fansub community, but it wasn't the sort of thing I ever thought would get licensed, simply because it's about boxing. Then I woke up one morning and *bam* Geneon had it. They must have had SOME reason to believe that fans would purchase it, i.e. the popularity of the fansubs.
Of course I'm not saying fansubs are all it takes, but they're an excellent form of market research and that's always essential.

It's naive to think that anime companies DON'T pay attention to the popularity of fansubs. I'm sure they don't just pick titles at random, if they see that a particular anime is popular in fansubs, then that must have some influence over a decision to license that anime.

That's wrong.That's also wrong.Source please.I don't believe that.

One thing to keep in mind when thinking about this is that NA companies don't license stuff in a day. It takes alot of talk between the production company and the NA company before a license is acquired, not to mention the time between the acquiring the license and announcing it to the public. It's quite impossible to decide whether fansubbers had an effect on something being licensed, unless the NA company outright says it.

A title that's announced a year after it aired might have still been licensed in the pre-production phase.

I think fansubs still can have effect for series that are old or ones that the companies don't consider profitable in the western market.


EDIT: Now, fansubs can and do have an effect on how popular a series is once it's officially out. :)

Gruff.
 

Of course they pick titles at random!

I mean, Sister Princess? What's up with that?! [/sarcasm]

That is a really good question...I'm just going to take a guess and say probably not, I mean let's face it there are a lot of anime out there the may be popular in Japan, and subbed by various groups, and thus popular amongst otaku, but that doesn't mean they will be popular mainstream titles outside of Japan. Take Hikaru no Go for example...i really doubt anyone outside of Japan, Korea, or China is going to be interested in a series about Go. It's a great series, but not marketable in north america or europe.

Or maybe they do just choose titles at random, hahahahaha!

I don't think they do so that much because the majority of animesuki users are not the mainstream viewers who would generate the bulk of the company's income. For example, series that were greatly appreciated by AS users still remain under the radar. HnG is a great example because the average viewer would not care so much for such a show because they're predisposed against it, believing that Go is a slow game. The other popular shows wildly downloaded, such as Naruto and FMA would definitely be licensed because they have that appeal to the Toonami watcher.

Naruto goes against this theory though. It's very popular, lots of groups doing it, but it's still unlicensed.
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ECIG FORUM

No the reason is that lisencing groups most likely bandai see alot of potential in the series and once it hits 100 episodes they will most likely lisence it.

Where the hell are you getting your information? :rolleyes:

He's pulling it directly out of his ass.

I imagine it's something like this:

http://ashibaka.home.comcast.net/itsforyou/ff.png

BREAKING NEWS: NARUTO NOT TO BE LICENSED UNTIL IT REACHES 100 EPISODES... ANIME LICENSERS WATCH ANIMESUKI FOR POPULAR RELEASES... SECRET RACIST AGENDA IN ANIME...

That's not nice. He probably has real sources, like the Iraqi Minister of Information. But while you're there, do your sources have the millions of lines of SCO code in Linux?

(Naruto's clearly popular. Surely somebody is negotiating for it. Just don't know who, or at what price.)

There is evidence in the case of some series being picked up faster as a result of fansubs, but some american companies do turn a completely blind eye to fansubbing, like Geneon, whereas others like Bandai and ADV probably use fansubs to test the interest in a series.

I think back when #askjerry came into existence, someone asked jerry chu (marketing guy from bandai). I think he said something like "we don't need fansubs to tell us what's going to be good or not" ... I don't think they really pay much attention to it. Now, jerry didn't explicitly deny watching fansubs of stuff .... but he did say that we're not part of their acquisition decisions. Then I could be remembering incorrectly, someone oughtta ask jerry next time he's on irc...

I guess it's kinda like how fansub groups decide on series to begin with though. We know when we decide to sub something that it'll be something we like, because several of us have read the manga for whatever it is and know how the plot and the artwork are going to look from the start... and usually we're right... series we expect to be popular and well-loved tend to be. I'm sure if a bunch of amateur manga-fanatics can come up with good things to sub in their spare time, pros like the guys from bandai and adv et al can do it too -- hell, they've got all day, and they get paid for it! :)

A good reason Naruto isn't licensed is possibly because the asking price is far too much right now, and companies are already trying to vie for a piece of the franchise

Yeah, I'm sure they are all aware that Naruto is going to be a gold mine, if they market it right, it could rake in the bucks. Everyone's probably trying to get that particular pie, and that's why it hasn't been taken yet.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion, not based on any facts.

(Continuing the offtopic on naruto)
I would not be surprised if naruto was VERY expensive to license. And whoever gets it (assuming its a NORMAL company), will probably want tv rights + toy rights + dvd rights. So this is basically looking at a big company with lots of money to throw around. This limits it to basically 4 suspects. I wouldn't be surprised either if someone has it and wont announce till AX.
(/OT)

And the existance of a sub will not speed up or slow down the release of a dvd. There are more factors such as
a) company backlog
b) casting va's and finding people to work on it
c) japanese companies and NDA's
d) money (this is the reason certain series will never be licensed)
e) how well they believe the product can sell as it is... remember that some series are licensed before they are made, so they have to believe it is a product that can be sold before investing in it.