An interview with a fansubber.

[ladholyman]

Fuck yes, loaded questions.

[tun]

Originally Posted by ladholyman

Fuck yes, loaded questions.

The bias is kinda funny because you'd expect people who run such a big site like ANN wouldn't appear to be so out of touch with such a big part of anime.

I'm reading the responses on ANN's forum and the responses are kind of funny. This guy for example.

I have to say, I have significantly less respect for fansubbers after that. So much for any sort of noble motives or anything. Especially with the "new generation" of fansubbers he described it seems to come down to "We don't care if it's hurting the industry. We do it because it's fun and makes us popular on teh internet." It's really selfish and kinda pathetic.

I bet he watches fansubs of those very groups that he looks down on.

I kinda wish Tofusensei didn't use such a big brush to paint all new generation subbers like that. There are some good apples in the bunch (depending on what you consider good/bad).

RE: The seemingly adversarial relationship between fansubbers and leechers
I really don't understand why most fansubbers are annoyed that leechers ask them about when releases will be happening. I've been fansubbing for about 3 years now, so I've had plenty of experience with impatient leechers. I personally like when they ask because it lets me know that people care about what I'm doing. It's really not that difficult to answer a status question update, or even just updating your IRC topic. One of the reasons why people like my group so much is that I do my best to practice good people skills. If you get leechers to sympathize with what you're doing, you'll find that they'll be more understanding of the time and effort that a fansub requires.

Sorry for these random edits. People are reading my posts and asking me to expand on them on IRC so that's why you magically see new material every few minutes. XD

[asunder]

There's just so much passive-aggressive fansub/fansubber hate on ann ... and overt hate on their forums. I am really thankful though that one of their moderators (Zalis116) is actually quite knowledgeable on fansubs/fansubbing and is able to correct some of the more blatant bashing and uninformed posting that happens there. ( Thanks zalis if you ever read this!) If it wasn't for his posts, ann would just seem like one big fansub witchhunt -__-

[juggen]

lol, Zalis116 is a living dvd-rip archive :P

tun, I think u think too much of your own group to be able to bash others.

[ReAn]

Originally Posted by tun

I wish they would have interviewed a so-called new age fansubber such as myself. I'd have plenty to say on the subject.

It does surprise me that they only interviewed an old-schooler. Having been around for 8 years in anime-subbing I guess im sort of middle-old myself.

It would have been nice to see what some of the more mature "new-age" subbers had to say about the fansubbing 'scene' (is it a scene now? lol) and how they view thier impact on the industry.

I personally can relate to a lot of what Tofu was saying, I've noticed a lot of ignorance popping up in new fansub groups myself, and the lack of an IRC community these days is definately a negative.

When anime fans came together in IRC to download thier anime, they often hung out and chatted it up in the channel, lots of insightfull discussions about anime / shows / weather / whatever.

Now all we see is:

02:12| ·ø· Syppi (~Syppi@*****-F4CCB1B4.satp.customers.dnainternet.fi) has quit IRC (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
02:12| ·ø· OmEgA_BlAcK (~W00t@*****-1BF48922.acelerate.net) has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
02:12| ·ø· jen|dreaming|of|wolves (Myodb@67.60.***.***) has joined #shinsen-subs
02:12| ·ø· ChanServ sets mode: +v jen|dreaming|of|wolves
02:12| ·ø· ShiryuKen (~shyriuken@*****-7081965D.fbx.proxad.net) has quit IRC

I miss the old days, hell... we had parties when we released episodes!

[False Dawn]

Originally Posted by tun

RE: stopping downloading
I, for one, will never, EVER pay for an anime DVD, nor would I pay for any kind of iTunes or streaming set up. I'm sure millions of other kids wouldn't either. Let's face it, anime is an easy hobby to get into because it's "free" and "easy".

That's a very disturbing way of putting it. That suggests that all fansubbing is, is catering for spoilt kids who just want a quick fix and that's it. What's the point of spending hours of subbing for them?

While I'm not the most proficient of DVD buyers (there's not a great deal of choice in my country and they're all overpriced considering the price of other DVDs - even World Cinema DVDs), I do occasionally buy a few, because well... I'm a fan. Hence FANsubber. If you're never going to buy an anime DVD, then why are you subbing?

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by ReAn

lots of insightfull discussions about anime / shows / weather / whatever.

Originally Posted by ReAn

insightfull

ahahahahhahahaa

The signal-to-noise ratio of lightly moderated leeching channels on IRC is and has always been extremely close to zero. Don't try to rewrite history here.

[checkers]

I enjoyed reading this interview. It covered both the elephants in the room for anime (the fact it's piracy, the fact it's about community & popularity). The questions actually go digging for a response which goes beyond your standard forum post from people. Contrary to what a few people here seem to think, asking questions with hard answers doesn't make the piece a hatchet-job.

Does anyone have figures on how much the Japanese anime market is worth compared to the USA/rest of the world? It would be interesting to see if the death of the non-japanese anime industry would seriously affect the japanese anime company revenue.

[ReAn]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

ahahahahhahahaa

The signal-to-noise ratio of lightly moderated leeching channels on IRC is and has always been extremely close to zero. Don't try to rewrite history here.

Just because you can't follow a conversation in IRC amongst the "noise" dosen't make it a poor medium for discussion.

I don't know what IRC channels you hung out in, but I know i've had some fairly interesting discussions before. Sometimes the noise is still better than join/part too.

Originally Posted by False Dawn

If you're never going to buy an anime DVD, then why are you subbing?

Probably because he is cheap? I try to buy shows that I enjoy, when my income is in surplus. It's the prices I cannot equate, $30-40 per disc with subtitles that are sparse and signs untranslated (most of the time).

Shows like Kare Kano just don't have the same feel on R1 DVD because there's lots of little blurbs scribbled around various scenes that are not translated on the DVD, they add to the context of the scene and enhance the experience. This is why I'm hoping the technology of BluRay will allow for a larger ammount of detail and flexability in the subtitle tracks so R1 DVD manufacturers can actually add those important details.

Although, I think it'll be a while before we see BluRay replacing DVD as a generic standard medium.

[TheFluff]

Oh, I have plenty of interesting discussions on IRC. It's just that they never take place in public fansub channels.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by tun

I wish they would have interviewed a so-called new age fansubber such as myself. I'd have plenty to say on the subject.

The only thing is, I think I'm qualified to speak on both fronts. I may have been painted as "old school" but this is coming from a guy who speedsubbed Wolf's Rain, Tsubasa Chronicle (a DB project, mind you), Blood+, Death Note, etc. I used to capture Naruto and supply it to ANBU/AnimeOne when they were knocking off Toriyama World. I used to even do some translations for DB's main 2 projects (the songs, mostly).

I know what's going on in the scene. The interview did play up the "glory hog" angle a bit more than it truly is and downplayed the "community/hobby" side of it a little bit, but if you read deep enough all of that is expressed in there.

It was designed to be sensational and get a rise out of non-fansubbers. The "old school" business was more for credibility than anything (you gotta realize that this was expected to be seen by most of the American and Japanese industries as well). That's where I was coming from with it.

-Tofu

[ReAn]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

The only thing is, I think I'm qualified to speak on both fronts. I may have been painted as "old school" but this is coming from a guy who speedsubbed Wolf's Rain, Tsubasa Chronicle (a DB project, mind you), Blood+, Death Note, etc. I used to capture Naruto and supply it to ANBU/AnimeOne when they were knocking off Toriyama World. I used to even do some translations for DB's main 2 projects (the songs, mostly).

I know what's going on in the scene. The interview did play up the "glory hog" angle a bit more than it truly is and downplayed the "community/hobby" side of it a little bit, but if you read deep enough all of that is expressed in there.

It was designed to be sensational and get a rise out of non-fansubbers. The "old school" business was more for credibility than anything (you gotta realize that this was expected to be seen by most of the American and Japanese industries as well). That's where I was coming from with it.

-Tofu

I'm not saying you arent qualified, I'm just saying there might be something to be learnt from the perspective of someone who's breaking into the anime scene w/ speed-subs.

You've been around for a while, and thus know the cause & effect.

I'm not saying the interview was bad, It just coulda covered a couple more bases.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

It was designed to be sensational and get a rise out of non-fansubbers.

What "rise" were you looking to get? And did the interviewer share your motivation? Perhaps if you explained your goals here a bit more, we'd have a better understanding of what you were trying to accomplish.

Which group of non-fansubbers did you hope to "get a rise" from? Fansub viewers like me, or people who don't watch fansubs at all?

I'm not asking these questions to be critical, Tofu; I just don't understand your motivation.

[Tofusensei]

Sure...

One motivation was just to clear up some of the misconceptions between either non-fansub viewers or very casual fansub viewers and fansubbers. Most of the impression that the world has about fansubbers is "they think they're supporting some noble cause" which has widely been disproven by the current climate, markets, and the choices of titles people choose to subtitle (on average, there are always exceptions to every rule).

At this point, it just makes us out to seem like blatant pirates to the world who throw out some rhetoric about "oh, we're spreading anime awareness!" to make excuses for what we're doing to the industry.

To most of the people who view that article, the idea that there is a real sense of "community" and also the "competition/glory" side (which is just part of the game that is digital fansubbing, it's not as petty as people can make it out to be, and the article is guilty of that somewhat) is completely foreign to them. I've gotten dozens of emails and seen responses on forums where people are talking about how enlightening it all is.

The industry needs to reform because there is a need that has not been met by them which is currently being met by fansubbers. Anyone who is a capitalist or Darwinian can justify their continued fansubbing of popular titles by saying that the industry just needs to adapt, it's all about market forces and survival of the fittest.

Of course that sounds terribly cruel to say, and the fact of the matter is, it is the sense of "community" and it being a "hobby" that keeps us going. What motivates many of us within the community, however, is some sense of competition. (How many groups do you know that have dropped a project after it slowed to a crawl because another group was beating them on it?)

The rise I want to see is, #1- calls for reform to the industry from fans outside of the industry and inside the industry itself, and #2- the industry beginning to open up a healthy dialog with fansubbers and not just the harmful and mostly useless rhetoric we've been hearing.

Of course you guys are going to be the toughest critics, since you knew most of what was said and will nitpick to find points we all disagree on. I was just speaking to general trends within the community (and there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, which I tried to make clear in many of my responses).

Anyway, I hope that clears it up a little! ^^;

-Tofu

[cyth]

Originally Posted by checkers

Does anyone have figures on how much the Japanese anime market is worth compared to the USA/rest of the world? It would be interesting to see if the death of the non-japanese anime industry would seriously affect the japanese anime company revenue.

Anime DVD sales figures have been posted for both Japanese and American markets, but I'd rather wait until April when JVA will have released concrete numbers for 2007. The last JVA market snapshot for the first two quarters of 2007 has presented an increase in Japanese anime DVD sales. The American market has seen a steady decline in sales while Japanese sales are keeping a straight line.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Out of curiosity I decided to do a few quick "back-of-the-envelope" calculations:

a.scarywater.net reports about 130,000 "completed transfers" yesterday, so if we're generous that's a million per week.

Using figures from the stats page of a well-known tracker with someone's first name in the domain, I get another 350,000 downloads per week.

The 20th-ranked series by total downloads (Hikaru no Go) from a well-known membership site that rhymes with "socks" has seen about 53,000 downloads total over 4+ years.

I'm working hard, but even with all the other subs in all the other languages, getting to six million per week would be difficult. I'd have no problem believing 2-3 million per week, though.

What about youtube streams? And crunchyroll streams? And downloads from narutofan, etc?

Bittorrent is not the largest player anymore, so if we get 2 million a week from that I can totally see 6 million illegals viewings overall...

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

Sure...

One motivation was just to clear up some of the misconceptions between either non-fansub viewers or very casual fansub viewers and fansubbers. Most of the impression that the world has about fansubbers is "they think they're supporting some noble cause" which has widely been disproven by the current climate, markets, and the choices of titles people choose to subtitle (on average, there are always exceptions to every rule).


-Tofu

Do you know if the interview will be translated and put up on animeanime.jp?

I think that would be a really REALLY good idea, and I know ANN has some relationship with that site.

There's a bunch of things on fansubbing on animeanime.jp, but they are all innacurate, speculative, and do not go into any sort of personal level: only talking about the percieved business ramifications.

[tun]

Originally Posted by juggen

lol, Zalis116 is a living dvd-rip archive :P

tun, I think u think too much of your own group to be able to bash others.

What group do you work for, and what shows do you do? If you're gonna judge my group based on old fansub standards, than I would agree with you that our group isn't anything special. But we have a completely different organizational philosophy than how fansubs operated even just a few years ago.

And if you know which show I'm talking about, anyone would agree with me.

Originally Posted by ReAn

It does surprise me that they only interviewed an old-schooler. Having been around for 8 years in anime-subbing I guess im sort of middle-old myself.

It would have been nice to see what some of the more mature "new-age" subbers had to say about the fansubbing 'scene' (is it a scene now? lol) and how they view thier impact on the industry.

I personally can relate to a lot of what Tofu was saying, I've noticed a lot of ignorance popping up in new fansub groups myself, and the lack of an IRC community these days is definately a negative.

When anime fans came together in IRC to download thier anime, they often hung out and chatted it up in the channel, lots of insightfull discussions about anime / shows / weather / whatever.

Now all we see is:

02:12| ·ø· Syppi (~Syppi@*****-F4CCB1B4.satp.customers.dnainternet.fi) has quit IRC (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
02:12| ·ø· OmEgA_BlAcK (~W00t@*****-1BF48922.acelerate.net) has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
02:12| ·ø· jen|dreaming|of|wolves (Myodb@67.60.***.***) has joined #shinsen-subs
02:12| ·ø· ChanServ sets mode: +v jen|dreaming|of|wolves
02:12| ·ø· ShiryuKen (~shyriuken@*****-7081965D.fbx.proxad.net) has quit IRC

I miss the old days, hell... we had parties when we released episodes!

Yeah, as new school as I am, I still remember when releasing anime was like some kind of special event where we had a so-called celebration as you put it. Now it just seems so routine.

Originally Posted by False Dawn

That's a very disturbing way of putting it. That suggests that all fansubbing is, is catering for spoilt kids who just want a quick fix and that's it. What's the point of spending hours of subbing for them?

While I'm not the most proficient of DVD buyers (there's not a great deal of choice in my country and they're all overpriced considering the price of other DVDs - even World Cinema DVDs), I do occasionally buy a few, because well... I'm a fan. Hence FANsubber. If you're never going to buy an anime DVD, then why are you subbing?

For the thousands of unappreciative/inexperienced people who will never step foot into your IRC channel, or post a thank you on your website, there are enough people who do take the time to go and thank you for your work. That's enough for me to be honest. I got into fansubbing as this transition was taking place, so it's more of the norm for me instead of with some of the older fansubbers. And I've been on other non-anime related forums, and I almost always encounter plenty of appreciative fans who just don't know how to use IRC. Whenever they find out that I fansub a show that they like, they're always appreciative.

Why does buying or not buying DVD's make anyone more or less of a fan? I would consider myself more of a fan than a casual viewer who is only now buying a series like Full Metal Panic and thinking that it's one of the greatest animes they've ever watched. I fansub a lot of shows, I download raws hours after they've aired in Japan, and I chat actively in IRC and forums.

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

The only thing is, I think I'm qualified to speak on both fronts. I may have been painted as "old school" but this is coming from a guy who speedsubbed Wolf's Rain, Tsubasa Chronicle (a DB project, mind you), Blood+, Death Note, etc. I used to capture Naruto and supply it to ANBU/AnimeOne when they were knocking off Toriyama World. I used to even do some translations for DB's main 2 projects (the songs, mostly).

I know what's going on in the scene. The interview did play up the "glory hog" angle a bit more than it truly is and downplayed the "community/hobby" side of it a little bit, but if you read deep enough all of that is expressed in there.

It was designed to be sensational and get a rise out of non-fansubbers. The "old school" business was more for credibility than anything (you gotta realize that this was expected to be seen by most of the American and Japanese industries as well). That's where I was coming from with it.

-Tofu

Yeah I completely understand what you mean. I just don't want non-fansubbers to get a bad impression of all new generation fansubbers.

oh and Tofusensei, I see you're from NYC as well. Nice to meet another fellow New Yorker.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Do you know if the interview will be translated and put up on animeanime.jp?

I think that would be a really REALLY good idea, and I know ANN has some relationship with that site.

There's a bunch of things on fansubbing on animeanime.jp, but they are all innacurate, speculative, and do not go into any sort of personal level: only talking about the percieved business ramifications.

Do you know anyone who'd be qualified to translate it who might volunteer? I wouldn't want to do a thing like that myself. There's so much net lingo in there and all... /me looks at Sylf ;D

-Tofu

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

Do you know anyone who'd be qualified to translate it who might volunteer? I wouldn't want to do a thing like that myself. There's so much net lingo in there and all... /me looks at Sylf ;D

-Tofu

I would hope that animeanime has a translator on their staff...
But yeah, translation INTO japanese is not my specialty. I can do a decent enough job to get the point across, but it's not going to be very good.