Time to end it? (AnimeSuki torrent index future)

[gsilver]

One thing that you could do to help is provide links to newly streaming episodes (on Hulu, Crunchyroll, Netflix, et al), since you can't provide torrents to them. That would provide a valuable service to those who use streams. I'm not sure how much more work that would be, though.

[felix]

+1 to keeping DB of license/unlince/abandoned/streamed, even if the actual torrent listing goes away.

Should work well with the idea of making the site community driven.

[Mavrickjubei]

I'm just one voice, but I don't think its' time to end it. Of course, I'm not part of the team that goes through the effort in maintaining the index. Most people don't see how valuable Animesuki really is. I've tried Crunchyroll. Never worked for me. Nuco & Hulu I can't say. Netflix on the other hand has a large selection of Anime I've never heard of that I've become fond of. Animesuki has always been there in introducing me to anime that I will never see here in america.

I remember in the late '80s( yes, I'm not a teenager anymore) when I was first introduced to Robotech. That started the bandwagon and before long I found some friends that were running an anime pinpoon service with vhs as their main means of distribution. Talk about bulky packages in the mail. Soon after, I started a Robotech anime fan club which later broadened to include all sorts of anime. I even got into pirate broadcasting using a vhs player. Yes, you can even to this day broadcast your own anime on television with the right tools. Just have to watch the FCC with their sophisticated location finders. My point is, I wanted people to be introduced to a form of media that they had been alienated from whose only idea of cartoons was from Disney or on Saturday mornings. I feel in a way this is what the guys and/or gals idea was when they started Animesuki.

I believe if more and more people know of Animesuki's presence on the internet they will appreciate and value it for the service that it brings. I appreciate the guys and/or gals that go through the effort to introduce us to anime that'll never see the light of day here. I only wished I would've thought of it first, but the torch has to be passed down to a younger generation. Keep up the good work guys and yes it needs to stay up. Ok, I'm done!

[RogeRgal]

I have been coming to the site for years occasionally looking at things in the forums though rarely. While I would say that for current anime I rarely ever use the site anymore. And that I also no longer check in every day as I used to; I do check in periodically and I always use this site for finding older anime. (Ex. Onegai My Melody which is how I ended up here today.) So while I cannot say that the front page being updated daily is a high need of the anime community anymore, the fact that the torrent list is updated on this site I would say is. I understand it is work that is probably fairly thankless but it would be missed if it was gone.

I hope that it continues to be updated; even if less often. Because finding older series would become much more difficult. Also I imagine if it became even harder to find these older series groups that have kindly been finishing older series like Licca, Wasurenai, Honobono, Doremi, and others may see less DL and see this as a further loss of interest in these older series. This could mean even fewer series that some people in the anime community have been waiting to be able to see (and understand) would be completed. I believe that that would be a great loss and I do believe that animesuki directly influences people being able to obtain and see these sorts of series.

To sum up I would hate to see the frontpage go and the torrent lists not to be updated anymore. I love this site and while its use is less than it was 5-8 years ago I still believe it is a highly valuable resource for the anime community.

[yokelpi]

I'd humbly vote for keeping the index. The web page is useful in its own right, but more than anything else the XML feed is absolutely invaluable. Sure, every other site offers an RSS feed which are neat, but none (of the one's I found so far) offer anything as complete, detailed, flexible and reliable as the AS XML feed. Losing it would be a significant loss .

[kaseki]

In the interest of brevity, I consider the forum to be still useful.

k

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by kaseki

In the interest of brevity, I consider the forum to be still useful.

k

Briefly: That's not the question at hand.

[zrdb]

Even though I use Nyaatorrents, Tokyotoshio etc. it would be a good idea to keep the index.

[Gatekeeperrag]

I had never taken the opportunity to write on the Animesuki forums. I've 'lurked' for the better part of... almost a decade. The torrent list is almost a part of me. I check it every morning, and occasionally in the afternoon, always looking for that update for a series I follow.

Spoiler for nostalgia:

I see the value in the Main-page list. It brings to the forefront an chronologically organized, cohesive listing of Anime torrents from a variety of subbers whom I have watched change over the years passively. I vaguely remember some of the classic groups like Dattebayo, m.3.3.w. fansubs, Ayako; as well as whole variety of niche anime fansub groups dedicated to titles that moved them personally like Getbackers Fansubs, D.Gray-Man Subs, and Gekkostate.

As One-manga fell that cold, bitter November 30, almost a year ago now, and for reasons not too dissimilar to the troubles confronting AnimeSuki, I found myself bookmarking vigorously every independent scanlation group I could find that translated the manga I was interested in at that time, and since then, i've watch 5 of those crumble into the ash-heap of scanlation history. I seriously may consider doing the same here. Albeit, that source will likely be for Mayo Chiki at this point.

Until I had seen this forum discussion, I was not aware of Nuco nor aware of Hulu's anime section or Netflix but I have used Crunchyroll in the past. I do not know what if will pursue those sites for anime.

I admit that for the past year-year and a half, knowing AnimeSuki's stance on licencing and Crunchyrolls involvement in the community, that I never took time to find newer titles. But despite my lack of dilligence on the matter, Animesuki is STILL the source for torrents I promptly chose to visit because I believe that access to anime, licensed or not, cannot be better organized, better arranged, better offered, and better accepted than through the main page.

TLDR: AnimeSuki is the best source for hard to find and brushed aside anime. To lose this access/site is to lose a diamond to the sewer grate of torrent sites out there.

Solutions: well, I would like to say: "throw licensing standards to the wayside and be a pirate, yar!" However, that is an unrealistic expectation and I understand it will be ignored, so lets move on. At this point, I think it is important to do a business class SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

===
Strengths of AnimeSuki:
- Organized database of anime with links to information about each series and the translator groups.
-Organized database of Licensed Anime and detail on who licensed them.
-Organized database of Groups.
-Organized chronologically-entered database of Anime, information, and links to torrent sites.
-All alphabetized
-Multiple backup sites in case of downtime.
-A strong Forum Community (from what I understand anyway)

Weaknesses:
-Licensing Limitations.

Opportunities:
(a short word: I think the database work encompasses a huge amount of value for site. It is a compiled list of sourcing and access for users that are hard to replicate without serious time and effort on someone's part and should not be discarded lightly.)

-Changing the torrent links and limitations to strictly an Information/Link source.
(i.e. rather than linking to torrents, link to the groups and allow individuals to obtain their anime from those sources. Obvious limitations are mIRC access, and whether or not you may link directly to streaming sites directly, bypassing their main pages)

Threats:
-Nuco, Hulu, Crunchyroll.
-Failure to market changes to community
-Loss of interest from regular visitors to torrents page
===

Suggestion!

I feel that by altering the function of the mainpage from a torrent site to a listing site for updates, you may begin to capitalize on licensing AND unlicensed shows. It may be as simple as having a group updated to the top of the list showing that the group has added new content(in the case of licensed material), or it can contain a title for a new episode of an anime (unlicensed). I could debate if this is grey area ethics or not, but that isnt the purpose of this post, its to find the next chapter in AnimeSuki's history.

If the verbally stating this matter and including terms such as licensing and unlicensed is limited you, the reader, in terms of accepting this notion, then I do not know how else to dissuade you from that notion. My intent is to change the function of the mainpage from torrent listings -->to--> Update Listings.

The onus, in this setup, is on the reader/visitor to make the effort, to go the extra step, to collect the torrent/watch the stream by clicking their mouse, not for the staff to hunt down the nyaatorrent link from a group site, freeing them from a 'torrent hosting' labeled setup.

I do have some regrets that I neither have a full grasp of the big picture nor that i have the perfect solution. However, I hope this short analysis helps point the moderators in the right direction. I will be attentive to any criticism and feedback, and more than happy to edit should anyone feel like contributing to this useful guide-tool.


May fortune smile upon you,


-Gate

[DJphilosophy]

There are still niches left for animesuki:

1. Database for retro-anime (I love 80s anime!!!).
2. Rare anime that doesn't get licensed.
3. Expand into other unlicensed (in the U.S.), foreign animation.

You're right, new anime is hard to provide with its rising Western popularity and increasing ease-of-access via licensed streaming.

[Seiryuu]

I too will vote for keeping the index alive. True enough, new shows are generally easy to find on streamers or generic torrent search sites like TT. But that's only new shows, and only the more recent episodes. If I want to find the earlier episodes, it can be tricky with search sites, and I get a lot of worthless junk along with the actual show. Here, it's all organized and user-friendly, and indeed there are plenty of older shows that may never be licensed and are buried deep enough in the past that I'd never find them in other places. Please keep it alive.

[rainichan]

I'm one of the ones who has joined after coming here to find something new.

I've been coming here for a while now; it's where I found a lot of the series I ended up really loving. I'd opt to not get rid of the index, mainly because I have no interest in streaming anime (since I don't usually have an interest in what's being streamed anyway, and I'd rather search for my own stuff.) I like being able to search by genre to torrent, and while I go to other places to torrent, I come here first to see if I can find what I'm looking for, or to see what I'd like to watch next.

Most newer anime I'm not super interested in, but I do like the older stuff a lot, with the occasional recommend for something newer. I don't want to have to go elsewhere when I come here the most for anything.

[guenthar]

If you stopped updating the torrents I would lose access to series that I watch that are only posted here. That means that I want it to continue so that I can keep watching the series which can take a long time to be released.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by guenthar

If you stopped updating the torrents I would lose access to series that I watch that are only posted here. That means that I want it to continue so that I can keep watching the series which can take a long time to be released.

Well, no not really... you'd just have to get better at Googling (be aware of 2 or 3 torrent sites and bookmark a number of fansubber groups, maybe learn to use IRC on occasion). Really, what the torrent listings do is just save you a bit of time in searching and provide a library reference. Sometimes I'll just forget about a series and suddenly recall I was planning to watch it when I'm browsing the lists.

[guenthar]

Some of the shows I watch only get episodes released once every few months to a year or more and don't get released on other sites I use. I could go to the fansubbers site but when it is a very long time between releases it isn't all that easy because most of the time going there is useless.

PS. I do use irc on occasion (not as much as I did back before bitorrent came out) but I wouldn't put myself through using irc to find a show that only gets released every year or so.

[HIDragonstar]

Registered only for this forum post.

I actually like AnimeSuki, its got one of the best databases for Unlicensed Anime. I actually come here more for the older shows. While I hear people say that Nyaatorrents is very good, I find it totally confusing at times since its trying to do too much at one time. Here I find Anime, and Anime Only. If I go to Nyaa I can't tell if I'm going to get hentai as well as what I'm actually looking for.

Also, for the older shows, this is the best location. I can't really find Yuusha Raideen, or Mazinger on NyaaTorrents. It usually gets lost with all the 'New' updates and all.

This place has the roots Anime, it might not have the latest, but it has the history and some of those older shows are what I'm looking for, now all the fancy ones that are coming out now.

[registeredopinion]

Gotta join to comment I suppose.

In answer to the question. Time to end it?

Well my response is thus.

If it was gone, my life would move on. It's not like Suki is all there is.
But I like coming here.
So if it was gone, it would suck. But I can still get the same result elsewhere, I just prefer here.

Yes I can visit Crunchyroll, but the streams are not always fast enough or smooth enough. I often find myself just deciding to heck with it and using Crunchyroll only to demo a series and then if I like it, I download it elsewhere.

I've been to Nyaa before, they are ok. Often the links here only end up sending me there in the process.
But I also have access to newsgroups and I won't pull punches here, if I want to watch a sub, I will. And I won't care about the licensing.

I only buy on dvd after I have watched a series in sub and decided it was worth watching twice. I never ever buy on dvd before having seen a sub. And the legality issues means squat to me personally.

I don't always find myself wanting to see a show when it is new and before it has gone to commercial forms of circulation.

Suki is usually where I look first when I am following a show.
If the list is closed, I will just find a new 'first' option.

[brocko]

Since some of the older obscure shows are starting to get lost (and probably would've been already if it wasn't thanks to Animesuki for housing them), what's gonna happen to the current obscure shows now when there's no more Animesuki to safe-guard them in the future for the time that they too start becomming old and lost? =/

I'd hate to see them all disappear because no one stepped up to fill the gap that Animesuki left behind.

[guenthar]

Originally Posted by HIDragonstar

Registered only for this forum post.

I actually like AnimeSuki, its got one of the best databases for Unlicensed Anime. I actually come here more for the older shows. While I hear people say that Nyaatorrents is very good, I find it totally confusing at times since its trying to do too much at one time. Here I find Anime, and Anime Only. If I go to Nyaa I can't tell if I'm going to get hentai as well as what I'm actually looking for.

Also, for the older shows, this is the best location. I can't really find Yuusha Raideen, or Mazinger on NyaaTorrents. It usually gets lost with all the 'New' updates and all.

This place has the roots Anime, it might not have the latest, but it has the history and some of those older shows are what I'm looking for, now all the fancy ones that are coming out now.

Actually hentai is on a separate site then the rest of the torrents on Nyaatorrents. I also have a problem finding stuff sometimes on there since there is so much stuff on the site day by day but I'm not just looking for anime either. If you are just looking for fansubbed anime click on the "Anime" catagory at the top of the torrents page and then click on "English-Translated Anime" and you will have just English anime.

[registeredopinion]

Originally Posted by brocko

Since some of the older obscure shows are starting to get lost (and probably would've been already if it wasn't thanks to Animesuki for housing them), what's gonna happen to the current obscure shows now when there's no more Animesuki to safe-guard them in the future for the time that they too start becomming old and lost? =/

I'd hate to see them all disappear because no one stepped up to fill the gap that Animesuki left behind.

It's not that they are not out there, it is more that if you were never told about them or never had anyone make mention of them, you'd not know to go looking for them.

I like Suki for HOW it lists shows. But I know of a few locations that TALK of shows, and then it becomes just a matter of using any of several methods to obtain them if they sounded interesting.