AnimeSuki Forums

mozzie · 2004-03-20, 15:24

I'm new to anime, and sometimes there are just so many Fansub Group for just one anime title that i can't decide which to choose...

Could you help this newbie...
1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub)
2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group?
3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion)

AnimeOne, Triad, AnimeForever ....???

Thanks

Zarxrax · 2004-03-20, 15:30

Well these answers will vary from person to person.

1. The most popular fansubbing group is constantly changing. I think it basically comes down to who puts out the most releases. As far as most ESTABLISHED, I might say my own group, Anime-Fansubs, is one of the more established groups out there, being pretty much the 2nd digisubbing group in existance.

2. Triad, hands down. While I am occasionally disappointed with the quality of their encodes, the actual subbing quality is second to none.

3. Again I have to go with the Triad.

Yamano667 · 2004-03-20, 15:55

anime keep, triad

ChibiDusk · 2004-03-20, 16:31

1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub)
I'd say AonE, A-Kraze and A-keep
Just my opinion

2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group?
The Triad, Anime-Empire

3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion)
The Triad...this group puts in so much effort it's unbelievable.
Translations are near perfection, sizes are kept low, video/audio quality
never dissapoints me, and the fonts/colors they use blend in so well
with the actual anime you think they were already there to begin with
*->points to Popotan and Gunslinger Girl OP and ED credits*

<xellos> · 2004-03-20, 17:04

i like Triad and Lunar are my favs, and AnimeJunkies were the first Fansubs i ever saw, thanks to their gundam seed subbing

Killerattacks · 2004-03-20, 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChibiDusk

1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub)
I'd say AonE, A-Kraze and A-keep
Just my opinion

2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group?
The Triad, Anime-Empire

3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion)
The Triad...this group puts in so much effort it's unbelievable.
Translations are near perfection, sizes are kept low, video/audio quality
never dissapoints me, and the fonts/colors they use blend in so well
with the actual anime you think they were already there to begin with
*->points to Popotan and Gunslinger Girl OP and ED credits*

100% my opinion. Triad forever^^

And give AJ a miss!

7thMethuselah · 2004-03-20, 18:41

some well known established and very reliable groups are Anime-Keep Anime-Empire Lunar-Anime and Anime-Kraze but there are several other groups which are quite good (soldats, ANBU, Toriyama's, ...)...

<xellos> · 2004-03-20, 18:52

totally forgot about Soldats, because they dont release as much anymore

dqp · 2004-03-20, 21:07

The most established group has to be AonE, having the biggest fanbase & the biggest channel, the current record in releases/month and total releases.

As for the best groups I'd say AonE & ANBU with Anime-Keep and The Triad on third and fourth place. Maybe Anime Kraze on a 5th.

On a side note: Lunar Anime is fast but they don't really stand for quality. Yet.

MrMonkey · 2004-03-20, 22:57

1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub)

AonE, Anime-Keep, ANBU and other such big names.

2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group?

Triad, AonE or Rice-Box. Triad has pretty much been explained already, AonE usually has a good balance between speed of releases and fansub quality, and also has good encoding in general. Rice-Box's stuff is just plain good most of the time. Other favourites include A-keep, Seichi and A-Kraze.

3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion)

Triad, Keep, AonE, I don't know

It varies from show to show.

zalas · 2004-03-20, 23:10

Since I'm part of a fansub group, I'll refrain from mentioning them in any of these discussions. However, in my opinion, there isn't really a "best" group, because each group is different and cater to different sorts of people. For me, I'd prefer quality translations and no-nonsense styling, but some other people may like flashy effects and/or speed. ANBU, Soldats and Triad seem to do fairly well in this regard, which is why I believe they're decent groups. Some of the older tapesub groups were really talented and had a lot of good people working for them, and not many groups these days can match up to them.

K_R · 2004-03-20, 23:35

Question 1 is tilted, being established does not necessarily equate to consistent high quality. There are a lot of smaller, less 'name brand' groups around that do a great job as well.

SpikeS095 · 2004-03-21, 00:36

K_R is right. Questions like these are bound to be slanted because most people don't have the time nor effort to go and hunt out subs by the less well-known groups; most people will just see the name aone/keep/kraze/a-e/blahblahblah and automatically assume it's the best version because either a) it has more people downloading it or b) they saw a previous sub by the same group that was decent. I don't think I need to discuss reason a, and b results from this same loop (sure it might have been good, but have you seen all the other subbed versions? chances are you haven't.)

In fact, this question suffers from the same problems that the Fansubber Thanking thread above suffers from. There are plenty of groups out there that do a great job and yet very few people will notice.

aceleader · 2004-03-21, 04:04

I don't really see how the question is slanted. It asked for someone's opinion in ranking with the certain subqualifications like encoding and overall subtitles.

Granted that the three groups listed after the questions, as well as the groups that have subsequently been offered, are 'well known' for the most part. Yet it certainly doesn't leave out the possibility of other groups being mentioned here. Your argument that it's a slanted question due to the fact that only well known groups, or those with high downloads, will be listed doesn't hold THAT much weight. I mean look at Naruto. Some of the groups doing Naruto haven't been listed even though they yield huge download numbers and are known names in just about all anime channels on IRC. Soldats, which I agree to be a well established fansubbing group, was even listed. That group certainly doesn't release at 0 or 1-day rates or have huge release numbers in a majority of their bitorrent stats.

I agree that there are some "non-name-brand" groups which are good in terms of quality, but the question DID ask for well-established, which would imply "name-brand". While the subsequent questions never really qualify themselves, one could easily think, "from the groups you listed previously...". However, as you implied, this isn't the case. Yet "well established" also does carry the label "good quality(most of the time)" along with it. I say most of the time since there are cases with EVERY GROUP, where quality has been sub par/average or however whatever you want to call it.

Questions 2 and 3 might as well be the same question, since many will say the best fansubbing group is also their favoriate fansubbing group. You certainly wont find many people saying their favorite fansubbing group is crappy. Indeed many people don't have the time or luxury to hunt out every single encode of the series they watch. I, for one, am under a download limit (of 150 full length movies OR 10000 emails per month... however the hell my ISP comes up with those numbers) so I definitely don't have the luxury of going out and grabbing every encode. So yes, I admit I'm one of those people who, when push comes to shove and there are 6+ versions of a series, will go with a group that I know has had a history of good quality. Will it be the best? Not necessarily, but i'll take the chance. But the question does asks for an opinionated statement, not an absolute. You could offer up other opinions that aren't the popular vote.

So...yeah.... since I'm replying to this thread...

1) Well-established/better? I consider a group well established if it's been around for longer than about 2 years(before this crazy boom of new fansubbers) and has managed to still be around to this day(or month rather). I consider most of these groups to be under the 'better than par' category. I say most, since I have issues with a few of the groups that fall under this generalization.

2) My favorite groups? Bishoujo-fansubs, Shoujo-anime, No Name Losers, EcChiz, Anime-Fansubs, Onigiri... to name a few. So many more are out there that I can't name them all. Why are these groups listed even though they aren't 'well establish?" These groups have many of my friends as members and as such I wouldn't hesitate to check out their episodes every now and then. Are they the best? Once again not necissarily. I've slammed into a few of these groups on numerous occasions because they were 'bad'.

3) the best? I'll pass on this question, since I'd be called a liar if I didn't answer with my group and egotist if I did. No win there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mozzie

I'm new to anime, and sometimes there are just so many Fansub Group for just one anime title that i can't decide which to choose...

Honestly though, asking us kinda defeats the purpose since your standards of 'good' could vary vastly from those that have answered. Also, you never asked about which series you were interested in. This is a good and bad thing, since specifying one would potentially shoot this thread off into a new direction. It'd be so much faster to find, for certain series, a comparision website that shows screenshots of every group's encodes at certain points in an episode (usually ep1 since groups stay consistent after that for the most part), to emphasize differences in editing, encoding, typesetting, etc. That way you can rate things to YOUR standards, as opposed to ours.

StarCreator · 2004-03-21, 04:27

Sometimes, I wonder why my group (Hikari no Kiseki) almost never turns up in discussions like these... I haven't heard much criticism at all, and I'm left to wonder - is it because people don't like our work, or that they don't watch the shows we do? I like to think that we're a bit more "established" than other groups, as we'll be in our third year in less than two months.

Or maybe it's just paranoia mixed with my incredibly perfectionistic tendencies. ^^;;

As for the question in topic, I honestly can't answer, since I actually haven't watched a fansub I didn't work on for a very long time now.

JediNight · 2004-03-21, 04:54

I'd make some comments about different groups, but I'll play it tongue-in-cheek I guess and say nothing. I've fansubbed for a while, but anyone not involved in subbing probably wouldn't agree with my comments, and even then only those who really care about quality.

Meier · 2004-03-21, 04:54

The best groups are mostly the older ones -- AnimeFactory, Anime-Fansubs, Anime-Kissaten, Soldats, ChiZeTo, Hikari no Kiseki, AnimeCo come to mind immediately. Would mention AnimeMPEG for their genius work on Ebichu but their releases are just so rare that its hard to do so (not that Anime-Kissaten or AnimeFactory put out a whole helluva lot now, but with AMPEG it's on another level). The best 'new' group is The Triad although they're primarily composed of members who were in the older, more established ones. The best group to do licensed stuff is Anime-Kraze and the best group who works on 1 title alone is Kaizoku-Fansubs.

My favorite group is Soldats since they got me into fansubs with Noir and kept me there with Hajime no Ippo. Also have to give a hats off to AnimeCo for Angelic Layer which got me hooked as well back then.

If I had to pick a single best group, I guess it'd be Anime-Fansubs. Their work over the years has always been stellar and anyone who has seen Nightjed's encodes of their Macross Zero eps couldnt help but agree that they're pretty damn amazing.

kuru · 2004-03-21, 07:19

Don't really have a lot of time right now but my favorite groups are basically the ones who choose shows using other criteria than "it's a hot new show" and "lots of people will download it". Groups that, when choosing a project, try to look a little broader than the shows of the next season...

That said, my favorite groups are Live-Evil, Hikari no Kiseki, Animeco and Honobono.

For the "hot new shows" (that I also like, just don't think there's a need for each of them to be subbed by half a dozen groups) I always go with Triad, Anbu, Aone, A-Kraze and Keep when one of these groups are doing the show. More or less in this order too,Triad being the first option. I'm not saying other groups don't do a good job with the hot shows, but I don't have the time to watch more than a version of a show and compare. This way, if several groups are doing a show, I choose the version of a group that I already know usually does a good work. Triad, Anbu, Aone, Kraze or Keep always are satisfactory.

Is this unfair to the new groups ? No. It was their option when they decided to go with something they knew more traditional groups would be doing. If someone decides to sub Naruto because Naruto is hot and there're thousands of fans that will watch the first available release of an episode, good for him. I have no obligation to give it a try and see if they're doing a better job than Anbu-Aone. When they decide to think about something else than fame and thousands of dowloads and sub something a little different, I'll give them a try.

lomeando · 2004-03-21, 09:06

StarCreator, I almost hate to shatter your paranoia, because it's such a great motivator, but... Hikari no Kiseki has been nothing short of fantastic. I can't say I've watched all of your releases, because honestly that's a lot of Shoujo. But I've never seen a bad episode by HnK, and that's coming from the most anal-retentive editing/timing/encoding Nazi I know.

Elepsis · 2004-03-22, 12:58

While I (once again) think this thread is a bad idea, it's too tempting to reply...

In my opinion the most important thing in a fansub group's overall quality is consistency. This is one of the reasons that groups like AonE and A-Keep will never be too high on my list: I've seen a few really stellar releases from both, but the problem is, I've seen some _really_ bad stuff by both groups as well. There's a lack of consistent quality in their releases, and it keeps me hesitant to just grab one of their shows.

As far as groups that are consistently very good, I'd have to focus on groups like Soldats, Solar, a.f.k., NLA, HnK, Triad, and A-K (when they actually release something...), and AnimeCo (well, there are a few exceptions on that one). But by that guideline, the top group IMHO has to be Anime-Fansubs: No other group has produced such high quality at a reasonable rate over as long a period as they have. When there's an A-F release of a project, there's never any hesitation (for me at least) on which version to get.

2004-03-20, 15:24	Link #1
mozzie Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2004	Which is your fav./best Anime Fansub Group I'm new to anime, and sometimes there are just so many Fansub Group for just one anime title that i can't decide which to choose... Could you help this newbie... 1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub) 2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group? 3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion) AnimeOne, Triad, AnimeForever ....??? Thanks Last edited by mozzie; 2004-03-20 at 15:40.

2004-03-20, 22:57	Link #10
MrMonkey Meeeeeeee!! Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford, UK	1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub) AonE, Anime-Keep, ANBU and other such big names. 2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group? Triad, AonE or Rice-Box. Triad has pretty much been explained already, AonE usually has a good balance between speed of releases and fansub quality, and also has good encoding in general. Rice-Box's stuff is just plain good most of the time. Other favourites include A-keep, Seichi and A-Kraze. 3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion) Triad, Keep, AonE, I don't know It varies from show to show. Last edited by MrMonkey; 2004-03-21 at 14:02.

2004-03-21, 04:27	Link #15
StarCreator HnK founding lunatic Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Maryland, USA Age: 41	Sometimes, I wonder why my group (Hikari no Kiseki) almost never turns up in discussions like these... I haven't heard much criticism at all, and I'm left to wonder - is it because people don't like our work, or that they don't watch the shows we do? I like to think that we're a bit more "established" than other groups, as we'll be in our third year in less than two months. Or maybe it's just paranoia mixed with my incredibly perfectionistic tendencies. ^^;; As for the question in topic, I honestly can't answer, since I actually haven't watched a fansub I didn't work on for a very long time now. __________________ * StarCreator * Hikari no Kiseki

2004-03-20, 15:30	Link #2
Zarxrax Anime-Fansubs Join Date: Nov 2003	Well these answers will vary from person to person. 1. The most popular fansubbing group is constantly changing. I think it basically comes down to who puts out the most releases. As far as most ESTABLISHED, I might say my own group, Anime-Fansubs, is one of the more established groups out there, being pretty much the 2nd digisubbing group in existance. 2. Triad, hands down. While I am occasionally disappointed with the quality of their encodes, the actual subbing quality is second to none. 3. Again I have to go with the Triad.

2004-03-20, 15:55	Link #3
Yamano667 Banned Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: The moon :)	anime keep, triad

2004-03-20, 16:31	Link #4
ChibiDusk Back From The Dead? Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Canada Age: 34	1)Which are the more established/better Fansub Groups? (quality encoding, quality sub) I'd say AonE, A-Kraze and A-keep Just my opinion 2)Which is your favourite Fansub Group? The Triad, Anime-Empire 3)Which is the BEST Fansub Group? (in your opinion) The Triad...this group puts in so much effort it's unbelievable. Translations are near perfection, sizes are kept low, video/audio quality never dissapoints me, and the fonts/colors they use blend in so well with the actual anime you think they were already there to begin with ->points to Popotan and Gunslinger Girl OP and ED credits

2004-03-20, 17:04	Link #5
<xellos> As a WHM I help people Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Bastok, Vana'diel Age: 38	i like Triad and Lunar are my favs, and AnimeJunkies were the first Fansubs i ever saw, thanks to their gundam seed subbing

2004-03-20, 18:41	Link #7
7thMethuselah Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Antwerp area, Belgium, Europa Age: 48	some well known established and very reliable groups are Anime-Keep Anime-Empire Lunar-Anime and Anime-Kraze but there are several other groups which are quite good (soldats, ANBU, Toriyama's, ...)...

2004-03-20, 18:52	Link #8
<xellos> As a WHM I help people Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Bastok, Vana'diel Age: 38	totally forgot about Soldats, because they dont release as much anymore

2004-03-20, 21:07	Link #9
dqp Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2004	The most established group has to be AonE, having the biggest fanbase & the biggest channel, the current record in releases/month and total releases. As for the best groups I'd say AonE & ANBU with Anime-Keep and The Triad on third and fourth place. Maybe Anime Kraze on a 5th. On a side note: Lunar Anime is fast but they don't really stand for quality. Yet.

2004-03-20, 23:10	Link #11
zalas tsubasa o sagashite Join Date: Jul 2003	Since I'm part of a fansub group, I'll refrain from mentioning them in any of these discussions. However, in my opinion, there isn't really a "best" group, because each group is different and cater to different sorts of people. For me, I'd prefer quality translations and no-nonsense styling, but some other people may like flashy effects and/or speed. ANBU, Soldats and Triad seem to do fairly well in this regard, which is why I believe they're decent groups. Some of the older tapesub groups were really talented and had a lot of good people working for them, and not many groups these days can match up to them.

2004-03-20, 23:35	Link #12
K_R also known as K! Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Tokyo, Japan	Question 1 is tilted, being established does not necessarily equate to consistent high quality. There are a lot of smaller, less 'name brand' groups around that do a great job as well.

2004-03-21, 00:36	Link #13
SpikeS095 Fighting Stupidity Join Date: Apr 2003	K_R is right. Questions like these are bound to be slanted because most people don't have the time nor effort to go and hunt out subs by the less well-known groups; most people will just see the name aone/keep/kraze/a-e/blahblahblah and automatically assume it's the best version because either a) it has more people downloading it or b) they saw a previous sub by the same group that was decent. I don't think I need to discuss reason a, and b results from this same loop (sure it might have been good, but have you seen all the other subbed versions? chances are you haven't.) In fact, this question suffers from the same problems that the Fansubber Thanking thread above suffers from. There are plenty of groups out there that do a great job and yet very few people will notice.

2004-03-21, 04:54	Link #16
JediNight キズランダム Join Date: Apr 2003	I'd make some comments about different groups, but I'll play it tongue-in-cheek I guess and say nothing. I've fansubbed for a while, but anyone not involved in subbing probably wouldn't agree with my comments, and even then only those who really care about quality.

2004-03-21, 04:54	Link #17
Meier A Beck anime? SWOON! Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Chicago, IL	The best groups are mostly the older ones -- AnimeFactory, Anime-Fansubs, Anime-Kissaten, Soldats, ChiZeTo, Hikari no Kiseki, AnimeCo come to mind immediately. Would mention AnimeMPEG for their genius work on Ebichu but their releases are just so rare that its hard to do so (not that Anime-Kissaten or AnimeFactory put out a whole helluva lot now, but with AMPEG it's on another level). The best 'new' group is The Triad although they're primarily composed of members who were in the older, more established ones. The best group to do licensed stuff is Anime-Kraze and the best group who works on 1 title alone is Kaizoku-Fansubs. My favorite group is Soldats since they got me into fansubs with Noir and kept me there with Hajime no Ippo. Also have to give a hats off to AnimeCo for Angelic Layer which got me hooked as well back then. If I had to pick a single best group, I guess it'd be Anime-Fansubs. Their work over the years has always been stellar and anyone who has seen Nightjed's encodes of their Macross Zero eps couldnt help but agree that they're pretty damn amazing.

2004-03-21, 07:19	Link #18
kuru Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003	Don't really have a lot of time right now but my favorite groups are basically the ones who choose shows using other criteria than "it's a hot new show" and "lots of people will download it". Groups that, when choosing a project, try to look a little broader than the shows of the next season... That said, my favorite groups are Live-Evil, Hikari no Kiseki, Animeco and Honobono. For the "hot new shows" (that I also like, just don't think there's a need for each of them to be subbed by half a dozen groups) I always go with Triad, Anbu, Aone, A-Kraze and Keep when one of these groups are doing the show. More or less in this order too,Triad being the first option. I'm not saying other groups don't do a good job with the hot shows, but I don't have the time to watch more than a version of a show and compare. This way, if several groups are doing a show, I choose the version of a group that I already know usually does a good work. Triad, Anbu, Aone, Kraze or Keep always are satisfactory. Is this unfair to the new groups ? No. It was their option when they decided to go with something they knew more traditional groups would be doing. If someone decides to sub Naruto because Naruto is hot and there're thousands of fans that will watch the first available release of an episode, good for him. I have no obligation to give it a try and see if they're doing a better job than Anbu-Aone. When they decide to think about something else than fame and thousands of dowloads and sub something a little different, I'll give them a try.

2004-03-21, 09:06	Link #19
lomeando Member Join Date: Dec 2003	StarCreator, I almost hate to shatter your paranoia, because it's such a great motivator, but... Hikari no Kiseki has been nothing short of fantastic. I can't say I've watched all of your releases, because honestly that's a lot of Shoujo. But I've never seen a bad episode by HnK, and that's coming from the most anal-retentive editing/timing/encoding Nazi I know.

2004-03-22, 12:58	Link #20
Elepsis Lives under a bridge Join Date: Dec 2003	While I (once again) think this thread is a bad idea, it's too tempting to reply... In my opinion the most important thing in a fansub group's overall quality is consistency. This is one of the reasons that groups like AonE and A-Keep will never be too high on my list: I've seen a few really stellar releases from both, but the problem is, I've seen some _really_ bad stuff by both groups as well. There's a lack of consistent quality in their releases, and it keeps me hesitant to just grab one of their shows. As far as groups that are consistently very good, I'd have to focus on groups like Soldats, Solar, a.f.k., NLA, HnK, Triad, and A-K (when they actually release something...), and AnimeCo (well, there are a few exceptions on that one). But by that guideline, the top group IMHO has to be Anime-Fansubs: No other group has produced such high quality at a reasonable rate over as long a period as they have. When there's an A-F release of a project, there's never any hesitation (for me at least) on which version to get.